It was only a matter of hours between the blast in central Oslo and my most extensive and exhausting engagement with international media since I started out as an anthropologist in the 1980s. Between Friday night and Wednesday, I spoke on radio, on television (via a mobile phone), to newspapers and magazines from China to Chile, and wrote articles for nearly a dozen publications in five countries.
My priorities shifted in a matter of hours. Our holiday house was turned into a makeshift media centre, and the computer was online almost 24/7.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen in Cuba, 2007. Courtesy of the author. My engagement with the terrorist attack on Norway is easy to explain. First, although rightwing extremism is not my field of research, cultural diversity in Europe and Norway is, as well as nationalism and ethnicity. Second, I have first-hand experience of the new, Islamophobic kind of nationalism, having been on the receiving end of relatively unpleasant attacks from these quarters for several years.
Actually, I am the only contemporary intellectual mentioned by the terrorist in his writings and YouTube video – a symbol of everything that went wrong with Norway. I have asked YouTube to remove the video.
A few words about the articles: The earliest piece, for OpenDemocracy, was an initial attempt to make sense of the catastrophe and to begin reflecting on the consequences for Norwegian society. It overlaps substantially with articles in Sydsvenska Dagbladet and Information, which, respectively, cover southern Sweden including Lund and Malmö, and a smallish, but select left-leaning audience in Denmark. The title of these Scandinavian-published articles, “Men who hate social democrats,” plays on the Scandinavian title of the first novel in Stieg Larsson’s trilogy (Men Who Hate Women). Continue reading “22 July, 2011. Oslo”→
If “monk-politician” strikes you as somewhat of a contradiction… well, you might be right. Meet Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. His title contains within it a sad reminder of the current plight of the Tibetans.
Samdhong Rinpoche discusses the politics of exile at the Elliott School of International Affairs, GW, July 14, 2011. Photo courtesy of Bradley Aaron.
Rinpoche began with an apology for his English skills, which proved to be better than many native speakers. He then declared that he was “not comfortable” with politics. (I am reminded of Plato’s hypothetical philosopher-kings, who would likely be not at all interested in the political position. Perhaps reluctance should be a prerequisite for public office!)
His lecture delved into the history of Tibet and its people. What struck me most, however, was Rinpoche’s constant reiteration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s longstanding position: what is important is not political autonomy, but cultural and religious freedom.
“We are not concerned with who is ruling Tibet,” said Rinpoche, “but how they are ruling Tibet.”
During the Q&A session, a reporter asked how Samdhong Rinpoche felt about President Obama’s failure to meet with the Dalai Lama. With that blend of rigorous logic and holistic wisdom that so-perfectly characterizes Buddhism, Rinpoche pointed out that ascribing such a “failure” to the President before His Holiness had left the country was premature.
Two days later, at the White House:
His Holiness the Dalai Lama with President Barack Obama, July 16 2011. Flickr, Creative Commons
Majid Razvi received his B.A. in 2011 from Virginia Commonwealth University where he majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies. He has a strong interest in Tibetan epistemology, logic, and argumentation. He intends to pursue graduate study in philosophy.
The Chagos Regagne conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London on May 19 focused on the possibility of establishing an eco-village and research station on one of the outer islands of the Chagos Archipelago, part of the disputed British Indian Ocean Territory. It turned out to be extremely interesting.
Source: Chagos International Support. This is an historic image. The MPA was officially recognized in April 2010.
The event was the brainchild of bestselling novelist, Philippa Gregory, and conservationist and adventurer, Ben Fogle.
But this wasn’t just a “scientific” conference for marine and other scientists. Instead, there were conservationists, lawyers, development geographers, cultural anthropologists and a good number of former U.K. Foreign Office personnel, including David Snoxell, the former British high commissioner to Mauritius, as well as John MacManus, the newly appointed administrator of the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Mauritius High Commissioner Abhimanyu Kundasamy attended. Mauritius is host to the largest group of Chagossian exiles and their descendants, around 3,000 people, who live in the capital, Port Louis, and surrounding areas. Mauritius wants the return of the archipelago. In 1965, under international law, the archipelago was illegally excised from its territory by the U.K. in order to provide the U.S. with a military base on Diego Garcia.
Also in attendance were around 150 Chagossians. They had travelled from Crawley and Manchester where they have settled since leaving Mauritius and the Seychelles and becoming British passport holders in 2002.
I met David Vine, of American University in Washington, D.C., who gave an excellent and impassioned summary of his book, Island of Shame, as well as sharing his more recent thoughts on why the U.S. prefers isolated, unpopulated islands for its military bases. Put simply, it’s all a question of “no people, no problems.”
At the end of William Faulkner’s masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury, the castrated idiot, Benjy Compson, weeps when his black carer walks him the wrong way past the memorial to the Confederate soldier in Oxford, Miss. Honor-rites have been flouted, and through Benjy’s tears we sense the pent-up emotions of a defeated yet defiant, impotent yet proud, South.
Credit: University of Chicago Press
This vignette points to a wider truth. Memorials carry enormous emotional and symbolic freight, providing clues as to how people feel about their society. This is the subject of Erika Doss’s scholarly and readable book, Memorial Mania.
In responding enthusiastically to this work, I must admit to sitting in the center of its target audience “sweet spot.” As an anthropologist of art (having conducted doctoral research among the Buddhist “god-makers” of the Kathmandu Valley), I am partial to books that focus on the place of material culture in society. And in my recent incarnation as an anthropologist of America, I relish work that reveals new aspects of this complex and fascinating society.
But I believe Memorial Mania will appeal to a wide audience – both inside and outside academia – given the quality of the writing and the presentation of the material. The book is packed with information and insight as it documents the growing phenomenon of memorialization in America; and 160 illustrations can only enhance the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the subject. Doss also has an ear for the well-turned phrase: she describes memorials, for instance, as “archives of public affect” and “repositories of feelings and emotions.”
The author adds depth and structure to her work by examining her subject in relation to different feelings. Under “fear,” for instance, Doss explores the proliferation of terrorism memorials, linked to security narratives (with an interesting digression into the narrative of national innocence). Under “shame,” she describes memorials recalling racism, slavery and war relocation; she focusses this chapter on Duluth’s Lynching Memorial in Minnesota, that recollects a horrific act of mob violence from the 1920s that was new to me. Continue reading “Must Read: Memorial Mania by Erika Doss”→
It’s out. The Royal honeymoon destination is Desroches in the Seychelles, 150 miles from Mahe, the main island.
Beach on Desroches Island. Flickr/Steve & Jemma Copley
According to the Daily Express William and Kate “can expect barmy temperatures between 75°F (24°C) and 90°F (32°C)” and an encounter with “rare wildlife and giant tortoises” at a “secluded villa set amongst coconut groves and turquoise seas.”
If you read my earlier post, I was for Australia, a Commonwealth country where the Queen is head of state.
I am not a complete loser, however. I picked up in later press comments that it was unlikely that William would have sufficient holiday time from his post as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot to travel to Lizard Island, located 150 miles north of Cairns, and back. I also spotted a story that Kate was learning French.
This initiative might have something to do with the choice of honeymoon destination. So British islands in the Caribbean are ruled out, and French-speaking Commonwealth countries like Mauritius and the Seychelles moved to the fore. Both destinations fulfill the paradise island preference to which I referred in my earlier post. But how to choose between them?
I reckoned that two factors would come into play in making the royal decision. First, a direct flight from the UK to the Seychelles is eight hours, whereas to Mauritius it is 12 hours. Second, the Seychelles has numerous small hideaways in its 115 island archipelago, ideal for avoiding the long lens cameras of the paparazzi (or worse). Security would need to be a lot tighter in Mauritius where the most suitable locations for the Royal honeymooners are on the mainland.
So, my friend Laura North, who has an online account with one of the largest online gambling companies in the UK, put on £10 for herself and £5 for me on the Seychelles. She tells me she got 10/1. So £50 for yours truly minus the failed £5 bet on Lizard Island. £45 coming my way.
Don’t kiss the Queen! Officials at Buckingham Palace instructed guests, who were due to attend the wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton, not to attempt to touch or kiss the British sovereign.
Queen Elizabeth II with the Obamas, 2009. Flickr/Creative Commons
Historically, almost all of those who have broken the taboo have paid a price.
In 1992, the British tabloids dubbed the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, the ‘Lizard of Oz’ after he placed a hand on the Queen’s middle back at a public reception. There was another rumpus when his successor, John Howard, was accused of a similar misdemeanour at Canberra’s Parliament House in 2000. Intriguingly, US First Lady Michelle Obama was not pilloried in the same way when she she put her arm around the Royal upper back at a Buckingham Palace G20 reception in 2009.
So when is it okay to touch the British sovereign?
The custom that prohibits touching or kissing the Queen is not an absolute. Whenever a transaction occurs, it seems that the crucial point is that it reflects and maintains the social status and social distance of both parties.
The night before the Royal wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton, a gala dinner was held at the five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park for members of the British Royal family. Guests also included some of their counterparts from overseas – mainly royals from Europe, but also those from more distant parts of the world, including the Sultan of Brunei and his wife.
According to press reports, the Queen arrived “fashionably late” to meet members of her own flock and the other royals. When I watched the evening news bulletin on the BBC it was impossible not to notice the kisses bestowed on her cheeks by an immaculately coiffed, flame-haired woman in a long flowing robe. The kisses offered to the British monarch were followed immediately by a curtsy. Familiarity and subordination were thus simultaneously conveyed through the combination of gestures.
But even more intriguing: who was the woman who was permitted to kiss the British monarch? It turns out that the evening’s host was Lady Elizabeth Anson, founder of the UK-based events company, Party Planners, and the Queen’s first cousin.
The royal wedding is almost upon us, and while austere republicans have taken cover, the rest of the UK population is in thrall at the prospect of the forthcoming spectacle.
In fact, I had a haircut yesterday, and the Greek Cypriot owner told me that she was closing the salon next Friday even though it might affect some of her “regulars,” so that she could watch the wedding on television.
Part of the reason for not opening was that she had just found out that the wedding started at 11 a.m., effectively bifurcating the day from a trading point of view. But the other reason was because, “I really want to watch it. I think it will be so nice.”
You can’t argue with that, and everyone knows that the British do pomp and pageantry better than anyone else.
Great Barrier Reef. Source: Flickr/Noam Lovinsky. Besides Kate’s gown, the big question is: where will the royal honeymoon take place?
My understanding is that the new royal couple – commoner Kate Middleton will soon be renamed Princess Catherine, and in official communications “Kate” will be lost forever – will spend their first night at the Belgian Suite in Buckingham Palace.
On Saturday, they will journey to Balmoral, one of the Royal residences, in Scotland and spend a few days there before travelling overseas.
Mark Palmer, writing in the Daily Mail, however, argues that it would be better if the couple stayed in Britain, because it would provide “a tonic for the country’s tourism industry.” He adds, “But at this time of year there is nowhere on earth more beautiful, more full of promise and – crucially – more romantic than Britain.”
It’s a nice idea, and there is a recent precedent with the earl and countess of Wessex, who spent a four-day honeymoon in Balmoral in June 1999.
What the Taj Mahal is to India, the Eiffel Tower is to Paris, and the Brandenburg Gate is to Berlin, the dhow is to the Indian Ocean. The dhow is the iconic image that photographers, film makers, and writers use to evoke a sense of the Indian Ocean as a place. Now, they are celebrated as heritage, representing a region — the Indian Ocean — that until recently was more of a scholarly construct than a popular one.
A jahazi leaving Zanzibar en route to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In East Africa, sailing dhows still function, unlike in the Persian Gulf, where they mostly live in museums.
I started working on Indian Ocean history in 1994 when I was doing my dissertation research in Zanzibar. At the time there was a pretty well-established notion of the Indian Ocean as a historical place. Auguste Tousainte and then K.N. Chaudhuri had written books that took broad looks at the ocean as place of cultural and commercial exchange. Chaudhuri, using Braudel’s treatment of the Mediterranean as his model, had restricted his work to the period between the rise of Islam and 1750. After 1750, he argued, structural change in the form of steamships and imperialism brought to a close the unity of the Indian Ocean. I thought I was being rather clever and innovative by looking at events in the 19th and 20th centuries in East Africa in the context of a surviving Indian Ocean economy.
As it turns out the time was ripe for such an idea, and a bunch of other people had the same idea at the same time. What none of us had really bothered to think about was whether the people whose lives we had declared to be part of the Indian Ocean world perceived themselves as inhabitants or participants in that world.
Was there in fact an Indian Ocean identity? And if so, who saw themselves in this light? When and why did this identity emerge?
I first started thinking in these terms after a short visit to Oman in 2005. I had gone there with the idea of looking at connections between the Zanzibari exile community in Muscat and their relatives in Zanzibar. But that line inquiry sort of fizzled. What caught my attention during that visit was the constant presence of the traditional sailing ship of the western Indian Ocean: the dhow. In Muscat there was a reconstruction of an 11th century dhow in one of the traffic circles. It was in pool of water with nozzles that sprayed the hull to make it appear to be in motion. In Muscat’s various museums large and meticulously detailed models of dhow were abundant, often with plaques indicating that they were donations from wealthy patrons. The yacht club had several pleasure boats done in the dhow style. The sultan’s yacht was a sort of fiberglass mock up of a dhow. Later I saw another royal yacht under construction in the port of Sur, this one much more traditional, entirely built of wood, and covered with hand-carved decoration. Also in Sur there was a public park that had a couple of big seagoing dhows on display.
The Omanis had clearly embraced the dhow as a symbol of national heritage.
A reconstruction of a medieval dhow that sailed from Muscat to China in an effort to replicate the voyages of Sindbad. It now resides in a traffic circle in Muscat, Oman.
From Oman I went to Zanzibar and saw something similar at work. A major new museum had been built in the decade since I was last there and its centerpiece was a reconstruction of an mtepe, which is a type of dhow unique to the East African coast that more or less disappeared in the early 20th century. In the same museum there were dhow models similar to the ones I had seen in Muscat, complete with the little plaques indicating that they had been donated by Gulf Arabs. In addition to the museum’s interest in dhows, there was also a film festival that took as its logo the dhow. The Zanzibar International Film Festival, which has been presented each year since 1998, is dedicated to showcasing the cultures of the western Indian Ocean, which it defines as the “Dhow Countries”.
Dhow imagery had been present when I was in Zanzibar in 1994, but that presence was largely limited to the tourism industry. There were dhow restaurants and a Dhow Palace Hotel, but the government and its supporters had been pretty ambivalent about dhows. Zanzibar’s government came to power in 1964 in the wake of an anti-Arab revolution. For the revolutionary government, dhows were a symbol of the Arabs and the economic and political system they had revolted against. One of the new government’s first acts was to ban most seagoing dhows from calling at Zanzibar. Over the next 35 years the government of Zanzibar turned its back on the sea and instead embraced an African nationalist identity.
Likewise, Gulf Arabs had been less enthusiastic about dhows in the 1960s and 70s. At that time dhows had been a sign of a backwards, technologically underdeveloped economy and a reminder of the poverty that characterized the region before the oil boom. The less said about them, the better was the consensus.
The public use of dhow symbols to represent a regional identity and a heritage to be valued rather than vilified, struck me as very interesting. In Oman, it was less surprising than in Zanzibar. Oman’s rulers are the descendants of 19th century merchant princes whose power and wealth came from controlling trade in East Africa and their participation in the western Indian Ocean economy. For Zanzibar it came as a bit more of a surprise. For many Zanzibaris, dhows were associated with the slave trade, Arab rule, and other things that many people would rather not celebrate. But even in Zanzibar dhows were in the process of being rehabilitated and the notion of a regional, oceanic identity seemed to be gaining ground.
An old cargo ship, now on display in a public park in Sur, Oman. Sur was once a major trading port, and Suri ships routinely sailed to East Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now Sur depends on tourism and the oil industry.
I am not sure whether anyone in the Indian Ocean ports of Calicut or Aden or Kilwa in 1450 would have thought of themselves as part of Chaudhuri’s Indian Ocean world. But it does seem, at least among elites, that the idea of a commonality among the people of “Dhow Countries” is gaining traction. In places like Zanzibar, which has never been that comfortable with its place in the nation of Tanzania, and the Gulf States, where hereditary monarchs rule very new nations whose citizens are often greatly outnumbered by immigrants, supranational identities that hark back to the time of an imagined regional unity and prosperity have an appeal. Dhows have come to represent this new use of the past.
I will be watching to see if this new conception of identity takes hold. If it does, it will offer an alternative to national or religious ideas about identity. In the Gulf, where virtually the entire population is coastal and much of the immigrant population comes from the Indian Ocean rim, the regional identity that the dhow symbolizes may strengthen national cohesiveness. In East Africa where coastal people already have fractious relationships with their national governments, a shift toward an oceanic identity could exacerbate tensions between coast and interior.
In 1980, a Mauritian sociologist friend confidently told me that a branded fast food culture as found in North America and Europe would never take off in his homeland. He reasoned that the population was already well served by street sellers, who produced classic Mauritian snacks like vegetable samosas, pakora and gateaux piment, the small marble sized balls of crushed yellow lentil, spring onions and herbs including a good amount of fresh, green chilli, which are deep fried and have a wonderful crunchy texture.
Two decades later the street sellers or “hawkers”, as they are called by government bureaucrats, are still around. Most of them are Hindu or Muslim men. Some have fixed spots by the roadside, where they used bottled gas canisters to heat vegetable oil and cook their products, while others use mopeds or motorbikes, with a box attached at the back to carry already cooked items, so that they can better locate customers at bus stations, especially at morning and evening rush hour, and coastal areas.
RedCape. Credit: James Guppy, Creative Commons, Flickr
But the street sellers are no longer the only game in town. The idea that branded fast food would not take off in Mauritius was a highly plausible theory at one stage of the country’s development; however, it wasn’t long before it was disproved, undone by a growing middle class in pursuit of a marker of their steadily growing affluence. And what better way to celebrate rising status than by adopting the fast food culture of the world’s advanced economies? In 1983, Kentucky Fried Chicken (now KFC) opened its first outlet in Mauritius. The company, which now has 14 stores spread across the palm-fringed Indian Ocean island targets the local population rather than the near one million tourists, who visit each year and are largely catered for by the hotels in which they reside. Over the years, the steadily expanding KFC chain has been joined by Burger King, Nando’s and Pizza Hut, as well as a wide variety of local competitors.
Interestingly, McDonald’s was a relatively late entrant to the Mauritian fast food market. It opened its first store in the capital, Port Louis, in 2001 but it is only now that it has firm plans to open a second store in a shopping mall, Jumbo Phoenix, in the Vacoas-Phoenix conurbation, a predominantly Hindu area. Moreover, its choice of location near an International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temple (mandir) has stirred up a great deal of controversy not only in the neighbourhood but throughout the island.
European and North American-born Hare Krishnas, who had first arrived in Mauritius in 1974 to target local Hindus, the descendants of indentured labourers who make up just under half of the island’s near 1.3 million population, went on to establish a three-story settlement just off the main road in Phoenix in 1984, on a six-acre plot of former agricultural land. But while some ISKCON temples use locations in big cities – the building in London’s Soho is a good example – to illustrate to potential converts the stark contrast between a spiritual and a materialistic lifestyle, those in rural or semi-rural areas consciously use the tranquillity as an important element in creating a sacred space.
Hot & Crispy. Credit: Velkr0, Creative Commons, Flickr
Moreover, given the significance of the ritual purity/pollution rule, which as Louis Dumont pointed out in his anthropological classic, Homo Hierachicus (1966), is central to traditional Hinduism, including its sannyasin-led sectarian movements, it is hardly surprising that ISKCON devotees in their semi-rural Mauritian location object to the sale and smell of cooked tabooed animal products near its premises.
ISKCON has now received the backing of most Hindu institutions on the island, including Arya Saba, Mauritius Marathi Mandali Federation, Ram Sena, the Sanatan Dharma Temples Federation, and Hindu House. A crowd of several hundred people, some holding placards in either French or English, held a demonstration outside the proposed 150-seater McDonald’s on 9 February (see a video clip from the demonstration here.) The secretary of the ISCKON society, Srinjay Das, stated that his organisation was not against economic development “but we are only asking for respect of our culture. We venerate cows and a McDonald’s outlet selling beef burgers in front of our sacred land is not correct.” He went on to say ISKCON intended to go to court in an attempt to block the opening of the new store (an injunction was duly lodged at the Mauritius Supreme Court on 11 February). Perhaps more ominously, the President of Hindu House, Veerendra Ramdhun, said that it was important that both parties come to terms and agree a solution. He issued this warning: “We are living in a democratic country. We need to make sure that there is peace. We do not want to create disorder. We only want to agree on a solution.”
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