A Beneficial Disaster?

I have believed that a "moderate" ecological disaster would be good, it would push people toward a more sustainable way of life, help us to put brakes to our wasteful consumerism. But reading about developments in the Indonesian Atjeh (Aceh) province, I am beginning to doubt whether such a disaster would really help us. Atjeh that lost more than two hundred thousand people killed by the huge tsunami has now adopted a very rigid form of fundamentalist Islam, favoured by the idea that the tsunami was sent by Allah as punishment for people's sins. Such ideas can easily gain ground in the USA as the rhetoric of some influential evangelical preachers after the catastrophic flood in New Orleans has shown. Thus, an ecological disaster can be followed by an ideological disaster that can make things worse not better. Instead of fighting against big cars and big houses preachers will fight against homo-marriages and sex education...

Sofi Oksasen "Puhdistuksesta"

Sofi Oksasen kirja "Puhdistus" oli minulle pettymys. Ehkä olen tullut kaunokirjallisuuden suhteen liian kriittiseksi... Mutta minusta kirja antaa liian dramaattisen, muutamassa yksityisasiassa jopa väärän kuvan Viron elämästä neuvosto-aikana. Kirjailija käyttää taitavasti hyväkseen romanttisen kirjallisuuden keinoja ja konsteja, kirjottaen romaanin, jossa poliittinen kauhutarina on itse asiassa kohtalokkaan rakkaustarinan palveluksessa, antaen sille värikkään taustan ja lisää traagisuutta . Oksanen uudelleenkirjoittaa antiikista tutun arketyyppisen tarinan. Päähenkilö Adele on tavallaan nykyajan Medea ja idea rakkauden tuhoisasta voimasta, surmaavasta Eroksestakin on peräisin siitä. Paralleelit Aino Kallaksen kanssa ansaitsisivat tutkijan työtä. Kuten mainitsin, on yksityiskohtia, jotka Virossa asuneelle tuntuvat selvästi outoina, liioiteltuina. Uskallan väittää, että yhden päähenkilön Martinin kaltaisia fanaattisia kommunisteja oli Virossa hyvin vähän, suuri osa puolueen jäsenistä ei taistellut jouluja vastaan, useimmilla oli jopa kotona joulukuusi, vaikka virallisesti jouluista ei puhuttu ja koulunopettaja, joka vei oppilaansa joulukirkkoon katselemaan, mitä merkitsee jumalanpalvelus, sai potkut. Mutta ideologia ei ollut meillä koskaan näin tärkeä ja aitoja kiihko-kommunisteja oli vain kourallinen. Elämämme oli silti paljon enemmän kuin vain kauhutarina, elämä neuvosto-Virossakin oli elämä. Eihän äskein itsenäistynyt Virokaan ollut täysin villi länsi, jossa pimpit voisivat vapaasti saalistaa ja surmata uhreitaan. Yhteenvetona: taitavasti kirjoitettu action-romaani, jossa on rakkausta, kidutusta, jännitystä, raakaa seksiä, takaanajoa, neljä ruumista ja happy end. Haluaisin kiistelemättä lahjakkaalta kirjailijalta enemmän huomiota elämän monenlaisiin ulottuvuuksiin.

Sex, its parallels and metaphors

A good work of literature, be it a novel, a short story, an essay or a poem has some striking structural or compositional similarities with sexual act. In literature too, we have a foreplay, then action which leads to mounting tension and finally orgasm or, in case of literature, to a kind of a solution, katharsis, be it happy end or not. And finally, there is a rest, a peace, absence of urge or conflict. I suppose evolutionary pshychology and ethology have something to say about this. Literature, poetry is somehow similar to birds' singing or tomcats miaouing and fighting. And in the same time it's mimesis, a representation of such, often demonstratively, pugnacious behaviour. Troubadour is a kind of a songbird, but often a songbird singing about its life and its song.

Have the other arts also parallels and perhaps origins in our sexual behaviour? In classical music or in indian ragas, we have similar composition, often mounting intensity and tension, and finally -- the powerful, energetic orgastic finale. And of course: in music as in sex we have rhythm. That connects sex and music with poetry and dance. But similarities between dance and sexual act have been obvious for people for many generations. Not so obvious are the parallels between sex and war, the most intense and fatal conflict that sooner or later is solved, followed by peace. I have found fighting and warmaking as metaphors for lovemaking both in antique Roman and old Chinese novels.

Demolition

Lui uudisist, et inglase lammutase Bournemouthi vabaao keskuse, mis pidada olema Inglismaa kõge vihatum ehitus. Kai tolle keskuse pilti ja löüse, et mi puul on sändsit ehituisi üts jago. Om näid Talinan ja Tartun. Olessi hää neo ka är lammutada. Ma võtassi lammutamise nimekirja: Tartu keskliina kaubamaja, Tasku, Talina Solarise, Ühispanga maja, paar vahtset hotelli ja muidoki Vabadussõa samba. Olessi tüüd lahkji ja arhitekel, kiä võissiva sis midägi parembat projektiiri. Kaege esi: om õkva ku Eesti viimätse ao suure keskuse.

Family values -- human values

There has been a lot of talk, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes even aggressive talk about "family values". I think we have some confusion here. Family is an important thing for us, human beings, men and women. We need it. But at the same time, family is not a person, it has no feelings, no wishes, it doesn't suffer. We do. And I don't think it is fair if a man or woman, a child or a grown-up person suffers for the sake of family. What counts, is not family, but other persons, their feelings, their security, their well-being. Strictly speaking, there is no such a thing as the well-being of a family. We speak of the family as a kind of a super-person. Language is often illogical, we tend to find short expressions for complex things, use metaphors. Sometimes these metaphors begin to live a life of their own. Family, marriage, honour, love become things that seem to have an intrinsic value, independantly of our feelings, of our well-being, our happiness or suffering. Sometimes these values help us, we get some support from thoughts about family, honour, love... But sometimes they turn against us, can even become destructive. In the Christian and especially Islamic tradition, adultery is not, first of all, a sin because it makes another person suffer because of jealousy, because a person feels abandoned, abused, insulted... This is a human tragedy. But for the tradition, adultery is a sin, because it is directed against an institution that is considered sacred or nearly sacred, not because it causes suffering. Adultery is a sin in itself, an abomination regardless of what the persons whom it directly touches feel and think. I feel this is wrong. What matters is not the institutions, but us humans, our happiness or suffering. Family is just an instrument that should increase our happiness, give us more security, more ways of live a good life. Family should be for us, not us for the family. As is often the case in traditional societies. After all, nobody can kill a family (I don't mean family members, humans), but sometimes men and women are killed in the name of family. Or family values.

Nordic Christmas-kitsch

As you see on this photo I took on the second week of December 2009 in Tavira, a small town at the Atlantic coast in Southern Portugal, even here the Christmas icons are snowflakes and fir or spruce trees. You can also see figures Santas in their winter coats, and even reindeer. At the same time, there is no real winter in Tavira. A local inhabitant told me her grandmother had once seen snow there, and the temperature never falls below zero. There are no fir or spruce trees in Algarve, thus the Christmas light girlands are decorating palms. In fact, the nature here is much more similar to the nature in Galilee where Jesus was born and grew up. In Galilee there are no firs or spruces, no reindeer, no real winter. In Galilee you can see palms and camels. Why then is Christmas celebrated as a Nordic festival, why do we have all these Nordic kitschy reindeer with their sledges, snowflakes and imitations of fir trees made of neon lights? Why do we not celebrate Christmas in Northern Europe and North America with Mediterranean icons as camels, donkeys and palm trees?

2010

Kõigeparemad soovid 2010ks!
Kõgõparemba soovi 2010s!
Best wishes for the 2010!

J.K.