Grandfathers, Jews and the impulse to act

Posted on July 30, 2014 by wordpressgrethe

grandfathers It is one of the myths in our family history: my grandfather ‘saving’ a Jewish girl from a Nazi. It was in the 2nd World War. In villages, children from Jewish families lived as if they were part of the farmers’ family, trying to escape a certain death when the Nazis found out they were Jewish. A 14 or 15 year old ‘secretly’ Jewish girl, described as very beautiful, accidentilly fell in the village street and bumped her head against a stone right in front of the house where one of the Nazis in charge was temporarily located. He came out of the house, saw the beautiful girl and took her into the house to take care of her. All of the village worried, they were talking about it: what is he doing to that beautiful girl and also, most of all: what if he finds out that she is Jewish? They were extremely nervous!
The worries and talks in the village took a great part of the day, then at the end of the day my grandfather returned from work and heard about it. When he was told, he didn’t even think for a minute but just got angry and went to the house of the Nazi. Did he have a plan? I don’t think so. He did not talk, he did not ask questions, as he never did. He just had the impulse to act.
Did he save her? He didn’t I guess, everybody who was in this story agreed that the girl saved herself once the opening was given. As soon as my grandfather appeared at the doorstep, this ‘wounded’ girl stood up from the couch where she lied down, she ran to the door, embraced my grandfather and acted as if he was her father: ‘o dad, dad, please take me home’. The Nazi guy nodded and my grandfather took her ‘home’.

Summer 2014 we are living a period in Europe, and to my great great regret also in Amsterdam, where antisemitism is fully alive. And just like the village in the 2nd World War, everybody is talking about it. Everybody is ‘worrying’, like all of the village did in the War. But how many of us are acting?
What my grandfather did seems easy > he just went to the house. Anybody could have done that… but nobody did. So the real question is: why didn’t they do it? As the girl could save herself just upon the impulsive action of my grandfather.
I wonder about the conclusion of this story. Doing has more value, more effect than talking? Don’t spend time worrying, just act? Maybe that is true, also today…

Never ever give up

Posted on September 3, 2013 by wordpressgrethe

‘Never ever give up’, a special English friend said to me during the first years of my company. I remember that I told him how much initiatives I took to have more customers and that the phone was so silent… He was very empathic with his reaction ‘yes and then you sit down in despair and think nobody is ever going to contact your company again‘ and he surprised me so much there.

He was a selfmade multimillionaire, I was staying in his ‘house’ (I don’t know how to call a place like that) overlooking the Mediterranean and having parties like I never had before and still he was so down-to-earth that he fully understood my problem as a beginning entrepreneur. He had lived it all himself I guess which felt like a consolation and he could only advice me what had been the best recipe for himself: ‘never give up’.

All this came back to me when I watched Diana Nyad who reached Florida beach after three days swimming starting from Cuba: an amazing and most incredible action. She was not just swimming from Cuba to Florida to set a record, she is setting a major message: ‘never, ever give up’ is her motto. Apparently she is a late believer in realising dreams, as she explains in a most interesting Ted presentation after her 4th attempt to cross that sea full of sharks and jelly fishes: on.ted.com/Nyad and before this recent 5th and finally succesfull attempt. Watch that speech, it is amazing!

She was almost 60 years old when she decided to transform the discontent she felt about herself, about the things she did not do or not change, into the realisation of the dream she had had since 30 years. She failed 4 times, she succeeded yesterday and the first wisdom she spread when she could talk again – apparently it is pretty exhausting, to cross a sea swimming 🙂 – was: ‘never, ever give up’.

Also very beautiful: http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/ht_diana_nyad_jef_120820_wg.jpg
For me her age of 64 years adds to the message, as the crossing of a sea while swimming is rather expected (by me at least) from a young strong person than from an elderly person. ‘You are never too old’, Diana Nyad tells us in her speech and she is right. We usually find too many excuses not to fulfill our dreams and to give up… Mankind is blessed with special people that encourage us to follow our dreams and never, ever give up; may they be blessed too!

Lore movie that silences the public

Posted on April 13, 2013 by wordpressgrethe

Lore movie that silences the public

Last night I saw the Australian/German movie Lore in complete silence. I do not remember that the cinema public did not talk or even cough during a movie, but Lore creates that effect.

5 children from SS-parents have to find their way from the southern Schwarzwald to Hamburg in the North of Germany in the days after Hitler died. Their parents are arrested and nobody wants the children or cares for them.

The country is a mess as Hitler fought untill the very end: the desillusion is complete and everybody is just surviving, often at the cost of others. No safety, no love, even no truth: ‘not knowing’ is one of the themes in the movie.

We interprete the circumstances thought the eyes of maybe 16 years old Lore who was educated in a pro-Hitler family with strong values. Not just the story, also the end of the movie is unique: the message, whatever it is, is significant. Everybody, no exception, left the cinema in silence.

For me, the movie gave a perspective on immediate post-war Germany that I never had before. It was touching, confusing and realistic: it could have happened and it may have… Beautiful camera work turns this into an art movie: breathtaking from the begin untill the very end!

Other documentaries you may like:
Dheepan: an outstanding movie about refugees
Loin des hommes

Latvia museum: cultural exchange without words?!

Posted on February 21, 2013 by wordpressgrethe

Latvia Museum

Latvia has particular archeaological beauties but the presentation of them could be better. For example, in the national museum in Riga all signs are in the Latvian language only. How many people in the world speak Latvian – and especially, how many tourists? It’s a bit weird to walk around in a museum with fantastic ancient pieces and no explanation at all. I speak six languages but that was not enough to understand what I was looking at; I deeply regret that because as shown above there are some masterpieces in the museum – just haven’t got a clue what they are…
The entrance of the museum is also intriguing, starting with a mysterious painting above a coffin with a real old skeleton in it:
It attracts immediate attention, but the scenery remains a secret. Is someone mourning or did he just kill someone? The Latvian national museum proves that language is an essential tool in the 21st century. If we want to know and understand each others culture, showing our historic items is not enough. Neither are intuition or imagination – those strongly add to our quality of life, but not to understanding reality. Language, words that can be interpreted are essential in intercultural exchange.
Still, I enjoyed the Latvian ancient objects and recommend a museum visit to everyone!

Another blog about museums: Who tells your history? And other questions
Or this one: Museum of the history of Cypriot coinage
Or this one: Vesunna Museum in Périgueux

Who tells your history? and other questions

Posted on August 26, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

“Who tells your history?”, says another intruiging exhibition in the Stockholm National Historical Museum / Historiska Museet (http://www.historiska.se ). I don’t know what musea are like in your country. My experience is that they are usually knowledgeable on the subject they talk about and also a bit arrogant: they are the experts, the way they present things is right. The Stockholm National Historical Museum is a pleasant surprise, unique in its kind. Here is a museum that questions its own assumptions.
For example the way an archaeologist looks at a prehistoric grave is not just defined by ‘objective’ knowledge but also by his concept of the world he knows. So when he tries to find out whether a prehistoric grave belongs to a man or a woman, he might follow rules like: ‘ah this is a needle, so it was a woman’ and ‘ah this is a weapon, so it was a man’. How can we be sure that this is prehistoric reality and not the archaeologist’s concept of the world, projected on prehistoric times? We can’t, the Stockholm National Historical Museum simply says. This museum does something more courageous than I even saw a museum do: contest its own authority, expertise and knowledge. Isn’t that a great example for the 21st century where certainties have diminished anyway!
It is not just a non-issue that they are talking about, as you can read in a previous blog of my hand, april 2011: https://grethevangeffen.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/gay-caveman-in-czech-republic/
The Stockholm National Historic Museum makes this matter personal (see the photograph above). Many people define their identity by the (national) history; be it viking, be it VOC mentality, be it slavery, be it the Ottoman empire. But as the museum says, it matters who defined that history with what concept. This museum questions the possibility to define your identity through history, as it might be a construct rather than a truth or reality. I loved it – I found it very intriguing. If you prefer questions to answers, don’t forget to pass by this museum when you are in Stockholm. Enjoy!

Another blog about this museum: Vikings, did they really exist?

Another museum that you might like: Heimatmuseum Borkum: variety, wealth, surprise

Vikings: did they really exist?

Posted on August 21, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

“The Vikings is a created identity that everybody uses for its own purposes”, says an intruiging exhibition in the Stockholm National Historical Museum / Historiska Museet (http://www.historiska.se ). They have a complete collection of every possible antique Viking asset, but they also contest the very existence of a Viking identity and I have to say, they do that quite convincingly. It really made me smile.

They explain that in 1864 Germany attacked Denmark and Denmark lost Southern Jutland. So the Nordic countries felt threatened. Their reaction was to create the Viking myth so that others would feel frightened to attack them. Ain’t that a marvellous story!
Apparently the creation of the myth was successful so it became a habit. When universal male voting rights were introduced in 1910, the Vikings served as example: ‘all free men had a vote in the Viking time’. During the second World War, the Germans used Viking dresses and symbols to convince Norvegian men to join them, as if the Vikings were some kind of prehistoric SS-men. Then after the war, everybody was longing for peace so the peaceful side of Vikings as peasants was emphasized.

When Sweden was discussing EU-membership in the years ’80 and ’90, the Viking identity was presented in favour of EU-membership expressing how actively they were trading in many places in Europe. And isn’t the EU about trade most of all!
And now the most funny part comes. Actually gender and diversity have become an important theme in life. So what happens to the Viking identity? In the presentation of Viking history, the prominent place of women in Viking society is shown. And the Vikings have now become people who were very open for other cultures and ideas.

So the Viking identity can serve many goals. Applause for a Historical Museum that is splendid in its normal exhibition of historical artefacts and in the meantime so creative in the reflections about the interpretation of what they exhibit. Very worth a visit!

Another blog about this museum: Who tells your history?

Another blog about Stockholm; Diversity in hotels, it exists in Stockholm!

Maybe you like to read also about this museum: Archaeological museum Haarlem

Aid for orphans in Malawi

Posted on July 31, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Aid for orphans in Malawi is a popular activity. Plenty of NGO’s have started an orphanage. The amount of orphans here is incredibly high, partly because of HIV/AIDS related deaths. Precise figures can be found in this Unicef publication: http://www.unicef.org/malawi/MLW_resources_childprotecstratsum.pdf. Unicef is not in favor of orphanages. Guiding principles for Unicef are (amongst others) that the family is the first line of defence for the protection of children and that community child protection practices are the heart of any child protection system.
The Malawian government is also not happy with orphanages and wants to abolish them if possible. Arguments in favour of that are for example:
– children are taken away from their family and community context, and thus derooted and alienated from their origins, relatives, values and traditions; it harms the children’s development
– for the price of 1 child in an orphanage, 8 children can receive help in a community
– most of the children living in institutions have a surviving parent or close relative, and they most commonly entered orphanages because of poverty, not because the parents or relatives do not want to take care of them
– research has shown that cash given directly to families is more effective than subsidies given to orphanages
– creating orphanages serves the donors more than the children
See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/africa/06orphans.html?_r=1
The last argument is exactly why the change of policy to abolish orphanages and work directly with communities is difficult to accept for NGO’s. It is more easy to find donors for a single child support than for a community. And it is more easy to work with children only and not with entire communities. Also, an orphanage gives NGO’s and donors the possibility to control the complete situation of a child, to offer the education the NGO thinks is important and eventually ignore their background.
In an orphanage like Kondanani – where Madonna recently got her children from – children are obliged to speak English only . They get a very good education in a merely western environment; a good kick-off in life, is the thought. Kondanani has been led thoroughly during many years and lots of donors contributed to create a world in its own, with fences around it to protect it. After primary education, various kinds of secondary education are offered and now even a Kondanani university might start on the premises. Is this kind of closed and safe environment for children, from baby until student, good or bad? One thing is sure, now that a (donor/NGO)dream that started almost 20 years ago is coming to its completion, the idea of ‘offering aid for orphans within their community only’ will not be received with a warm and open mind… This is just one example out of many. The Stephanos Foundation that also runs an orphanage in a compound is the first to be willing to cooperate for change – Unicef considers to make a pilot out of it.
Intriguing is the fact that donors/NGO’s do not automatically see the government of Malawi as leading when it comes to policies for Malawi children; they do not seem to consider their own position as supportive or additional to Malawi policies. Do they have the right to resist the government (and UN), for example by the experience and expertise they have about what works in practice, or by the money they raise, or because of the responsibility they feel for the children they are caring for in their orphanage already? Or can their attitude be considered as arrogant and postcolonial, as an ‘addiction to help’ like Dambisa Moyo describes in her book Dead Aid?
Nothing is easy here in Malawi. Yesterday’s newspaper mentioned the opening of a new road made by China and a new bridge made by Japan. It is difficult to take a government serious when it does not even make its own roads and bridges or when the members of parliament are on strike (really!) for a 137% increase of wages. However, by not taking the government serious for sure there will be no structural, sustainable change and orphanages will be needed forever (which, of course, is good news for the addicted-to-aid part of the donors/NGO’s).

Malawi Fever Tree: what do you see?

Posted on July 30, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

The Malawi Fever Tree was during some time suspected to be the cause of malaria, as this tree was found particularly in areas where malarial fever often occured. It is a very beautiful tree with a shiny, almost glowing bright green-yellow bark but of course nobody can like it when it is supposed to bring disease.

Later on, people found out that the malaria mosquito who is the real cause of malaria likes the same swampy areas as the Fever Tree does. So the Fever Tree was blamed not for what it was, but for what it looked like…

Ever heard or maybe even been the victim of this kind of mechanism? Ever drawn conclusions yourself just on the basis of that first impression?

Fortunately this particular situation was resolved and we can now enjoy the Fever Tree for what it is: an special and unique kind of Acacia!

Other blogs you might like:
Rewarding managers
Creative use of waterpipes in Zomba
Mulanji Massif in Malawi: again unknown beauty

Stage fever is an English invention

Posted on July 23, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Stage fever is an English invention: that is what people say in Nigeria, where performing in front of others is not the same dilemma as in many places in the ‘western’ part of the world. It is the same here in Malawi. Yesterday I spent some time at a youth meeting in the compound of Stephanos, close to Blantyre in the south of the country. Stephanos has many projects for health, agriculture and so on, and also an orphanage where many children get education at primary and secondary school level. On Sundays, they come together for Bible study and singing and they love it. Groups of young people stand in front of the group as a whole at the first invitation they get: happy to sing, without any stage fever. They simply don’t care, they are not busy with the thoughts of others (‘what they might think about me’) with the music itself.
They are spontaneous and very talented. Their sound has a good volume, because the absence of stage fever gives the result that everybody is singing full heartedly and not like in the Netherlands with their mouth half closed because of shame or whatever other reason that is withholding them. And it is maximum melodious, with tunes that are different from western or Asian music, so that we can recognize them immediately as African melodies.
(photos or video about this performance will be uploaded as soon as Malawi internet connections work better than right now…)

More blogs about Stephanos:
Pigs, kids and why it works in Malawi
Seba culture and diversity workshops in Malawi

More blogs about the culture of Malawi:
President in the warm heart of Africa
When inclusiveness met apartheid

Istanbul: mysterious tickets after Süleymaniye Mosque donation

Posted on March 2, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Süleymaniye Mosque

On leaving the beautiful Süleymaniye Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque) I gave a donation to a guy sitting at the exit of the Mosque with a sign ‘donations for the Mosque’. As the entrance was free and usually the maintenance of this kind of buildings is enormous in costs, it seemed reasonable to have some contribution. I gave money and got a few blue tickets in return for that. I looked at them and thought, why do I get this kind of tickets? I gave a donation, but what is this for?
As my brains couldn’t find a solution, I started to think the Dutch way. This must be a proof for tax administration that a donation was made, I thought. In the Netherlands this exists; for income that is spent in gifts to good aims, citizens don’t need to pay taxes. But you must be able to proof that you gave away that money. I suggested the Turks might have the same system and that the tickets I got at the Süleymaniye Mosque served to prove to Turkish taxes that this money was really spent as a gift. But I also know that perspectives can be coloured too much by national perspective. The reason why I got the tickets could be completely different.
So in the restaurant, close to Süleymaniye, where we had dinner after visiting the Mosque, I showed my newly acquired tickets to the staff and asked them for the meaning of them. The staff was very surprised about it: ‘we have never seen these tickets before’. They started to question me ‘the Mosque is free to visit, why did you give them money?’. I tried to explain to them the idea, or should I say idealism, of donations but my table company destroyed it all by saying ‘she wanted to feel good about herself’, making everybody burst out in laughter as if I were the kind of fool that was hardly seen in this part of Istanbul.
The restaurant staff explained to me ‘the government takes care of the Mosque, they don’t need your money’. Hey, I don’t give up that easily so I responded in an utmost surprised way ‘ah, I thought Turkey has a separation of state and religion’. ‘Well yes’, they replied, ‘the state doesn’t pay any money but local government does, the city of Istanbul is taking care of the Mosque’. I thought that the separation of state and religion also involved local government as well as national government but they thought that local was completely different from national and showed surprise that the City of Amsterdam is not giving money to churches or mosques ‘Istanbul is very social but Amsterdam is not’.
Soon enough, we started to talk Turkish instead of English and we jumped from the way Christians were treated in the South-East of Turkey to the way Muslems were treated in Greece and Bulgaria. I got a bit upset and so did they, and they had the superiority of language, meaningful in situations like the moment where I said that the monasteries in the North (güney) had a hard time under Turkish government when they declared there were no monasteries in the North – like I usually do, I mixed the words South and North (kuzey versus güney); a problem of mastering a language that weakened my arguments because they wouldn’t notice that I was not telling an ‘untruth’ but making a language mistake.
We didn’t really find a solution for Muslems in Greece and Bulgaria or for Christians in South East Turkey but we had a drink together to close the discussion. The only problem that lasts now is that my question about the tickets was left unanswered: why does a tourist who gives a donation to the Süleymaniye Mosque get tickets showing the period, the amount and the purpose of the donation? If you, reader, know the answer, please send me a message because I really like to know after all…

Other blogs you might like:
Istanbul and souvenirs with a religious component
Agios Nikolaos
Istanbul street cats

Iron Lady – too soft a movie

Posted on February 7, 2012 by wordpressgrethe

Iron Lady is a surprising, rather disappointing movie. Years ago, I read Margaret Thatcher’s biographie. I found it very interesting to read about her own views on what she stood for and how she wanted to achieve her goals. She was one of the first women at the international stage. In the Netherlands, until now, we never even had a female Prime Minister. So Margaret Thatcher is a woman we can learn something from.

In the movie The Iron Lady, however, we learn little about her views; the movie doesn’t even explain or pay any attention to the question how she could achieve at all to become Prime Minister as a woman in an ‘all men’ environment. On the contrary, we see most of the time an old woman who is having memories about her past life in short parts and sketches. She is already confused in a starting dementia, imagining her deceased husband around her most of the time and talking to him, sometimes even thinking that she is still Prime Minister.

In the various scenes about her life we see in the first place a woman who is Prime Minister, rather than a Prime Minister who is a woman. The focus is on her style much more than on her ideas, policies, views. Especially for a Prime Minister who lead a country through many changes, this is a surprising and also disappointing focus.

Research has shown that this treatment is reserved especially for female ministers. Journalists for example ask them two to three times more often about their private life and children than they do to their male colleagues. When they report about women in government positions, they report first of all about their style; however for their male colleagues, the main attention is paid to the content of their politics.

Nobody can say that Meryl Streep did not do a good job, because she was brilliant as ever. But she is not responsible for the script that chose to show one of the most influential Prime Ministers of the 20th century from a vulnerable side that is at least partly based on phantasy of the maker rather than as a strong and powerful person with ideas and the competence to realize them. Let’s hope another, more visionary movie maker will stand up and do the work that the Iron Lady movie has neglected to do.

Other blogs you may like:
Turist and the myth of heroism
Lore movie that silences the public
Simone Veil: une vie

Northern Cyprus Heritage (12) cultural approach

Posted on August 1, 2011 by wordpressgrethe

Northern Cyprus Heritage: cultural approach

Culture exists and it doesn’t exist. It is almost impossible to describe a culture in general terms as it is always possible to show members belonging to that culture that differ from the description. There is so much diversity within cultures – diversity that will even increase the coming years – that people who read about the culture they adhere to can strongly disagree about the description given. Nevertheless, I am going to give it a try, knowing already that some people might feel irritation while reading it.

Concerning Northern Cyprus heritage, it seems that Turks are more oriented towards the future while Greeks are more oriented towards the past. In the words Turks and Greeks I include Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, without denying that in many aspects they have an identity of their own, as Cypriots.
The consequence is that Turks are inclined to value and use Northern Cyprus heritage that they see as relevant for the present. This is why the former cathedral of the Lusignans in Lefkosa/Nicosia, the Venetian castle in Girne/Kyrenia and a typical Greek building like the Mavi Kösk / Blue House are well kept and get a good profile in any touristic and cultural presentation. They can show the greatness of the Turks in actual times and the (conquered) enemies they had to deal with. This is also why churches like Ermelaos or monasteries like Sourp Magar and Pandeleimon get no attention at all: what message for the future could be given with that heritage?
I remember a visit I made once to Hattusa in Turkey. The guide told us that Hettites were the high and mighty ancestors of the Turks. He got very very angry when I said there was at least 2000, maybe even 3000 years of difference in time between the Hettites and the Turks arriving in actual Turkey. Clearly this was not just about the facts: this was about the value that Hettite history presented for the greatness and the future of the Turkish people. What I saw as objective truth, was useless for my guide and even upset him.
Greeks have a magnificent ancient past. They had Socrates, Homer, Euripides and so many others, really high science and culture. Then they developed an independent and mighty church that created such beautiful monuments. Memories of that past are kept with the highest care as to remember what Greeks brought to civilization, development, faith and culture in this world: it is their identity. So when a new country exists that calls itself Macedonia, Greeks protest firmly as Macedonia including Alexander the Great is considered as a Greek identity and cannot exist independently of them. The fact that this happens anyway in the 21st century is very difficult for the Greek.
In Northern Cyprus heritage, two cultures meet. Greek see the way the Turks deal with their monuments as a proof that Turks are barbarians (barbaros = the ancient Greek word for a stranger, a non-Greek). Just read some Greek websites where these issues are discussed and you will notice a consequent approach: tell the world how terrible the Turks are. In several blogs I have shown pictures that prove them right.
Turks really do not understand what is expected from them: why would they contribute to prove the greatness of the Greek past? They prefer to invest in what they see as relevant for actual life and development of Northern Cypriot inhabitants. There are few Turkish websites that blame the Greeks. The Turks have given up the territories that they lost in 1974 as well as their monuments, lives and dreams. They are looking forward, not backward. They just ignore the Greek complaints and move on. In several blogs I have shown examples that prove them right.
In Northern Cyprus heritage, two cultures meet. To find each other, they need to listen more. At this moment, they are mainly blaming or judging each other – this is strongly influenced by the problematic political situation of course. However, for heritage it is a lot better if parties listen to each other and recognize and value differences. This could be a starting point to create synergy in diversity. Then both the past and the present will profit!

Grethe van Geffen

culture and diversity

Tag Archives: perceptions