Same Old, Same Old

I haven’t been active enough with my writing this summer. I seem at a loss for words that I have already said before. However, my summer reading list has been quite active.  As for current affairs, my disappointment with the predictable is repetitive: from General Electrics monopoly over the Olympics with NBC to Olympic sponsors of Dow Chemical and British Petroleum, who lack social accountability. I am concerned that the progressive voice is hitting deaf ears.

My summer reading list has included: Huda Shaarawi’s Harem Years, the challenges of an Egyptian activist in the early years of the 20^th Century; Nawal El Saadawi’s Walking Through Fire, a current activist exiled from Egypt, who lived through the British colonial exploits through the mixed messages of the Nasser regime towards women’s rights, through the Sadat and Mubarak schemes, and today; Leymah Gbowee’s Mighty Be Our Powers, her memoir reflecting on her life organizing women in Liberia to overcome violence during the 1990’s conflicts up until her activities today; Assia Djebar’s The Tongue’s Blood Does Not Run Dry, a collection of vivid stories reflecting on the multiple challenges women in Algeria face; Ken Saro-Wiwa’s A Month and A Day, his detention diary reflecting on his battle against the Nigerian government to protect the rights of the Ogoni people, and ever since the British Empire passed through Nigeria, greed and corruption has fused violence in the land, and will continue as long as oil is in the delta; and finally, Ngugi wa Thiongo’s Dreams in a Time of War, the Kenyan novelist’s reflection of his youth in Kenya just before independence from the British.

Knowledge is Power! These books reflect the ripples of aftershocks from not just the British colonial period, but also the French, the US, and the corporate dominance for natural resources, land, and power over other people. 

Last year at this time, the infamous London Riots shook the British streets. Now at this time, the 2012 Olympics have turned England into a police state until the international games are complete. Corporate dominance of the games has made athletes less about physical triumph and more about advertisement and sponsorship. In Bhopal India, hundreds of survivors of the 1984 chemical explosion and next generations, still exposed to birth defects from remnants still surrounding the city from the abandoned factory, have conducted a protest and Special Olympics to show outrage that Dow Chemical should be sponsoring the official Olympics, regardless of their humanitarian track record.

As well, with BP Oil sponsoring the Olympics after the Gulf of Mexico fiasco and environmental carelessness, one would expect more from leaders of the Olympic committee; but in truth, this double-tongue, Janus-faced event has continually ignored human accountability. In Buzz Bissinger’s essay Faster, Higher, Stronger, No Longer; the author lists controversies from nearly every Olympics since 1968 when ten days before the Summer Olympics in Mexico the government massacred thousands of protesting students, to the 2008 games when China hosted the Olympics while cracking down on protestors in the western Xinjiang region.      

I brought the Buzz Bissinger essay into my summer school class last week, my students yawned. Regardless of the commercials, they just haven’t been watching. So perhaps this summer is a blah slide from activism. I still have my reading list to inspire me. I am half way through the stack mentioned earlier. What can I learn from my heroes? That life is a challenge and will always be a challenge. Like all those voices of resistance, the need to make noise is an endless road but an important one to trek.