Will the Wolf Survive?

One of the fine things about the internet is, that one can have information about issues in a far away part of the world that would otherwise, if ever, only be available by extensive travel or studies in archives after the event. But, with the use of the internet, one can have an impression of what is going on in, say the Rocky Mountains, whilst sitting at home in a village located at the northeast end of the so called Lower Austrian – Styrian alps.
The upcoming governmental elections in Idaho caught my interest, because of some of the would-be candidates' profile. It is clear, they are inhabitants of a mountainous region, so most of the images on the “home”-section of their respective homepages show them before the background of a huge mountain. If not depicted on horse-back, at least, it is confirmed (of most) of the men, that they went fishing and hunting from their very childhood days. As this is USA, and neither California nor East-coast, the religious affiliation of the candidates plays some role, to be modest. Interestingly, three of the candidates for being a candidate have some relationship to The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS, or “Mormons”).
The one who will surely not win the campaign, has already left the church to which he has converted before. LDS members have not been strict enough in certain issues to meet his standards, as it seems. Independent candidate Marvin “Pro Life” Richardson runs an organic strawberry farm. His web-page clearly shows, that nobody donates for his campaign and that he can’t make a living on growing strawberries. This is why he has to rely on social security for supplying his family, which does not hinder him to be an outspoken opponent to social security. A pro-life activist, he changed his name to “Pro-Life” during the 2006 electoral campaign, as he had not been granted to be listed as Marvin “Pro Life” on the ballot. As “Pro-Life” was not printed on the ballot (being a program and not a name in the eyes of the government) and the Constitutional Party for which he believed to be a candidate denied him that status, there was a blank line on the ballot: no name, no party. In an article in the capital’s newspaper he is quoted with a very realistic opinion about his chances in the next run: "If I win, I'll ask for a recount.“
There is yet another truly independent candidate, a nice lady, Jana Kemp, but I guess, lacking any background in fishing, hunting, cowboy-ness and not living on a ranch (at least nothing about that on her home-page), even the photograph of her waving the American flag with the indispensable mountain in the background won’t help. She has a kind of “American legacy”–approach, that differs strongly from the other (serious) candidates with their “Idaho-ness”. Born a Pennsylvanian and having moved around the USA, she has nothing to offer to Idaho than “Philadelphia” being the “City of Brotherly Love” and having lived in Minnesota, “home of Paul Bunyan” (see Fargo by the Coen brothers for that). How will she be able to step in against the ruling governor, C. L. “Butch” Otter, living on a ranch with his wife and three children, and, a member of both “the Roman Catholic Church” and “the National Rifle Association”, as his homepage informs us (RCC being the biggest single church in the state, although outweighed by Protestants as a whole – but they are that divided into denominations…). Amongst other highlights in his biography, he has also been, quite unbeatable, “elected to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Board of Directors in Oklahoma City".
Idaho being Republican, what or whom would he have to fear? Jana Kemp, whose supporters attest her to be “a fresh voice for Idaho politics […] genuine, informed, responsible, and caring“ and able to do away with „the ‘good ol’ boy’ network of Idaho politics“? The question is, whether this will be changed from without or from within, by the other Republicans opting in. There is Ron “Pete” Preston, obviously a clown with no real ambition at all, and Sharon Ullman, a woman whose profile is to oppose the (if we believe her homepage) somewhat “patriarchal” style of “Old Boy Butch” and the promise to lower taxes.
But how to do that? If you want to decrease taxes, you will first have to decrease governmental expenditures. And here, the real Slim Shady steps into view. Rex Rammell, the man to push Idaho and the country further, by going back to the real foundation of this great nation. Religion. He has the promise “I will lower your taxes” written on his homepage and his “favorite quote about America" by Tocqueville, saying (more or less) that religious righteousness is the backbone of the nation. There is more than an echo of that quotation in his “Ten Principles”, that start with "America was established by God for a righteous people. If America turns away from God she will fail" and "The Constitution was inspired by God. The original principles set forth within its body are true and when strictly adhered to will keep us free." The further principles display a common “liberal” understanding of the order of state and federation: community should provide for what individuals can’t do, state for community and federation for state. This can be reduced to securing free trade, as we learn in principle 8: “Capitalism advocates the principles of competition and choice in a free market setting and if allowed to operate without government interference is a proven formula for prosperity“.
Here we have it, prosperity gospel in a nutshell: God will regulate the market due to the worthiness of the competitors. Dr. Rammell (a veterinarian) is also straight to the point in explaining how these principles will work in federal and state policy (hopefully he will never make it to federal politics, so I can stick to his visions of how to run the state): Cut taxes – how? Principally, a sympathetic suggestion: cut the size of the government. But how to do that? The simple (in all senses, including naivité) answer is, to reduce the responsibilities of the government: no welfare program required, we just “shift the responsibility from government to families, churches, and charitable organizations“. Health insurance?: „must move towards private Health Savings Accounts in order to lower premiums and shift responsibility to individuals and doctors“ (he really believes in the God of the unregulated market). Education? To put it simply: „Eliminate the Federal education program“. Parents are responsible for education, in Rex Rammell’s view. All that done, we will have to make Idaho a safe and homely place again, thus Nr. 6 of his proposals: „Deport all illegal immigrants“, and, to be sure that no taxes are wasted, the ones who wish to stay, should „do so through a state guest worker program. However, they must pay for their own health insurance, pay to use our public school system, and stay out of our welfare lines“.
Is there a right to enslave people in God’s own country? Did he not read his bible well? Leviticus 19, 33-34 says (New International Version): "When an alien lives with you in your land, do not ill-treat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." After having claimed, that English should be the "official language" of Idaho (I opt for Shoshone, just to remind Mr. Rammell of his status as the offspring of immigrants), he goes on to demand that nuclear power plants are being built: "Idaho can be America’s leader in nuclear power, creating new jobs and providing cheap clean energy for Idaho and the surrounding states". Nevertheless, he has not finished his immigrant issue. I have wondered about the percentage of Spanish-speaking immigrants to Idaho, as it is not located at the "Crystal Frontier" , but at the Canadian. Dr. Rammell, who owns an elk-farm, this time in due accordance with biblical metaphors (although I think, he does not even understand what a metaphor is, not to speak about reading biblical texts as allegories or metaphors), points to the true enemy of the righteous Idahoan capitalist: The Canadian Wolf, in declaring: "Remove all Canadian wolves from Idaho. The wolves continue to slaughter Idaho’s big game herds, kill and maim livestock and pets, and are dangerous to Idahoans. If Idaho's mountains are to be safe for people and if our big game herds are to be the envy of the world, the wolves can not stay." With the right amount of nuclear power plants, the wolves will leave anyway.
To close this really long post, I want to add, that Dr. Rammell is not representative of LDS church members’ political views. Proof: There is another Mormon opting for candidature (with the sympathetic name "Allred"), not as a Republican, but as a Democrat, and as someone who has a background in a non-partisan organisation that cares about the future of Idaho beyond ‘good ol’ boy’ networking. Here is his hp; (ranch, fishing, hunting, mountains, bunch of kids and happy wife included). The many resemblances to Austrian politics (although God is not mentioned that often in our lovely country) , I do not want to point to for the sake of brevity. Those who have eyes to see, will see.

On the Road in Southern Togo Part II

Every bad movie (and some of the good ones) has at least one sequel. So here is : On the Road in Southern Togo II, featuring the wonderful students that had to cope with the circumstances there (easy) and me (not that easy) for nearly 3 weeks. I apologise for everything (that relates to the poor quality of that clip).

NEW BLOG 4 THE KIDS

In order to stick to the "Culture & Religon" theme here, I have started a new blog dedicated to music and nothing but music. I have moved all the entries which are mainly concerned with music there (no fear, I will not start a "movies" blog).

It is called GERALD'S MUSIC and it features Nick & Polly

The First Cut Is the Deepest

The opening shot of Player (click to watch) by Robert Altman is an extremely long take with the use of crane shot technology; the most sophisticated moment in it is the reference to the famous opening take of Touch of Evil by Orson Welles. No need to sing a song of praise for one of the two directors. A person that calls himself HANK QUINLAN (!!) has posted the whole of Touch of Evil (in the so-called director's cut version) on UTube. So you can watch at least the famous opening shot and decide where the first cut is - starting the plot and ending the introduction. I strongly recommend to watch the whole movie - it is a masterpiece, not only for deep focus editing. It has a great cast, too (Marlene!), and many nice anecdotes around it. Although I do not like Charlton Heston for his supporting of the National Rifle Association, I do not think (as some others do) that he is the weak link in the chain of the cast. First, he brought in Orson Welles as director. Then, he stood in for Welles (who was fired as director of the movie in the end). Finally - at least in my opinion - he gave a convincing rendering of the policeman ruining his honeymoon for not being able to let go his job - although it was not his business at all. The latter fact as well as the further course of events is very accurately outlined in the dialogue between Vargas (Heston) and his wife (Janet Leigh) at approximately 4:55, when he says "this could be very bad for us", and she asks: "for us?" and he replies: "for Mexico". Heston surely is predestined to play the role of a stubborn man, isn't he? Truffaut and Godard did like the movie (due to them it won a price). Word has it, that they have been influenced by it. Look at the opening and go for the whole of it:

zangbeto pictures

Additional pictures taken at the Tam Tam Zangbeto on Sept. 12, 2009, by Erich Konecky. On the left we have those members of the group, that did not fear to touch the spirit or did not show enough respect to stay away from it, respectively. Thank you for the nice work you did, Erich. Excellent photographs!!!

In the center below, another image of the mask that is placed on that bundle. After looking at the video I have posted on Sept. 23, some observers have suggested, that they can see a person sitting under that bundle. Certainly, this would give a sound explanation. Maybe that picture can help to foster or to weaken that theory.

On the left side, we see a Zangbeto mask whirling around in a style that makes one wonder, how the person under that heavy mask is keeping the thing and himself in balance.

A look under the mask is feautured below. Ine coukld take that as evidence of the "no person under it - theory", but I am sure, that other explanations can be found and will be put forth.

Maybe this will influence your vote (scroll down for it to the end of the page, svp).

Zangbèto - the Magic Haystack

So I am back from the "voyage d'etude" to Togo and Benin with some really sympathetic students, my good friend Sewa Serge Sousthene Agbodjan-Prince and nice fellow citizens from Austria even beyond my age. Time to do some blogging.
Filed under "practical information", the homepage of the historical museum of Abomey, Benin, cautions the foreigner: "In some areas of the town, secret societies called Zangbèto are in charge of security from midnight to 5 a.m.: do not go out without identity papers after midnight, or else go out with an initiate."
Zangbèto is a Vodun that acts as the nightwatchman in Benin. Whilst other Vodun incorporate in female mediums, Zangbèto - like the Egungun, the spirits of the ancestors - are represented by persons covered by a "mask". Zangbèto has the shape of a haystack. On the upper left one can find a picture of a Zangbèto I have taken September 08, 2008. On that day, I have also taken some photographs of one Zangbèto walking on the water in that small village near Ouidah, Benin:
In Benin (and in Togo), the belief is widespread, that there is no person under the mask, but that the empty construction is empowered by a spirit (one person told me, the initiates were using the spirits of the newly deceased to do the job). There are explanations galore, like my favourite one from a catholic lay person in Lomé, who told me, that in fact there was a person under the mask, but one could not see it due to a spell of the priests of Zangbèto. Be that as it may, a nightwatchman regarded as a spirit seems to be more effective than a human being fulfilling that task. Zangbèto initiates at the "Tam Tam Zangbeto" will therefore try to prove the "no person under it"-theory.
After going through tough negotiations we could convince an informant in Ouidah to get some Zangbèto inititates in just another small village nearby to do a Tam Tam for us (we also had to take measures to ensure that at least half of the money spent would go to the villagers, who did the work and a GREAT job).
The ones ready to believe will see the two clips I post here as evidence. The others will have their explanations. At least, the Zangbèto initiates are a bunch of GREAT illussionists.
Question: Is there a human being under the mask or is it a spirit?
Go to the poll after having watched the two Zangbètos I have filmed on September 12, 2009. The first one shows an astonishing sense of balance. At the starting point of the clip one can also take a look under the mask and see, that there is nothing to be found (as it seems) but a bundle of cloth.

The second one features an undefinable bundle of whatever it may be, and the mask is placed on it. Shortly after that, the thing begins to move and starts its dance. This is in real time, without any cutting. I am looking forward to reading some sophisticated explanations!

What is the moving force in Zangbèto cult??? Vote at the bottom of the page.

zombies, leopards, and genre-theory

This is going to be a rather lenghty entry: What is a Zombie? The same as an undead person, or a "living dead". You might call it a "contradictio in adiecto", as someone is either dead or alive (although we know, that it is hard to draw the exact line between those two states of the body). Zombies are more or less popular figures in fiction (they have even given a name to a sub-genre of the horror-movie genre - I DO like genre theory a lot). Public notion holds this very concept to be somehow related to the Caribbean, especially to Haiti and "Voodoo".
I would rather call it a topic of folk-belief associated with the shape traditional West-African religions have taken in Haiti. To understand the notion of a Zombie in that particular context, we have to take a look at the concept of man behind it. In Voodoo thought, the human person is held to be guided by more than one soul or spiritual principle. The spiritual elements of the person are: the ti bónanj, the “little good angel”, the conscience of a person; the gwo bónanj, the “big good angel”, the personality of a given person and the lwa mét tét, the lwa, who is the master of the head, a personal "guardian angel". A lwa (pronounced as: lo-á) is a kind of spirit or deity. In the languages of the Bight of Benin it is called either a tro (ewe) or a vodu (fon). This is where the word "voodoo" stems from. In a way, it is the same as the Yorùbá orisha.
After death, the connection between the gwo bonanj and the lwa mét tét has to be resolved in the right way through ritual means. If that was done in the wrong way, it would lead to an imbalance that could be taken advantage of by an evil sorcerer (a bòkò), He will capture the gwo bonanj, and transform it into an evil spirit (a Zombie) that he uses for exerting witchcraft.
Another form of the Zombie is the above mentioned living dead, a corpse without a soul. In Haiti, these Zombies are thought of as corpses that the bòkò has taken out of the grave and revived. Since the gwo bonanj has already left the dead body, it is revived without a soul. The bòkò uses this Zombie to fulfil hard labour as a kind of human working machine. I keep on wondering, whether the circumstances of slavery have taken part in shaping such an imagination.
The latter notion is the movies' classic rendering: a person put into a state of a living dead. We find that in the movie that is commonly held to be the first "Zombie film" ever, White Zombie,  from 1932. It is worth viewing for the fact that it features Bela Lugosi and that it tells us some things about "race-relationship" (I do not think there there is such a thing as "race").



Although the movie draws heavily on (misrepresented) Afro-American religious ideas, and is settled in a Caribbean context, there is only one black person that is not merely depicted but also giving explanations: the coach-driver at the beginning of the film. The story is about a white couple invited by a white plantation-owner to have their marriage at his home. The latter wants to have the woman, so he makes a deal with a white sorcerer (master of an army of white zombies - hence the name of the film, I guess), who turns the woman into a zombie (by using a kind of "voodoo-doll", sympathetic magic). The plantation-owner has to learn the lesson, that in a pact with the devil one is very likely to be deceived, and the faithful husband succeeds in getting back his wife (with a little help from a friendly doctor and a black sage). Happy ending, the couple reunited.
A more sophisticated version of the eternal drama of mankind - will the two come together? (nobody ever is interested in their daily life AFTER THE FACT) - is given in "I Walked with a Zombie". In my humble opinion, Ulrike Sulikowski is more than damn right in highlighting that movie's merits. Obviously taking up the meager plot of "White Zombie", it brings in some reminiscences of Jane Eyre (the woman having fallen in love with the man who has a kind of Zombie wife at home) by darling Charlotte Bronté and unfolds the Zombie-theme against a background of a family-drama. Furthermore, there are dialogues that reflect outer image and inner practice of Voodoo, and black-skinned persons are allowed to act. The movie also stars a then famous calypso-singer, commenting on the family situation of the white patricians in the story's focus ("shame and scandal in the family").

In contradistinction to Jane Eyre, the drama unfolds in the colonies, as it is the Jane Eyre kind of woman that goes there, not the man having returned from there - a fine twist in the colonial construction of centre and periphery. The movie also shows some craftsmanship, as it is Jacques Tourneur, who has directed it. It was produced for RKO, and this meant a low budegt situation. Val Lewton was the producer (in charge of the horror genre at RKO), who engaged Tourneur, and most likely they would not have more than the title of the movie when starting to work on it. An example of such a film is the leopard man (click on it to watch the trailer), a story about a murderer who takes advantage of the situation, that a leopard has escaped during a publicity stunt. Nice movie, but no budget for special effects. As in "I walked with a Zombie", Tourneur compensates us with psychological finesse. He does the same in another production for RKO's suspense department, cat people (click on it to watch it), featuring lovely Simone Simon. Another one on cats of prey, this time on a woman turning into one. Her relationship to the psychoanalyst she is finally killing is a fine example of the psychological skills of Tourneur as a director, the way the killing is rendered is a striking example of "no budget". Back in the eighties, they did a remake directed by Paul Schrader, starring Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell, with a nice title song by David Bowie (I tried to find a good version on UTUBE, but there are only some live versions that do not match the original recording). Be that as it may, cat people does not offer us a happy ending. The disastrous energies of the catwoman are killing her lover and herself in the end (although we have a couple emerging out of that disorder). It is, in a way, a film noir, like "Out of the Past". (click on it to view it)
This one movie directed by Tourneur is worth viewing not only for the fact that it features Robert Mitchum as cool as he could be. It is regarded a classic film noir and I do think, more than rightly. It also shows that Tourneur could have been one of the great directors of his time (I like Truffaut, and for that I like auteur-theory). With all the twists of the plot, with all the sophistication of the main character, in a world where there is hardly someone to find you could trust in, it does not give us the classic happy ending. The one woman worth his love, faithfully waiting for the hero's return does not get him (or vice versa). In other words, the order of society is not restored fully, the chaos that has come in could not be overcome fully.
Might be a meek association, but the same seems to hold for the first Zombie Movie of the "apocalyptical type", albeit its ending in restoration of governmental power. Here, the figure of the Zombie is totally void of its meaning in the Afro-American world. For reasons that are not given in the film, the undead rise and invade the world, attacking the living and feasting on their corpses. A group of persons trying to protect themselves in a house does not succeed in its attempt to survive the attack, due to their failure of working together. Without indulging into ritual theory, it has to be mentioned, that funeral rites have to do with re-establishing order, as the order of society is disturbed by a corpse, the remnant of a living person, yet no longer in the realm of the living. Be it the shaman guiding the soul of the deceased, be it the procession accompanying the corpse from the community meeting locale (the church or some secular place) to the cemetry, and other examples galore, the line between the living and the dead has to be drawn clearly in order to have order. Fear of disruption of that order is, in my opinion, archaic both and modern, as it is universal among human beings. With "Night of the Living Dead", a low-budget independent film like White Zombie, a genre exploiting that fear, has been born.

A good read on the depiction of haitian vodu in the movies is: Ulrike Sulikowski, Hollywoodzombie: Vodou and the Caribbean in Mainstram Cinema. In: Manfred Kremser [ed.], Ay Bobo. African Caribbean Religions. Pt. 2. Voodoo, Vienna 1996, 77-96.

schlingensief (not) saving africa

A girl called Britta sent me some links yesterday, concerning Christoph Schlingensief's plans to build a festspielhaus in Africa (he thinks of Burkina Faso or Mozambique). Schlingensief's enterprise reminded Esther Slevogt of nachtkritik.de of one of her uncles who served as a colonial official in a German colony (he lived to an old age, that very uncle). When being carried through the bush in a sedan by some natives, this relative of Ms. Slevogt used to recite Goethe. and other German classics to the "uncivilised". I am sure, the palanquin looked like that:So she started a discussion on the blog of nachtkritik.de, where, among respondents' comments, one can find all the arguments refering to "AFRICA" from a European point of view: "why bring culture there instead of something to eat and settle their silly ethnic conflicts?"; "stop development aid and start fair trade instead!"; "help them to help themselves!"; "we love geldof and madonna!"; "we hate madonna and bono, and we are critical about geldof" and so on, hundreds of posts. I will not take sides (it was so easy to be pc back in the days when I was raised and it is so hard nowadays). Only one question: what part of Africa are you talking about? You're talking about the states Hillary is visiting right now? You are talking about Obama? Nigeria? Mozambique? I got the impression of Mr. Schlingensief being very conscious about the difference of his idea of Africa and some specific reality one could face on the African continent. Beside that, the discussion made clear to me again, that, with all the fuzz about what we could do for Africa, all we do is to foster our image of a helpless continent. Like Madonna, who fortunately has faced severe problems when trying to "raise Malawi". As Lara Stepanovic has pointed out rigthly on her blog, what would we think about Youssou N'Dour adopting a German orphan, his photograph on Times magazine headed "Raising Germany"?
Now, all of that simply reminded me of an article by Uzodinma Iweala in the Washington Post and of Damisa Moyo. Waiting for comments on that one. Me, I am taking sides for Iweala.

nietzsche and the whip

Being some kind of Nietzsche scholar, with my forthcoming book on the Last Disciple of the Philosopher Dionysos, I feel I have to do some posts refering to good old Fritz here, too. First and main objective: Do away with some of the long lasting prejudices concerning the philosopher. He was no fascist, not even a proto-fascist; he was no anti-Semite, and his negative statements on anti-semitism could not be reduced to the idea of him being merely an anti-anti-Semite and so on.

Then, Nietzsche and women. Not an easy one, so I will start with it. To have a rousing starting-point, let's take the whip. Sensational. Rendered like that in online-versions of "Thus spake Zarathustra": "Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip!"-- Thus spake Zarathustra.
Now, this is a widespread rendering, and it is wrong, at least an erroneous translation. It does not read: "thy whip", but "the whip". It is not Zarathustra, the protagonist of Nietzsche's book, who brings forth that "little truth". It is an old woman. One like truth (on certain occasions Nietzsche makes fun of the eroticist Plato by using the metaphor of "old woman" for "truth"). The story goes like that: an old woman asks Zarathustra to give a speech on women. He refuses. She convinces him to do. He utters some commonplace "wisdom" on gender-relationship according to the bias of his time (we know, what he has thought about the latter in principle). She thanks him and, in return, whispers a "!little truth" into his ears (the one rendered above). She admonishes him to hold its mouth, so that it will not scream too loudly, that little truth.

And how that big falsehood has screamed! Screamed in the name of Nietzsche, as if he had said that. He has not. He has written a book, the protagonist of which has not uttered it, too. So even if we thought, that Zarathustra was Nietzsche's alter ego, we were wrong to say, that the whip-sentence was a comment from Nietzsche's perspective. That is the milk for the beginners. Meat for the adult: No clue is given in the text about who is holding the whip and what the person is doing with it. "Do not forget the whip" - as Annemarie Pieper (a woman) has pointed out in her commentary on "Thus spake Zarathustra", it could be the woman holding the whip and she could use it in different ways. To the left we see a picture of a woman holding a whip. This is a nowadays-style of depicting a woman with a whip. What is she about to do with it? Punish the poor man? Use the crack of the whip as a rhythmic device for danceurs? Draw a circle of reverence around herself? Annemarie Pieper suggests the latter, if I remember it rightly. May be an idealistic interpretation. What we do know, is, that in Nietzsche's writings, we find the first use of the whip as a practice he ascribes to the moralistic interpretation of the world. He does not like that world-view, as we all know, and he has some pretty good arguments, too, as some of us might know after having read the Genealogy of Morals. On the right, we see a woman holding a whip in her hands, an image more likley to be one that Nietzsche in his time could have had in his mind. What he could have had in his mind when relating to the use of the whip, is supposedely the rhythm of the dance. At least, we find that metaphor in his writings used in an affirmative way. The same holds for the practice that Annemarie Pieper has in mind. Whatever interpretation we tend to, we must be aware of the fact, that it is "the whip", which according to the old lady the man that goes to women should not forget, not "his whip". We cannot be sure, that it is her whip, but Nietzsche - giving us a rather harmless version of the use of the whip - makes sure it is in the woman's hand, as we can see on that famous photograph on the left again, that he has arranged. It features Paul Rée and lovely Lou Salomé. I would have liked to go on with some remarks on gender-construction chez Frédéric, but this will be another post, albeit not another topic. So I close with popular culture again. The song that first came to my mind was the Rolling Stones' When the Whip Comes Down, a two-chord rock'nroller from "Some Girls" (A-D; changing to G-D for one chorus). For the sake of featuring good music here, I decided to bring in Beast of Burden from the same album. In first place, it fits with the picture of Lou, Paul and Fritz, and secondly, beasts of burden (the camel and the ass) are prominent as caricatures of the representatives of the moralistic world-view in Nietzsche's writings. Although I do not agree with his overall interpretation of the "doctrine" of eternal recurrence, I still do think that Gilles Deleuze has given insightful comments on the donkey and the camel as metaphors in Nietzsche's works.

For all the scholarly stuff (quotations, refined arguments and the like), read my book!!!

Popular Religion again: Jacko!

Born on August 29, like Charlie Parker, Ingrid Bergman, John Locke, Diamanda Galas, GG Allin & me (amongst others), 1958 (exactly one year older than me): Jacko!. Seems like the only song of him I do like is Billy Jean. Therefore, no comment, not even trying to...


I came upon this today (walking the dog) in my neighbourhood (a small forest [copse] at the border of a village in southern Lower Austria). This is (a concretion of) religion, however we may define it (a place of manifestation of the Sacred, a symbol for dealing with contingency and so on). Recently, Hubert Knoblauch (my favourite sociologist of religion) has published a book on "Popular Religion" - I have bought it today and am eager to find out what lurks behind the subtitle "On the way towards a spiritual society" (Auf dem Weg zu einer spirituellen Gesellschaft). Whether the folk that have created that little memorial want Michael Jackson to live long or to rest in peace, is not the question. The issue at stake is transcendence.
I wonder: did they conduct some ritual when establishing that memorial place for their hero? If so, what were the elements, what was the shape? A little sacrifice, a libation, some prayers, dances, candles lit? Did they do it at midnight? In the moonlight? Moonwalking? Do they go there at regular intervals and repeat some of those activities? Will a cult be established?

Shatner Reading Palin

On Fetishism

What comes to your mind when you hear/read that word? Blue Velvet (Freud in his essay "Fetishism" tracks back the use of "fur and velvet" as fetishes to the view of the hair on mons veneris)? Velvet Underground (shiny boots of leather)? Strange objects one can buy in sex-shops? Red shoes (Freud explains, that the curious glance of the boy looking for the female genitals often starts at the feet working its way up the legs)? Underwear? Freud explains that kind of fetishism by ways of contact and by the moment of undressing that reveals what the boy does not want to realise - that women have no penis. Fear of castration leads to fixation on the fetish as a substitute for the female penis. Fear of castration - in other words the fear of being nothing more than a woman with that ridiculous mini-penis called clitoris? That is why fetishes in Freuds opinion often have a form similar to that of the penis (the picture on the upper left shows Freud with a fetish-like object).

There is another sense in which we use the word "fetish". Cars, gadgets and other technical devices (like flat-screen TVs) that some (wo)men seem to have made at least to symbols of what they adore and venerate and strive for.
What does the sexual meaning of the word have in common with its usage in that context of everyday life? Obviously, in both cases unanimated objects are put in the place of (parts of) animated ones. In a way, this seems to be a reversion of what theorists of religion have called "animism", a theory that (from Tylor to Cognitive Science) explains religion as the mechanism of taking unanimated objects for animated ones. Animists then were people that assume animated agents, where there are none. Nietzsche holds, that that is the case in a preeminent way in indo-european languages and their tendency to build subjects of actions where there are only actions. Simply put, he explains why we cannot ask, what the wind is doing, when it is not blowing.

In the case of "fetishism" as related to sexuality, there are at least two steps involved: taking a part of the person(=woman) for the person herself and replacing it by an object related to it (so that the part of the woman being the normal goal of sexual activity is replaced by that very object). In the second case, we talk about people who "bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made" (Isaiah 2,8). Since the publication of Charles de Brosses' (on the upper right) "Du culte des dieux fétiches" in 1760, their has been some tendency in the study of religions to use the term "fetishism" for classifying (at least some of the) "primitive religions". Freud, in his essay on sexual aberrations ("Die sexuellen Abirrungen") introduces the word "fetishism" by noting the similarity of the sexual perversion he writes about with the practice of "uncivilised people" to adore their gods in the form of idols: "Dieser Ersatz wird nicht mit Unrecht mit dem Fetisch verglichen, in dem der Wilde seinen Gott verkörpert sieht".
Interestingly, in West Africa there are civilised people that call themselves fetishists (feticheurs). In Lomé we even find a marché des fétiches, a market of fetishes. The man working as a guide on that market readily explains, that the objects you can buy there are not fetishes. They are the basic elements that are used for medicines and objects that are called "bocio" in the Fon language. Here is a nice collection (photograph taken in 2007-09 in Lomé):

The meaning of bocio is: "the cadaver of the bo", "bo" being a word relating to the power active in the world that can be used to different goals by various practices. For example, the divinator is called bokono, which translates as the master of the knowledge of the bo. Bo is a similar concept to that of the Yorùbá ashé, and would best be labelled as "neutral mystical force" as Dianne Stewart has put it. A bocio as means of protection (a gourd or bottle filled with empowered substances or a carved object to which other objects like parts of animals, strings and the like are attached) does not work by simply being that object. It becomes empowered through ritual treatment, including being heated by saliva, peppers, sacrificial blood and the like. In the case of the talismans that are sold to tourists on the marché des fétiches, they are bespoken by a priest for the customer (using the latter's name), who has to do some simple ritual actions that establish a connection between him and the object.

A protecting medicine (photograph taken in 2008-09 in Benin)

A bocio (not my photograph)

The concept of bocio is somehow similar to that of nkisi (pl.: minkisi) you find among peoples of congolese origin. These objects are used to focus power, f.e. by binding them, driving nails and other metal parts into them or attaching various materials to them. The hole in (the center of) the figure is used to place medicines there. In Berlin, the ethnographic museum has a collection of minkisi worth visting (although the way they are presented is not really apt to do away with European prejudices).

(not my photograph)

As people, who solve the problems of other people - protecting them, healing them, resolving their conflicts with others and the like - the "feticheurs" see themselves as "herbalists, healers and doctors in tradtional medicine":

Now what about bowing down "to the work of their hands"? Freud, as Isaiah, is not talking about traditonal medicine. He is talking about veneration of unanimated objects, taken to be embodiments of the Gods. How do the objects we find on the altars of practitioners embody the gods? First, we have to explain, that this is not the only way the powers of the gods (orisha / vodun) are represented in society. The vodun have their mediums who receive them in possession trance. This is representation by incarnation or personification, as we can see on that clip I shot in Lomé in January 2009, that features a woman possessed by Sakpaté:

Obviously, this is not an unanimated object representing an animated one. It is also not likely to be an action interpreted as that of an animated agent, where there is none, because at least the representing agent is animated, even if there is no represented one. In that case it would be pure connotation without denotation, to put it in a semiotic way. In other words, what is represented, is not something you can translate (make understood) by pointing at it with the finger (= indicate). Although I agree, that people sometimes develop strange theories about things we cannot simply indicate (because they haven't understood the aristotelian distinction between substance and accident), I would not think, that all accidents we cannot simply point our finger at (and that, like all accidents cannot be conceived of as entities) do not exist. I would rather think of some of them (love, hate, will and the like) as the most powerful "agents" active in the world.
Be that as it may, my concluding (although not final) opinion on fetishism is, that the (religious) practices labeled as such deal exactly with the latter powers. The objects looked at as fetishes - a word derived from feitico, the portuguese word for amulets, things made by our own hands - are not incorporations of gods - they are objects focusing the powers of that gods.

Marché des fetiches, Lomé, September 2007

The last picture featured shows a representation of Ogu, vodun of iron, warfare and related forces. Nobody could take this as a representation of the god in an anthropomorphistic way. This is simply a representation of the outcomes of his powers. Ogu is thought to be the primordeal agent possessing that forces - in a way, he is the focussing point of them. This "altar" for Ogu is also a focussing point - metonymical representations of his powers are a place of his/their presence, inasmuch as rituals provide interaction with them. The "fetish" is a representation of forces active in the world in exactly the same sense, that the "god" is - a made-up agent for powers that cannot be thought of as a substance (in the aristotelian sense of the word), but only as something adherent to one. As Judy Rosenthal (in her study of "Possession, Ecstasy & Law in Ewe Vodun", Charlottesville & London 1998) has remarked, the word "fetish" does not hold any pejorative meaning for the practicioners of Ewe Vodun, because they know they make their gods, in contradistinction to men made by their gods (1, 45). In a way, it seems that Freud has also thought of the objects he called "fetishes" as metonymical representations of power, or what he called drive (Trieb), respectively. Not finished, but ending here.

On the Road in Southern Togo

Here are some photographs taken in August 2007 in Togo (mostly from the car) on the journey from Lomé to Kpalime, Atakpame and to Abomey, Benin. I put them together as a slideshow. The roads that looked like bad roads turned out to be quite good ones in retrospect. It was the end of the rainy season, and we took a little road we had found on the map to get to Abomey more quickly- it was a journey of approximately 70 kilometers and took us about 11 hours, driving into ditches and being pushed and pulled out again by some more or less friendly people assembled around the holes in the roads or driving the same road. Two brothers on their Mofa on the way to Abomey were a big help to us, also showing us the way. I do not have any pictures of that night. Although we actually passed the border, we did never come by a border official.

One of the persons in that nearly fully laden van on the last picture yelled at me, whether I was going to make big money by selling the picture I had made in Europe. Well, I did not, obviously.

You will love me for not commenting further on the pictures and for having chosen not to add an audio-track with "African Music".

simon adding wonderbras

As a reaction to the post featured below, Simon did the job of editing the photographs taken and adding the bras. Four Versions; should I do a poll again?

Hopefully, Sabine likes his work

Sabine, Science, Sexism

I know, it should be: Feminism or Gendersomething, but I need a word beginning with "S" here. From time to time the corridors of Vienna University are used for exhibitons, relating to history or some issues of the history of science & scholarship.
When there was such a display of women's success stories in the latter fields, Sabine said to me, she wouldn't give a damn for it as long as they did not remove all those busts in the arcades dedicated to men, men and solely men who were famous professors at VU.
She would much rather drape those busts with bras. Nice idea, I thought. Yesterday, walking the arcades of VU's main building, I saw, that someone had draped the busts: not with bras but with names of more or less neglected women in that field. I took some photographs (poor quality) to post them here.
Although the names of the women are not really readable on those two photographs, I like them for the way the female names "correspond to" the looks of the portrayed men. I wonder how bras would correlate with them.

This one goes out to the one and only Sabine.

His Holiness Joerg Haider

Everybody knows Joerg Haider. At least the taxi driver (another movie) in Washington, DC, who told me, that Mr. Haider had passed away (he didn't pass away, he died in a car-accident), after getting to know that I was Austrian.
Hermann sent me that link (to a German blog):
http://heiligerhaider.wordpress.com/
The blog's authors (anonymously) pretend to be members of an association with one simple and extremely (self-)righteous goal: canonisation of the late Austrian politician. They pray for it! Could be a hoax, a satire or real Carinthian (Austrian) popular religion.

Angelika's Place

For all those interested in the Study of Religions and Cultural Studies, Angelika Rohrbacher has put together a load of links to information one can find on the internet on her homepage

The Doors of Cracow

In case somebody thinks, that I do not appreciate the beauty of Cracow (center of the city), here are some photographs taken in 2007 or so.

There are those beautiful doors in Cracow.

The ones featured here are but a few examples.

To me, it seems to be a kind of variation on a common style, a cultural matrix.

But I do not know enough about the culture (I guess, it has not been done without some Jews involved).

Getting started

So I have decided to become a blogger and to bore the world with my thoughts and reflections. To start, I tell a story about a man from Poland. When I travelled to Cracow this June, in order to teach at Jagiellonian University, he sat in my compartment, unceasingly attempting to start a conversation with me. He did not really understand that I wanted to prepare my course.
When we reached Oswiecim, he gave a deep sigh and asked me whether I knew about this place. I told him I actually did know about Auschwitz. He gave another sigh and spoke about that "catastrophe" it meant.
I uttered some words about the return of anti-semitism in our days and in Poland. He answered, that he knew about it and that he also knew the cause. I became interested. What could be the cause?
His explanation kind of struck me like lightning: in his opinion, the Jews were to blame for it.
Then, in Cracow, the center is packed with "melleks", those little electric cars to carry the tourists from sight to sight. The names of the places are written upon them. It goes like: Wawel - Ghetto - Auschwitz.
The sheet of paper that lay on my breakfast table every morning in the hotel I lived, did not only tell me about the wheather forecast and cultural events but also informed me about the cheapest ways to go to Auschwitz.
Finally, I saw that advertisment of a tourist office next to where I gave my classes. So what would Mr. Finkelstein say, the one who wrote the book "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering".

Two photographs to illustrate; this one from Kazimierz, the former Jewish Quarter (not too many of the former inhabitants left) and as a header the advertisment. Makes me sad, thoroughly sad.