Journals and palenques

Some very good news from Barbados. The literary magazine, BIM, has been revived as BIM: ARTS FOR THE 21st CENTURY. The first edition, "Celebrating Lamming," was launched on December 10, 2007. The Prime Minister noted in his feature address that he was committed to ensuring the longevity of BIM, which will continue to be, as it always was, Barbadian in name but Caribbean in content. Subscription rates are: BD$50/US$25 for CARICOM individuals; BDS$65/US$33 international individuals; BD$150/US$70 for international institutions. Correspondence should be sent to BIM: ARTS FOR THE 21st CENTURY, Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination, The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, P.O. Box 64, Bridgetown BB11000, Barbados. Also noteworthy are the latest issues of KUNAPIPI and the THE CARIBBEAN REVIEW OF BOOKS. Yours truly contributes a remembrance of Miss Lou to KUNAPIPI, an important journal with strong Caribbean connections edited by Anne Collett and published in Australia. There's an Australian link in this issue of CRB, as well – an article by Ralph de Boissière, who has lived in Australia since 1947. (While we are in Australia, Annie Greet, if you are out there, I'd love to be in touch!) Other goodies in CRB: an article by Jonathan Ali on our very good friend and colleague, the late George John; a review of Kamau Brathwaite's amazing MIDDLE PASSAGES CD, with an introduction by Elaine Savory; a review by Lisa Allen-Agostini of Tobias Buckell's RAGAMUFFIN, and a review by Glyne Griffiths of Mervyn Morris's new collection of poetry, I BEEN THERE, SORT OF. BTW, a question: do folks know (without looking it up on the net) what a palenque (aka palenke, palink and palenquero) is? Actually, the hunt on the net reveals Palenke as a place in Caribbean Colmbia, and a music group – the latter first, of course! Palenques are important to us as marronnage peoples... Wonder if they make it to the high school curricula? In the Caribbean? Here in Toronto?

Back pon spot...

Naw, jdid, me nebba fire de blog. See me ya! Large as life and twice as ugly, as we say in Jamdown. I was away, visiting my granddaughter, who is growing like a weed. Good of you and Fragano to hang in here with me. A lot of things to write about... The conference in Bali. Did it accomplish anything? Or are jdid and fsjl correct in thinking these people nebba gwine face what clock a strike? There's the issue of schools for black students in Toronto that focus on black culture, history, literature, languages, etc., etc. Is it a good idea? Is it segregation? There's the issue my doctor raised today, that I bit my lip and steered clear of... Is health care something for which private citizens should pay or is it the government's responsibility? There's the recent (2000) stats for Toronto that reveal that there are more of the very rich, while the middle class has diminished and the poor and very poor have seen big increases in their ranks. Environment first, because it must be. I have to hope the Bali conference achieved something, though I don't know how getting together in 2009 to talk about a new treaty answers the clear mandate of "Act NOW, or it will be too late!" As an aside, I was utterly ashamed of the performance of the Canadian Government. Me shame, me shame, me shame, me shame, me shame. And the Prime Minister has young children. Does he not want them to grow up into healthy adults? As for the schools for black kids: we do need them, and now. Flip through school books and see who are represented there. Examine the existing curricula and see to what extent it addresses the contributions of black people to the disciplines. There's an imbalance that needs redressing. Now. Matter closed. I'm not sure how come we keep talking about health care as some kind of vexed question. Governments must pay for health care and education in civilized societies, before they pay for roads and buses, otherwise there's no one to use teh transport infrastructure. That's why we pay taxes. What they could also do is be proactive where the cost of drugs and the cost of administration are concerned. As for poor Toronto... I need to think hard about that one, given that the incumbent Conservative Government is not a fan of this conurbation. A great city – maybe because it IS full of poor people? Have a great Christmas, or enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate. Hopefully, I won't stay away so long next time.

Miscellaneous...

I can't believe that I've written nothing here for a month! My apologies. Lots of stuff happening, too, literary, ecological – and illogical. I'll start with the last first. I thought the idea of tasers was that they could be used to subdue people in such a way that no harm would come to the person. Seems that there have been eighteen deaths in Canada occasioned by the use of tasers since 1999 when they were introduced. Today, a famous case of that use made the news internationally. The tale involves four policemen at the Vancouver airport, and the use of tasers on a passenger, who started acting up, and ended very down, i.e., permanently subdued, i.e., dead. Someone in the airport recorded the event on digicam, which he surrendered to police for their investigation. The police originally said they would return it, then said they couldn't but would give the owner a copy, then refused to do that because the matter was under investigation. The owner retained a lawyer in an effort to recover the tape, which was eventually handed over. The tape is currently on the CBC News website, as is a report of the event. 'Illogical' does not of course describe the event, just the disjoint between avowed and actual use of the tasers – and it's a deliberately understated characterization. Is it that we are now in a state of war at home – a 'shoot first and ask questions after' regime? Is it that our 'freedom' and 'security of person' are whimsical things, depending on whether the guy with the taser is trigger-happy when you and he encounter each other? Is it that we are unwilling to pay the price of freedom, that oft-iterated 'eternal vigilance', because we are too busy gassing our SUVs and driving off for our ski vacations? Or hopping on to planes to pursue the normal (ha-ha!) business of our lives, jet streams being an uglier source of pollution that the SUVs? Of course, when there's no longer any snow, nor any 'normal business,' it will serve us right. So segue to the ecological news, a further sign of impending apocalypse... BC salmon refusing to return upriver to spawn. I keep wondering at what point we quit fouling the environment. Perhaps only when we start falling dead in droves, and simply have no strength to do it any more? It wearies the spirit, and all for the sake of mammon! The literary news, I'm glad to report, is cause for cheering. Olive Senior's new collection of poetry, SHELL, was recently launched by Insomniac Press. I was happy to be reading read with her at a venue in St Catherine's on Tuesday night – perhaps I'll write more about that in due course. Today, I met with some great folks (Stephen Colella, ahdri zina mandiela, Allen MacInnis) at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People to talk about a workshop of my play, THE PIG FROM LOPINOT. Allen, who is Artistic Director at LKTYP, says it'll be on in the '08-'09 or '09-'10 season. It'll be great to see it when it happens, but the lead up so far has been a tremendous experience. Thanks so much, Allen, Stephen, Joan (Kivanda) and now ahdri. Start walking and taking the train and public transit, folks, if you love your children and grandchildren.

Standards?

My comments on the posts of the villagers who stop by get long sometimes, so, once again, I'm hanging a response to a comment (fsjl's final one on the "Wise Woman" post of October 7), here. We know different groups of people use words differently, even though they all speak the same language. A fave example is the word “bad,” which in African American Vernacular English means something different from it means in Canadian English. So when fsjl wonders what standards the young people he teaches have, maybe we should consider whether the word "standard" means to them what it means to him. A standard is (I think) a measure, a criterion of some kind, a benchmark used to judge. A standard applies when there is awareness and acceptance that it IS a measure, and when there is a sense of accumulating behaviour, the notion that the things that we do add up. (Caution: Even when repeated behaviours appear to signify a standard, they may not. Many people who refrain from eating pork can't tell you why they don't eat it, in which case I’d think it's a "style" or a "habit" (and a blind one), not a standard. If it’s done for religious reasons, or health reasons, or some other reason that the abstainer can name (they may be fond of pigs), then it becomes a standard. The standard in the pig-lovers case would be: “I don't eat animals that I'm fond of.”) But we should consider that some people may simply act, behave, do stuff each day, and repeat the stuff when the next day comes. If this is true, then perhaps those behaviours that fsjl’s students value - wanting "bling", consuming expensive items, using women just for sex – are just (blind?) habits and not measures of anything. When "those who should set the standard" have no standards, younger folks never get to see standard-based behaviour. We all know the best way to recognize a duck: if it acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., etc. If institutions of learning lack standards, businessmen lack standards, governments lack standards, clergy lack standards (preach forgiveness, don't forgive: preach moderation, grab at money, etc., etc.), how are the young supposed to grasp the idea of "standard"? When we were growing up, my father fed us little sayings like: "Genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains;" "Anything worth doing is worth doing well." But he didn't only say those things, he did exactly (or almost exactly) as he said. And so I think I know a standard as well as I know a duck. More anon.

Good citizen responds to other good citizen...

This started out as a reply to jdid, but got so long I figured I'd hang it out here. I agree that the MMP system needs thinking through. That said, I'm convinced that some mix of first-past-the-post AND proportional representation would be better than the present system. For one thing, it could allow folks to vote for a candidate of one party in their riding, and a different party as their party of choice, based on platform, which is what I would have done in the last election, had I been able to. I also agree that a lot of new immigrants remain in "little enclaves or ghettos", as you put it. But that's not something new. Some people in my neighbourhood who have lived and worked here for 40 years still speak no English. It often takes a generation or more for a degree of cultural shift to be effected, and public schools are an important part of that exposure to other cultures, other ways of life, which is why the public school curriculum needs a massive overhaul, so that it addresses Earth of 2007 in the physical sciences, with a strong emphasis on environmental sustainability, and Earth of 2007 in the social sciences and the humanities, with an emphasis on sustainability there as well. Do any schools teach African or Indian or Chinese or Latin American or Caribbean or Slavic History? Are there any that teach Arabic and Cantonese and Swahili? Religion enters the picture, of course, and often, inevitably, not just religion but religious politics, and THAT can create huge problems. Did you see the story about the Samaritans in one of papers in the past couple days? Because of religious rules that oblige them to marry within the group, the Samaritan community has virtually destroyed itself, intermarriage having produced people with all kinds of handicaps because the gene pool is so run down. It's a good, albeit extreme, example of what we are talking about. (In fact, it supports the case that you are making.) There are studies that show that young people are more open to new cultures, learnings and experiences than older ones, and the new technologies open the world to all inquiring minds in ways previously unthinkable. Those two things will inevitably promote a degree of 'mixing of the pot', and, married to a good school curriculum, might achieve something that produces the openness that we have to some degree in the Caribbean. We can keep talking about this for a long time, I know. I just have kept saying, all the time that I've been here, that with an advanced degree, English as my native language, and friends and family in the community, negotiating the systems has sometimes been a huge challenge. If I had not completed high school, didn't speak the language and knew no one at all, I might find getting to know 'the culture' (whatever that is) a daunting challenge.

Good citizen, back on blogspot

I can't believe I've not written anything since 4 October, which is a long time ago – nor responded to comments! So sorry! All kinds of things happening in public and private spaces. We've had an election in Ontario, handily won by the Liberals. A new method of election that would combine candidates chosen by the 'first-past-the-post' method and a number of others selected according to the relative standings of the parties in the overall vote, was defeated. I think it's a sensible way to approach the business myself, and the people in my riding (mainly blue collar folks) supported it, I'm pleased to say. What can and often does happen in first-past-the-post MO, is that the party with the largest number of candidates doesn't have anything like the majority of the people supporting it. When the turnout of electors is small (say, 60%), and of that number only 40% choose the government, then those who run things can't really say with confidence that they represent the people's choice, which makes things difficult for them as well as everyone else. (BTW, the two people who voted in our online poll thought that people should be obliged by law to exercise their franchise, as is the case in Australia.) There's also been some discussion lately about Canadian-ness and what makes a Canadian, and whether immigrants who come to Canada should seek to 'join' the mainstream culture. A couple days ago, I came across a 2004 interview with Elaine Savory (in the journal WADABEGEI) in which I was singing the praises of Canada for being a place where one could come wit one's likl kulcha and make a contribution to this larger whole that seeks to resemble, in its diversity, the demographics of Earth. I left my native land late, when I was a "big, grey-back woman", as we say in JA. I am not likely to be turning into anything else at this stage of my life – I'm too old to suffer a sea change. It's also a source of great pride to me that the Governor General of Canada is a woman of colour originally from the Caribbean. She's very much a Canadian – not one like me, but that's what I've always thought Canada is about. Besides, I'm not sure who is a mainstream Canadian. Is it a First Nations Person? Somehow I don't think that's the popular conception. I shall continue to watch the debate with interest. As for what's going on in private space: my absence from the blog has been in part due to a visit to the incredible Zoey and her parents in Indiana. I taught her, I am pleased to say, an important Jamaican cultural behaviour – to stick out her tongue. I am delighted to report that if you stick yours out, she sticks hers out too! On that defiant Be-who-you-are-and-too-bad-fe-who-don't-like-it! note, I'll sign off. More soon, as well as responses to all who have visited. Walk good.

First, I'm grateful that more than half of the miners trapped underground in Carletonville, South Africa, have been rescued. I pray that they all get out safely. Next, I know I've got comments I've not responded to, but, once more, please bear with me. We've been away. Before I play catch-up, though, I want to comment on a NY Times article today about “SECRET” government "ENDORSEMENTS" of "SEVERE INTERROGATIONS" (emphases mine) by US intelligence operatives. Ironic, since I watched "The Good Shepherd" on VCR a couple days ago. No point getting into the story, which is about the early CIA years. Enough to say that near the end, the audience are privy to a joke: we hear that the reason insiders refer, not to "the CIA", but to "CIA" without the "the" prefix, is much the same as the reason one refers, not to "the God" but to "God". Not fussing about blasphemy here. God is Cool and can take care of Godself. What I wonder is how anybody, let alone Christians, can stomach this devilish soup? How is it perfectly fine for Some People to treat Other People vilely and without regard for their worth as children of God, ostensibly to secure the safety of the aforementioned 'Some'? As far as I know, there is no religious teaching of any kind that says that any of us is NOT a child of God. One's clear obligation in charity to one's fellow human person has no caveat. For Christians, the teaching (Luke 6:27-8) is "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you...." As a person who believes the whole Jesus foolishness (First Cor 1:17), I find this duplicity both daring and dangerous. Still, it’s the inconsistency that needs to worry ALL of us, Christian or otherwise. How is anybody to trust anybody or believe anything when, on a matter as basic as the integrity and inviolability of the human person, there’s no widely advertised, consistently held moral position according to which states and individuals are accountable? There’s a notion out there that since the Body of Earth has held out this long, the environment will simply continue to take the battering we give it. That is supremely foolish. The same is true for the Societal Body. It won’t keep taking the beating we give it any more than the Earth will. And when we are overtaken by the Absolute Corruption of Absolute Power, it ain’t gonna be pretty. Selah.