Interviews: Youth, Art & Levante – Dance in Palestine: Spotlight on the Differently Abled

Posted on 26th December 2013 in Interviews, Self Determination

I hosted Activist Radio on WVKR on Thursday December 26th, 2013 to feature the work of Yante – Youth, Art & Levante  and the remarkable work they do. Yante is a Palestine based dance troupe and teaching center whose work fouses on transforming personal and social trauma into personal and social growth. I spoke with  Yante’s founder, Nadia Arouri, and program manager Nora Markt, as well as DanceAbility Internacional México’s director and choreographer Lulú Arroyo Menéndez and Palestinian/American Composer Tareq Abboushi to discuss the upcoming collaboration with Yante, Lulu and Tarq in April. Please take a look at the indiegogo campaign to learn more about the upcoming performance >>

Interview with Nadia and Nora: 

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Interview with Lulu: 

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Interview with Tareq: 

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A reading of an excerpt from “Rethinking the Palestinian Future” by Richard Falk from a lecture delivered at the The Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, Lebanon on 25, April 2013 (reproduced with permission from the author) >> 

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Again, check out the Indiegogo campaign here >>

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Aspects of the Neoconservative Agenda through the lens of Dahrendorf’s Social Conflict Model

Posted on 8th July 2013 in Articles, Theory, World Peace Academy Reflection Papers

I. Introduction:

Trying to reduce a complex social interaction to a general theory, as Dahrendorf states, leads to empty generalizations or to empirically unjustifiable oversimplifications. With this in mind I limit this discussion of social conflict in the United States, specifically from the beginning of the Bush Jr. Administration, noting that an analysis based on Huntington’s theory – largely the disposition of the Neoconservative agenda, which I will discuss in more detail – would make for an interesting discussion. As I hope to show, the social structure of the US closely resonates with the key points highlighted in Dahrendorf. Additionally, while I do believe there is valuable information to be obtained through a psycho-social analysis of this, or any social structure, I think Dahrendorf’s limitation on endogenous conflicts as “the task of sociology to derive conflicts from specific social structures” points out most of the main functional relationships of the two dichotomous models of society along with the principle of authority and authority structures. These aspects of the Conflict Theory model and, what I would call the general tendency toward a neo-totalitarian state are the main points of my argument.

An important aspect, and precondition, of the Conflict Theory model is that it is intended to be ‘crafted’ to suit the needs of a particular conflict and therefore avoids generalizations and oversimplifications. Further, it considers the trajectory of the system and therefore,  through empirical research, attempts to establish a reasonable set, or multiplicity, of parameters to evaluate the system and the relative intensity of each parameter in the specific context. As Dahrendorf points out, “it is erroneous to assume that a description of how elements of a structure are put together in a stable whole offers, as such, a point of departure for structure analysis of conflict and change .” Such an approach can tends to eliminate many of the assumed structural and functional relationships that may lead to incorrect interpretations of empirical data and eliminates the difficulties of distinguishing between intended and unintended outcomes and relies more on the scientific method of matching empirical evidence with stated hypotheses.

 

II. Critical Evaluation of Key Points

I will highlight the key points of Dahrendorf’s Social Conflict Model as presented in lecture at the World Peace Academy by Dr. Jürgen Endres.1 Beginning with dichotomous models of Integration and Conflict, as listed in Table 1, it is important to note that these
two contrasting models form what I would consider to be a canonical set of mutually induct and mutually restrictive pairs. This is to say that these two aspects of society are, in the case of the Unites States at least, intertwined and are the impetus for change itself.
There is always a very progressive element of society which is met with a more conservative element and the more, for example, the indicators of Conflict become dominant, the more their tends to be a reaction by the more conservative elements of society. This explains the oscillation from Democratic to Republican parties controlling the three branches of government. However, there is an added layer which, according to Dahrendorf, would be the real progenitor of the social dynamic – namely, that the real holders of authority in the United States take advantage of the Conflict/Integration dichotomy as a strategy to divide and conquer the US population while the laws and regulating freedom, liberty and justice are slowly manipulated and normalized into totalitarian state.

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NON VIOLENT Movement #1 in G(ene) Sharp: The Fifth American Revolution (Dedicated to Gene Sharp)

Posted on 29th June 2013 in Peace, Reflections, Self Determination, World Peace Academy Reflection Papers

Prelude:
In the very short amount of time that modern weaponry has existed, humankind has witnessed a tragic escalation in violent military conflicts. These conflicts have shifted from inter-state military actions of both offensive and defensive natures to  humanitarian interventions’ and intra-state military actions. In one sense – the case of interstate warring – the world has become a  less violent place; though the means for the total obliteration of life on earth (roughly) exist, they do not pose as great a threat to peace, security, health and the welfare of humankind as much as things like access to and availability of potable water, street drugs, cancer, civilian related gun deaths, choking on pretzels and falling asleep while driving.

In places where there is no relative peace, work can be done to foster relative peace through the means elaborated and elucidated by  many ‘experts’ who work in the field (Galtung, Gandhi, Sharp, Olberg, Johansen, et. al.). Where there is peace, work can be done to  foster community and creativity as well as a sense of charity to those in need. Charity  an come in many forms and, in its essence –  whatever the form,  is an act of solidarity. An example of this would be OTПOP ‘members’ working with movements in the Arab Spring; this is a direct form of charity, solidarity and peace building through the statistically proven effective method of non-violent actions  and interactions. Perhaps that is the differentiating factor – where there is relative violence, non-violent actions can take place. Where there is relative peace, peace promoting actions can take place.

The intent of non violent or peace promoting actions is to change the dynamics of the system in question. The system in question here is the the structure and function of a tyrannical regime, as opposed to the dynamics of trade union disputes, interpersonal  relationships such as marriage, or saving endangered species from the threat of environmental degradation and destruction. In terms of promoting democracy (the ideal and principle of one person one vote – not it’s practical manifestation) there are a number of  aspects we must consider with respect to the the structure and function of governments: how the government gets its money; how the system maintains the status quo in terms of the work force necessary to keep the state functioning; the military; the police; civil obedience , and the bureaucracy of governmental institutions and its proxies. Two dynamical models should be considered and applied and will be recurring themes throughout the movement: 1.) viewing the six items listed above as pillars for dismantling; 2.) viewing the six items listed above in terms of fulcrums that will act as the pivot for displacing or shifting structure and authority in a direction away from the status quo.

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Lunchtime on the Playground of Our Commonalities

Posted on 19th May 2012 in Peace, Poetry, Self Determination
 
 
“Don’t take my love for you personally” — Polish Proverb
 

You’ve all heard about the “Falafel Stand in No Man’s Land,” of course. Certainly, it highlights the irony of war. Such things do take place during war when people will take little breaks from fighting to smoke opium, masturbate, medibate, and even kill some more; Such things do take place on both sides of Terra Nullius (No Man’s Land). That is, in their hatred, both sides are the same. In the way they masturbate, both sides are the same. There are cultural differences in toilet paper, no doubt, like sheet size and overall accepted textures, but toilet paper  serves the same function across conflict boundaries.

The irony runs deep. Our most fundamental needs as human beings, our commonalities, are a cause for struggle. How do we transform competition for provision of our human needs into cooperation for the provision of our human needs. Yo, I’m not just talking about food, clothing, shelter, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. We have spiritual needs. We humans have emotional needs. Human beings have psychological and psychical needs as well.

Still, we can do much better than cooperation. We can actually have fun hanging out together in between the bullets and the bombs,  the fists and the knives. Yes, it can be like recess – with the broken monkey bars, the tire swings, the cigarette butts from last nights hoodlums – during Lunchtime in elementary school before our egos are developed enough to take our differences to war.

And why not learn to play nicely together since we all need the same things? Well, it has to do with desire and expectation of course. That is where the struggle comes from. Maybe it is true that the tapeworm in your gut actually pulls the trigger, or the spirochete in your mitochondria deludes you into thinking you’re in love. More likely, it is the self love/loathe — you know, when your self hatred cultivates narcissistic asshole behavior, apathy, and/or  self-deprecation — which prevents us from seeing self as other, gears us towards exploitation of others as we try to control them; steal their resources to acquire our desires (not mutually beneficial) not our human needs  ( “They” could be a person, place or thing).

Of course, what I am suggesting is the Unified Field Theory of Human Endeavors – that which draws us to the Playground of our Human Needs. It requires a transformation of our core temperament with the intention of transcending the border between self and other. Perhaps when the human population was approximately 18 it was not such a difficult task to perform.

Yet, even the internal workings of a persons fwang can, and often do, cause conflict. When our emotional, physical, sexual, psychological, psychical, and spiritual needs are not thoroughly understood – that is, when our internal states are not clearly defined and in resonance with our  core temperament- there exists a fertile ground for conflict. Toss into that internal mix the external forces of 7 billion people working towards the same thing among the external forces of economy, environment, politic, media, and other socal influences and you are left with a highly complicated system in which there is a great deal of friction and uncontrolled oscillations.

In the language of Natural Philosophy this dynamic is  considered to be a ‘many body problem’ for which there is no exact solution. However, this does not mean an empirical solution can not be expressed. That is, the way we live can be transformed – through a series of practices and rituals – to unravel our fwang and re-ravel it with a new formulation more in resonance with our original instructions – this time derived from our practices and spiritual advisers who will prompt us towards expressing who we are supposed to be. This guidance and practice, along with the tools of non-violence and conflict transformation, will instruct us in a way that we can learn to play nicely among the commonalities of our human needs.

 

From the Polish Book of the Dead and Other Drunk Incantations

 

Bardzo VII

 

bardzo zimna
we carried our corpses
a flute a guitar a violin an accordian
and a case of vodka
accomplanied by
a dancer a trickster a warrior a crier
cursing along the backroads of the nowe miasto
to where
we once gathered to play
our love songs
after the invasion
and the next
 
to the places our father’s
fought to their deaths
to play for them
to drink for them
to sing to them
to smoke their last cigarettes
until we were drunk
hurled on the ground
our cold red faces pressed against
white crystals formed around
the edges of bootprints in the mud
sleeping as they do
a few meters underground
buried by decades of war
covered by the new world order
and a fresh layer of snow
 
Now mostly sober
we carry our corpses back
from the Cytadela
half pickled half fermented
gathering unearthed ordinance
and dislodged shrapnel
to place inside the violin’s F-hole
drop into the sound hole of your guitar
jam into the end of her flute
pierce the trickster’s accordian
and ram down our throats
until there is no memory of the fighting
save the muted sounds of instruments
doing their dirty work

© Adam Roufberg

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Sex, Lunch, and Rock and Roll [or Mad Dog 2012]

Posted on 3rd May 2012 in Self Determination

‎

Adam Roufberg reads his parting words on Radio Active Lunch after 4 years of broadcasting live music in the Mid Hudson Valley on WVKR:

 

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I tried to warn you people. some of you listened. some of you were too busy earning a living to listen. Some of you were too busy being stoned, or lazy, or busy being creative or helping others. Helping other’s who may not have wanted the help. Helping old ladies cross the street to steal their purses – until you came across kung fu granny. Trying to help social workers burnt out by the sickness of society by bringing them to orgasm while you vampired their energy. Teaching children about self determination while you stole their souls from the dark forces of the new world order who tried to occupy their identity. Liberating the world from struggle, war, violence, disenfranchisement and dispossession of the land and the law of heart.

I tried to warn you people about occupying the government. So many of you went ahead and did it anyway. you didn’t realize that they stole your brain and infused it with strawberry water, and bad words, and ideas rotting from the inside out such that you would mimic them in greater toxic ways creating more waste while they laughed at you and stole even more of your money while you took a break from unemployment to sit in the rain in solidarity with everyone who is sick and tired of fat cat big wig gaping anal retentive sphincters raping the earth, exploiting your children, toxifying the land, engineering your food, stealing your donuts conducting your rivers to mouth an ocean rising from the effects of black magic conjured by the narcissistic assholes who were willing to note that you would sit in the rainy may day parade protest demonstration telling them what they already know while you fight for your rights that they don’t have the right to disposes you of. But you’re satisfied with the solidarity of the union workers, police chiefs, kong fu grannies, hippies, peace loving people, and the falafel stands, and the strangers bringing food and water, and the artists, and the poets, and the public speakers that carry on the tradition of community building in the spirit of love for the sake of survival of a peoples of a particular will that you call nation.

I tried to warn you about dynamic struggle between what you people call good and evil – mutually inductive, mutually restrictive forces shedding light on others, shedding the blood of others, shredding the fretboard, sharing the creation of balance through chaos trajeculating along divergent paths and hyperbole coming out of rhetoricians ass. I did. Some of you listened. Some of you forgot. Some of you weren’t paying attention. Some of you were too busy smoking pot, playing music, harvesting medicinal herbs and foraging in the wilderness for food and love. Other’s too distracted by the coming end of times, the alien invasion, the new world order crack down, 2012, Nostradamus, gorge Balanchine, Julio Iglesias, Woodstock, Snoopy, video games, blunts, dmt, other peoples lips and ass and saliva, bananas fried in coconut and agave with dark chocolate cherries served on almond iced cream with midge larvae sprinkles battling internally with will desire and expectation in conflict with the will desire and expectations of your lover and your government while you pander and ponder not knowing the difference between …because you’ve been sucked into the vacuum of dark sorcery.

I tried to remind you fuckers that music is the only thing that really matters. That we should replace guns and all weapons with musical instruments so that we are not cowards in the face of adversary. that we meet our competitor, face to face, and bludgeon them with our instruments lest we accidentally engage in the plucking of strings, the blowing through reeds, the pounding of skins, the stroking of hair on gut tied to the hollows of trees. lest we accidentally note that all of the world is an orchestra and everyone is playing wildly their sombre songs, dancing in the streets, naked walking Gymonopodie, death metal thrash whatever but their is no audience, no one really listening.

I hoped to imbue you with the notion that without equality there is no justice and without justice there is no peace and without peace there is violence, control, occupation, subjugation, exploitation, enslavement, brutality, and fear and there is simply no need for this when we have enough in common to learn to play nicely on the battlefield and compete intentfully on the playground of our commonalities – the culinary arts, the visual arts, the literary arts, dance, music, the quest for knowledge, a richer spiritual life, an understanding of the principles and practices of love, physical love, emotional love, spiritual love, a love superceding race, superceding gender, superceding spiritual beliefs and practices, superceding national boundaries, superceding species, superceding any of the apparent artificial constraints and projections that seem to separate us and present us with irreconcilable differences that keep us all locked in the enchanted prison.

I delivered poetry and prose from some of the greatest master’s present and past. Words to spark your imagination. Words to make you feel and think. Words that make you bleed. Words to heal. Words to draw anger and all emotion. Words to paint a picture in the sky. Words to tear down structures. Words to eradicate the past. Words to erase the future. Words to fertilize the flow, the flower, the flowering of ideas, the exponentiation of expression of DNA along the numeroligical rift of space and time, yin and yang, healing your ancestry and pushing you, thrusting you, tearing you, burning you in the direction of the gate keeper, the prison guard, the torturer, your death, to prepare you with the tools you will need to survive your death and stay cool on the other side.

We, all of us who participated in this beautiful disaster, this maelstrom of bodily fluids from the earth, this mutiny of flowers, this mad dance across the fretboard of spontaneous decision flowing through us as the spirits weave their way through our nerve cells, our impulses, giving us instruction on how to conduct our musculature to find the next note, the next word, the next tear, the next kiss, we are all responsible for pushing the boundaries of heart and head, breaking the sound barrier, challenging the darkness born of a slight asymmetry in the astral light pulsing across the great expanse of time as an infinite matrix of interconnectedness sewn together by the thread separating hatred from love.

You. My dear friend. My lover. My family. my tribe, my culture, Orenda. You, Who listened to this radio show on this radio station , dedicated or otherwise, to your community, to promote and support the music, the history, the spirit and the ancestry of this valley. I thank you for your participation on the receiving end of this transmission and I wish that you all find your relative path towards peace, love, reconciliation, creativity, effectiveness and personal truth. I am with love for you and I will that you all engage this world, that you all engage in this world in the spirit of finding our commonalities on the playground of our human needs.

 

 

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Occupy Identity

Posted on 13th April 2012 in Notes, Self Determination

One of the most profound principles and practices I have recently been exposed to deals with the occupation of one’s identity. This came at a time when I was investigating the nature of occupation vs inhabitation – a concept introduced to me by a friend, poet/publisher Michael Annis, who was talking about Derrick Jensen and his discussion of that issue. Basically, occupiers are selfishly motivated and the result of their actions are exploitation of living beings and the land base which sustains them whereas inhabitors enter into mutually beneficial relationships with all of their surroundings – Mitakaye Oyasin (“All of my Relations” – for seven generations, baby!).

 

I was discussing this idea with my Michael –  before the Occupy movement started – as I was experiencing an internal conflict over my external environment. The reasons for this are many and I may or may  not get into them later. Certainly, they would be instructive but perhaps too revealing about my personal life which is unnecessary for my ends – as far as I can tell now. In any case, if there is some insight to be gained from my personal life I shall divulge what is necessary.

 

Essentially, what I was experiencing was a loss of identity based in trauma. In my case the trauma was from a death in the family – a normal course of life. What it bred, internally, was a conflict between the principles I believe and espouse vs my conditioned behavior – reactions and responses to external stimuli. That is to say, my practices and principles were not in resonance with one another and, in this state of dissonance, I experienced what can be considered [albeit, on a small scale] an attrocity producing circumstance. As one friend put it, “You got sick on your own medicine.”

 

In any case, I do believe that the conditions that led to my experience are similar to circumstances leading to atrocity producing conditions  on a larger scale. That is, the trauma is not inflicted as a perpetuation of one’s own choices due to an irreconcilable situation that is part of the normal course of life. Specifically, discussing the plight of the Palestinians under military occupation and decades of violence, the trauma inflicted is carefully calculated as a means by which to occupy one’s identity  as Jonatan Stanzcak, one of the co founders of the Freedom Theatre of Palestine said during an interview for a benefit concert I promoted:

“… the occupation is not only a physical phenomena, it is not only the checkpoints and the wall and the settlements and the military invasion, it is much deeper than that. It is a fear, it’s a sense of suspicion that is everywhere. It’s the occupations ultimate aim, the occupiers ultimate aim is to occupy the identity of the people. It’s to manage to inject fear into the core of society and to make people suspicious between themselves. In that kind of situation all kinds of coming together and challenging that fear is a form of resistance…”

 

Of course, the contrast between a calculated occupation of one’s mind in the case of the Palestinian peoples – as pointed out by Stanczak – vs. my personal experiences are quite different in the sense of the origin of the trauma and the magnitude yet, at the same time there is an important similarity between the two circumstances – namely, the occupation of identity can be a continuous presence as in the case of the Palestinian people and it can also be a cultural indoctrination that is invisible and works its way – like a disease – through the core of one’s being. Elucidating this inculcation – that is, psychically unravelling to understand how this indoctrination into a culture of denial and disconnect functions, one realizes that the goal of the occupier of one’s identity is the same as the goal of military occupation.

 

The fact is that we are not educated to understand who we are as free willed individuals. Rather, we are bred in ignorance and fear to serve something other than ourselves most often without any personal gain. In my case, which really serves as an example of a human living in a ‘free’ society, my servitude in the enchanted prison was less obvious – certainly to myself at the time. In the case of the Palestinian people, their enslavement is completely obvious to most of the so called free-willed of the world.

 

Some of the basic principles of conflict deal with will, desire and expection. I would add “need” to this this list as well. A first round of things to cosider is where do our will, desire and expectations come from. Are they driven from our core temperament or are they derived by messages from an external force who is out for personal gain (i.e. God and the State) by controlling our thoughts and actions. Cast these principles into the realm of reality (what is happening), possible realities (what could be), and irrealities (what can’t be, though we may have the will, desire and expectation to create such a reality depending on our level of delusion) and add to that the internal and external forces influencing will, desire, and expectation and you’ve got a very complex situation at hand.

 

Those of us who have experienced personal trauma and have worked our way through it understand the difficulties of drawing resonance amidst all of the competing principles, forces and messages we receive. Those stuck in an environment where the external forces are ever present and relentless in their tactics to control are, essentially, in an intractable situtaion.

 

Understanding the nature of the forces, principles and messages and how to manage them to transform and transcend this occupation of identity is to be a focus of this blog and, so, I will continue to elaborate on these ideas as I learn more and gain more insight into the nature of occupation carried out by a power structure that wants nothing more than to keep us in mental slavery locked up in the enchanted prison.

 

Listen to the interview with Jonatan Stanczak

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