Private lives and private wars
Sunday 28 November 2010
Citations
What is the private life of war?
My ideas about this phrase are still fairly similar to what I originally said in the first entry. However, having read the books on the syllabus I feel that sometimes even if someone's story is made public, through a book or through photographs such as the ones taken by Farah Nosh and used in Nadir's The Orange Trees of Baghdad, their story is still a mostly private one. Unless you read these books or stumble upon the photos, you are not likely to encounter these stories, only the ones that are shown in the mainstream media, of soldiers and insurgents, which we are so detached from, they seem like stories not real events.
So, in conclusion, sometimes the private lives and the public lives can exist together, although this is rare. As I mentioned in the original post, there are factors which affect people for many years after the war is over and I would have liked for of the texts to have dealt with this, especially the mental health problems experienced by those who have witnessed first hand wars and conflicts.
Friday 26 November 2010
How do we react to war as filtered through the media?
Thursday 25 November 2010
Interspersing
Here is a small experiment interspersing news relating to conflicts around the world and what I posted that day.
Key of abbreviations: FB = Facebook, BS = Blogspot, EM = Email.
October 22nd 2010
The 'Iraq War Logs' are leaked today on WikiLeaks. Almost 400,000 secret army files were leaked including evidence of torture and logs of civilian deaths when both the American and British governments had denied that official records of civilian deaths existed (Davies, Steele, and Leigh.)
FB: Fran Roberts knocked a bottle of Fuze over her desk and now her glasses are sticky :(
October 29th 2010
Two parcel bombs were intercepted on cargo planes. The bombs are believed to have originated in Yemen and were made by members of Al Qaeda. The bombs were addressed to synagogues in the Chicago and were due to explode whilst the planes were in mid-air (Wassef.) I wonder if the synagogues were chosen as a retaliation to the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. The middle east has been volatile for a long time and that would certainly increase tensions.
EM: I might just head over and get stuff now. If I can't find any whiskey I like, will vodka/gin/rum be ok?
November 23rd 2010 (22nd PST)
As mentioned in my previous entry on this journal, North Korea launched an attack on South Korea.
BS: The weather has been firmly stuck in the minus figures for a few days now. If I haven't spoken to you and told you, we have snow. Vancouver rarely has snow and we're currently about 10 degrees less than we should be at this time of year - yay!
This experiment was done retrospectively and not as the events happened. It is interesting to see how world events have not entered into what I write on these various sites and yet I knew of all these things at the time they were relevant. I guess the only explanation I can give is that these are my personal postings about things in my life and unless the wars and the conflicts and the attacks directly affect my life, they probably won't get mentioned. Whilst Susan Griffin's entries also relate to her life, she often comments on what is going on in the wider world around her, such as the mentions of the first Gulf war.
Tuesday 23 November 2010
North Korea, South Korea, and Social Networking
I am reminded of the part in Susan Griffin's 'A Chorus of Stones' where she writes, "I run upstairs to the television. A reporter is quietly describing bombs as they are being dropped in Baghdad." (319- 320.) We are separate, far away from the action, yet we learn about it as it happens, not days, weeks or even years later, as was the case with many previous conflicts. Griffin's book was written before the advent of many new technologies. It's easier now than ever before to learn about what is going on. It's possible to learn what's going on from social networking sites instead of watching, reading or listening to the news.
I am reminded of the game I played as a child, Chinese Whispers. Someone whispers something and it is passed on through various people until it has come full circle. Whether the message comes back the same as it started all depends. It's the same with the media and social networking, I feel. Someone witnesses the event, they tell a journalist, they tell their version of the story, someone else comes across this article or broadcast, they tweet or blog about it, I read it in Canada and the story I end up with has been filtered through different people with various perspectives and political slants.
In this exercise I have tried to comment on events as they are happening but it is difficult and I think sometimes you need to look at a situation retrospectively to fully understand it.
Thursday 28 October 2010
War through Music?
Sunday 24 October 2010
Breaking the Traditional Narrative Mold
How does Susan Griffin attempt to 'break' the traditional narrative mold?