[BRIEF NOTE] Unlikely Statues

Via Phil Hunt:

BBC News - British Edition

Friday, 4 February, 2005, 15:26 GMT

DR Congo's Leopold statue removed

Confusion surrounds the brief return of a statue of Belgian colonial king Leopold II in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital, Kinshasa.

It was taken down just hours after being re-erected on Thursday.

The culture minister said the statue had been put up as "a trial to see if the concrete could support the weight".

But correspondents say other ministers fiercely opposed having a memorial to a man who exploited Congo's resources and contributed to up to 10 million deaths.

Given the new historical consciousness regarding the crimes of the Congo Free State, this is, as Phil notes, just as bizarre an action as the Polish government placing a statue of Hitler on a plinth in downtown Warsaw.

[BRIEF NOTE] Becoming Japanese

imomus has an interesting essay on what he identifies as a new Japanese trend towards collective introversion.

I entered Japan, and Japanese culture, thanks to 'Trojan horse' Kahimi Karie, in the globalist 90s. It seemed easier then to be both a foreigner and a good object for the Japanese. Shibuya-kei was globalist, pluralist, post-modern, open, eclectic. The young Japanese I met in the 90s--kids now aged between 25 and 35--were open to foreign travel, to collaborations with foreigners on equal terms. The Japanese I'm closest to are still these people, widely-travelled, formed in the 90s, cosmopolitan, outward-looking.

But this year I've been very aware of a surprising new mood in Japan, an intensely inward-looking mood akin to narcissism. Japan, increasingly, performs itself to itself as 'the other', as an exotic tourist destination primped for internal consumption. TV here in Hokkaido is an endless advertorial presentation of winter resorts where Japanese families go to marvel at intensely, even stereotypically, Japanese wonders; to bathe in hot springs, to sit on tatami mats in ryokan hotels, to sample inevitably delicious food. It's what deconstructionists would call "the staging of difference against the scenery of standardisation and globalisation".

He links this to the breakdown of globalization worldwide, as people retreat from the xenophilia of the 1990s towards greater concern with their own national cultures and traditions. I'm too aware of the constructedness of tradition to be able to really like this trend, but perhaps this sort of shift forms an inevitable part of a cyclic trend in the history of a culture.

I wonder how long Canadian xenophilia--if xenophilia there is, as opposed to non-xenophobia--will remain present.

[BRIEF NOTE] On Battlestar Galactica

Last night was the second time that I caught this show with the boyfriend. I suppose these two data-points might trace the beginning of a trend.

Anyway, I rather liked last night's episode. I was somewhat surprised, since I'd watched the original Battlestar Galactica on reruns at SPACE and was impressed by the cheesiness of the plotlines. The remake is better all around: plotting, dialogue, acting, special effects, science.

The thing that I like most of all is that the remake is much darker. That is the thing that befuddled me the most about the Glen Larson series: Why, after androids committed genocide against a 12-planet civilization, would the survivors (all refugees, grouped together in a bedraggled fleet formation desperately fleeing said androids) be in good psychological shape?

I think I'll catch the next episode. Multiple reasons, granted, but when are motives entirely pure?

[BRIEF NOTE] On our common humanity

nhw points out two stunning blog entries relating to parents faced with their (possibly) non-heterosexual children. I can only respond by citing a quote taken from a very useful GLBT quotes page:

"I am a homosexual. Hath not a homosexual eyes?... If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you throw us down on a bed and lick chocolate sauce off us, do we not moan? (OK, I added that one.)"