Other contributions to the book referred to in the previous post. Most, described here, discuss holistic education and the importance of emotional engagement (care).
Colleen McLaughlin: 'Reforming the Connections: the personal, social and cognitive in learning and young people's lives'.
We need to repair and reconnect the links between personal, social and cognitive learning - that is develop holistic strategies. Teachers' own learning about their practice has to be central in this. "It will involve us in taking seriously our relationships and the messages we send to students about themselves and the learning process" (p.39).
Kristjan Kristjansson: 'Self-esteem, self-confidence and individualized education'.
Self-esteem has been wrongly over-emphasised. Feeling good about ourselves can be counter productive and self deceptive. Self-confidence is more important and should be the teacher's goal.
John P. Miller: 'The Thinking Heart: educating for wisdom and compassion'.
Advocates holistic education with inspiration from Buddhism.
Trevor Kerry: 'The art and science of effective teaching'.
Forget skills and competence. Teaching is about being an effective communicator of an accurate message which has roots in art and science.
George Jacobs: 'Making thinking audible and visible via cooperative learning.'
The importance of building cooperation into class strategies.
Alan J Bishop and Wee Tiong Seah: 'Educating values: possibilities and challenges through mathematics teaching'.
Maths teaching should be rooted in values, and various projects are discussed to develop aspects of this.
Michalinos Zembylas: 'Practising an ethic of caring in teacing: challenges and possibilities'.
Teaching should involve caring. This is an emotional labour. The argument is rooted in the work of L. Goldstein, Reclaiming Caring in Teaching and Teacher Education (2002).
Monday 22 February 2010
Howard Gardner.
This is to share some thoughts on Howard Gardner from his recent paper 'Multiple lenses on the mind' in International Perspectives on Education, edited by Chau Meng Huat and Trevor Kerry (Continuum). He summarised his multiple intelligences as 8 (or 9 - his words, the ninth being existential/spiritual. The eight are: linguistic, logical mathematical, musical, spacial, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist. This model is to recognise diversity and to escape from the IQ test model of an umbrella intelligence.
On 'Changing Minds' (and see the book of that name), he lists seven levers of mind changing: reason,
He ends with Margaret Mead's dictum, "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, its the only thing that ever has."
On 'Changing Minds' (and see the book of that name), he lists seven levers of mind changing: reason,
research,On 'Five Minds for the Future', he lists
resonance,
redescription,
rewards and resources,
real world events, and
resistances overcome.
the disciplined mindThe final two of these he suggests are of greatest value.
the synthesizing mind
the creative mind
the respectful mind and
the ethical mind.
He ends with Margaret Mead's dictum, "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, its the only thing that ever has."
Saturday 20 February 2010
William Golding
Readers of Lord of the Flies or viewers of the film, will remember the twins. They were real kids in Golding's class in Bishop Wordsworth School in Salisbury. One is my neighbour; the other's funeral took place on Friday. Rest in peace and love to the family.
See also http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2009/11/tony-brown-and-william-golding.html
See also http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2009/11/tony-brown-and-william-golding.html
Friday 19 February 2010
Kurt Lewin, Action Research and Changing Culture.
Resolving Social Conflicts* was a collection of papers published together in 1948. The long tradition of action research dates from this time. Lewin was interested in social relations and conflict between national and racial groups. A German Jewish refugee in America, these cultures interested him most. And what interested him most was the possibility o and mechanisms for change. He conducted what he called experiments in social space, including a comparison between a democratic and autocratic ethos in a class, finding that much more hostility and negative reactions could be found in the autocratic class. He cites Lippitt, in whose experiments people reacting against authoritarianism did not react against the leader but against some scapegoat who they could bully with impunity. He concluded that authoritarian produces a hostile society without fellow feeling or altruism. Lewin comments, "The social climate in which a child lives is for the child as important as the air he breathes" (p.66). People are shaped by the cultures they grow up in.
His paper 'Action Research and Minority Problems' (1946) describes an experiment he made to encourage change. People were organised in groups and came to a workshop in which they discussed desired changes, planned to implement the changes, and met regularly to evaluate progress. He collected data from the three groups to plot out the processes involved. The spirit was democratic. In order to evaluate progress, the group has to know what progress might look like, or " lack of standards by which to measure progress" (p.143). He argued that new approaches were needed to study processes - interviews and surveys just could not catch the subtleties. An experiment was needed. For the research process, he gave the example of a bombing raid of a German factory. The information had to be collected through reconnaissance; a detailed plan put in place, considering all aspects and intricasies; when the mission was accomplieshed, feedback was needed, to give teeth to the evaluation. This structure was given to an experiment in inter-cultural relations.
Action Research has been used widely since then, and this workshop model is no longer a common one; but there is great value for action research to return to its roots, and seek solutions by getting practitioners to work together with stakeholders to find solutions to difficulties and differences of vision, mission and practice. Such an an action research group consisting of a teacher and the pupils could have a great impact on behaviour, achievement and ethos. Open-minded groups of politicians, practitioners and stakeholders might have made better education policy than the failed efforts of the past 22 years.
Note * published together with Field Theory in Social Science in 1951, and reprinted from 1997 onwards by the American Psychological Association.
His paper 'Action Research and Minority Problems' (1946) describes an experiment he made to encourage change. People were organised in groups and came to a workshop in which they discussed desired changes, planned to implement the changes, and met regularly to evaluate progress. He collected data from the three groups to plot out the processes involved. The spirit was democratic. In order to evaluate progress, the group has to know what progress might look like, or " lack of standards by which to measure progress" (p.143). He argued that new approaches were needed to study processes - interviews and surveys just could not catch the subtleties. An experiment was needed. For the research process, he gave the example of a bombing raid of a German factory. The information had to be collected through reconnaissance; a detailed plan put in place, considering all aspects and intricasies; when the mission was accomplieshed, feedback was needed, to give teeth to the evaluation. This structure was given to an experiment in inter-cultural relations.
This and similar experiences have convinced me that we should consider action, research, and training as a triangle that should be kept together for the sake of any of its corners (149)The delegates moved from being isolated individuals to becoming cooperative teams
on the basis of readiness to face difficulties realistically, to apply honest fact-finding, and to work together to overcome them (149)The end result was a detailed training programme owned by everyone. Lewin recognized that global solutions to problems of cultural harmonious inter-relationships are complex and require local, national and internation action over a long period.
Action Research has been used widely since then, and this workshop model is no longer a common one; but there is great value for action research to return to its roots, and seek solutions by getting practitioners to work together with stakeholders to find solutions to difficulties and differences of vision, mission and practice. Such an an action research group consisting of a teacher and the pupils could have a great impact on behaviour, achievement and ethos. Open-minded groups of politicians, practitioners and stakeholders might have made better education policy than the failed efforts of the past 22 years.
Note * published together with Field Theory in Social Science in 1951, and reprinted from 1997 onwards by the American Psychological Association.
Thursday 18 February 2010
The Authentic Person 3 Creative Tension, Openness and Morality
Sydney J Harris's 3rd and 4th lectures encouraged keeping opposites in a creative tension within a moral framework. So the bonds of marriage involve both bondage and freedom. He uses phenomenology to explore human experience. Again, what follows are my comments and not his.
This is to replace an 'either-or' frame of mind with 'both-and'. In his example, marriage binds and restricts on the one hand, yet liberates on the other. These two need to be held by both partners in balance, in creative tension, for the marriage to be healthy. In fact, readjustments will have to be made all the time, either emphasising the need for more responsibility or more freedom. Choices and decisions balance a number of points of view, sometimes contradictory. Democracy allows people to have a vote, and to be outvoted by a majority. The majority are not always right. Achieving a consensus aims at a solution that everyone can live with. Unfortunately it takes longer and assumes compromise. One intransigent individual can wreck consensus by refusing to compromise. In some cases he or she may be wrong to do this, but they may be right, especially if it is a moral matter of significant principle. Sometimes, someone has to stand up against the crowd.
Assuming that compromise does not mean 'being compromised' (i.e. feeling that we have to do something unethical), we need to define within the continuum of legitimate opposites a comfort zone within which we are prepared to trade. If others do the same, the ground is prepared for consensus. This assumes that ethics plays a central role in defining the limits of consensus and compromise. It is not that anything goes (relativism) - that gave us the ghettos and death camps. It means that there is room for manoeuvre within an ethically defensible range of choices.
The answer to many questions is yes and no. Understanding the parts we would say yes to (the pros) and those we say no to (the cons) are the ways we operate in this marginal zone of creative tension. Openness to others is easier for some than for others. People who are self-centred and disagreeable (poles of two personality traits) will find working with others difficult, and may find it hard to change. Openness comes in both dialogue (the willingness to allow another a valid point of view) and empathy (sharing in other people's emotional ups and downs0. Not wishing to hurt other people is the beginnings of morals and ethics. It is nothing to do with obeying petty rules.
Later lectures talked of polarised confrontational politics, misbalancing individual concerns with social responsibilities, and how in future we will have to live with ambiguity. Certainty is dead, although there are moral principles which are absolute. Globally, we have a lot of listening and compromising to do.
Humankind has evolved to be rational, though this is a discipline that escapes many. That should mean escape from aggressive responses and power to the strong, and to the possibility of working for the common good. The twentieth century was the most bloody in human history. What will the 21st be? What can we each do as individuals to achieve a fairer world both for humans and for other species?
So what is an authentic person? It is a dilemma. Authentic could mean true to me, and be totally self-centred. I do what I want, true to my beliefs and desires, and blow to anyone else. Or it could recognize that authentic recognizes the network of responsibilities and relationships that the self sits within. This is MacMurray's Self as Agent and Self in Relation, that as a human I have to be actively engaged, and supportive of the networks I exist within. My cats are not capable of that choice. For me, humans exist in a global network, so being authentic means promoting world progress and harmony.
This is to replace an 'either-or' frame of mind with 'both-and'. In his example, marriage binds and restricts on the one hand, yet liberates on the other. These two need to be held by both partners in balance, in creative tension, for the marriage to be healthy. In fact, readjustments will have to be made all the time, either emphasising the need for more responsibility or more freedom. Choices and decisions balance a number of points of view, sometimes contradictory. Democracy allows people to have a vote, and to be outvoted by a majority. The majority are not always right. Achieving a consensus aims at a solution that everyone can live with. Unfortunately it takes longer and assumes compromise. One intransigent individual can wreck consensus by refusing to compromise. In some cases he or she may be wrong to do this, but they may be right, especially if it is a moral matter of significant principle. Sometimes, someone has to stand up against the crowd.
Assuming that compromise does not mean 'being compromised' (i.e. feeling that we have to do something unethical), we need to define within the continuum of legitimate opposites a comfort zone within which we are prepared to trade. If others do the same, the ground is prepared for consensus. This assumes that ethics plays a central role in defining the limits of consensus and compromise. It is not that anything goes (relativism) - that gave us the ghettos and death camps. It means that there is room for manoeuvre within an ethically defensible range of choices.
The answer to many questions is yes and no. Understanding the parts we would say yes to (the pros) and those we say no to (the cons) are the ways we operate in this marginal zone of creative tension. Openness to others is easier for some than for others. People who are self-centred and disagreeable (poles of two personality traits) will find working with others difficult, and may find it hard to change. Openness comes in both dialogue (the willingness to allow another a valid point of view) and empathy (sharing in other people's emotional ups and downs0. Not wishing to hurt other people is the beginnings of morals and ethics. It is nothing to do with obeying petty rules.
Later lectures talked of polarised confrontational politics, misbalancing individual concerns with social responsibilities, and how in future we will have to live with ambiguity. Certainty is dead, although there are moral principles which are absolute. Globally, we have a lot of listening and compromising to do.
Humankind has evolved to be rational, though this is a discipline that escapes many. That should mean escape from aggressive responses and power to the strong, and to the possibility of working for the common good. The twentieth century was the most bloody in human history. What will the 21st be? What can we each do as individuals to achieve a fairer world both for humans and for other species?
So what is an authentic person? It is a dilemma. Authentic could mean true to me, and be totally self-centred. I do what I want, true to my beliefs and desires, and blow to anyone else. Or it could recognize that authentic recognizes the network of responsibilities and relationships that the self sits within. This is MacMurray's Self as Agent and Self in Relation, that as a human I have to be actively engaged, and supportive of the networks I exist within. My cats are not capable of that choice. For me, humans exist in a global network, so being authentic means promoting world progress and harmony.
Wednesday 17 February 2010
The Authentic Person 2 False Opposites.
Sydney J Harris's second lecture challenged the use of opposites such as good-evil, love-hate. Again, these are my comments and not his. We try to make sense of human experience, and either-or is a favorite mechanism. Many questionnaires work on the same principle, with yes-no answers. That a person might wish to answer both yes and no wrecks the system. I once did a careers test to tell me what career I ought to go for. Do you like to work indoors or outdoors? Choose one. I like both. Depending on my choice they would advise me to be either a banker or a lumberjack. The verdict of the questionnaire was that it could not advise me. I liked too many things. A scale of responses is more helpful, but on occasions whether I reply 1 or 5 may depend on circumstances.
So is a person good or evil? Do I love someone or hate someone? 'Love a little' or 'hate a little' seem perverse options within polarity. How can I answer until I know what good is, or what evil is? Do I even know what love is? It is these sort of questions that push me into qualitative research, which raises a similar question - do I know what quality is, and does my view agree with everyone elses?
Good and evil have been part of the human psyche for ever. Evil spirits are still blamed for misfortunes amongst educated folk. Children are killed because they are believed to be inhabited by an evil spirit - Victoria Climbie is the most famous example. Religions have promoted the idea, and pastors have connived with the murder of children so labelled. A girl I once taught, with some emotional fragility, was exorcised by a Christian priest, with disastrous consequences. This was to objectify evil into a separate entity and to deal with it by driving it away. Evil, and exorcism are the stuff of popular films, which portray a dualistic world in which evil forces reign. Children's stories sometimes depict battles between these evil forces and the child characters. Garth Nix's The Ragwitch, and his 'across the wall' books; Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate; Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. The truth is that there are no evil forces. Philip Pullman shows struggles with archangels, ghasts, harpies and other monsters, and depicting fortune telling as real, but set out of this world, within the imagination, with a story which sets the mind free of these fictions by establishing a commonwealth or cooperative of individual endeavour, rather than a kingdom led by an authority - that is self help rather than dependence. This at least is an honest journey.
Evil characters in fiction and especially in computer games, can be killed. War stories exult in enemy dead. In a computer game, the child zaps aliens, or enemies, or even Indians. This is educating them to kill. The Nazis became very good at it. Few Germans in 1945 felt guilty and the victorious allies had to treat their misperceptions as a disease. People, in real life, are mixtures of good and bad. All are capable of change, given circumstances that enable them to. Equally good people are capable of becoming monsters if circumstances drive them in this direction. Madmen rule only because others permit them to. We need to cultivate those others to resist injustice and to build a fairer society.
So, there is no devil and equally no God. There are only choices, crossroads to different journeys with different consequences.
So is a person good or evil? Do I love someone or hate someone? 'Love a little' or 'hate a little' seem perverse options within polarity. How can I answer until I know what good is, or what evil is? Do I even know what love is? It is these sort of questions that push me into qualitative research, which raises a similar question - do I know what quality is, and does my view agree with everyone elses?
Good and evil have been part of the human psyche for ever. Evil spirits are still blamed for misfortunes amongst educated folk. Children are killed because they are believed to be inhabited by an evil spirit - Victoria Climbie is the most famous example. Religions have promoted the idea, and pastors have connived with the murder of children so labelled. A girl I once taught, with some emotional fragility, was exorcised by a Christian priest, with disastrous consequences. This was to objectify evil into a separate entity and to deal with it by driving it away. Evil, and exorcism are the stuff of popular films, which portray a dualistic world in which evil forces reign. Children's stories sometimes depict battles between these evil forces and the child characters. Garth Nix's The Ragwitch, and his 'across the wall' books; Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate; Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. The truth is that there are no evil forces. Philip Pullman shows struggles with archangels, ghasts, harpies and other monsters, and depicting fortune telling as real, but set out of this world, within the imagination, with a story which sets the mind free of these fictions by establishing a commonwealth or cooperative of individual endeavour, rather than a kingdom led by an authority - that is self help rather than dependence. This at least is an honest journey.
Evil characters in fiction and especially in computer games, can be killed. War stories exult in enemy dead. In a computer game, the child zaps aliens, or enemies, or even Indians. This is educating them to kill. The Nazis became very good at it. Few Germans in 1945 felt guilty and the victorious allies had to treat their misperceptions as a disease. People, in real life, are mixtures of good and bad. All are capable of change, given circumstances that enable them to. Equally good people are capable of becoming monsters if circumstances drive them in this direction. Madmen rule only because others permit them to. We need to cultivate those others to resist injustice and to build a fairer society.
So, there is no devil and equally no God. There are only choices, crossroads to different journeys with different consequences.
The Authentic Person 1 Humans
These next posts come from The Authentic Person: Dealing With Dilemma by Sydney J Harris (1972). These were lectures from the 1960s for the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies. I intend to reflect on the issues rather than just describe the lectures.
First, the dethroning of mankind, a new self image. What do we think of humanity post Darwin, Freud and Marx? Why do humans think themselves better than animals? After all humans are animals. Humans think themselves intelligent. Of course, 95% of them are not but sit gawping at a TV screen. Most cannot put a rational thought together but guide their choices by their emotions. Those emotions can be destructive and lead to killing, mayhem and disaster. Humans are easily led - three quarters would kill if they were ordered to if it was a way of saving themselves (see my blog on Stanley Milgram). See also Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. Look at Abu Ghraib prison, and look into Iran today. Through the ages, human achievement has been measured by the ability to kill other people or things. Humans will soon wipe out most other species, and then wipe ourselves out. So what do we do about this? A quarter of people are resisters. In Nazi Germany these were the first to be eliminated. By every possible means, education, literature, theatre, we have learn to resist the bloodlust that fills our entertainment, and our political activity. What is humankind that we are mindful of them - quite a bit lower than the angels, and often behaving worse than the demons.
But we need the spin. We must believe ourselves to be altuistic, kind, cooperative and helpful. It is a delusion, but I hope we come to believe it. Those who believe they can be a positive force for good need to become the leaven of social and political development. Am I an optimist or a pessimist about humans having a worthwhile long-term future? Probably a pessimist but there are faint glimmers that grass-roots opinion is beginning to build a degree of inter-cultural understanding. The trouble is opinion top down - the grass roots are there, but often covered in tarmac.
First, the dethroning of mankind, a new self image. What do we think of humanity post Darwin, Freud and Marx? Why do humans think themselves better than animals? After all humans are animals. Humans think themselves intelligent. Of course, 95% of them are not but sit gawping at a TV screen. Most cannot put a rational thought together but guide their choices by their emotions. Those emotions can be destructive and lead to killing, mayhem and disaster. Humans are easily led - three quarters would kill if they were ordered to if it was a way of saving themselves (see my blog on Stanley Milgram). See also Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners. Look at Abu Ghraib prison, and look into Iran today. Through the ages, human achievement has been measured by the ability to kill other people or things. Humans will soon wipe out most other species, and then wipe ourselves out. So what do we do about this? A quarter of people are resisters. In Nazi Germany these were the first to be eliminated. By every possible means, education, literature, theatre, we have learn to resist the bloodlust that fills our entertainment, and our political activity. What is humankind that we are mindful of them - quite a bit lower than the angels, and often behaving worse than the demons.
But we need the spin. We must believe ourselves to be altuistic, kind, cooperative and helpful. It is a delusion, but I hope we come to believe it. Those who believe they can be a positive force for good need to become the leaven of social and political development. Am I an optimist or a pessimist about humans having a worthwhile long-term future? Probably a pessimist but there are faint glimmers that grass-roots opinion is beginning to build a degree of inter-cultural understanding. The trouble is opinion top down - the grass roots are there, but often covered in tarmac.
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Deportation of a Bahai from Uzbekistan
The Baha'i Faith is committed to advancing peace, justice, ethical conduct and human unity. Members do not propagandise and worship quietly in each others' houses. This is clearly a threat to Uzbekistan's authoritarian government. Persecution is clearly not confined to Iran. See further http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/58.
From Forum 18 (click for link)
Sepehr Taheri, a Baha'i with British citizenship who had lived in the Uzbek capital Tashkent
since 1990, is married to an Uzbek citizen and their children were all born there. In the wake of his deportation, a local news website accused Taheri of "propagandising Baha'i religious teaching" and increasing the number of "proselytes" in the country. The website's chief editor defended to Forum 18 its publication of the article, which was written by the same author who attacked the previous Baha'i to be expelled from Uzbekistan.
The deportations are part of the Uzbek government's campaign to isolate religious believers in Uzbekistan from their fellow-believers abroad, which also includes visa and entry denials to foreign citizens wishing to visit for religious purposes.
The official who answered the phone at the department that registers religious organisations at the Tashkent City Justice Department refused to discuss the deportations with Forum 18 on 12 February. Nor was any official of the government's Religious Affairs Committee in Tashkent prepared to explain why foreign citizens legally resident in Uzbekistan cannot freely practice their faith with their fellow believers. The Uzbek authorities deal especially harshly with local citizens who conduct religious activities they deem to be illegal. Among many recent cases, Muslim journalist Hairulla Hamidov was arrested in Tashkent on 21
January and is awaiting criminal trial (see forthcoming F18News article).
According to a 5 February article by Abduvali Turaev on the Novosti Uzbekistana website, Taheri was working in Tashkent as an English language teacher. He was found guilty of violating the Code of Administrative Offences and, on 17 November 2009, was deported from Uzbekistan. The author did not say which Article of the Administrative Code Turaev was accused of violating, nor which court handed down the verdict. The Baha'i community
confirmed Taheri's deportation to Forum 18 without giving details. No Uzbek official would tell Forum 18 which court had punished Taheri.
The deportation of Taheri is the latest in a series of government moves against the Baha'i community, which has been able to register its groups in Tashkent, Samarkand, Jizak, Bukhara and Navoi. More than ten officers from the police and NSS secret police, together with an official of the City Justice Department and the head of the mahalla (city district) committee raided the Baha'i centre in Tashkent's Khamza District in July 2009. Two Baha'is were found guilty of resisting the police, charges they denied, and sentenced to fifteen days' imprisonment. After that one of the two was expelled to neighbouring Kazakhstan (see
F18News 24 September 2009)
In the wake of both Baha'i expulsions, Russian-language media articles by Turaev in the local media appeared later. His article attacking the earlier expelled Baha'i was published by Gorizont.uz agency on 16 September 2009, more than five weeks after his expulsion. The 5 February 2010 article about Taheri appeared in Novosti Uzbekistana more than eleven weeks after his deportation. The delay was not explained.
Turaev's article, "Sower of Alien Ideas", claimed that Taheri had come to live in Uzbekistan in 1990 "for mercenary reasons" (which were not explained) and as a missionary. It claimed he married an Uzbek citizen "to legalise his presence in the country, to conceal his mercenary aims and to avoid being unmasked". The author alleged that "by concealing his real aims" he was able to set up nine Baha'i groups across Uzbekistan.
Turaev claimed Taheri had been arrested in August 2008 while "brainwashing" a local woman "with the aim of forcing her to change her religious views". But "on that occasion he was able to evade responsibility" (the author does not explain how). The author then claims that Taheri organised the participation of more than 200 people from Uzbekistan in an "unsanctioned" meeting of Baha'is from Central Asia in Almaty in Kazakhstan in December
2008 (he did not explain why the conference was "unsanctioned"). The author claimed that most of those who went from Uzbekistan did not know they were going to a religious conference.
The author accused Taheri of organising "illegal meetings" in private homes in Tashkent in the first three months of 2009, as well as invitations to foreign Baha'is to visit communities in the country. "It is natural that his activities were recognised as contradicting the laws of Uzbekistan," Turaev declared.
Defending media slanders
Forum 18 was unable to reach Turaev either at Novosti Uzbekistana or at Gorizont. The man who answered the phone at Novosti Uzbekistana on 15 February told Forum 18 "we don't have anyone by that name here". Pyotr Yakovlev, chief editor at Novosti Uzbekistana, also refused to pass on Turaev's contact details, but denied that Turaev was anything other than a journalist. He refused to explain why he is known to have published only two articles under his own name, both attacking Baha'is.
Yakovlev vigorously denied that his publication was a mouthpiece for the state's anti-religious campaign. "We are a private, not a state-run publication and we are independent," he insisted to Forum 18 from Tashkent on 16 February. Asked why he allowed his publication to attack the Baha'i community, and Taheri in particular, without giving them the opportunity to give their view, he declared: "I am an Uzbek. I am 64 years old and I know the Baha'is. Why shouldn't I publish this material?"
Asked why he had allowed the journalist to make unverified accusations, Yakovlev responded: "Decisions were taken by the court, not by us. You should ask them." He then put the phone down.
In addition to Turaev's September 2009 article attacking the Baha'is, Gorizont has a history of publishing other material attacking religious communities. In summer 2009 it published two articles attacking the Union of Baptists of Uzbekistan for holding children's summer camps. The author made a number of allegations which Baptists categorically denied.
The Gorizont articles appeared not long before the prosecution of three senior Baptist leaders, including Pavel Peichev, head of the Union. The three were given heavy fines (subsequently overturned), ordered to pay large sums in "unpaid" taxes and banned from positions in the Union for three years (see F18News 7 December 2009
From Forum 18 (click for link)
Sepehr Taheri, a Baha'i with British citizenship who had lived in the Uzbek capital Tashkent
since 1990, is married to an Uzbek citizen and their children were all born there. In the wake of his deportation, a local news website accused Taheri of "propagandising Baha'i religious teaching" and increasing the number of "proselytes" in the country. The website's chief editor defended to Forum 18 its publication of the article, which was written by the same author who attacked the previous Baha'i to be expelled from Uzbekistan.
The deportations are part of the Uzbek government's campaign to isolate religious believers in Uzbekistan from their fellow-believers abroad, which also includes visa and entry denials to foreign citizens wishing to visit for religious purposes.
The official who answered the phone at the department that registers religious organisations at the Tashkent City Justice Department refused to discuss the deportations with Forum 18 on 12 February. Nor was any official of the government's Religious Affairs Committee in Tashkent prepared to explain why foreign citizens legally resident in Uzbekistan cannot freely practice their faith with their fellow believers. The Uzbek authorities deal especially harshly with local citizens who conduct religious activities they deem to be illegal. Among many recent cases, Muslim journalist Hairulla Hamidov was arrested in Tashkent on 21
January and is awaiting criminal trial (see forthcoming F18News article).
According to a 5 February article by Abduvali Turaev on the Novosti Uzbekistana website, Taheri was working in Tashkent as an English language teacher. He was found guilty of violating the Code of Administrative Offences and, on 17 November 2009, was deported from Uzbekistan. The author did not say which Article of the Administrative Code Turaev was accused of violating, nor which court handed down the verdict. The Baha'i community
confirmed Taheri's deportation to Forum 18 without giving details. No Uzbek official would tell Forum 18 which court had punished Taheri.
The deportation of Taheri is the latest in a series of government moves against the Baha'i community, which has been able to register its groups in Tashkent, Samarkand, Jizak, Bukhara and Navoi. More than ten officers from the police and NSS secret police, together with an official of the City Justice Department and the head of the mahalla (city district) committee raided the Baha'i centre in Tashkent's Khamza District in July 2009. Two Baha'is were found guilty of resisting the police, charges they denied, and sentenced to fifteen days' imprisonment. After that one of the two was expelled to neighbouring Kazakhstan (see
F18News 24 September 2009)
In the wake of both Baha'i expulsions, Russian-language media articles by Turaev in the local media appeared later. His article attacking the earlier expelled Baha'i was published by Gorizont.uz agency on 16 September 2009, more than five weeks after his expulsion. The 5 February 2010 article about Taheri appeared in Novosti Uzbekistana more than eleven weeks after his deportation. The delay was not explained.
Turaev's article, "Sower of Alien Ideas", claimed that Taheri had come to live in Uzbekistan in 1990 "for mercenary reasons" (which were not explained) and as a missionary. It claimed he married an Uzbek citizen "to legalise his presence in the country, to conceal his mercenary aims and to avoid being unmasked". The author alleged that "by concealing his real aims" he was able to set up nine Baha'i groups across Uzbekistan.
Turaev claimed Taheri had been arrested in August 2008 while "brainwashing" a local woman "with the aim of forcing her to change her religious views". But "on that occasion he was able to evade responsibility" (the author does not explain how). The author then claims that Taheri organised the participation of more than 200 people from Uzbekistan in an "unsanctioned" meeting of Baha'is from Central Asia in Almaty in Kazakhstan in December
2008 (he did not explain why the conference was "unsanctioned"). The author claimed that most of those who went from Uzbekistan did not know they were going to a religious conference.
The author accused Taheri of organising "illegal meetings" in private homes in Tashkent in the first three months of 2009, as well as invitations to foreign Baha'is to visit communities in the country. "It is natural that his activities were recognised as contradicting the laws of Uzbekistan," Turaev declared.
Defending media slanders
Forum 18 was unable to reach Turaev either at Novosti Uzbekistana or at Gorizont. The man who answered the phone at Novosti Uzbekistana on 15 February told Forum 18 "we don't have anyone by that name here". Pyotr Yakovlev, chief editor at Novosti Uzbekistana, also refused to pass on Turaev's contact details, but denied that Turaev was anything other than a journalist. He refused to explain why he is known to have published only two articles under his own name, both attacking Baha'is.
Yakovlev vigorously denied that his publication was a mouthpiece for the state's anti-religious campaign. "We are a private, not a state-run publication and we are independent," he insisted to Forum 18 from Tashkent on 16 February. Asked why he allowed his publication to attack the Baha'i community, and Taheri in particular, without giving them the opportunity to give their view, he declared: "I am an Uzbek. I am 64 years old and I know the Baha'is. Why shouldn't I publish this material?"
Asked why he had allowed the journalist to make unverified accusations, Yakovlev responded: "Decisions were taken by the court, not by us. You should ask them." He then put the phone down.
In addition to Turaev's September 2009 article attacking the Baha'is, Gorizont has a history of publishing other material attacking religious communities. In summer 2009 it published two articles attacking the Union of Baptists of Uzbekistan for holding children's summer camps. The author made a number of allegations which Baptists categorically denied.
The Gorizont articles appeared not long before the prosecution of three senior Baptist leaders, including Pavel Peichev, head of the Union. The three were given heavy fines (subsequently overturned), ordered to pay large sums in "unpaid" taxes and banned from positions in the Union for three years (see F18News 7 December 2009
Religion, spirituality, and challenging marginalisation
Religion, spirituality, and the social sciences: challenging marginalisation (2008) is edited by Basia Spalek and Alia Imtoual, the former from the field of criminology, criminal justice, and victims; the latter a writer on Muslims in Australia. Unfortunately neither writes a chapter of their own, although both write the conclusion. The contrubutors are a mix of very experienced and less experienced writers. Central to the many discussions is the hegemony of secularism in the social sciences, producing tensions when examining spiritual or religious topics. After decades of relative marginalisation in the social sciences (this is the meaning of marginalisation in the title), religion and spirituality have returned as a topic worthy of research and indeed as a factor which needs to be understood as the world tries to make sense of itself. 7/11 has brought Islamic values to the fore in a contested way; the death of Victoria Climbie as an example of belief in child demons could not be grasped by the Laming Commission, but many children are abused and killed because of beliefs in spirits, demons and ancestors. Religion is an aspect of identity for some, and attacks on religion can be part of their victimisation - 'spirit injury' is a term apparently used by critical Black feminists. One sub-theme is the championing of mixed-method research (that is introducing a qualitative aspect). There are examples of quantitative nonsenses, such as a statistical grouping which puts aboriginees, bahais and scientologists in the same box, to produce meaningless statistics. One appeal is to come to terms with shamanic altered mental states, another to included emotion in the research process, not only reporting the emotions of respondants, but also allowing emotion in the researcher, who is trying to get to grips with emotions labeled spiritual of religious.
This is one part of the issue. Another is that we need to understand the place of emotions in self understanding, and in particular distinguish between helpful and harmful emotions. People can be emotional to an obsessive level about nonsense, about demon possiession (remember The Crucible?), and about angels, crystals, heaven, hell. Giving them a voice does not mean we have to accept their dangerous misunderstandings.
This is one part of the issue. Another is that we need to understand the place of emotions in self understanding, and in particular distinguish between helpful and harmful emotions. People can be emotional to an obsessive level about nonsense, about demon possiession (remember The Crucible?), and about angels, crystals, heaven, hell. Giving them a voice does not mean we have to accept their dangerous misunderstandings.
Sunday 14 February 2010
Apologies for break in posts, owing to activities writing for publication. You can catch some of this, if you wish, on http://eprints.worc.ac.uk/view/author/Bigger,_Stephen.html.
See also my blog http://1930-1960.blogspot.com where I have added discussions of second world war literature.
See also my blog http://1930-1960.blogspot.com where I have added discussions of second world war literature.
Thursday 4 February 2010
Eco-Criticism
This post is a consequence of a call for papers on eco-criticism (green criticism) of children's literature. It has wider relevance as a critique of many other aspects of society and politics. I am drawing this discussion by reviewing Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment, Routledge 2010. The title gives the order of interest - Postcolonial critique predominates, focusing primarily of ecocritical concerns, using the three subtitles as case studies. Colonialism regarded the environment as natural resources to be exploited, assuming that land's value lies only in what can be exploited. Exploitation takes from the land rather than enriches it - mines are dug, forests are cut down - and other assumptions about the land have had little voice, assumptions about preserving the environment sustainably to hand it on to our children and our grandchildren undiminished. Where environment and habitat have been lost, this implies that some efforts are made to restore it. Although colonies are ended, colonial attitudes linger as former colonists or neocolonialists pull strings and hold influence through multi-national companies, at worst producing atrocities such as at Bhopal in India, and more generally depriving local people of land and livelihood. Regarding animals as a resource has its extreme form in the killing of elephants for ivory.
I am concerning myself in this post with Ecocriticism rather than postcolonial and neocolonial aspects. This is not to deny the latter, for which there is more than enough evidence globally that these are real issues, and that it is closely linked to issues of poverty and the unfair distribution of wealth and resources. I will return to neocolonialism in a later blog. Ecocriticism involves how we critique human environmental usage, and what attitudes to land we build up in our broad education programmes.
I start my critique with social critique which involves issues of equity, democratic collaboration and fair distribution of the world's resources. The population of the world need sufficient water and food for their needs, which has to be the start of economic and political planning. If some people have less than sufficient, and others more than sufficient, this presents an ethical problem. Waste is also an issue, especially in circumstances where others desperately need the equivalent of what is wasted. To achieve global equity, most of the assumptions of the developed world need overturning. The 'right' to have plenty, and luxuries besides, has to be set against the 'need' of others to survive. Colonialism has left a legacy of exploited land, perhaps with an over-reliance on colonial crops such as chocolate, coffee, tea or rubber which multinationals can exploit in the name of competition to keep western prices low (and in so doing keep the producers' incomes low). In short, considering all aspects of life globally through the lens of social equity will be the main thrust of ecocriticism. Land ownership, even, becomes unclear where land was unfairly taken in the past. All this is mighty unsettling to current landowners in former colonies.
Education can address issues of social equity through history, geography and science (if the science syllabus allows time to be devoted to the use of science). Children might question priorities - why are billions of pounds or dollars spent globally on luxuries for the rich rather than on resources for the poor? On the space race rather than food race, or the race for green energy? Literature might also play a part, with children's stories about the lives of the poor and disadvantaged told with a political edge rather than a patronising one. Environmental education concerns itself (at the curriculum margins, it has to be said) with sustainability, habitat, biodiversity and so on. Without wishing to play these down, it is a neocolonial agenda, seeking to ensure that we who have do not lose pleasures in the future generations. Environmental education does also emphasise global resources at the radical end, but the political agenda of redistribution of resources from rich to poor does not dominate in schools. It takes a disaster to encourage rich people to 'help', forgetting that our wealth is part of the reason for their poverty.
I am concerning myself in this post with Ecocriticism rather than postcolonial and neocolonial aspects. This is not to deny the latter, for which there is more than enough evidence globally that these are real issues, and that it is closely linked to issues of poverty and the unfair distribution of wealth and resources. I will return to neocolonialism in a later blog. Ecocriticism involves how we critique human environmental usage, and what attitudes to land we build up in our broad education programmes.
I start my critique with social critique which involves issues of equity, democratic collaboration and fair distribution of the world's resources. The population of the world need sufficient water and food for their needs, which has to be the start of economic and political planning. If some people have less than sufficient, and others more than sufficient, this presents an ethical problem. Waste is also an issue, especially in circumstances where others desperately need the equivalent of what is wasted. To achieve global equity, most of the assumptions of the developed world need overturning. The 'right' to have plenty, and luxuries besides, has to be set against the 'need' of others to survive. Colonialism has left a legacy of exploited land, perhaps with an over-reliance on colonial crops such as chocolate, coffee, tea or rubber which multinationals can exploit in the name of competition to keep western prices low (and in so doing keep the producers' incomes low). In short, considering all aspects of life globally through the lens of social equity will be the main thrust of ecocriticism. Land ownership, even, becomes unclear where land was unfairly taken in the past. All this is mighty unsettling to current landowners in former colonies.
Education can address issues of social equity through history, geography and science (if the science syllabus allows time to be devoted to the use of science). Children might question priorities - why are billions of pounds or dollars spent globally on luxuries for the rich rather than on resources for the poor? On the space race rather than food race, or the race for green energy? Literature might also play a part, with children's stories about the lives of the poor and disadvantaged told with a political edge rather than a patronising one. Environmental education concerns itself (at the curriculum margins, it has to be said) with sustainability, habitat, biodiversity and so on. Without wishing to play these down, it is a neocolonial agenda, seeking to ensure that we who have do not lose pleasures in the future generations. Environmental education does also emphasise global resources at the radical end, but the political agenda of redistribution of resources from rich to poor does not dominate in schools. It takes a disaster to encourage rich people to 'help', forgetting that our wealth is part of the reason for their poverty.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)