What remains unlearned from the first world war

National War Memorial Ottawa photo by Kristen Shane

"In addition, we must learn not only from those who fought in the trenches or from those in command, but also from the perspective of the home front. Women lost husbands, sons and fathers in the conflict. As nurses and caregivers, women also bore witness first-hand to the appalling suffering of combatants. In addition, civil society organizations, conscientious objectors and the advocates for peace all had important roles in resisting the war. But the perspectives of such groups, and of women, were dismissed at the time and continue to be under-represented in mainstream histories." www.embassynews.ca

In These Times - review of This Changes Every Thing by Naomi Klein

1. Band-Aid solutions don’t work.

“Only mass social movements can save us now. Because we know where the current system, left unchecked, is headed.”

2. We need to fix ourselves, not fix the world.

“The earth is not our prisoner, our patient, our machine, or, indeed, our monster. It is our entire world. And the solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves.”

3. We can’t rely on “well-intentioned” corporate funding.

“A great many progressives have opted out of the climate change debate in part because they thought that the Big Green groups, flush with philanthropic dollars, had this issue covered. That, it turns out, was a grave mistake.”

4. We need divestment, and reinvestment.

“The main power of divestment is not that it financially harms Shell and Chevron in the short term but that it erodes the social license of fossil fuel companies and builds pressure on politicians to introduce across-the-board emission reductions.”

5. Confronting climate change is an opportunity to address other social, economic and political issues.

“When climate change deniers claim that global warming is a plot to redistribute wealth, it's not (only) because they are paranoid. It's also because they are paying attention.”

In These Times: 5 Crucial Lessons for the Left From Naomi Klein’s New Book. Ethan Corey and Jessica Corbett.

Holy Crow Church

Yesterday evening the opening of Jeff Molloy's art show "Reverence" at Artworks on Gabriola was an opportunity for me to view religion more broadly.

Beginning with a piece that shows a priest with a forked tongue cutting off the hair of a young naked child, surrounded by boxes containing shapes like young children behind bars - you know this show will not be sentimental.

Further along there is a series of poles made up of driftwood, canoe paddles, nails and animal bones. Each one contains a message which I hope will become clear to me if I stare at them long enough. On a couple of the poles the driftwood represents crows. One has a crown, they all have majesty, attitude. One pole is topped by a nativity scene complete with a star, holding several found objects like old brushes, twigs and such. The pole furthest to the right is adorned with a bishop's hat made of a hip joint from some creature who left this plane some time ago. I attempt to understand. It's in a language I haven't yet learned. But I am reminded that this must be how the aboriginal people tried to understand the teachings of Christianity.

Theology made of wood, bones and long nails, is not as primitive as the church who set up residential schools to warehouse First Nations' children to 'cleanse' them of their culture through ritual abuse, torture and rape.  Behind the ornaments and devices of the Christian church is the history of European exploitation.

Take away the mythologies of glory -  they came to the new world with booze, guns and germs to take the land, the bison, the logs, beaver pelts, metals and minerals.

In the anthropocene, the way to conquer the world is to wipe out the heart and mind of humanity and replace it with a dehumanizing ideology that turns them into obedient robotic soldiers trained to kill and be killed for coins, trinkets and a hoped for afterlife.

I'm not suggesting that this view is the intention of Molloy's art because I don't wish to impose my thoughts on someone else's creations. This is how I internalize the language of all things, arising as it does out of the violence of our past.

But art does contain the future too. It asks the viewer to think about what the past has to say about the future. In this art, what is made precious is the nature that surrounds us, that is washed up on the shore, how we make meaning of things that are otherwise mute. And how do we preserve it? This is the meaning of the holy crow, the holy twig, the holy paint, and the inquiring mind.

Where I am Folded I Am a Lie

Rainer Maria Rilke respectfully declines to review or criticize poetry, advising the younger Franz Xaver Kappus that "Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself."[1]


I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every moment holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action;
and in those quiet, sometimes hardly moving times,
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
and I want my grasp of things to be
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the wildest storm of all.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

The Power Continuum

It seems to me that power exists on a continuum. On one end is power-from-within which we all possess to varying degrees, and at the other there is power-over. The stations between these are complex, as we learn to negotiate with others in the universe. No doubt, students of political science, sociology and psychology will have more refined descriptions than the following which comes mostly from my observations.
I see power-from-within arising from thoughts, feelings, imagination, learned skills, the arts and self-discipline. Words like express, share, understand, design, empathize, inspire, indicate to me a power-from-within.

 
Power-over resides in social position and opportunity. Parents have power over their children, teachers over their students, managers over employees, police officers over city streets, etc. Words like teach, enforce, control, limit, protect, withhold, give, take, coerce, extract – indicate power-over. 

 
Power-over is not necessarily an abuse of power, and power-from-within is not always harmless. A functioning civil society requires a sophisticated awareness of how and where power is expressed or used for the greater good. As we become more mature we are more empathic and conscious of the way we use our power and the effect it has on others. We learn to be more specific in dealing with conflict seeking outcomes that satisfy all. 

 
When societies become stressed, it’s easy to fall for a quick fix, dismissing and discrediting the complex structures that have taken centuries to evolve. The default quick fix focuses on “who is to blame”. Nature becomes a menace to be controlled. Diversity intolerable. 

When meaningful debate is discouraged and replaced with slogans and propaganda, the human conscience loses its voice. The individual feeling powerless may side with hard-line political movements for a spurious sense of power by association and a false confidence. 

When power-from-within no longer dialogues with power-over, as in times of war, power becomes a misanthropic ritual marching towards an ever greater contempt for life. It is estimated that between 136 to 148 million deaths occurred through wars and conflicts in the 20th century. This year alone there have been nearly 50,000 fatalities due to conflict.

However, there is no indication among my neighbours, friends and peers that suggests we want to murder others. So what is the cause of war? 

Retired minister, Rev. John Alexie Crane, in his sermon on Human Nature and War asks us to look more closely “at the most crucial of war’s causes, namely, the actions and ambitions of the alpha males who continue to hold positions of leadership in the nations of the world.” Leaders who have been led to believe by their supporters, that their power is all there is and they alone are responsible for saving the world.

How does power-from-within meet the alpha ego? 

When we stop asking “what is wrong with the world”, and ask instead “how can we build a livable one?” For all the territory and wealth that has been fought over and for all the lives lost and being lost, the very least we can do is to learn how power works for and against life – examples are everywhere. 

 
Power-from-within meets the centre of the continuum in community before it reaches a critical mass where the conscience reminds the discouraged mind that it can’t afford to shut up.

(First published in The Flying Shingle, August 4, 2014)

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on Privatization of Schools

The Edible School

"Math wars", attacks on teacher unions, old-fashioned commercialism, standardized assessment, and surveillance: debates over education have always been heated. But these days, the very concept of public education, the students who are served by it and those employed in this sector are in many ways either being neglected or are under sustained attack by political and corporate elites. And as a result, privatization is no longer "creeping"--it is stampeding through entire school jurisdictions. And while the damage is all-encompassing and ultimately we are all made worse off by this onslaught,  it is the most vulnerable among us who are being hurt the most."

Erika Shaker, Salim Vally, Carol Anne Spreen. Our Schools/Our Selves: Summer 2014. Privatization of Schools: An International View.