“‘You should find yourself another model,’ Mama once began. ‘Scheherazade was a coward who accepted slavery over death.’”
Suleiman’s mother, Najwa, if her drunken ramblings contain enough grains of truth, has felt like a slave ever since her forced marriage, yet she has not chosen to follow her own advice to her son and embrace death over slavery. Is she aware of this contradiction, and how does it unconsciously/subconsciously or overtly affect her sense of self? And does her nonexistent role outside her family circle also contribute to her sense of being enslaved? If, as she suggests, her forced marriage has rendered her a slave, why is her need for alcohol triggered by her husband’s absence, rather than his presence? Her self-esteem appears to increase when he’s at home, and her desire for alcohol appears neutralized by his presence.
The argument could and should of course be made that the society in which she operates denudes her of any meaning or significance in her own right as a human being outside her home, and begrudges her a murky existence as the shadow of her husband inside her home. It seems as if his presence allows her to move into the only unambiguous identity allowed her – his support; hence the temporary banishment of the void that she feeds with alcohol. Who is she when he is not there? Is there space for that question to even be viable? Just as difference between male/female is defined as absence (penis/no penis), here absence of the male works overtime by depriving her of access to a meaningful identity even inside her home. Not only is her worth estimated as less compared to a man, but her entire existence is violently erased outside the home, and dangerously truncated inside the home when he is not there.
So perhaps as a result, Najwa has little if any qualms about acquiescing to the rules of Qaddafi’s totalitarian regime and cannot hide a surplus of scorn for her husband’s determined efforts to undermine the brutal oppression, because he is placing the family’s safety in jeopardy. But is her attitude surprising? How can she be expected to embrace her husband’s noble fight for a freedom that, if achieved, will elevate men’s voices as participants in determining the meaning of their humanity while doing nothing to grant her a place in the process of self-determination and a sense of belonging to and meaningfully contributing to the making of society? And even if no such aspirations are yearned for or even capable of being envisioned, her reality is that victory would bring no change to her portion in life, and failure could remove the only building blocks that determine her identity – her family.
When her husband discovers, to his own shame and self-contempt, that he is not prepared to choose death over slavery (and how many of us would be?)…
[Although a true-life example of unimaginable courage and determination and wiliness by a Chinese dissident, Sun Yi, to stand up to the horrific human rights oppression afflicted on him and countless others by his own government and the lengths he went to counteract it for the sake of everyone is a must-see documentary by Flying Cloud Productions: Letter from Masanjia; official trailer. Description: “When an SOS note from a political prisoner in China is discovered in a box of Kmart Halloween decorations by a mom in Oregon, it sparks headlines that push the Chinese government to abolish its cruel labour camp system, and inspires the note’s author to expose ongoing human rights violations In China, despite the risks. Directed by Peabody Award winner Leon Lee, Letter from Masanjia is an official Selection of the 2018 Hot Docs Canadian Documentary Film Festival.”]
Leon Lee: Director and Producer of Letter from Masanjia
…the husband settles into a mind-numbing machinery job sealing packets of pasta. This bleak description immediately conjures up the final moments in the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where a lobotomized Jack Nicholson, whose presence is screamingly absent, no longer poses a threat to authority.
Although the husband had formerly renounced his dream of freedom under the weight of torture, his capitulation is not complete. Fifteen more years of Muammar el-Qaddafi’s violent oppression slowly changes his mind. Resolutely and irrevocably embracing self-destruction over slavery, he brings the book, Democracy Now, to work to read to his factory coworkers. The hubris in drawing attention to his presence as an individual capable of independent thought will lead directly to his absence in order to mitigate the threat to the Guide’s authority. The husband, however, no longer saw any difference between his presence as an automaton and his permanent absence.
Suleiman comments on this present/absent theme at the end of the story:
“I suffer an absence, an ever-present absence, like an orphan not entirely certain of what he has missed or gained through his unchosen loss. … Instead, there is this void, this emptiness I am trying to get at like someone frightened of the dark, searching for a match to strike. I see it in others, this emptiness. My expression shifts constantly, like that of the prostitute who waits in your car while you run across a busy road to buy a new pack of cigarettes for the night. When you walk back, ripping the cellophane, before she has time to see you, you catch sight of her, temporarily settled in another role as a sister or a wife or a friend. How readily and thinly we procure these fictional selves, deceiving the world and what we might have become if only we hadn’t got in the way, if only we had waited to see what might have become of us.”
Also striking here, of course, are the limited roles of even fictional selves granted, by means of men’s imagination, to the female.
The Island(Ostrov), A 2006 film directed by Pavel Lournguine
Winner of Moscow International Film Festival
I disagree with the Washington Post blurb:
“The Island asks the favorite Russian questions: Who is guilty? And to that, it adds another: How can we be redeemed?”
I think the film asks the more subtle question: Who is not guilty? And I think the mistake it makes is in the question of redemption, because it signals a message that the Orthodox monk, Anatoly, could only have attained salvation/been redeemed if it transpired that he was not responsible for his comrade’s death (after years of attempting to atone for a murder he thought he had committed). But how many people (leaders, soldiers, prisoners, civilians) during wartime do have the blood of comrades or neighbors or civilians on their hands? In what kind of black hole of despair does this message leave them/us?
I think the film would have had far greater impact had Anatoly irrefutably killed Tikhon in order to save himself from the Nazis, but later created his own opportunity for redemption by working to save Tikhon’s daughter or by working to help people in general, exactly as we find him doing in the film.
By arguing this point I am not wishing for an actual death/murder in real life, nor am I condoning the repugnant act of betrayal that took place. I do know, however, that I could only hope to act honorably under such horrific circumstances, circumstances that have played out millions of times throughout the history of mankind. For me, the work of the film is to deal candidly with the horror that is at times reality – and its aftermath – rather than indulge in or rely on serendipity thinly disguised as grace. Anatoly had intended to kill Tikhon in order to save himself, and he is now accorded salvation through the lucky accident of having failed despite his best efforts. I think a genuine opportunity to probe the complex shades of human frailty in order to forge more fruitful paths toward forgiveness (from self and society) was squandered.
SPACE. What is it? How do we use it? How many kinds are there? Space to live? Space to breathe? External space? Internal space? Mental space? Physical space? How do these spheres of space affect each other? Just asking a question generates space if we’re considering possible answers.
External Space and Physical Constraint
It’s worth watching this brilliant, short video, Creature Comforts, that illustrates an imagined perspective of animals behind the bars of a zoo in Britain. Creature Comforts is an Aardman series based on the Oscar® winning short film by Nick Park featuring the real and unscripted voices of the British public put in the mouths of animals made of modelling clay. The video is also a perfect example of a type of space not mentioned above: the type of space created by getting out of yourself and imagining an experience through the eyes of another. Here the animals are struggling with a lack of physical space and the shrinking of their own interior and exterior personal space due to the damp and chilly weather.
BKS Iyengar On the Amount of Space We Can Access in the Human Body
Do not click on the small triangles below to navigate the slides. Instead place your cursor inside the presentation and CLICK to introduce each new element.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Film: Il Conformista
Director: Daniel Bustamante Film: Andres No Quiere Dormir La Siesta
A Grain of Wheat is heartbreaking in its exploration of hope and hopelessness. It introduces the best and the worst that we as human beings are capable of, and shows how irrevocably intertwined they are inside each of us.
Mugo, for one, had a sad, lonely, and difficult early life, yet he survived and even hoped to thrive, despite overwhelming British oppression, and despite village pressure to take up arms against that oppression. He was humble and honest and kind, and his motto with regard to the fight for freedom was, “Please don’t involve me, and I won’t expect anything from you.” Due to a strong reticence and reluctance on his part (a likely result of the many cruel aspects of his upbringing) to share any bits of himself with anyone, he never actually vocalized this neutral, apolitical position, so it went unrealized by his peers. As will happen in any social group, Mugo’s acquaintances happily filled in the gaps, going so far as to construct a resistance hero out of his tortured silence.
The scope and intensity of oppression by the British knew no bounds. They viewed the indigenous population as sub-human, and were thereby able to rape, and pillage, and murder with no sense of remorse or shame or culpability. In fact, the British expected unrelenting gratitude and groveling servility befitting the pedestal on which they spuriously placed themselves: the superior race. Since the only real factor that lent credence to their delusion of superiority was superior weapons and warfare, the British were cognizant enough of the dubious merit of their pedestal to invest heavily in the strategy of “Divide and Conquer.”
The heroic resistance maintained by the Kenyans in the face of atrocious and inhumane slaughter was extraordinary. At one point the entire village was punished for the murder of a British soldier. The elderly, the young, even pregnant women were forced to dig a huge ditch while being continually and mercilessly whipped.
For Mugo, a line was crossed when he saw a pregnant woman flogged repeatedly. He abruptly tore the whip from the British offender’s hand, and was promptly carted off to a prison camp. The villagers were impressed and inspired by his courageous act of resistance, and his status as hero was cemented.
There was, however, a traitor among the resistance fighters. It had been discovered that Kihiki, a fierce and beloved resistance fighter who was caught and hung by the British, had been betrayed by one of his own.
When the British finally turned over the reins of government to the Kenyans, the Kenyans in Mugo’s village began planning a massive celebration, and pressed Mugo to be the main spokesman. Revenge was afoot, and the remaining resistance fighters, certain the traitor was Karanja, a fellow villager, intended to name him during the speeches.
The scene is now set for genuine regrowth and hope. Kenya will now be run by Kenyans. And the traitor responsible for Kihiki’s betrayal and death will finally be named and punished.
Reality, however, never proves so straightforward or accommodating. Optimism becomes overcast by a palpable sense of doom that creeps in among the celebration’s participants, who realize (but have difficulty coming to terms with the knowledge) that the emerging leaders of their country are the very collaborators who abetted the British, betraying their own countrymen in the process. What could the citizens expect from such compromised leaders? What, exactly, was going to change for the better? The lingering effects of “Divide and Conquer” still weighed heavily on future prospects.
Secondly, the spectacle of justice so long sought and relished by the resistance group for the betrayal of Kihiki, falls flat on its face when Mugo, the proffered hero of the celebration, confesses that he is the traitor.
Mugo, who knew the resistance group had identified the wrong man, could easily have allowed Karanja to be executed in his place. Moreover, there was very little that was admirable about Karanja, who had indeed collaborated with and appeased the British for his own personal gain. He had frequently informed on his neighbors, standing shrouded in a white sack that covered him from head to toe, holes cut out at the eyes, sending friends to death by a simple nod. He had even executed several prisoners himself; however, no evidence existed to prove Karanja’s treachery.
And it is Mugo’s integrity that is in question at the moment. Will he let another man be blamed for his own crime? And why did he betray Kihiki? If he could betray Kihiki, why would he have had any qualms about letting Karanja take the blame? But obviously Mugo does have qualms, and his courage indisputable. In front of the entire village, gathered to celebrate the liberation of their country, he confesses that he was responsible for the death of their greatest hero. He, Mugo, had betrayed Kihiki. And he apologizes publicly for it.
So why did Mugo betray Kahiki? He was admittedly enraged by Kihiki’s determination to match British violence with Kenyan violence. Mugo lived in dread that Kihiki’s actions would result in the destruction of the entire village. Having grown up in a noxiously blighted family environment (safe neither inside or outside his home), it is doubtful that he learned to cultivate hope, and instead learned to cultivate a great deal of resignation. He was heroic in his stoicism, able to resign himself to anything – except death. He wasn’t ready to die and fiercely resented Kihiki’s arrogance in assuming otherwise.
Mugo’s confession indicates that he has come to terms with the reality of his death. When, in the midst of the confusion following his confession, he wanders away, one can’t help but hope that perhaps the cycle of revenge may be broken. Even Kihiki’s sister, Mumbi, is not interested in revenge at this point. But two factors make this unlikely: 1. the resistance group, including Wambui (Kihiki’s mother), is feeling impotent about the course their country is embarking on. Was all their sacrifice worth it? The execution of a traitor to their cause at a time when they feel their dreams slipping away would reaffirm their choices and sacrifices; and 2. Mugo’s greatest facility is that of resignation.
The great contradiction represented by Mugo begs several complex questions. What is one’s responsibility to oneself and to one’s own growth and survival? To that of one’s immediate family? To one’s neighbors and friends? To one’s country? To the world?
When General R and Wambui do come to execute Mugo, they arrange for the trial to be held in secret. Public support for the execution is not on their side at the moment; but they pursue revenge regardless. “What is the point?” is a question raised frequently in this book. “What is the point in killing Mugo now?” is a question implied by the crowd when they allow Mugo to walk away unmolested. “What is the point in fighting for my life?” is a question implied by Mugo as he walks obligingly to his execution. “What was the point?” asks Thompson, the British officer who feels betrayed by his country for relinquishing its stranglehold on Kenya, rendering (in his estimation) his life work meaningless and potentially stripping him of a rationalization that justified and exalted his forays into inhumanity. “What was the point?” ask the resistance fighters as they watch their country handed over to the corrupt and power-hungry.
Hope has not disappeared entirely, however. It is the grain of wheat flourishing as Mumbi’s newly gained confidence, quiet and deep and strong. And the grain of wheat that is her child, fathered by Karanja, and finally accepted by Gikonyo. And the grain of wheat that Gikonyo can once again envision as the possibility of a future together with Mumbi.
Contrast the behavior of Marcello, the main character in the film Il Conformista, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, and Mugo. Is there a difference between conforming and resignation?
It appears that Marcello, too, had a horrendous upbringing, since when we meet his parents through the adult Marcello, his mother is a drug addict and his father in an insane asylum.
As a boy, he is sexually abused by an older man, who likely provides attention Marcello so desperately seeks. At university, Marcello bonds with his professor, a staunch opponent of fascism, and follows in his path. His thesis is left unfinished, however, when Mussolini enters the political scene and Marcello’s professor removes himself to Paris, from which he continues his fight against fascism.
Marcello adapts to the political situation in which he finds himself and remakes himself accordingly. Not only does he become a proponent of fascism, but also he literally becomes an assassin, ridding the government of the enemies of fascism permanently.
One characteristic seemingly shared by both men is distance, from themselves and those around them. One difference is that Marcello desperately seeks approval from authority figures in society whereas Mugo is interested in winning nobody’s approval. He has learned that there is no achievable place for him in a society subjugated by racists. He just wants to be left alone.
Neither man feels he owes a responsibility to society, but things fall apart as Marcello is unable to control his need for affirmation from a society whose norms continually fluctuate, and Mugo learns that he will never be allowed to separate himself completely from the context of his surroundings.
Out of frustration and confusion, they both make terrible decisions that lead to the death/s of others. Where they differ, however, is in their choice to take or shirk responsibility for their actions.
Despite the ease with which Mugo could have avoided blame and thereby possible execution, he demonstrates his integrity by owning the heinous act that has always weighed heavily on him. He no longer justifies his behavior with excuses of past hardships. He shines a spotlight on that terrible action which is interspersed with many kind, courageous actions throughout his life. He proves that character matters when he chooses, in the face of death, to live a felt life.
Marcello’s sense of self, on the other hand (never well-formed to begin with), has completely fragmented. He has run out of identities to assume in order to please authority figures and thus to win approval. By blaming everyone but himself for the unfortunate choices he has made as an adult, he has killed every possibility of providing meaning to his life.
His motivation for taking on the assassination of the professor and his wife seems less the result of a fervent belief in fascism than a petulant anger at being deserted by his father figure at university. When Mussolini falls and Marcello realizes that his actions will now be judged very differently, he not only refuses to take responsibility for his past deeds, but also blatantly and falsely accuses others from his past of committing these crimes.
Marcello feels justified in accusing everyone else. He blames the chauffeur who killed his childhood, and the professor who killed his young adulthood, and his blind friend, who, by offering him entry into the fascist regime, killed his adult future.
Mugo, fighting against heavy odds for a quiet sense of self, didn’t have the opportunity or tools or energy to extend that outward to a sense of community. For Marcello, self had no meaning. He only existed within the approval of power figures in society.
At what point are we responsible for rising above whatever tragedies or difficulties we have experienced throughout our lives, and taking responsibility for our current actions and for the course of our lives?
Both Marcello and Mugo are obligated, regardless of their past experiences, to take responsibility for themselves. That said, we as a society are responsible for preventing the horrific abuse of these children and the devastating effects of racism and subjugation on our relationships and our growth. It works both ways. Problems within society can only be fixed by society. We are the problem. What are we doing wrong, and what are we doing right, and how do we improve ourselves and lift each other up?
The consequences of choosing not to lift each other up can be seen in the film Andres No Quiere Dormir La Siesta, directed by Daniel Bustamente. I surprised myself by how strongly I reacted to the film. I was highly annoyed on one hand, and heavily bereft on the other. “What was the point?” I couldn’t help but wonder, feeling slightly manipulated by the film. I realized I was expecting to find sparks of hope, tiny grains of wheat, glimmering somewhere in its universe; instead it seemed a primer on how to sniff out hope in order to dash it to death. It rendered my half-formed ideas of the effects of nihilism tangible. I was watching the making of a tyrant, a sociopath, in real time.
The engaging opening scene between Andres and his grandmother, Olga, framed my expectations for the coming scenes, easily influencing me to misread subsequent events and relationships.
I initially misdiagnosed what motivated Andres’s older brother disdain for their grandmother, Olga. I assumed it was jealousy; ditto the disdain Olga’s own daughter showed her. Olga seemed to favor Andres over everyone and didn’t bother to hide it. In her favor, she also seemed to have a healthy relationship with her daughter-in-law, Andres’ mother, whose spirit and warmth were infectious.
Eventually it became obvious that the simmering hostile family dynamics was a microcosm of the macrocosm that was Argentina in the late 1970s: a military dictatorship where “Divide and Conquer” ruled the day. Citizens were encouraged and forced to denounce their friends and neighbors in order to keep themselves and their families safe. People were constantly “disappeared”. So-called “secret” interrogation sites were set up in neighborhoods to terrorize residents into complete obeisance. As Olga’s harsh methods and tough love crystallized into something more sinister on screen, her motivation had originally appeared to stem from a desire to keep her family safe. But as events progressed it became obvious that her motivation was control for control’s sake. Any manifestation of tenderness or kindness between family members was quashed by means of her own version of “Divide and Conquer”: she worked tirelessly to undermine any hint of self-worth, or hope, or tenderness and turn it into helplessness, hopelessness, and hate. She meant to control not only what her family did, but also what they thought. It was her reality or no reality, and her reality consisted only of control. What was happening in the interrogation sites on a physical level was occurring in Olga’s home on a mental level. In the end she succeeded in robbing her grandson, Andres, of a felt life and transforming him into a machine of cold despair, not only incapable of forming connections, but also determined to destroy them. His open heart and sensitive nature made him more susceptible to her machinations because she was able to hurt him on a level so deep that he couldn’t recover.
Travel the world with General Dempsey as he shares life lessons that implore us to eschew the sidelines in order to participate in this life. “In a crisis look for those with answers not excuses, who take responsibility not deflect blame, who unify not divide, who don’t care who gets credit so long as we make progress. We are blessed because we have a country full of such people. If we give them voice.”
Common Expectations Trump Great Expectations
by Pamela Toomey
What does it mean to be alive and how do we honor this phenomenon? In his new book, No Time for Spectators, General Marty Dempsey isn’t concerned with whether you are a leader or a follower; his concern is that, while alive, you live a “felt” life. Using stories and experiences from his own life, General Dempsey unpacks this four-letter word until it morphs into its predecessor, “care.” If we feel, that means we care. And caring is the catalyst that nullifies the deadly siren calls of the sidelines. “Observing units large and small over the years, I could tell when caring became confidence. And I could see when confidence created an environment where both leaders and followers knew it was not just acceptable but expected to challenge each other and existing policies, provided one did so for the good of all and the success of the organization.”
Life is not a spectator sport, and General Dempsey is at his best when flushing out moments of clarity where the finality of death informs just how serious the business of living is. Spoiler: living a felt life is not done in isolation.
When the abstract concept of death in the Vietnam War crystallizes into the burial of a soldier he actually knew (his boss’s son) and into the palpable grief of the family, Dempsey (a West Point cadet walking back from the burial) finds new significance in the floating blocks of ice on the Hudson. Water in its moving form is juxtaposed to water in its frozen form, just as a vibrant, young cadet is juxtaposed to a valiant, dead soldier. What does it mean? Never nothing.
Many years later while battling cancer, General Dempsey undergoes a similarly unsettling experience, this time from the opposite side of the metaphor. “When she came into the kitchen, I stood—or tried to stand—and found that I couldn’t. It was a strange sensation. I couldn’t tell if I was too weak to stand or couldn’t remember how. All I knew was that I couldn’t stand, and I didn’t know why. … Is this what it feels like to be near death?”
General Dempsey’s message is that, despite the challenges of our times, we must avoid finding the sidelines more enticing than a life of engagement. And that life of engagement must be as critically concerned with how we achieve as what we achieve. The more frequently we participate and welcome inclusion, as leaders and followers, the more successfully we’ll achieve better outcomes because an inclusive approach allows us to develop a set of common expectations that in turn allows us to claim a genuine stake in the outcome. Trusting followers to participate meaningfully in problem solving increases their trust in leadership. The alternative is a life half-frozen with experiences so little-felt that we no longer remember how we got there, or how to care. What does it mean? Never nothing.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” says Hamlet, the Shakespearean character best known for “hesitating.” General Dempsey, however, invites us to give up the ghost of an unfelt life by elucidating just what those vital things are in heaven and earth that continue to inform his choices, create meaning in his life, challenge his assumptions, and render the sidelines off-limits. His personal experiences are unique to him, but the lessons are accessible to all.
General Dempsey is a trained literary critic with a Master’s degree in English literature, pursued for the purpose of thinking better in order to create space to think differently and to hold space for how others think differently. Themes of connection and teamwork are woven seamlessly through nine chapters strategically jam-packed with memorable vignettes that speak volumes. And if connection and teamwork are the longitudinal warp of this particular fabric, “listening” is the latitudinal weft that places better outcomes within reach. He deftly frames the skill of listening as one of the lenses through which to view these nine aphorisms (life lessons explored in each chapter) when introducing a former boss, Mr. Martin, whose particular skill happened to be the fine art of tuning the radio. ‘”I have an ear for precision,” he told me, carefully turning the dial with only the first three fingers of his right hand.” Listening wasn’t a spectator sport for Mr. Martin. He was actively working to refine and clarify what he heard, literally tuning in as precisely as he could.
General Dempsey adopts and adapts this activity to work metaphorically through such vital mindsets as being passionately curious, getting out of himself, exercising sensible skepticism, and never forgetting that character matters.“I never did master the fine art of tuning that radio.” says a remarkably humble former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the stories that unfold belie that assessment. No Time for Spectators represents the fine art of tuning a life to a frequency “felt” for the enrichment of all.
