[-empyre-] the mouth of Duck river

[Ana Valdés]

Johannes the only times when I regret my move here to thr deep South :) is
when I can't attend the kind of seminars/workshops you lead yesterday!
I like the idea of guest as in the old Greek culture where gods and people
mingled and were often visitors treated with reverence.
About the 42 ppl coming to Uruguay I am not sure if Paula and me are in the
same page. I see them as victims of a total lack of communication they were
attracted here with false promises and they were not provided with
interprets or ppl with knowledge of Arabic culture. On other side they were
ppl often taken from rural areas often immerse in archaic patterns of
mysogin culture and disrespect for other discourses than their own.
A family with 17 kids in different ages can behave in a very dystopical way.
Ana
Den 19 feb 2016 15:42 skrev "Johannes Birringer" <
Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk>:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> dear all
>
> I enjoyed Ana's brief comment on languages
> and broken english,; as I remember - not too long ago
> during a month-long discussion I helped to moderate
> we asked anyone, who wanted to, to post in the language
> they are comfortable with.
>
> Pau Delgado's posts -  I hope to reply soon.....
>
>
> More hands-on, Ana, today I would like to ask why we are not
> more angry, bitter, and loud, screaming at our governments, the political
> regimes that sell war and lead war, trade weapons or reap
> benefits from the so-called refugee crisis (or the ongoing
> movements of people), instability, the economic disparities? why are there
> no organized protests, huge demonstrations against war, as they often
> happened
> or used to happen (Vietnam War, first Iraq invasion, second
> Iraq invasion, as examples, or the protests that the Mothers
> of the Disappeared staged, etc)? The war was taken to Syria
> and the fractured destabilization of the region benefits
> capital, the regimes of the former west that call themselves
> democratic; not much resistances here, shamefully.
> And poetic gestures? downloadable apps?  Today not sure.
> (al jazeera called Ai Wei Wei a poser; "portrait of the artist as a dead
> boy";
> the photo was posed for an Indian magazine)
>
>
>
> The workshop we had yesterday was guided by Maria Kastrinou
> (anthropologist)  “’Either we'll survive the sea or we'll die:’ From Syria
> to War”- and
> Royona Mitra  (dancer/researcher): “Choreographing the Politics of Touch”.
> After Royona's very evocative explorations of what she called
> "Touch-un-ability" (her interpretation of cultural codes in India and a
> caste system
> she grew up in, extended to issues of touching/contact and sexual violence
> against woman), we then heard Maria describe her fieldwork on
> the Greek island of Lesbos, a hotspot - and about the "processing" (EU
> border/refuge management and control) of Syrian migrants there, the touching
> and fingerprinting (guards wearing gloves) that goes on, etc.  The
> degradations.
>
> Just to leave you with one strong impression:  what I learnt from Maria
> Kastrinou's numerous conversations with Syrians on Lesbos
> was their desire to be treated as equals. They request to keep their
> dignity, and appeal to the codes of hospitality that have always existed in
> Syrian culture. So when they travel (to flee the war) they see their
> coming to Greece and EU or elsewhere as a temporary, not permanent scenario,
> they wish to be seen not as intruders or beggars. Maria told us the Syrian
> she spoke to offered her gifts, and spoke about how they value reciprocal
> relations of the istikbal and haram.
>
> They construct themselves as guests.
>
> The workshop discussion delved into this fundamental idea, that refugees
> are guests; (an idea that stands against all kinds of other ideological
> projections
> that necropolitics, states, and capitalist managers, and also charities
> and help NGOs,  will invoke). Pau might answer that (42 invited guests, to
> a country
> as huge as Uruguay, abused the hospitality?).
>
> regards
> Johannes Birringer
>
>
> ps.
> I still tend to think "Kinopolitics" refers to Cinema/Kino.  Moving images?
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>
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