TRAIN CONVERSATIONS

On one of my very recent train trips, passengers were just boarding a train and were not too long into their seats when four passengers seated around the table started to use their mobile phone simultaneously. In this cacophony of voices and ringtones, joined by some others at the other end of the carriage, a very elderly gentleman looked on in dismay, then turned in my direction (as I was also looking on) and shaking his head uttered two words: telephone exchange.

At least the telephone exchanges I used to visit to make overseas calls were contained and sealed cubicles. In the train – even in the quiet coach – nothing is contained. It is free for all. That elderly person may have found an apt descriptor: trains are like telephone exchanges gone public!

Working in London, I often make weekly trips to and from Birmingham. On these train journeys I have heard some wacky, personal and juicy conversations in a variety of languages and accents. I have heard people do bank deals, sell shares, close a business deal, make or cancel their hospital appointments, give instructions to their PA’s and junior colleagues, have domestic quarrels, shared privileged information about the potential sacking of an employee, and do telephone purchases – just to mention a few. In effect these folks have shared very personal and confidential information in an open space over their mobile phones. However hard one tries to appear to mind one’s business, it is difficult not to overhear these conversations in such a public space.

What I find rather amusing and ironical is that this is done by people who are normally very private individuals, who upon entering the train would gravitate towards a seat where they will park all their belongings on the vacant seat next to theirs (if it is not reserved) and would hardly ever broach a conversation with a total stranger and yet they would then proceed to hang outside, like washing, their work/business/family life and personal details for a coach load of total strangers to listen into. Even more interesting is the fact that most people seem oblivious of what they are doing and that this has become commonplace that we now accept it as the norm.

In a society where “me” and “I” matters more than “us” and “ours” and where my train seat and the one next to me become my castle, immediate connectivity may have opened up a new world before us. And I am not sure whether this has improved the quality of our lives as individuals and as a community. At the same time, we have been sucked deeper into a whirlpool of crass individualism which seems to displace our sensitivity, sense of decency, common sense and an awareness of the world just around us. Freedom carries with it a moral responsibility for the common good that includes my neighbours and that includes a cultivated habit of awareness of the world around us.

© copyright Jagessar October 30, 2009

Countering Far Right Politics

Who are the English? In the midst of scandals, recession, political turmoil and the swelling of far right sentiments, this question is taking interesting shapes. The BNP and the English Defence League (EDL) are clear in their answer to who is authentically English. They would have little time for Jeremy Paxman’s The English: a Portrait of People or Robert Winder’s Bloody Foreigners; not to mention any of the other serious contemporary writers on this subject. While it may be unfair to lump the BNP and EDL together, there is enough evidence, through both their public and privates faces, to suggest commonalities of intent and agenda in their antics.

They both display the symptoms of fascist groups: especially that troubling kind of obsession aimed at rediscovering the pure indigene soul of England. Such a person, in their view, can only be Caucasian/white and Christian. Paxman’s argument about the English being a mongrelized nation from an interaction of a variety of historical mixings and Winder’s fascinating accounts of the contributions of foreigners to the making of England would hold no sway in the narrow minds of the BNP and EDL.

To take up their own extreme positions, the EDL for instance, behaves as if the rest of the populace are idiots; by wanting us to believe that they are only against Muslim extremism and extremists. They even would go to the extent of burning a Nazi flag to try to convince us that they are not racist or fascist. One is also taken aback by the brand of Christianity that members of both groups seem to be espousing in their crusade of England for the English!

The reality is that there is a very thin line between their brand of Islam-o-phobia, and racist/fascist tendencies. It is only people suffering from historical amnesia who are unable to see what truly lies beneath and beyond the facade of such groups, in spite of all their apologetics. A key to the rising of a far right agenda as manifested in the BNP and EDL is located in a form of deception that feeds on fear - at a time when greed has screwed our economic lives and our politics seem to be floating in a cesspool.

Where and how can one begin to have a conversation or serious debate with people that espouse ideas that are offensive, racist and repulsive to the majority of the population? Indeed, being tolerant to intolerance is one huge challenge. Would the BBC wanting to engage with the BNP – to have serious debate help to turn the tide and broaden narrow minds? I am not sure. Who actually needs a racist/fascist group to expose itself? Their policies tell the whole story and we already know that! Can/Will they change? It may be that the minds of their supporters can change.

The Far Right virus is alive and threatens to spread unless we can quickly and collectively come up with antidotes. In this regard one is thankful for the many voices that resist (and are resisting): people who and organisations that make it a point to stand up to the nonsense of the BNP and EDL. Solidarity across all walks of life and stripes of politics is needed in order to trample on the ugly heads of this Leviathan. A diverse landscape is here to stay and we need to affirm the majority of peace loving people committed to building “our home together”. Britain can be defended from narrow minded people (whoever they may be) and from far right politics.

© copyright October 13, 2009

Seeing Faith

I grew up in a Guyana where there was no TV. It was the cinema for entertainment, among other things and places. I often credit this lack of television as one reason for an overdeveloped imagination. I do love films, however, and every opportunity to run off to the cinema to look at a good film is still habit. I have seen good films over and over – and every time there is something different that catches the eyes and ears. Looking is never value free. What we look at is guided by our assumptions and expectations about what we look for. What do we see when we look at a film? I love cinemas. We see what we look for. And very often anticipation shapes our perception. As in literature, there is much from films that one can locate in faith. These are films that you can see over and over.

After a visit to my Iranian barber, I decide to look again at the film The Children of Heaven­ which is a moving story about two Iranian children and a pair of shoes. Here is a film that gives us a cameo of Islamic culture and a peek into a Muslim school, a Muslim family’s home, a Mosque and a wealthy neighbourhood of Tehran. It is not the usual misrepresentation we have grown so accustomed of. Viewers sense a culture that stresses honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness and trust in the Divine.

Here is a simple, straightforward and unassuming story laced with depth and photographed in and around the narrow streets of Tehran. It is the story of Ali and his sister Zhore and their struggle as to what to do when Zhore’s only pair of shoes is lost. They dare not mention it to their parents as there is no money for another pair. Ingenuity and the willingness to address the problem motivate the children into action. As they attended separate schools, the sister in the morning and brother in the afternoon, they decided that they will share Ali’s sneakers. So the children race fervently through the narrow streets in order to make the shoe exchange. While the plan worked, there were tensions like not getting to school late (as expulsion was real) or when one shoe falls off Zohre’s foot (as they are too big for her) almost losing it.

The Children of Heaven focuses on the relationship between the two siblings and their desire to help each other and their conviction that what is done must be honest and fair to all. The film ends with Ali participating in a cross-country race as he is only after the 3^rd price – a new pair of sneakers which he wants to give to his sister. So much for our yearning for the top prize! Running in his tired pair of sneakers, falling down and getting up to get back into 3^rd place he ends up winning the race. Disappointed, a final scene shows Ali removing his sneaker and putting his blistered feet in a pond with swimming fishes. As the fish nibble his toes (signs of hope?), viewers can see, unknown to Ali, that the father who had managed to get some garden work has just purchased two pairs for his children.

Here is a movie that focuses on the integrity of children’s emotions and in the process underscores the faith that is at work in family, school and community, on the basis of which children develop a sense of caring that even when shoes are lost and races are won, life is good because the divine is good. If you are disillusioned with the cheap politics coming out from the current Party Conferences, why not view one such film as the above?

© Copyright October 3, 2009