When dealing with questions of the metaphysical, is it really necessary to sky-rocket so very far from planet earth?

The scathing indictments of religion that have appeared in some British newspapers recently, such as the pieces of Polly Toynbee and Nick Cohen in the Guardian, are heartening to the extent that they demonstrate there are no longer any barriers to expressing such opinions. But I can't help thinking that, rather than mockery or apathy, a frank and respectful debate about what religion really means to us would be more helpful. Not with the pope of course, because you don't debate with fundamentalists, of any stripe, but rather with critical believers such as the reverend/philosopher Giles Fraser, or even Tariq Ramadan. The people who are trying to make the bridge between supposedly distinct "worlds" - like the so-called muslim world and the secular world.

This binary view has of course nothing to do with the reality, where the majority of believers from all faiths are perfectly adapted to life in "secular" societies, and are no less tolerant and open-minded than anyone else, they just happen to believe in God. To bring in a buzzword that may grate on some - hybridity has always been the "mot d'ordre" when it comes to religion, just like all other aspects of society. The fact that the main religions have become mythologised by a "purifying discourse" which paints them as sacred, coherent wholes that have eternally been that way ever since the day they were dropped from the sky, serves to obscure the fact that actually - all religions are an accumulation of a series of traditions and diverse influences that developped over time. They borrowed, shifted and evolved as much as all cultures do - because that's what they are - elements of culture.

But setting aside this assertion, which those who adhere to a faith would find it tough to swallow, elements of hybridity can be seen everywhere - whether in the surreal juxtaposition of islamisation and americanisation in the form of the "Hallal hamburger" at fast food joints in Europe, or the myriad ways in which religious people bend and alter the practices and requirements of their religions to render them compatible with their daily lives. And its not new. Practices undo discourses, and undo the notions of purity that surround systems of belief. Whether it's the extreme and rather unoriginal example of a priest molesting a child, or the trivial case of a Jew using a phone on the sabbath, the reality is not cut and dried, it's a messy muddle full of complexities and compromises.

We are not dealing with seperate worlds, as becomes abundantly clear whenever a few precious moments of press coverage are devoted to moderates, or in the proofs we encounter in our own lives that actually, co-existence in diversity is not only possible, its incredibly enriching. But as well as that, its incredibly mundane. We all know Muslims who are completely "European" in cultural terms, or Christians who practice their faith without judging anyone else. These people exist, we all know them, it's incredibly banal and yet it's the only thing capable of exposing the nonsense of the debate monopolised by extremists. It's not a lie to show pictures of people draped in stars and stripes holding up anti-islamic placards in NYC, nor is it a lie to show a pastor saying he wants to burn a Koran (well, now you mention it...) Those people exist too, those events are actually happening (or not happening, as the case may be). But it's disinformation to the extent that it ignores the other realities, which are not only far, far more prevalent, but also far more useful in constructing a meaningful, nuanced debate. What we have instead is the battle of imaginary "worlds" and general hysteria on all sides. Which is wholly unneccesary. Many religious people are not fundamentalists and do not seek to impose their beliefs on others. Many secularists respect the important role religion has in the lives of many and are not stubbornly campaigning for its abolition. There is nothing mutually exclusive here. So why whould we be placed in opposition to one another?

The pope's visit, thus far, seems to have been the occasion for mud-slinging in all directions, with secularists being blunt and sometimes mocking in their dismissals of religion, and then Catholics - predictably - defending themselves, often by attacking the atheists in return. Not only is this disconnected from the reality, it is a serious missed opportunity, to have a calm and respectful discussion, either about the metaphysical dimensions of the existence of God, which is always a fun one, or the place of religion in European society in the face of declining religiosity yet increasing fundamentalism and religiously-based identities. Is that too boring or too subtle for people to hear? Or for journalists to write about? Apparently so. If entertainment is the only imperative, then perhaps this justifies limiting the "debate" to caricatures, which are arguably easier to process, and certainly necessitate less thought to grasp.

So now we have Richard Dawkins and the Pope representing two warring worlds. This is the conclusion I would come to if I were a lifeform from another planet, who mistakenly landed on earth and decided to pass the time by perusing the media in recent days. This being said, I do have some sympathy for Toynbee's statement that,

"All atheists now tend to be called "militant", yet we seek to silence none, to burn no books, to stop no masses or Friday prayers, impose no laws, asking only free choice over sex and death."

But of course it can't be true. If all atheists want is unlimited free choice then those who levy charges of relativism and amorality against them would be spot on. Of course atheists want laws. They advocate tolerance but even that must be restricted, because obviously not everything can be tolerated. But the point is, the "we" which Toynbee uses to generalise about all atheists is as absurd as the "we" appropriated by religious spokespeople in the name of all the faithful. Atheists are scattered across a spectrum of values, they are no more a monolithic bloc than any other kind of "imaginary community". But it's an almost irresistible shorthand, and one I am equally prone to making myself. I advocate the view that allowing a few to speak in the name of many is always dangerous, or at the very least problematic. Carving up the world into blocs denies the realities which are evidenced by our own experiences. But its a tricky predicament and I don't have the solution. I would just like to see the debate opened. The kind of debate where each speaks frankly to his/her convictions, and the mud is left at the door.

The shortcuts which lead us round in circles

By way of context: One of the privileges of an interning stint at the African Museum is the unlimited access it grants to a much mythologised place I have always been fascinated and enchanted by (even as I learned more about its rather sinister past and associations). Hopefully this, and the fact of having moved from a position of looking at culture to “doing” culture, should provide ample food for thought, with which to nourish and sustain this much neglected little blog, over the coming months.

It’s been 50 years since the Congo gained its independence from Belgium. A milestone the museum has decided to mark on a jubilant, celebratory note, with a series of exhibitions of the central one “Independence!”, is a cursory but colourful look back over those 50 years.

Visiting it however, left me with rather mixed feelings. Trying to put my finger on a way of articulating how I felt about it, I decided to search for inspiration by apprehending the reaction of the visitors who’d preceded me, by means of a leaf through the guestbook. Therein I found surprisingly strong words of indignation and outrage from a number of English speaking visitors. While I can’t recall the exact formulations, damning words like “truth”, “genocide”, “8 million dead”, “shameful”, and “atrocities” were some that stuck in my mind. My initial reaction, in defence of the expo, if not the museum, was that such harsh criticism was unfair, that such details did not strictly belong in an exhibition chronicling the independence of the Congo from just a few years prior to 1960 up until the present day. That these belonged elsewhere.

I did enjoy the abstract and artistic quality of the expo, which contained lots of artworks, poems, music, artefacts and references to cultural and social movements. The problem is, when it comes to delicate issues where questions of politics and moral responsibility are being deliberately kept at arm’s length, the line between what is benignly allegorical and what is insidiously euphemistic, becomes a tricky one to place.

And it’s certainly not that there is nothing to read in the expo. In fact the volume of text – contained largely in reproductions of newspaper articles from around 1960, as well as a great deal of detail about historical events leading up to independence – is somewhat overwhelming.

The main problem, as I identified it, is that there is very little in the way of concrete or coherent explanations of two key processes following independence.

Firstly, the process of “hollowing out” of the state after colonialism, the dynamics and logics (such as corruption, nepotism and clientelism) accounting for the extent of economic collapse in the years that followed, due to a systematised policy of extraction under Mobutu on such a scale that it has been described as “kleptocracy” – rule by thieves. It is illustrated with paintings and caricatures, where African politicians are portrayed as predatory animals, but the words explaining it in black and white are missing. The artworks are illustrations to a story that, if you don’t have it in mind already, the museum is not going to tell you, and as a result are essentially of artistic value rather than also being complements to a narrative elucidating history, which would have provided a far fuller explanation.

Secondly, another delicate issue ignored almost totally is the situation of considerable instability, violence and unrest currently affecting areas of the Congo. There is no attempt to give a coherent explanation of the roots of the ethnic tensions, which ties into the woes of a number of other countries such as Rwanda, and making the link would have been helpful, not to say important.

Both of these are serious missed opportunities. But not only that, leaving them out means that one leaves the expo feeling as if a crucial piece of the puzzle, or part of the story has been missed out. At the end of the expo we are faced with a series of testimonies from second generation Congolese immigrants living in Belgium, young adults who express their qualms or inability to “celebrate” the anniversary of independence in light of the ongoing misery in terms of poverty and conflict still plaguing the Congo. But the museum, with its colourful displays and collages of upbeat, celebratory headlines, has not explained to us why this is so. The dissonance, the incongruity is striking and irreconcilable, and as a result the expo just doesn’t quite make sense. The story it is trying to tell doesn’t hold up.

So why leave out a clear and neutral full description of historical events, containing the details needed to make sense of how the story ends? Maybe because someone with a degree of forethought worked out that to explain the mess the Congo is in today requires an explanation of the mess Mobutu made, which in turn requires an explanation of the logics of colonialism of which he was the inheritor. And this is where we get back to all that unfortunate genocide business.

Such is the nature of the postcolonial condition: it is pervasive, and no aspect of Congolese society, culture, or recent history can be meaningfully explained without reference to it. This is the intractable problem which this place just can’t seem to escape.

The Semantics of Jan Moir

I've recently been doing a lot of reading about Stereotypes, mainly as part of research for a presentation we had to give to a class of german schoolchildren. It's always a bit delicate dealing with Stereotypes, even when approaching it from a "scientific" or academic perspective. And I couldn't help but feel there was something a bit gratuitous about showing images depicting fat american tourists, lederhosen-clad beer-drinkers, or little slanty-eyed yellow people in pointy hats, even if it was all with the intention of pointing out how they appear in the various fora we looked up. The critical distinction between "using" and "mentioning" stereotypes is often tricky to pinpoint exactly, and sometimes either can leave a bad taste in the mouth.

Anyway, for the purposes of the presentation, we looked primarily at national stereotypes. But of course stereotypes don't stop at political geography, and I recently came across a beautiful illustration of another kind at work. According to Michael Pickering, possibly the most intractable and enduring stereotype about women centres around the madonna/whore dichotomy. The two impossibly unrealistic extremes are both given a nice reinforcing boost in this article, by the now notorious daily mail columnist Jan Moir (of course the only excuse for reading the Daily Mail is to read it like a sociologist, under the pretence of "phishing" for such perfect examples of discursive practices in action, and one seldom has to look very far).

So on the one hand we have the immaculately turned out perfect wives, who've never faltered in their lives, either in terms of their irreproachable behaviour or flawless appearance. They are the long-suffering mothers of the children, pure embodiments of goodness. And at the other end of the axis of female persona, we have the the cheap, classless, fame-hungry skanks, the inscrupulous home-wreckers and diabolical seductresses.

Moir then proceeds to drag her common thread through the lives of a series of celebrity couples, who all seem to fit this dichotomy, and makes her point by ramming the opposition down our throats over and over again, attributing to both breeds of women quite astonishing epithetes, free from any nuance or mitigating factors. Nowhere are Cheryl Cole's previous misdemeanous mentioned, such as the incident of violent assault. Here she is "a woman who millions regard as the nation’s sweetheart." Following a jaw-droppingly crude metaphore likening women to pieces of meat, she is the "prime organic" steak to the "battery hens" with whom Ashley Cole committed his numerous indiscretions. Continuing with the animal metaphore, they are "the kind of Premier League lemmings who would throw themselves off a cliff for the chance to be with a footballer."

Then there's "Princess Sandra", whose husband chose to consort with "the kind of girls whom you might expect to find raking the sawdust between acts at the circus" - whatever they look like. Tattooed, apparently.

And then there's the woman who inspired the whole article in the first place, Ronan Keating's recently revealed mistress, Francine who, "has none of Mrs Keating’s glacial beauty, nor her unmistakable air of a sophisticated, sorted woman. Instead, Francine is a faint echo of Yvonne. She is Yvonne-lite. She is the splash of cologne to Yvonne’s drop of eau du parfum."

Just to bring home her point one last time, Moir launches a final tirade of oppositions, directed at the "other women" frequented by the men in question - "almost without fail they appear to be a bargain-basement version of the wife left behind; the counterfeit alternative to the real thing, the Primark to her Prada, the pedalo to her magnificent, ocean-going yacht." Tellingly, now even the animal anaology has been dropped in favour of mere inanimate objects, or shopping and boat metaphores, to characterise these wretched characters.

For Moir it seems there are two kinds of women - the exemplary kind and the fallen kind. It is not clear how exactly one ends of up in either camp, perhaps some kind of genetic pre-disposition from birth. But there is only one kind of man - the kind that makes mistakes, and sometimes gets forgiven. The human kind.

3 Little Reviews

Marina and the diamonds

First heard her when she did a very simple version of "I am not a robot" on the Culture show. Just her and a keyboardist, I believe it was. A very minimalist sort of showcase for her and her voice, almost pretentiously so, it seemed to me at the time. I haven't found the exact performance online, but I suppose it was quite similar to this one, only with more make-up and minus the maraccas.

Maybe it was the make-up that put me off, or perhaps her stary eyes or bizarre gesticulations... in any case I was deeply unconvinced. Of course because the whole thing was so unusual and stuck in my mind, I went back to it some time later, and after several more listens, became slightly obsessed. It's definitely the voice, more specifically the way she switches from the gritty deep end to absolutely entrancingly beautiful high notes that sound quintessentially classical - like a soprano choirgirl/boy.

In the end I caved in and bought the album, but I still can't claim to be familiar with all of it. "Hollywood" is a song that makes her seem not so original after all, but then there's songs like Mowgli's Road, when she's back to her idiosyncratic, slightly disturbing form, in terms of everything - the video, voice and lyrics. And that character seems to run through most of everything else she's been putting out. She's not quite like Marmite, because I manage to love and sort of hate it at once, rather than veering towards one extreme or the other, and she's not quite like a "disturbing yet can't look away" car crash scenario either. If I could think of a metaphore for something that is at once exquisitely and classically beautiful and yet strangely surprising in an alarming sort of way, then I'd have nailed it.

Bat For Lashes

Bat for Lashes, like Marina and the Diamonds, and Florence and the Machine, is another one of those ambiguous "is it a band or is it just her?" specimens. And in all 3 cases, it's the latter. So Bat for Lashes aka Natasha Khan has much in common with Marina, they both have interesting heritage, make bizarre videos, and have voices that don't come around too often. I first heard Natasha singing "Use somebody" (which incidentally was the first time I heard that song sung by anyone). Although I have a great deal of time for Marina, I think she has a little way to go compared with Natasha. Marina's output is somewhat inconsistent in that you get something mind-altering like "I'm Not a Robot" and then you get blandness.com in the shape of "Hollywood". Much more hit and miss than Natasha, who's records - if the one I have is anything to go by, form coherent, intelligible wholes in which each element plays an essential constitutive part. What I love about the "Two Suns" album is that there is something that runs all the way through it, a thread, a theme - that seems also to have been present in her earlier stuff. Much of it appears to be in the realm of dreams, the surreal, and fairytales. But it is not just airy notions of clouds and castles in the sky, there are also nightmares. And songs like "Siren Song" especially testify to the presence of a threatening alter-ego, a sinister dark side and the constant risk of falling into the abyss.

I'm not gonna lie, a lot of the songs I haven't found to be nearly so accessible and it's still something I'm working on. But I must say, in these

days of autotune it's refreshing to hear voices which do not sound completely generic, and I so often end up adoring things that on a first listen absolutely appall me. It is useful to remember I suppose, that we are as much conditioned to appreciate a certain type of sound as we are to appreciate a certain kind of beauty and it's always worth trying to step out of that, to the extent that it's possible.

The XX

A band who've been on the circuit for a while, but I never claimed to be avant-garde. No such mixed reactions as with the two above, heard it on the radio and fell instantly under the mesmerising spell of the haunting, down-beat "Crystallised". Getting a bit more familiar with the band was initially dissapointing, as again - the rest of the stuff is less easily accessible as the songs which are picked up for radio-play... But the voice of the male singer, Olli, is one I could happily listen to all day even if he were singing the phonebook. Romy I have more difficulty with, she has a manner of speaking that comes across when she sings in a way that bothers me, but I'm learning to get past it, or at least learning to force myself to.

This is a band that, the more I learn about them, the more I appreciate them. Having watched the video for Crystallised, which is absolutely perfect, most of what I read makes perfect sense. The idea of childhood friends Romy and Olli exchanging lyrics over skype because it's "too personal" to bear doing it in person, is at once incredibly poignant and also something so typical of the internet age, in which everything becomes remote, and which of course has completely revolutionised the whole process of making music, and the music itself. The New Yorker reviewer who said that "These are songs to be sung inches from someone’s ear, preferably with the lights off" was spot on. They absolutely are. But they are also lyrics that seem to have been dragged out of their creators, the reluctant poets who cannot even look at each other when they are singing them, because it's just too close to the bone (the video for Crystallised for instance, has them all facing forwards looking rather dazed, in the shadows, while pictures of the sky are projected across their faces.

There's something anonymous and almost robotic about the delivery, yet when you're listening to it, it just drips with sentimentality and feeling. Because the arangements are so stripped-down however, there is nowhere to hide the lyrics, but cleverly they found a way of circumventing that problem by singing over each other, at the same time, something they explain here: There's something about that which has a wonderful stiff-upper lip quality that might just be unique to the Brits, a kind of typical English repressedness, whereby some things are just too emotionally-laden to say, at least with the lights on.

I know, I know.

I wanted to keep to keep a safe distance from the polemics and the politics, and I've tried. But this is too much. So now it seems this blog has come full circle and I am back where I started - fuming over the Have Your Say pages of the BBC news website. But hopefully this will be just a one off, a very angry interlude, a rant - if you will.

So. Nutshell. Ricky Martin announces he's gay. The BBC tentatively inquires - "Does coming out affect careers?". Discuss.

Some responses:

"Today, being gay is no big deal. It is legal and accepted (except by some churches).

All this "coming out" business is getting sooo boring...."

"Like we hadn't already guessed. Who cares anyway."

"Those of us, from gay rights campaigners to complete bigots,who still care about a persons sexuality still make too big a deal of it.

The rest of us, maybe even the majority, could'nt give a fig what others get up to."

"What a ridiculous HYS. Bad enough you printed such a non-story in the first place.....now you want us to discuss the non-story?"

"Why do people think that a lot of us care what someones sexual orientation is. Its like an announcement that no-one really gives too much of a fig about. His music was boring before the annoucement imho and will probably continue to be middle of the road durge now this oh so major announcement has been made.

Oh just for the record Im hetrosexual, wow, thats interesting, but you really didn't need to know that did you?"

We're still in the first ten posts, by the way, no selective digging around required here.

FIRST OFF - Fig - really? Is this the BBC's automated way of correcting profanity, or is linguistic propriety making a comeback?

Second - Answer the damn question! Unless I'm mistaken, it wasn't phrased in such a way as to sollicit personal opinions about gay people in general - re-read the question and then look me in the eye and tell me the answer isn't obviously YES!

SHOCKING.

These responses from supposedly educated, intelligent and perhaps well-intentioned BBC news readers leave me in absolute consternation.

I am at a complete loss as to why people so apathetic to the issue bother to comment it in such numbers to voice their apathy when someone has clearly just left an identical response before them. Maybe they don't bother reading the rest of the posts. Good for them.

NO. Of course we don't need to know you're a goddamn heterosexual. Because being a heterosexual is not going to get you harassed in Poland, beaten up in Istanbul, or executed in Uganda!

IS that not worth perhaps a moment's discussion without people getting enraged about their time being wasted or being interrogated about such insignificant matters?

Ricky Martin, incidentally, happens to come from the predominantly Roman Catholic country of Puerto Rico, and I presume a large proportion if not the majority of his record sales were from Latin America - also a Roman Catholic stronghold in places, or so I hear. MAYBE just MAYBE an eyebrow or two will be raised. Not by BBC readers of course, because they are far, far above all that trivial nonsense.

And most of the irate respondents seem to have overlooked the fact that the question was not even about Martin! It was about the repercussions of coming out in general, which clearly has an impact in the regions I've just mentioned.

Not in the UK? Tell that to Jan Moir.

The worst kind of homophobia is the kind from patronising bigots, like Alain Soral, telling gay people they are not allowed to complain or even say anything related to their sexuality because "nobody cares" about it anymore. Any discrimination is all in your imagination because we couldn't give a "fig" what you get up to in your private lives. You'd love to think we have a problem with you - but we don't!

WHich, while we're at it, mirrors the worst, most insidious kind of misogyny or sexism. Put on the blinkers and ignore the bigger picture kind of tactic. Don't be an idiot - just because you're above caring doesn't mean people couldn't possibly feel discriminated against in any form, because, crazy as it might sound, you are not the world.

And what I find most nauseating is the ARROGANCE of people who aren't even in the position to make a meaningful comment to fume about how uneccesary the discussion is! It reminds me of the response of the white people in Jane Elliot's "Blue eyes" experiment in the UK. Along the lines of - this is pointless, there is no more racism in the UK, why are we even having this debate, etc. Oh and by the way, I happen to be white. While the Afro-Carribean lady in the corner fidgeted and said nothing, or occasionally dared to venture a cross-word which I couldn't make out because the indignant white folks were speaking over her so loudly.

Walk a mile in my shoes, and then tell me I am not entitled to complain. But in the meantime, and I've said this before, DON'T TELL US WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT.

Painting by numbers

Last weekend I was in Paris where I received a more than satisfactory dose of haute culture. One of the places I visited was the Institut du Monde Arabe, and its current exhibition of Islamic art. This expo consisted of the stupefyingly extensive personal collection of a Nasser Khalili, composed of objects originating from all over the Islamic world, throughout the ages. Cases and cases of beautifully adorned manuscripts, absolutely jaw-dropping pieces of jewellry, all kinds of objects adorned with myriad styles and patterns... You get my drift. It was almost overkill. Especially in comparison with the sweet little exhibit I visited at Krakow's Ethnographic museum a few months ago. A much more modest assemblage, but beautifully presented and very eloquently and simply explained. I have to say if I had to recommend one of the two, I'd opt for Krakow, despite its humble size and scope in comparison to the reams of scintillating (and closely-guarded - no photos allowed!) treasures housed in the Arab Institute.

The reason for this is that, although displaying an ostensibly less impressive collection, the ethnographic museum was far mor successful in its attempt to explain and make sense of its subject. Admittedly, its scope was more limited, far less variety than I saw in Paris, but in a way that helped to keep it manageable for the mind, to get one's head around it.

The main angle of the Krakow expo was the idea that behind the abstract, geometrical patterns which adorn and characterise many examples of art and ornaments from the Islamic world (as well as more lowly household objects), are all intensely symbolic references to the divine and metaphysical, and testify to a very advanced and subtle understanding of the universe. This is art by mathematicians. And very devout ones at that.

Although the Paris expo took exception to the idea, let's imagine that broadly speaking, it is considered poor form to portray the human figure in art in the Islamic world, and unthinkable to try to create the image of religious symbols such as God or Mohammed. So in light of this prohibition, Muslim artists elaborated a profound and elegantly simple scheme of abstract symbols to convey a certain vision of the universe, and faith, in their images and adornments. A means to infuse their creations with meaning.

The presentation of the exhibit was fantastic, first of all. The space which houses the expo in Krakow was symmetrical in itself. A room divided into five sections, each of which dealt with a number, and examples of art and ornaments where this particular number was in evidence, accompanied with a succint explanation of the symbolic connotations. Something along the lines of, 1 is for God, the beginning and the end, 2 is the dualism, the symmetrical opposition between men & women, holy and human, light & darkness. 3 is the triangle, symbol of man and consciousness, a highly significant number for the Islamic faith, as awell as its multiples (the 99 names of Allah, for instance). 4 refers to the material world, shapes like the cube, square and cross, the four sides of the Kaba, the 4 elements and the cosmos. And 5 of course harks to the five pillars of Islam, commonly seen in the shape of the Hand of Fatima motif, or the five-pointed star which symbolises community of all Muslims in recognition of the fundamental principles of the faith. And so forth. So now you know.

If it sounds like an overly-simplistic, boiled down interpretation of the meanings behind these elaborate creations then I'm sure it is, to some extent. But I really enjoyed the clarity that it provided. A way of shining light on the schematical universe of symbols in the aesthetics of Islam, of stripping away the pretentiousness and obfuscation. It was extremely unpretentious. Unnecessarily so, since the pieces themselves were absolutely breathtaking. I've always been a fan of abstract patterns, but I'd never seen anything like this before. Truly someone who is capable of elaborating creations like the ones which adorn some of the most beautiful mosques in the world, must have a certain grasp of the scale of the universe, of infinity.

And a little cursory research shows that indeed, there are field days to be had by people whose intellect allows them to take a keen & informed interest in issues of abstract religious art and, say, quasi-crystalline geometry. The science of snowflakes. I so I imagine it would be.

The main angle of the Paris expo was perhaps an effort to counter stereotypes and generalisations about the Islamic world, to convey the diversity and richness of its artistic endeavour. The message being - don't take anything for granted. If so it is a noble objective. But one which is perhaps more conducive to frustration, confusion and unease. It was certainly far less accesssible than the ethnographic museum. In any case, I'm very glad I had visited the Krakow as an "introduction to the field" as it were, it definitely provided me with a basis in the matter, a kind of roadmap for deciphering and decoding the vast number of artefacts displayed in the Arab Institute.

“They Called Me Mayer July”

In Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter in Krakow, there is a very renowned & well put together little museum called the Galicia Jewish Museum which contains lots of interesting documentation including an extensive collection of photographs chronicling the past of the Jewish community in Krakow and throughout the Galicia region (which used to include parts of what is now Ukraine). While I was there, there was also an exhibition showcasing the work of Mayer Kirshenblatt, a Canadian citizen who was born in Opatow, a small Polish town once home to a thriving Jewish community, like many Polish towns were, but moved to Canada with his family for economic reasons, shortly before the Holocaust began. Mayer's work, produced many decades later, portrays his own experiences of growing up in Opatow, as he recalls them.

The collection of paintings constitutes a different type of commemoration than memorials to the dead, the immortalised places of suffering which are captured in the photographs of the museum or the physical remains of places like Auschwitz, or the restored Jewish graveyards. Its subject is life rather than death, and arguably that moment of life that is most vivid and colourful, childhood – perhaps the time when we are most impressionable, most attentive and curious about our surroundings, most “alive”.

This seems to be true for Mayer, as not only has he conserved an astonishingly detailed and clear picture in his mind of his childhood moments, his depictions seem to come directly from the child he used to be, as even his style of painting is reminiscent of the way a child paints. Schematical, simple, and not pre-occupied with resembling too closely the reality. The style is one which is completely untainted by any grief related to the tragedy of events which were to follow, since Mayer and his family left Opatow before the holocaust. As a result, his style is infused with a kind of childish innocence, depicting stories that are also full of the small joys of everyday life, in spite of elements of adversity.

I found this exhibition to be a refreshing and rejuvenating take on the Jewish life that used to inhabit Kazimierz. Rather than mourning what has been lost, it celebrates what once was. It presents an impossibly idyllic view of a place, in such a way that Mayer’s clear love for his old home shines through the portraits, nostalgic but not romanticised yearning for this place and a time that he left behind, and could never return to.

Nowa Huta and Laznia Nowa Theatre

One of the most striking experiences of the past few months I have spent in Poland, was our little class excursion to Nowa Huta - an industrial district just on the outskirts of the city of Krakow. The area has gained notoriety for its embodiment of the old Soviet notion of a socialist utopia. The whole town was built around the steelworks, which where then a central part of the Communist industrial endeavours, and the associated ideology. Perfectly symmetrical, the area is a show-piece of the Communist style of building - with little grey blocs of identical flats lining the geometrically set out roads.

For me, it was an extremely revealing and eye-opening experience in that it amounted to my first encounter with the concepts of culture, art and architecture being used so overtly as means to an end. Because Nowa Huta is a place where culture was employed as tool (and was even explicitly described as such by Lenin). The objective was to infuse a newly created population with an ideology and a particular way of life deriving from that. The idea of achieving this goal directly through architecture was entirely novel to me, and I was very much struck by how much of an impact it can evidently have, as demonstrated by Nowa Huta’s ongoing search for a clear identity now that the presence and power of communism is no longer, and the void that has been created as a result.

This is not to say that the identity and culture of Nowa Huta was ever entirely clear-cut and consensual. In fact it was witness to ideological battles played out through symbolic means, for example by the desecration of vandalism of monuments celebrating or glorifying communism and its leaders. Presumably, such actions demonstrated a symbolic challenge to the power structures they represented, one imposed from above. Yet it is hard to miss the futility of such forms of resistance, disconnected from reality to some extent, since damaging effigies obviously does not harm the individuals, or the system that they are part of. Surely the most powerless and futile form of rebellion is that which is acted out against symbols made of stone.

The Square where Lenin's monument once stood

And yet, there is something inspiring and romantic about the story of Nowa Huta. About the way there was always tension and resistance bubbling beneath the surface, understandably given that people from across the country came here and were crammed into tiny spaces together and instructed that they were now part of the great Socialist narrative, each and every one of them now living incarnations of the "new Socialist man" - an archetype perfectly envisioned in the minds of all dedicated communists, and which they tried their best to construct through creating the conditions which might bring about this social transformation - in architecture, other forms of culture, and ideology generally. However, this conversion of rural Polish peasants into dedicated members of a socialist workforce staunchy adhering to the tenets of Communist ideology was hardly a seamless one. Because it required them to give up all the out-dated & incomptable remnants of their old existance - the most consequential of these prohibitions being of course against their Catholic religion.

It is scarcely surprising then, that perhaps the greatest challenge to the power system in place was presented by the struggle of the inhabitants to build a church in their district. I have never come across such powerfully symbolic architecture as that of the “Arka” church, the result of a long and arduous struggle between residents and authorities. It is an absolutely overwhelming place that leaves one dumbfounded and humbled by its sheer scale and imposing silhouette.

The motif of the ship or ark which is floating above the barren townscape below creates a very strong impression. Inside the church is equally striking, the most impressive feature being an enormous figure of Christ, exageratedly arched forwards like a sail in the wind, face turned upwards towards the roof, as if trying to detach himself from the invisible crucifix and rise upwards. Much as I tried, there was no vantage point within the church from which I could get a view of his face.

These symbols are extremely powerful and imposing, and through them one can appreciate the importance of the place that symbolism has occupied as a means to creating and having identity in Nowa Huta. These symbols were the arms used in a battle for dominance over public space, which may sound like something too empty and abstract to be worth fighting over, but in the case of Nowa Huta clearly was not.

In this way, throughout its history Nowa Huta was a place of contestation, of ideological battles over its true identity. This can be seen also through the way monuments were removed and replaced, and streets and buildings have been renamed over time. Today Nowa Huta appears to be struggling with its mixed heritage, the difficult legacy of Communism which is very divisive and sensitive – but this is not something that is limited to Nowa Huta, rather it extends throughout the entire region where Communism was present, in varying incarnations depending on where you go. And even beyond the reaches of Communism, perhaps it is a universal phenomenon, the way the outline of a city changes, and its streets and squares are named & renamed - as power games are played out and change the images we wish to remember, and those we now want to forget.

Where Solidarnosc St meets Ronald Reagan Road

Nowa Huta seems, however, to be a rather exceptional case due to the fact that it is a place dominated by its own material form, the architecture which is immediately evocative of a certain period of time, and a certain ideology. Dissociating itself from these connotations and forging a renewed identity is not an easy task, without razing all structures to the ground and starting from scratch, but many inhabitants seem to be hopeful that renewal and regeneration can be achieved without such drastic measures, and that somehow Nowa Huta can escape its founding principles and its past.

One such attempt is being made by the founders and staff of the Laznia Nowa theatre, who regard their position in the area in terms of assets rather than limits. For them, it is a place that is liberated from the stringent cultural pre-conditions and limitations of a place such as the old town area of Krakow. The fact that it lies on the outskirts is a good metaphor for this mentality of being at the “fringes” of cultural expression, and having a more open and adventurous approach to culture. They regard their project as a challenging and exciting alternative to the cultural offerings of Krakow’s centre, which are rather more stale and conservative in nature.

Visiting the Theatre was a fantastic and unique experience, as well as a rather haunting and at times quite unnerving one, as it resembled no theatre I have ever been to. The forms of artistic expression are not limited to performances on the stage, they have flowed out into the corridors and rooms of the building, which house installations which can be listened to, watched, and touched. We were taken around the dark corridors of the theatre's basement, with dim neon lights and paint peeling of the walls, in which was a series of installations which tricked the eye into initially thinking that someone is sitting in a corner, or a homeless person sleeping on the ground. On closer inspection these forms are revealed to be clothes stuffed and propped up to resemble a human figure, sometimes partially obscured by blankets or cardboard. These figures are unconscientiously scattered around the rooms and hallways, which are furnished or unfurnished in such a way that they are reminscent of rather sinister scenes from any city, such as an abandoned, dimly lit underpass or a creaky tram compartment on the verge of falling apart.

It is around these installations that the "play" is acted out. There is nowhere to sit, and no division of the space, so the audience is compelled to stand "inside" the scene. Surprising and sometimes frightening, it is certainly a unique setting for showcasing new and experimental forms of culture, and hopefully will serve as an inspiration for members of the community, and a catalyst for developing new talent of young artists.

What is most impressive about the place is that Lasnia Nowa is so profoundly in contact with, and dependent upon its surrounding, for its very relevance and form. And far from taking anything away from the theatre's image, its significance and symbolism are greatly enhanced by the context. For the director of the theatre, Bartosz Szydlowski, this is the greatest challenge for a cultural institution – not to be “knotted in its own monologue” but rather responding dynamically & reacting, listening to the realities surrounding it. The Theatre was recently relocated from the trendy Jewish district of Kazimierz to Nowa Huta, where it could find more space and lower prices. But it gained something else aswell. Szydlowski speaks of the "power of anonymous grey space" that is "present but not participating". According to him, there are "energies and heroism present in Nowa Huta", even likening it to Greek mythology.

Another Church in Nowa Huta - this one appears to have been inspired by the chemical structure of molecules

Perhaps Laznia Nowa has caught onto and harnessed a key method for Nowa Huta to discover and define itself anew – experimentation. Subversion of classical, typical and expected forms of culture, to replace it with unexpected and challenging new forms, seems like a means through which new inspiration and meanings can be uncovered. In this way perhaps Nowa Huta can create a new cultural frame of reference, leaving behind old associations and turning itself into something that has never been expected of it.

This is where it all starts...

Sometime after I first arrived in Krakow, I was wandering around the Market Square, just taking in the atmosphere of my new surroundings. I came across an outdoor exhibition called Nowa Europa (New Europe). I stopped to take a closer look, at these images which taught me a greal deal about my new home, and how it feels about itself and its neighbours.

The exhibition subverts the hopeful but trite "New Europe" slogan bandied around by the EU, evoking the "accession states" as bringers of a rejuvenation for Europe or rather to their counterparts - "old Europe", marketing enlargement as an injecton of youthful dynamism into a creaky, stale old structure that was in desperate need of a new lease of life. These are the motifs which come to mind, or at least to my mind, when I hear the words "New Europe". Hope. Novelty. Youth. Dynamism. Growth. Future.

Łukasz Trzciński paints - or rather photographs - a very different kind of picture. His is no shiny, brand "New Europe" brimming with potential and enthusiasm for the future.
It is a most revealing auto-portrait of Poland and its mother-region, Eastern Europe. And while depicting neighbouring countries in unflattering lights could be regarded as petty vindictiveness, this charge cannot be levelled at Trzciński, since he includes his own nation in the statement he is making, including Poland as a member sharing in the intangible melancholy of the whole region.

Out of all the aspects of Poland which could have been showcased, Trzciński chooses Nowa Huta steelworks, the old soviet symbol and flagship town which embodied the socialist Utopia. Now a sad, grey, impoverished and isolated district of the city, striking in its wide empty streets lined with identical square grey blocs. But I won't elaborate further, as my own visit to Nowa Huta and subsequent impressions will be the object of a later post.

And Poland is not the only country that is represented by an uneasy subject matter. Empty shops in Bulgaria, bunkers in Albania, unspeakable architecture in Slovakia, and the alienated, marginalised Russian minority in Estonia, are all put in the spotlight as the selected theme to represent their host nations.

It is as if they've taken something about each country that is dislocated, ugly, broken. As if these objects, places, people speak for their countries, forming a broader narrative of discontent that engulfs half a continent.

My initial reaction was to regard it as a manifestation of the typical "East-european" impulse for self-deprecation and pessimism. A typically bleak and sombre outlook on themselves and their region which smacked uncomfortably of martyrdom. For even if Poland paints itself in such unflattering shades, masochistically putting its most desolate and difficult face forward for all to see, it is not a country without nationalism or patriotism. Only it is not the self-celebrating, narcissistic patriotism as seen in a country like Turkey, for example. The Poles do not go in for that kind of self-glorification, perhaps because they already know the cost. Perhaps because they would be able to see through themselves. Or maybe - it is just not in their nature.

I don't think Poland's vision of itself is entirely without an element of martyrdom. There is a kind of ubiquotous bitterness that permeates culture and conversations, a sense of feeling repeatedly wronged or betrayed, the "God's playground" vision of Poland as one of my lecturers so frequently puts it, and an accompanying futility, that rapidly becomes a little heavy and a little tiresome.

However, this exhibition is illustrative of a more complex phenomenon in the Polish quest to define its own identity. It is that strange combination of nostalgia and pain. A fundamental, deep-rooted dualism that I first became aware of when listening to some young Romanians speaking about their mixed feelings with regard to the legacy of communism. It was an experience which struck me profoundly, and helped me understand something important about the mindset of those who inhabit the other end of my own continent, which I would otherwise have remained completely oblivious to. The ongoing internal and collective wrestling with the intractable paradox of a deep and intense anger about communism for the destruction it wrought and the oppression it led to, and yet a recurring nostalgia for those aspects of life which were better "back then".

These pictures are indicative at once of a country that feels lost and is groping for an identity in the void left by a powerful, dark presence which used to rule every aspect of life and has now abandoned them, as well as something which is profoundly defining of their identity. Disillusion that life has not improved as much as could have been hoped for. A sense of resignation that nothing really changes, that one form of oppression merely succeeds another. And this I believe goes a long way to explain the tricky question of Polish euro-skepticism and non-participation. It is the reason why "New Europe" is such a strange way to speak about this place, these countries, and their peoples who have undergone such trials, and who in many ways are so world-weary as to seem and feel a thousand years older than "old Europe".