An interview with a midwife from Ghana

 

JB (Julie Buck): Okay, so I am here with my friend Cay and she grew up in Ghana so Cay could you tell me a little bit first off what it is like growing up in Ghana and could you tell me what year you grew up in Ghana?

CS (Cay Smith): I was born and grew up in Ghana. I went to school until I completed my twelfth grade, and then I went to Midwifery School and became a certified midwife. It took two-and-a-half years for that program and I practiced midwifery until I decided to migrate to the United States to get more of the civilized way of doing things, which is quite a bit different from how we do it back home in Ghana, and since then I have been here.

 

JB: So did you grow up mostly like in the ’60s and ’70s in Ghana?

CS: Yes. I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s and then I came to the United

States in the ’90s.

 

JB: So the culture, at least when you were younger, was it very tribalistic or how was the culture?

CS: It is very tribalistic because I always tell people it’s like part of the country is more traditional, and those who have the privilege to go abroad, mostly Europe. They also have a modern  lifestyle. So we combine both and work it out side by side, because those were the traditional mentality and you got to go around them with a lot of carefulness because not everything you tell them they even accept or understand. Right now things are changing because our children have gone abroad and come back home and tell them, well we don’t do it like this anymore. That is not the way it is. So, they are getting the message little by little.

 

JB: So has the affluency changed in Africa that you can see as you have grown up? What is the rate of poverty? Is it normal to have poverty, because I grew up thinking that Ghana was one of the poorest countries in the world.

CS: Yeah, we have poverty, and then we have the rich and then the middle class. We have both, yeah. We have both, and the poverty is still there. The poverty is still there and in fact some people, they don’t even realize that they are in poverty because that is their life so they are used to it and that is how they live.

 

JB: What would be a normal traditional African dinner?

CS: Well we do have breakfast in the morning. We do have lunch in the afternoon, and then we do have dinner in the evening, but because of the tribal differences in every tribe in the type of food they eat, yeah.

 

JB: It’s different.

CS: It’s different in preparation, but sometimes it is the same ingredients, but the way they prepare is different, so we do eat three times a day. JB: So did you grow up in a middle class or upper class or lower class?

CS: I would say upper class because my family on both sides, my mom is mixed with German and African, and my dad is mixed with Dutch and African, so they live both styles. They live both styles. We eat African food most of the time. In fact the Dutch and the Germans, my great parents that married these African women, they love African food, so that’s what we eat. Yeah.

JB: So what are your favorite African type foods?

CS: Oh the pepper is number one. Pepper is number one. We have different types of pepper but they like the hot hot pepper.

JB: What color are the hot peppers?

 

CS: They grow green. Then as time goes on the color changes to red or brown. In

summer, yellow.

 

JB: Okay. And you told me once about food for the fufu. Could you explain what that is?

CS: Yes? Fufu is the dehydrated plantain. Okay plantain is the bigger size of a banana sister. I will say plantain banana or cassava. You know, but bananas are sweet and small and plantain grows big and greenish and then it starts to turn yellowish little by little. By doing so the piths become sweet, sweeter, and sweetist. So the green part is dehydrated. Here in America it has been dehydrated and milled into a powder form, and that’s what we use it to prepare the food for. Back home we cook it directly from the tree and we pound it in a mortar and it becomes the same like the ones we use hot water here to prepare. 

 

JB: And it makes kind of like a dough right?

CS: Yeah it is like a dough, it’s like a dough, it’s like, yes a dough smooth and stretchy. Not too soft, but the texture depends. Some like it a little bit tough; some like it medium; some like it very very soft.

 

JB: So at home how long do you have to pound it to get it the right consistency?

CS: Well when you are pounding the fresh plantain in the mortar, it is a long process. You have to take your time and pound it until it becomes smooth. But as you are pounding it you have to turn it. You have to turn it. You have to turn it to make sure that it doesn’t fall.

 

JB: Like kneading bread, kind of.

CS: Yes, just like you are kneading flour bread, yeah. And, that’s how we do it.

 

JB: So you said that you actually had to live with your relatives at age 15. Do you want to explain a little bit about that?

CS: When my parents died I was approaching 16. So I lived with my grandmother and my aunts, and then when I turned 18 I went to the midwifery training school for two-and-a-half years. So by the time that I completed it, I was 21. And then that school had a program where as soon as you graduate, they place you at a hospital or a clinic or anywhere within the country that they need help. They have houses already built, so when you are transferred, by the time you get there your house is waiting for you.

 

JB: Is it the school that decides where you are going to work or is it the

government?

CS: It is the government. At the school they will prepare you.

 

JB: And do you like that way of the government doing it, or do you like it how we do it in America where everyone finds their own job their own way?

CS: I like the way the government does it over there, because here to find a job on your own is very difficult. Your application will remain on file. In the U.S. you are number 200 in line to get a job. But there you don’t waste time at all. By the time you graduate, your place is waiting for you.

 

JB: Do you elect your local officials, or how are the government officials chosen?

CS: Well the people elect them. The people choose them, because we all know the politicians around, so when it is election time, you vote for who you want, yeah.

 

JB: So do you know the politicians because you talk to each other and your

neighbors, or do they do advertising, like in America they do?

CS: Yeah they do advertising. Yeah, because not everybody knows who is who. Yeah.

JB: Tell me a little bit about the music and the culture.

CS: Okay, like I said earlier, every tribe has its culture. Every tribe has its music, like if I hear a music I know which tribe it is right away. And that’s how it goes. You know, but those are for entertainment purposes. Other than that they embrace both European music and American music because we have radio stations that play all the music around the world. 

 

JB: One thing that I learned in a music-culture class is that the drumming in African music is different. So in American music we can usually count to three or four, but in African music they can usually count to ten or eleven.

CS: Yeah, that is the drum, and the drums are made traditional. It is not the drums that are made from Europe or America. They made it themselves, and they put it between their legs and they beat the drums with their, you know, hands, and so that’s how they come up with their own music. Yeah. But then as time went on people started to learn foreign music, to play trumpet, to play cornet, to play anything that is musical, piano. I grew up with my grandfather having three pianos in the living room, and when I’m practicing I will run my fingers through…glissando

sound. My mom would scream stop messing with the piano. So we have musicians in the family. My aunt married a man who is very good at playing the guitar, and one of his sons knows how to play piano. So, we have musicians in the family. 

 

JB: So were there rural areas that were basically farming communities? And if so, what would people farm?

CS: Yes there are areas of farming communities. In fact when I was practicing midwifery, I was posted to a rural area where it is a completely farming community, and I was the midwife in charge of the clinic, so every Wednesday and Friday I held a clinic where the pregnant women would come and get their examinations and medications and everything. And I do delivery at the same time because the clinic was built in the way that it had everything that the midwife would need. You don’t have to travel miles to another hospital. So it was good. I enjoyed being there, but a rural area is a rural area! I got to the  point where my children are growing and I want them to come to the city. 

 

JB: And did you remember any of the things that they would farm in those areas?

CS: Oh they farm everything you can think of. Everything. Vegetables, I mean everything I see here, they grow it over there in abundance.  And then they have animal husbandry too. Some go into goats and sheep and pigs and cows and all the feathery birds like turkeys and ducks and chickens. I mean everything,everything is there. Everything is there, but one thing I notice here… you have the slaughter house that slaughters the animals and brings them to the store. There you will buy it as it is and you go and do your own slaughtering.

 

JB: Do you do it at a slaughterhouse or do you do it at home, or where do you do it?

CS: Yeah, you slaughter it at home. You slaughter it at home. Except for the cow and the sheep and the goat and the pigs, the farmers themselves do the slaughtering and then they bring it to the market, but the city has inspectors who go and inspect that the meat is in good condition to sell to the people. And in fact, if you don’t go early, by 11:00 o’clock to 12:00 noon, everything is finished, because people are rushing to buy and to go home and cook. 

 

JB: One time you said that over there they would say that Americans have no culture, and you told me about a dance they would do. Could you tell me more about that?

CS: Well, you know, because they have different tribes, they would look at each tribe’s culture to identify this person as his or her culture. Okay, here in America, all the 50 states have been put together, and they do everything the same way, that there’s no difference between Indiana and Denver, Colorado. When you see them they are all the same. But in Ghana when you see Ewe and you see Akan tribe, you can tell right away from the way they dress, and the way they speak. So we used to joke that Americans don’t have a culture. But that doesn’t mean that Americans don’t have a culture. And now that I have lived here so long I have found that every state has their own peculiar way of doing things.

 

JB: Awesome, and do they… how do they dress?

CS: They wrap the fabric around their waist and then they have a way of sewing the tuck… oh I forgot the name. They have it here. Sometime ago I saw some kind of design similar to that on top of a skein, and then they wrap their head with the same piece of the fabric and that’s how they dress. But now, they are wearing American dress. They are wearing American shoes. You wouldn’t believe they are now dressing their hair and putting rollers in and I was like oh my… these people are really into it now.

 

JB: And would the fabric be colorful usually?

CS: Yes. They have colorful fabrics. Each tribe has its own taste that they buy, so all the fabrics that are shipped into the country from Europe, they make the fabrics according to tribal taste. Yeah.

 

JB: And then the tribes, do they speak their own languages?

CS: Mm-hmm. I had to learn how to speak some of the languages because when I was posted to the rural area I speak Guan and that area doesn’t speak Guan, so I had to learn how to speak certain words to deal with a pregnant woman who is trying to tell me I want to drink water. I have to find somebody to Help…and ask, ‘what is she saying’? Then they will tell me, oh she said she wanted water. I’m like, oh, okay. But by and by I learned how to speak it, and then I will speak it,

and when I speak it they will laugh at me because I’m not familiar with the way it is real, but they understand what I’m trying to say. 

 

JB: I don’t think it would be complete without asking about the spiritism and a little bit about the occult, the voodoo. Can you talk a little bit about that?

CS: Yes every tribe has its cult. Every tribe has its cult, but the Germans infiltrated into the country very early and started to preach Christianity. So that they wouldn’t stick to their culture in the cult things, so all of a sudden we have a Presbyterian Church. We have a Methodist Church. We have a Baptist Church. In fact one of my aunt’s husband was a pastor at the Baptist Church, and so I used to go to the Baptist Church on Sundays with my aunt because her husband was going to preach. Just to go singing and preaching. Then my grandfather grew up with the Presbyterian Mission House, the missionaries. He was a missionary boy and that’s where he met my grandmother whose father is German, so you know we do have both cultures in tribal, voodoo and all that. They still believe in those things, but they are changing. They are shifting to Christianity and God.

JB: So when you grew up it was more in the Christian environment?

CS: Oh yes. Our house was strictly Christian. You don’t come there with some kind of… my grandfather would tell you you don’t belong here.

 

JB: Now we need to bring it to an end. I just wanted to end it saying that one of the things that I noticed about you is that you are extremely intuitive, but you are also very smart. You are very smart in a Western sense. You have degrees.

CS: Yeah.

JB: And you have many skills. But I noticed that one time you said that you could smell that I was pregnant. That was amazing.

CS: Yeah, it’s because I did midwifery. When I see somebody, you know one of the sister’s daughters is pregnant and a couple of months ago she was fasting and I’m like, “are you pregnant?” And she said no. Why are you asking me, and I’m like well okay. And later on she came and said do you know that I was pregnant, and I’m like oh, okay. I can tell. I can tell from the color of the skin, from the face, you know, which you may not be noticing, but being a midwife, it is part of the training. You can tell when people are getting pregnant.

 

JB: Well I don’t think that that is taught in American midwifery to be honest.

CS: Yeah, they don’t have that, but we do because when you go to the rural area, there are some women who are pregnant and they don’t know they are. They just don’t know they are. I saw or they would say oh my stomach is just getting big. Oh I’m putting on weight. They don’t know it’s pregnancy, you know, so the government started to build clinics in the rural areas so we would help them to understand what it is to become pregnant and what to do when you are pregnant you know.

 

JB: So do you feel like the local politics actually took care of the people in like a

fatherly–motherly sense, like they are looking after people?

CS: The politics over there do not do that much. It is only school rather than go

into that. The politics there are into politics.So they don’t care about who is what and what is going on. But schools and hospitals and nurseries and midwives, we reach to the people. We reach out to them and we help them to understand.

 

JB: So in closing what is one of the things you miss about Ghana?

CS: Well, to tell you the truth I’m happy being here because it is so exciting. Every morning when I wake up I see something exciting. I see something that I want to see more and more and more, you know, so I don’t miss anything much over there. But now before I think, oh you need to come and see. We have developed. A lot of things are going on. If you come you wouldn’t believe you are in Africa, like oh really, you know. So my friend has 31 days to come and I will go and visit and come back, but now I feel like an American. Because I have been here very long, very long, so I have adopted an American lifestyle.

 

JB: Well I have loved getting to know you and having you as a friend Cay. Thank you so much and thanks for sharing about your homelife. I appreciate it so much.

CS: Thank you too for getting to know a little bit about Africa!

JB: Awesome!

CS: Bless you.

 

An interview with a lady living in Argentina

JB: (Julie Buck) Are you ready for our interview?

TR: (Tilly Ramez — fake name) Yes. I was thinking what is your interest about…?

JB: Okay so we want to talk about tradition, authentic community life, so basically what is it like to be living in Argentina as a community. So what is your authentic community tradition? What is family life like, and then tell me about the different religions, and about the province. And also if you have any type of institute, like if you have elders or like how does your society direct itself? So those are the questions that we can use to start off with. Then if you want to talk more about another topic, that’s great. 

TR: Okay.

JB: So you are from Argentina so what part of Argentina have you grown up in?

TR: Okay, so I live in the north part of Argentina. It is a place called Jujuy.

TR: Jujuy. Up to the north we are close to Bolivia. To the west, are the mountains and then Chile, to the east and south with other provinces in Argentina. So the country is divided into provinces. There are twenty-three of them. We have a president and a vice president and then the provinces are run by the government. Because it is a big country there are big differences in culture. It is very different in the north from Buenos Aires, for example. Because in Buenos Aires it is the main capital city and it is concentrated with the wealth of the country, people that go abroad may leave from there and they have very distinctive manners and behavior and even worth. So when I was in Argentina people used to say, ‘but you don’t look Argentinian,’ and I say I don’t look Argentinian because where I come from we behave differently. We are much calmer. We don’t tend to shout and behave like people in Buenos Aires.  But something I find is very common is the same, goes across the country, is the way we practice, say friendship, friendshipness. Do you say friendship? That is very common in the whole country.

JB: So when you say friendshipness that means people are kind to each other?

TR: Usually yeah. Someone was saying oh because in Europe when you want to visit someone you have to ask for a… it is not a date… it is an appointment. Here in Argentina we just don’t. You may call someone and say, “Hey what if we just go out for a coffee,” or just pop in and say hello. That still happens here. That’s the big difference with other countries.

JB: Beautiful.

JB: Is it like that in Buenos Aires as well?

TR: As well, yes. Even though it is a big country, a big city, it is still happening like that, maybe not so often, as often in here, as it is happening here but yes.

JB: What is the relationship like between parents and children?

TR: Hum…

JB: Is it, would you say there is a good relationship between parents and children as far as parents taking care of their children. 

TR: Yeah.

JB: Do parents drop their kids off at daycare and go to work or do moms stay home and raise their children or how does that work?

TR: Um-hum. Okay. If they have to work they have to earn money to pay someone to look after their children. That also depends on the social-economic level, but usually you find that parents go out in the daytime. Here in this small city the working hours are four hours in the morning, then there is a break for lunch, and then start back in the afternoon.

JB: What is the school day like for kids?

TR: The primary school is for seven years. You go for seven years. Secondary school is five years, and they go four hours in the morning and then in the afternoon it depends on the families, but the kids may have different activities like studying English, or music, or going to some sports.

JB: Do the kids help out doing work at home, like helping clean up?

TR: Ah yes, that depends on the family.  But yes, it happens and during the weekends, they go… all the family goes out or stays inside together. 

JB: And what type of games do they play or sports?

TR: Mmm… sports. The most popular ones are football, soccer. We call it football here. And that’s the most popular and now well I guess it is a global behavior. All of them keep the computer and the play stations, the screens.  And parents don’t know how to handle it and it’s like they blame the system. They blame the screens but they allow their kids to be with their phones all day. 

JB: So you said families enjoy sitting out together in the evening. Do they usually eat a meal together in the evening and then enjoy being outside?  

TR: Yes.  There is a difference between Buenos Aires which is a big city, and here which is a small one; the family, they get together at lunchtime and then at dinnertime, or they have the opportunity of doing so. 

JB: And what does a typical dinner look like, as far as what would you eat?

TR: That depends on the social-economic level. But basically it is meat and rice or noodles. It depends on the person. Maybe they enjoy some vegetables, not so often because they are much more.

JB: And what’s a typical… Do you have breakfast as well?

TR: Yes a typical breakfast could be coffee and bread with jam or butter.

JB: And can you tell me what different socio-economic classes there are? Is there like the middle class, upper class, lower class? How is that?

TR: Yes, the three of them. The upper class is very small. The middle class is shrinking, and the lower class is growing. 

JB:  And why is the lower class growing?

TR: Oh because the economy is going bad. And also traditionally when we think of these three different classes, it was based on the economy, on the financial situation, but now it also includes, say someone who had finished university, but has a low income. Or it could be someone who has got a higher salary and is earning good money.

JB: So when you get a job in Argentina is it something that you find for yourself or is it something the government assigns to you?

TR: No, you find it for yourself.   And for example nowadays a lot of lawyers have told me there are just too many, and I was talking to a young fellow who is studying engineering, and he was saying that at the last year of the studies companies go to the faculties of the universities looking for them to offer them jobs because there are not too many. 

JB: Do you consider the universities to be really good or how is higher education?

TR: Up until say 20 years ago the level was very good. It was high standards compared with anyone in the new world, but they went down. 

JB: Due to economic issues?

TR: Um I don’t know. I don’t think it is just economic issues. It is just political.

JB: Political? Have you had changes in the government system in the past 20 years or changes in a prime minister that has made a difference? 

TR: It is one and two, so it is one ruling for eight or twelve years. Then it is two coming into power and ruling for eight years, then going back to one. We’ve been like that since, I don’t know, the 1800s.

JB: Say that again. You’ve got one person ruling for twelve years?

TR: Not one person, no. One party. You have two main parties, there are two main parties.

JB: Oh, okay.

TR: So they alternate.

JB: And what are the names of the parties?

TR: Peronismo, that is from the 1940s.

TR: And the other one is Radicalis. They come from the 1800s and they started to counteract the ruling party.

JB: And the Peronismo group?

TR: [Peronism. Peronism or Justicialist Party] comes from Perón, Juan Domingo Perón, that was a person. He was in the military, Military from the soldiers. 

JB: So the Peronismo group is more… is that more the people group? And then the ruling class is more the radicalist group? 

TR: Mm-hmm.

JB: Okay. So which one is better do you think?

TR: None.

JB: None. And which one has been in power the last 20 years? 

TR: We had a gap. There were twelve years with Kirchner as the president,  and he set up enough guidelines to become a party. So they were in power for twelve years. Then it was the other one. It was not Radicalismo but in that line. They were for four years and now we are having back the Kirschenerismo the last four years.

JB: Now do they do what is best for the people? Or do they get orders from other maybe foreign interests that don’t care for the people’s interests?

TR: Yes. 

JB: And has it always been that way or was there a time when Argentina was very wealthy in its ability to produce its own resources and take care of its people? We call it being sovereign. Being sovereign means that no one is controlling you. That you are self-sufficient. 

TR: I don’t think we have ever been sovereign. 

JB:  Would you consider Argentina a poor country or a rich country?

TR: A rich country.

JB: How so?.

TR: In resources, yes.  But at school we are told that in 1810 there was the first application for freedom and in 1816 there was a petition to become a republic, but all of those that were the leaders in those situations were following instructions. That we were not told at school of course.

JB: Now it seems like I have read about mining in Argentina. So you say Argentina is very wealthy in resources but the foreign countries are coming in and getting it for very cheap. Now is that part of why there is protesting going on, because they want to make sure the people are getting enough for the resources in their area?

TR: It is a bit more complex than that. What is happening now started with the teachers, school teachers asking for a raise in their wages. I don’t know whether that started because it was their own doing or someone told them, ‘hey why don’t you,’ because the timing is very odd. And then when they were doing that some others came talking about the reform that the government here in the province wanted to do to the constitution. We have a national constitution and we have a constitution from the province. So the government here wanted to partially change the constitution. There was a reform, and in that reform, that reform affects everyone. So during the process from the school teachers they started asking for getting done the reform, and the main issue that they came up with was the people that, we call them the, the Originals, the ones that belong to the land here before the Spanish came, the Spaniards came, and so they started shouting for them. It is that that land belongs to them, and with the reform the government will have the right to do whatever they want.

JB: So the government in the province of Jujuy basically claims that the Originals don’t have right to their own land and these are the people that were there before Cortez. Okay, before the Spaniards fell from England. Interesting. So that’s what all this…so are people coming from everywhere to protest this or is this just in your province?

TR: Right now it is here in the province, which is a huge movement. It is amazing. And with time the government says okay teachers, we will pay you more but this is so evil. The teachers get paid and they pay taxes on that, so it is… I don’t know how to explain, but the government pays the teachers three pesos, but it is not enough because they need twenty to live. So the rest of the three to twenty they pay in black. They don’t consider it as though the government was paying. So the consequences of it is when the teachers want to retire the pension is based on the white wage, so based on the three, not the twenty. 

JB: Okay. So when you say pay in black, that’s off the records. 

TR: Off the records. Okay that’s the expression, off the records.

JB: So then they can’t retire.

TR: So when they retire, when they reach the age for retirement, they have to pay the government  to be in white. They have to buy their retirement.

JB: What age do they retire?

TR: They retire early because of the kind of work. They retire at 58.

JB: Okay. Would you tell me what dating and courtship is like?

TR: What is it like?

TR: It has changed as well in these last perhaps 20 years, 15–20 years. It used to be that the boy came to the girl and asked for dating and it was like that and that’s for getting married. But now it is the woman who approaches the man, and the man doesn’t know what to do because it is something new for them. And now teenagers it is even luck, so it is anyone you like, a girl, a boy.

JB: Do the families weigh in on who the people marry? Do the parents help the children decide who to marry? Do the parents need to give permission or do people just choose for themselves?

TR: Hum, before it was more that the family decided or not accepting, but now it is more up to the kids. There are a lot of divorces as well. 

JB: Do you have the community get together?

TR: No we don’t have that. It is more friends that you are meeting at school or work, but no not the community. 

JB: What about holidays? Do you have any community holidays?

TR: Some people do but it is not popular, no. It has become more lately because parents have to work during the holidays, the school holiday. School holidays here go for three months in summertime. And if parents have to work they have to do something with their kids because they cannot stay at home. So there are these… they call it colonies.. So you send your kid to a colony and they stay there at least a half day. And they also have different activities.

JB: So are they fun activities or are they learning activities, or both?

TR: No they are fun activities, yes.

JB:  We call that in America, we have summer camps of all different types.

TR: Okay.  Yes, summer camps.

JB: What about language? What language do people speak?

TR: Spanish. Argentinian Spanish. 

JB: And do you learn any other languages in school?

TR: Not in public primary school, no. In public secondary school there are five years, three years of one language and three years of another language. It would be like three years of English and three years of French, but the level is very low. Then the middle class people send their kids to study English in a private institute.

JB: What is the official religion?

TR: Catholic religion. I don’t know right now but it was in the constitution that the president, a person to become president of the nation had to be Catholic. We had one who was Muslim and he changed. 

JB: Was that recently? You recently had a Muslim…

TR: 1990s.

JB: But it is in the constitution that you have to be a Catholic to be president, okay. Also, what is your favorite part about living in Argentina?

TR: Where I live I like the landscape. 

JB: What landscape do you like?

TR: It’s mountains. I look through the window and I can see the mountains and it is the color of the sky. There is something in the sky that is very peculiar. I can’t find it in any other place.

JB: A peculiar color of blue or what?

TR: There is something there. I say the color but there is something there that is from here, and it is not the chemtrails.  

JB: When children grow up do they usually stay in their communities or do they move away?

TR: It depends on the social-economic situation, like middle class people send their kids to study in another city because here we didn’t have university and then when we had university. There were only two or three careers, not many to choose from. Now that there are more, people tend to stay here. But the tradition is to go to another city. 

JB: Now one question I have is the crops. What is farming like?

TR: In the forties, during the Second World War, they started to call us … How do you say in English the place where you store grain? (granary)

JB: Silos?

TR: No, a grain store. No. Well, we were called that place. So we were in a world where the grain can be farmed. We grow grain and we sell wheat mainly. There used to be corn and again this may be 40 years ago, 30–40 years. And soy.

JB:  And what is your favorite in-season fruit?

TR: I have to say mango.

JB: Do you have cocoa trees in Argentina?

TR: No.

JB: No?

TR: Very few. If there are, there are not many. We have weather for that. We have weather for everything. We have weather for coffee as well, but we don’t have coffee. 

JB: That’s a good topic as well, so what is the weather like?

TR: We have all sorts of weather because it is a long country, 4000 kilometers from north to south. Here we have a very dry kind of weather. The mountains where I am now are 1200 meters above sea level and going across to the east you have 120 kilometers, you go down to eleven, so in that area it is very green. It’s a jungle. Here it is drier and up 300 kilometers to the north it’s even drier. And here in the country we have pampas and you can grow whatever you want. And you have all the mountains across the west. 

JB: So do you get cold winters or are the winters warm?

TR: Our winter is during your summer, so it’s cold now. 

JB: Does it snow?

TR: Well that depends because here it is cold but it is dry so we don’t get snow. In the south it is with snow.

JB: Do you have any other things you want to share?

TR: I would like to highlight the social situation here. How the government is pushing down people with reform of the constitution and how strong and brave the people are behaving to stand for their rights, to standing up actually. They are making long walks. People are walking 200 kilometers to protest.

JB: Wow.

TR: They are standing up, you say about the cold weather. It’s winter here. One way of protesting is by closing the roads. They do not let people go, so they stop. Then they let them go of course.  

JB: So when they stop people, does that mean they are putting them in prison or they are just not letting them go?

TR: They don’t let the cars pass.

JB: Okay.

TR: So people, from the people they go to the highway and stop the cars that are going by and trucks or buses.  

JB: And that’s the government doing that, that’s the government trying to stop the protestors?

TR: That’s the government, yes. The government is trying to stop the protesting. And the protesting, I think part of the protesting is real. It is authentic. Part of it has been induced by other parties.

JB: Mm-hmm.

TR: …has been injected. 

JB: Yes, so some of it is political, politically motivated to cause problems. 

TR: Yes.

JB: And then part of it is real authentic people protesting.

TR: Yes, yes.

JB: Okay, well thank you so much. It has been a great interview. You gave me a lot of fantastic information.

TR: Thank you very much. 

Презентация в Убуде 29 июля 2023

Добрый день!

Дорогие друзья!

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Всех благ!

High heels: a history traced, and a debate raised.

Author: Aliwyn Cole.

One typical day in London, when I was rushing up the stairs to catch my train at Earl’s Court, I was suddenly prevented from making my hurried way by a woman, hobbling and staggering in a winding path in front of me.  She wasn’t drunk, nor was she old, nor did she have any physical ailments; she was only physically challenged in the fact that she was wearing a pair of stilettos which she clearly could not walk in.  To be honest, I was really quite annoyed by this situation: not only had I missed my train and so had to wait another 10 minutes, but I was also frustrated by the fact that despite all our feminist movements and fights for equality, women continue to hobble and restrict themselves in uncomfortable and impractical footwear.  

 

Now maybe you think that I am being unfair in my feelings of infuriation at this situation, and I apologise if I am offending many women here who like to wear heels.  Indeed, I have some female, and perhaps even male, friends who walk very well in high heels, and I admire them very much for that.  Personally speaking, I prefer trainers and flat shoes simply because I find them more comfortable.  Due to a family trait from my father’s side of the family, I have inherited skinny ankles and also skinny bad feet.  When I say ‘bad’, what I mean is that my feet do what they are there to do, but need to be comfortable in order to function and carry the weight of my body around while completing my everyday errands of survival in this hustling and bustling modern world.  Yes, I have worn heels in the past, but now I have realised that my health and freedom are my priorities, and heels just do not allow me to do what I need to do every day in order to live my life comfortably and efficiently.  

But this is the point I want to put forward: whether we wear heels or not should be a matter of personal choice.  If someone feels better wearing shoes which make them taller, more elegant, more powerful, and so on, and they can walk in them without any discomfort, then that is a matter that only each individual can decide for themselves.  But by personal choice I really do mean pure, unadulterated, uninfluenced, and utterly honest, personal choice and preference.  I am not so sure that many women are not making decisions as to what they wear as a result of both conscious and subconscious pressures and influences of society, media, boyfriends, and images of perceived sexual attractiveness.  If I am completely straight with myself, I wore heels in the past because I felt that it was necessary to do so in order to be attractive and stand out from the crowd of beautiful women; I was younger and more susceptible to influences of what is perceived as attractive or respectable, and so was I really making a choice based on what I myself truly wanted or felt?   

Indeed, personal choice was not an option for Nicola Thorpe one day in December 2015, when she arrived for work as a receptionist for the finance firm PwC wearing a smart, flat pair of shoes, only to be informed that she was required to wear heels of between 2 and 4 inches.  Now her reply was the same as my feisty retort would have been, as to if men would be expected to do the same.  Of course, she was laughed at in reply, but wasn’t the point she made a valid one?  Employed as a temp by the firm Portico, she was informed that she had signed a contract stating that she must adhere to the dress code, which included wearing heels.  So by not wearing heels, she had breached the contract and, as a result, she was sent home without pay.

 

Thankfully, Ms Thorpe had the guts to take this further, and created a petition against recruiters forcing women to wear high heels in the work place in order to keep their jobs.  I myself signed this petition, not only because the fact that this is happening in the 21st century makes me extremely angry, but also because I know how I would have felt if this had been me.  Like so many people at present who are signed on zero hours contracts and therefore have no choice but to accept the rules of their employer due to poverty and desperately having to work, I would have felt extremely anxious and at the same time furious.  I have rent and bills to pay but am at a stage in my financial security where I am probably 2 months away from being homeless if I lost my job.  So the reality is that I would have no choice if required, but to stomp around all day like a blue-arsed fly in order to get things done under some bossy manager’s orders, on a pair of points as if doing a balancing trick for a circus of prize prances.  Not only is this mental stress but also physical stress.  

Nicole Thorpe was obliged to wear heels between 2 and 4 inches for her job.

Described as “baffling” by The Equality and Human Rights Commission, this kind of dress code remains a reality for many female members of the workforce, whether against the law or not.  In fact, the aforementioned petition against companies being allowed to force women to wear high heels in the workplace received 152,420 signatures, and was debated in Parliament on the 6th of March 2017.  As a result, a law was passed which now prevents employers from forcing female employees to wear high heels as a requirement of a job.  But is this law always enforced, and can all employers be effectively regulated?  It would seem that the classification of female employees as sexualised members of a team continues, as was revealed on the 7th of February 2018, by the Daily Mail:

“Women hosting stalls at the world’s biggest gambling conference are being told to wear ‘nothing more than swimsuits’ to attract customers while their male colleagues dress in suits.”

So when did high heels become an image and statement of power, respectability, and sexuality? 

 “I do everything the man does, only backwards and in high heels!”  Ginger Rogers.

Perhaps the social expectation that an attractive woman should wear heels started with the film industry and screen images.  Artistically, it is common knowledge that heels give the visual illusion of a lengthened leg and a taller, thinner frame, thereby counteracting the effects of the photographic image which can shorten, fatten, and make the human figure appear box-like.  But this comes back down to women being judged according to what they look like. So, I am expected to do everything that a man does, but in uncomfortable clothes because I must also look attractive?  

 

How many of us have felt the excruciating pain of our feet rammed into pointy toes while walking and dancing on the raised balls of our feet.  Or if we simply haven’t been able to walk on raised points, then felt less attractive as a result and wished that we could.  Even more annoying, how many of us have been told by a man that we should wear heels.  I would like to think that there is more to a woman than just looking attractive.  But of course, as is in a woman’s nature, I do strive to look my best: I wear make-up, I worry about my hair, and I look at fashion magazines.  However, I do think there are so many more options than just wearing high heels which makes a woman attractive.  Being considered attractive should not require enduring pain and potentially damaging effects to health, as a result of wearing uncomfortable clothing and footwear.

First of all, perhaps we should remind employers of the extensive list of health and safety regulations, and the rather lethal combination of impractical footwear and the walkways and floors of their business and work premises.  Any competent and responsible business owner must surely know about the risks of combining wet, slippery floors with precarious heels and soles of shoes badly designed for the environment.  Let’s be frank and state that this potentially creates a “risk of death” situation.  I have often noticed this myself when walking along the pavements of so many cities, and, in particular, the tube platform in London.

Now let’s also examine how high heels can affect the physical frame of the human body.  By pushing your feet into a position of walking on the toes with the ball of the foot raised, you are throwing the alignment of your spine off-kilter.  Over time, this can create back problems.  We are also putting our hips at risk as well, which is a major health problem for so many women.  Not only this, but many high heels available on the high street are narrow at the toe, and so the toes are crammed into a shape which surely must affect blood circulation, which in turn affects the skin, manifesting in blisters, corns and calluses.  Is this not similar to the ancient Japanese practice of foot-binding?  The list of health afflictions from wearing uncomfortable shoes goes on and on.  

These health issues have, in fact, been examined and confirmed by osteopathic research and studies.  Dr Surve is the co-director of the Texas Centre for Performing Arts Health, as well as an associate professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Centre of Osteopathic medicine.  He helps dancers and other frequent heel wearers treat and counteract the head-to-toe toll of wearing high heels.  According to Dr Surve:

“From an osteopathic perspective, we’re looking for the body to be centred from head to toe. High heels put the foot at an angle and pull muscles and joints out of alignment, so the effects aren’t limited to the feet … It’s not unusual for people who spend lots of time in high heels to have low back, neck and shoulder pain because the shoes disrupt the natural form of the body.”

Structurally, the plantar fascia in the foot is connected to the calf muscle, which in turn connects to the hamstring. The hamstrings attach to the pelvis and low back, which is why wearing high heels can make your back ache along with your feet. Furthermore, walking on the balls of your feet will shift your centre of gravity forward, forcing you to arch your back when you stand and further contributing to back pain.  Therefore, sciatica is an extremely real and common physical ailment which results from wearing heels, as confirmed by Carrie Bowler, an osteopathic physician for One Medical Group, on 19th January 2012:

“Over time, wearing high heels can shorten the muscles in your calves and lower back, leading to pain and muscle spasms. An overarched back can cause a forward head posture, which strains neck muscles. … It’s not uncommon for heel-loving women to experience sciatica” 

At least Prince was prepared to wear heels himself, which is what I now say to any man who dares to suggest that I cripple myself in order to fulfil his sexual fantasies. When we examine the reasons behind his death in 2016, we can read that he was reputedly taking the opioid Fentanyl in order to numb the severe hip pain he had as a result of dancing and jumping off speakers in heels.  Now of course this is a bit extreme, but so is walking and standing around all day long, day after day, during the office commute, at work, or on a night out.  

 

 “I don’t know who invented the high heel, but women owe him a lot.”  Marilyn Monroe.

When examining the origin and evolution of heeled shoes throughout history, we find that men may have worn heels, and for similar reasons as Prince and many more of us: height, power, perhaps self-esteem.  

There are a number of theories as to the first use and reasons for the birth of a high heel on footwear, with function being the original reason.  The most common belief is that heels originated for the practical purpose of horse riding.  Elizabeth Semmelhack, curator at Toronto’s Bata Shoe Museum, traces the high heel to Persian horse riders in the Near East who used such footwear for functionality, because they helped hold the rider’s foot in stirrups. She states that this footwear is depicted on a 9th-century ceramic bowl from Persia.

Other reports traces heels even further back to ancient Egypt in the second millennium B.C., when supposedly butchers wore high heels for the practical purpose of keeping their feet clear of blood while slaughtering animals.  In a similar context, I once heard that the French had created heels in Versailles; apparently, it was the upper classes who wore extravagant heels in order to raise their feet above the ground which had been used as a toilet area in the absence of toilet facilities within.  This seems to link with the theory that perfume was also invented by the French to hide the smell. 

In reference to Versailles, perhaps one of the most famous examples of a man wearing heels in history is set by King Louis XIV, who was the king of France between 14th May 1643 and 1st September 1715.  The king set the rule that only the upper classes could wear heels, and he himself wore high heels decorated with battle scenes.  Indeed, the European Renaissance was the time when power dressing was originally born. So it would seem that the wearing of high heels socially originated as a status symbol instead of as a sex symbol, although some would argue that this could be the same thing. 

Status was certainly the reason behind why Catherine De Medici (13th April 1519-5th January 1589), an Italian noblewoman, wore heels for her wedding to the French King Henry II.  As she and Mary I of England believed, wearing heels made them appear taller and larger than life, which has often been cited as the main reason for wearing heels by many of my female friends, who feel unhappy with their height.  I would hazard a guess that this continued to be the reason behind women’s shoes being raised on a heel for the centuries which followed, especially in consideration of the fact that perspectives on female modesty and therefore not showing any leg, would have rendered wearing heels for the purpose of making the legs appear long and slender and so noticeable, rather useless.  Indeed, I was recently informed by a friend from South Korea that some Korean men wear raised shoes if they are shorter than average height.  So there is clearly a natural human desire for us to want to be taller.  As is so often the case, the human being has a desire to be different to who or what we are, especially physically.   

Are heels really such a statement of sexuality, or in fact a statement of vulnerability?  In my opinion, it is time for a change of outlook by both genders.   Isn’t it attractive to see a person who can move freely and comfortably?   Isn’t it reassuring to know that your girlfriend or wife could run in the event of an emergency?  The best synopsis of high heels which I have ever heard was surprisingly from the lips of a man, in the case of the lead character from the American series The Finder 

“These shoes might as well be chains.

I mean, you charge a woman $1,000 for something that subjugates her to men.

Well, she can’t run in them, can she? You know, let me tell you something.

Those shoes are designed to position her glute in a way which, amongst the primates, suggests that she is in heat.

These are the same impulses that make fashion photographers photograph women lying on the ground or slumped to take away their dignity and their power.

Sisters arise and resist!”

This statement from a man is both refreshing and sexy.  Finally, someone of the male gender who understands and speaks up for sexy comfort, movement, and doesn’t expect beauty to be presented on spikes.  

So, ladies (and gentlemen), wear what you want to wear, but only if you can actually wear it well and not become weak and unable to move.  And wear what you want to wear, but do not expect and demand others to hobble in your footsteps.

For further reading: 

http://www.thespinehealthinstitute.com/news-room/health-blog/how-high-heels-affect-your-body

http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-your-health/health-conditions-library/womens-health/Pages/high-heels.aspx

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/25/nicola-thorp-extreme-dress-code-make-fuss

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/high-heels-arent-glamorous-they-are-physically-damaging-and-requ/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-heeled_footwear

The new book “Shoes: An Illustrated History” by Rebecca Shawcross (Bloomsbury)

https://www.pinterest.com/smenkare/shoes-thru-the-ages

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/temp-worker-sent-home-from-pwc-office-for-refusing-to-wear-high-heels-a3244956.html

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-03-06/debates/58CDA5AC-D655-43F4-BDD8-3D1370BCB076/WorkplaceDressCodes(HighHeels)

http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-your-health/health-conditions-library/womens-health/Pages/high-heels.aspx

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5357867/Women-told-wear-swimsuits-event.html#ixzz56b1bpyk6

https://www.onemedical.com/blog/live-well/can-high-heels-hurt-you/

https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=the-finder-2012&episode=s01e03

 

Harry Potter Movie review

 

Even Harry Potter is considered a good movie of our times. According to First Alliance Rating Agency it has only a small number of ingredient of the future image we hold.

https://www.imdb.com/review/rw9020340/?ref_=tt_urv

On a positive note this movie has

* Good highlight of friendship among kids
* Individual traits focus such as bravery, intelligence
* Shows ethnically homogeneous traditional society in England

As a negative feedback this movie

  • shows kids are left alone to solve adult problems of life and death situations.
  • has satanic rituals embedded in it which doesn’t make it appropriate even for adults.
  • has too much relationships between kids and temporary people (teachers, strangers -not family) in stressful circumstances
  • lacks parents involvement in education, it is not good for mental health for kids to stay without parents

This movie needs to improve to show more of

  • good family image (as parents of the main hero are dead as typical for Hollywood)
  • good extended family image (very few family links are shown)
  • healthy masculine feminine differentiation, healthy image of husband-wife relationship
  • healthy relationship between parents and children

Friendly Ethnic Nationalism

Two Definitions of ‘Nation’ — Ethnic and Civic/Multicultural

As definitions of national terms are becoming blurred nowadays, it is important to define some key terminology:

 According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation, there are two types of nations now:  ethnic nations and civic/multicultural nations. Historically, the term ‘nation‘ used to mean ‘ethnic nation’ by default.

In this article the term ‘nation’ defines an ethnic group and is different from a country or a state and not related to territory. Nation is not related to a land; instead, it just defines a group of people that identify with each other by means of culture, origin and language.

Ethnic nation (French, German, Japanese 100–200 years ago)  is an ethnic group with a traditional meaning in which members of the ethnic group belong to the same close DNA family and evolved together for a long time to develop a distinctive language and culture. The ethnic nation can form a Nation State. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state).

Multicultural nation (Modern USA, UK) is a mix of different ethnic groups put together under a homogenised culture in which all guest ethnic groups, apart from the host group, have to use another language for official communication within the host country (e.g., English in the UK).  A Multicultural nation can be called a Multinational state.

This definition is quite relative still as most ethnic groups were exposed to constant multicultural influences over thousands of years of existence; therefore, it is hard to trace most of the nations to their purest form that existed possibly thousands of years ago.

Another term to highlight is self-determining national state or a self-determining national community, which is a group of people that belong to a single ethnic nation and are defined as a territory. 

In the case of a self-determining national state, we mean a country where a single nation defines all the policies within the government according to the traditional national interest. There is a similar term: authentic ethnic state. A state-founding nation forms a nation state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state ) or a territory.

In the case of a self-determining national community, we refer to a community where a single nation regulates internal community interactions in the traditional national interest as far as the law of the official government of the residing country allows. A similar term is authentic ethnic community.

Disadvantages of Living in a Multicultural Country

It is harder to find a common language and common ground with people in an environment where many people are from different backgrounds. If we take, for example, different religions, different cultures, different family backgrounds, different relationships between men and women, different perceptions of the world, or almost any activity, then you may find a very narrow framework in this case for people to interact and understand each other. There are only a few basic concepts and terms that are clear and unambiguous. This is not enough for anyone to express themselves fully in their own way according to their cultural background and genetics; for example, people may have differing perceptions of art, music and literature. People find familiarity and comfort within their own social groups. 

Genetics define physiology, mentality, how people perceive the world in their own unique way and act accordingly. Genetics doesn’t just define physiology but also defines the character of the people. When looking at small children, it is easy to see their initial character traits, usually recognisable from their parents or grandparents. Together with character come talents in art, music, playing chess, and skills such as communication and empathy,  genetically inherited from their kin and/or ancestors.

When you get different people from different cultural backgrounds, and you put them together, over several generations, nothing remains of any of their cultures. Their original values and customs are all gone.  The cultural heritage disappears and then you have a new average culture, which is very limited, and does not represent any of the original cultures. This is what forced ‘diversity’ produces.

People should be better equipped in order to understand the concept, because in the informational space in the Western world, people are quite restricted from saying that they are proud of who they are. And people have to interact with others not based on one’s own ethnic etiquette, but instead based on multicultural etiquette or political correctness. I believe people should be comfortable and confident with talking about who they are and how they want to live. It is about them and their human rights.

Preserving and Developing DNA and Culture of an Ethnic Group

Multicultural countries and communities come with genetic and cultural intermixing of different nations and races. Mixing genetics by a way of interracial marriages is a big step, both for a nation and individuals.  There are groups within well-known successful nations who don’t accept it — Jewish, Indian, Muslim. Many other nations promote national preservation in a softer way. The main purpose of this restriction is to preserve your own culture in your generation and pass it to the next generation. It is a human right to decide what children you want to have and it is a human right to live in the national environment you want. There are studies that show that there could be a risk to physical and mental health and wellbeing for children of interracial marriages. Intermixing genetics of different nations is another pole of interbreeding with close relatives. Healthy balance must be somewhere in the middle. My research resulted in the opinion that human genetics may not be improved by ethnic groups that are very distant from each other.

Careful consideration should be given to couples of mixed race when choosing to have children, so as not to confuse them as to which culture they belong to. A strong nation is a culture that embraces their cultural heritage.  When people want to find someone to marry, it presents less challenges when they stay within their community to preserve their culture. This is how you maintain the integrity of your nation. If people start to marry people from distant nations or different races, inevitably their own nation will cease to exist. It is important to emphasise the gravity of this decision for any nation. The outcome will be a cultural homogenisation which will replace original authentic cultures.  Due to cultural homogenisation, there will be greater cultural difficulties, the outcome of which can not be foreseen or calculated. 

Human DNA can evolve over generations in amazing and unique ways. I wish to consider for a moment the human potential for development within the same ethnic group. Let’s consider for a moment a family of pianists that marry only pianists from the same ethnic group that share the same national foundation of the musical world, combining different outlooks of both families within this ethnicity. Over several generations they can master their skill in a family of pianists with parents teaching their children. Just imagine what they can accomplish in ten generations and how valuable their music could be to their community.

A Human Right to Live in an Authentic Ethnic Community or Country

Modern governments should be more friendly to their citizens. Communities should have more influence on government policies. A very important aspect should be about nationality. In accordance with our basic human rights, all nationals should be allowed to pursue activities which are in alignment with their own specific cultural heritage and traditions, and allowed to engage in activities that follow their authentic traditional way, even within the borders of another country. I advocate preservation of authentic cultures, which may be under threat by a dominant foreign culture. A similar concept is that of a self-determining nation state. This is where every nation in the world is entitled to have and rule their own country and to define all internal policies. And it is only one ‘self-determining nation’ that forms the backbone of a country and only people of this nation should hold all major posts in administration, courts, army, parliament, police, culture, etc.

This self-determining nation state can decide how they want to live, and if they want to accept any foreigners or not.  Many people are against mass immigration. I believe that most forced mass immigration is harmful to the culture of any nation. There are different ways to help your neighbours by preserving your said neighbour’s culture on their land, or on some intermediary land, and not forcing the neighbour’s culture onto your own population. And it is a healthy state of a nation to preserve the genetic integrity of its people.  Also with uncontrolled immigration there are more chances to shift the status quo of a nation serving as a host. If you are a host and you have guests, you define a “guest” as someone who comes and goes and does not change the rules of the house. A healthy state of affairs for a country is that you have foreigners coming for trade or to do any joint projects temporarily;  after that, all the guests should go back to their native country. But at the moment, we can see in the Western countries that this concept doesn’t work, where a guest is given the same rights as a host nation. I think more emphasis should be placed by all the guests to respect the traditions of the native people. It is the host nation that worked for generations to build prosperity for its country. Any guest should respect a host nation. I think it is fair that foreigners should not have the same rights as the native people of the host as they are guests in someone’s house.

Many people are confused at the moment, but things are changing for the better. There are people who prefer living in a globalist multicultural country or community; it is up to them; this option is available to them. But those who don’t wish to live as such should be given an option to live in an ethnically authentic community/country, because I believe it is everyone’s human right. 

 

I am in favour of a national way of doing things that is in line with cultural heritage, with its unique authentic features and perception of arts, human values, human rights, the way to establish family and its traditions. Otherwise, a multicultural approach offers a very narrow framework which many nations living together have to adapt to in order to be able to communicate. 

If a forcefully mixed community finds it difficult to work on common ground for the benefit of its members, then we should just let this multicultural community split into authentic ethnic communities, within which you won’t have national and religious clashes.

Each and every nation has its own unique way of doing things in accordance with history, cultural heritage taken from ancestors and preserved over time. It does change over centuries but the soul of the nation remains intact.  My personal preference is a real diversity of different nations expressing themselves, using their natural right to preserve and develop to the fullest expression of beauty and uniqueness.

Defining a Friendly Foreign Policy

You can easily find several aggressive empires that existed over the last three thousand years. These Empires came to their neighbours, told them what to do and how to do it.  They came with threats and/or war, applied colonial policies and became parasites of  their neighbours, by destroying the wellbeing of the people of the conquered country and robbing resources and minerals from the land.

These empires didn’t ask their neighbours what they wanted to do, or consider how they wanted to live.  Examples of these empires are the Roman Empire, the Ottoman / Turkish Empire, and the British Empire. Their international framework was not respectful to other nations.  

The other way of establishing relationships with your neighbours is to give a friendly message. When it comes to other nations you allow others to keep their culture, and you can be friends with these cultures, as well as not wanting to force anything on someone else’s land. You can establish a military alliance. You can learn from each other, and together become stronger. You can share knowledge and still develop your own unique features, because everyone has their talents and skills. You can work together on education and science. This is an example of a friendly alliance based on cooperation. It is worth having a respectful relationship. It is about the symbiotic relationship between two nations or ethnic communities.

The next thing that you have are communities within the countries, even with government structures established around it. When people relocate into another country, they tend to stay close to their own people and form ethnic communities. That is what happened in America. Italian Americans have their own districts, Jewish people have their own districts. Foreigners coming to another country quite often form districts and keep closer connections with other foreigners. This way, people can preserve their heritage. This way, an ethnic group can keep its own way of life and establish relationships with other ethnic or multicultural communities around them. You can form the same sort of alliances that are based on respect whilst acknowledging the differences. Furthermore, you can define where you want to live, how you want to preserve your culture and that you want your children to keep this culture and have diplomatic relationships.

Dealing with the Past Trauma of National Conflicts

All the existing conflicts come with a lot of anger and have caused a lot of pain, and people want to take revenge at some point in the future.

Revenge? It could be endless.

You can keep any war or any armed conflict going on forever.  For example, as in the case of what happened with Germany after WWI. Germans after having lost WWI had a feeling of unfairness and wanted to have revenge. You can look into your past all the time. But what about your future?

Do people actually want to try to live in a different world?

Do we need to take revenge after conflict?

Or take revenge after revenge?

A nation should have a strong army and be able to defend themselves. But, there are also diplomatic efforts which I think should be taken to figure out if there are any neighbours who want to live on a different basis of symbiotic, mutual cooperation.

The cooperative style is based on the idea that, actually, both sides really want to live peacefully together and have a conversation first before they have an argument or go to war. 

However this can’t always be the case. It is part of protocol that you only go to war if the secondary party is the aggressor. That is not negotiation; that is plain and simply a hostile act of war.

World in hands

There should always be a reasonable coalition from both parties in order to prevent conflict and/or build a route to heal the pain of past conflict. Every party within this coalition should condemn the bad deeds of their own people from their own nation and build bridges with another party for a peaceful resolution.

White Race. Defining a context

White Ethnicities That Belong to the White Race

The White race is my love. The white people are my people. I do care about them even though most of them are not aware of my existence. This is called ethnic or national or racial consciousness.

Let’s try to define some details of what the White race is in modern times. Many people refuse to identify or talk about race, but nevertheless they continue to identify themselves with their DNA family.

There are many ethnic groups such as Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Nordic/Scandinavian and others that constitute the White race. The White race consists approximately of different predominantly white nations inhabiting these countries as a major ethnic group: America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, France, Romania, Greece, Italy, Holland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Moldova, Switzerland, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and others that have a minor or major proportion of white DNA, like the white Hispanics.

There could be several white subraces with distinct features but they have much in common with the root white race. One can divide the White race into Western and Eastern subraces. It is controversial, but there is still a clear line that divides these Eastern and Western mentalities nowadays, which shouldn’t stop both parties from identifying with each other through racial consciousness.

A very interesting part of the White race are the Jewish people; there is an Ashkenazi white part of the Jewish population. Some of the Ashkenazi possibly identify themselves with the White race, while others don’t. And there are so many half-blood children of White Non-Jewish and Ashkenazi Jewish parents who are left with a choice as to which race to identify with. I do not exclude mixed heritage Ashkenazi and White descendants from the White race family.

My view is that it is difficult to find a pure nation or pure race nowadays. A lot of intermixing has happened within the White race and across other races and nations. Countries’ borders have been changed, and history has been rewritten many times. Ethnic groups have migrated from one place to another and have been conquered and freed multitudes of times over the centuries. After all of this, it is not an easy task to describe the white race culture, but it is a very important task! We probably need to go back thousands of years, not just hundreds.

Every person who possesses White race DNA, or at least part of it, and feels that it defines his/her identity while also wanting to belong to the White race civilization, can take part in this interesting journey of re-uniting all the white ethnicities.

My research has resulted in this opinion (evidence of this fact goes beyond this article). 

  • There used to be several great White Civilisations thousands of years ago in the flourishing state which is hard to imagine now.
  • The White race has survived an enormous attack of Globalist forces which has been going on for centuries and, at the moment, most of the governments are still under major control of the Globalists.

The good thing is that we are still alive despite all the pressure.

Overcoming Challenges and Uniting the White Race

In order to talk about the White Race culture, heritage, and values, I want to outline major challenges which we need to overcome.

Overcoming Religious Barriers

Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox and other Christian denominations, together with atheist groups, are obstacles to overcome in order to connect with your people having different belief system or religion branch. This dogmatic religious setting is quite deeply instilled in the basic orientation of the followers and one must be quite brave to overcome this. Some people dig even deeper into the ancient traditions of Germanic, Scandinavian, Slavic and Celtic pantheons of gods, and related mythology, reviving images of Odin, Thor, Brigit  from Tuatha Dé Danann, Druids, and Svarog and celebrating winter and summer solstice, reverting the Christian religion’s transformation into the authentic traditional belief system.

Decoding Divisive Propaganda, Dispelling the Image of Thy Neighbour as the Enemy

One should work hard to overcome divisive propaganda. Let’s take the Cold War between America and Russia. Fair and just people should take the courage to decode this into the fact that good, decent white people and families have no intention of harming other white people and families. A similar story on a smaller scale is happening within Western countries, in the case of when people are divided by a political party which they support.

Handling Language Barriers

Over time, one (or a few) ancient languages have been split into many languages and dialects or even replaced with superficial languages. This is part of a “divide and conquer” tactic in which a new language is introduced and a population of the country grows and learns only this language; as a result, the whole cultural heritage is lost (books, poems, songs) as a new language comes with no history. Some bright people are already working hard to bring similar languages back to the common linguistic origin to simplify communication and restore cultural origin.

Healing the Pain of the Past Wars and Conflicts

 During World War II, the fight between English, American, German and Russian people should never have happened because these major players had a major white population. White people should have realised that something was wrong with their government when they attacked another country with a white population (their brothers and sisters). The people of these countries should seek to become friends and heal the past wounds together, understanding that ordinary decent people never want to hurt other decent people from the other side of the border.

Bringing Together Pieces of the Severely Damaged White Civilization Belief System, History, Culture, Architecture, Art, Music in Order to Re-Establish A Great White Race Culture

Many honourable white people work hard to shine the light on the covered-in-the-sand culture of Ancient White Civilisation. Dedicated historians are digging for the real history of the White race; its greatness and challenges which go back hundreds and even thousands of years. Talented poets and writers are able to draw on the best traditions and human values of strong families, communities, patriotism, and the best human virtues such as dignity, love, and honour, bringing them into the light of the modern day.

Uniting Superficially Divided Countries by National and Racial Factors

Current country borders do not serve white nations, who are divided and have restrictions on their efforts to unite. We should overcome this and allow national states to welcome their white descendants back in, wherever they may be at the moment. Furthermore, we should allow different white nations to form a pan-white civilisation and pursue its own interests.

Ideologically Build A Strong Foundation for Racial and National Consciousness and Values Instead of Narrow Concepts of Individual Consciousness

We should rebuild the value of close and extended family, previously lost feelings of a kindred and a clan. We should recreate the concept of an Elders Council, to support and advise to establish strong mutual support community structures, such as military and justice systems whilst rebuilding patriotism and national and racial consciousness.

Coping with Constant Physical and Mental Pressure from Globalist Forces

We must clearly identify the enemy and take back control. Invasive, evil,  parasitic hierarchy of globalists power should be replaced and transformed appropriately to serve the White race people.

Detaching Ourselves from Globalist Culture

Many people have been living in Western Countries for generations and most of them have no memories of something different. Whilst we have an image that they are advanced and civilised, they are also full of flaws:

  • all forms of modern slavery
  • monetary system and money cult, debt system
  • sources of income problem — so that important jobs don’t exist or don’t pay well enough to have enough money for family
  • instilling fear in people’s consciousness
  • consumerism
  • superfluous focus on entertainment
  • easy access and promotion of addictive products, services
  • focus on individual success instead of cooperation 
  • oligarchy, unknown shareholders as beneficiaries of corporations pumping wealth out of society. A system where evil individuals can accumulate excess wealth
  • poverty of many
  • democracy which always leaves the minority dissatisfied
  • parasitic system in which resources are not spread fairly across the country
  • high density of city population; city lifestyles replacing countryside communities that are particularly inconvenient for raising kids; lack of living space, small flats, terraced houses, few have gardens
  • no birthright to a decent part of national wealth
  • no guaranteed rights to reap profits from the results of labour (enterprise/company annual profit)
  • frequent wars
  • restricted and limited situations of achieving desired education and work in the interested field
  • production cycles which are destructive to Nature
  • lack of moral compass and standards of behaviour
  • culture of competition instead of cooperation, sick individualism against healthy balance of individualism and collectivism/community spirit

Let’s add the last 3 generations (20x3=60 years) push on these negative factors

  • a view that 0–2 kids in a family is enough
  • weak connection between generations
  • songs which focus on teenage and pre-marriage topics
  • a great amount of inappropriate/adult video content
  • parent and relatives are not involved in education of their children
  • child abuse and “confusion” through propaganda of non-traditional behaviour 
  • multiculturalism, mass immigration 
  • dominance of processed and modified food
  • pharmaceutical poisoning by corporate giants profiting from suffering

Decent people have to find an honourable lifestyle in this toxic environment. Honest people work hard not to identify with this negative environment, to see good traits of others and treat people fairly.

The Current Moment

After centuries of influence of the above factors, it takes courage for a white person to relate to another white person from anywhere around the world as in the case of Russians and Americans during the Cold War. One usually hits one or all of the above obstacles. It is quite a monumental task to overcome them. Nowadays, even relating to another white person in your own country is quite a difficult step. The ratio of mutual help and cooperation is quite low, as white people live mostly isolated from others, only thinking for themselves or their close family. 

But there is a growing number of individuals who are learning to overcome the pressing factors and work towards restoration and flourishment of the White race. Brave people — the bright sons and daughters of our ancestors.

White people are suffering from the shrinking of vital space in the USA. There are government and corporate policies in place to reduce the number of available jobs and places at universities for white people. There is discrimination taking place in their home country. It works in a softer way in Germany, France and England. Under the disguise of inclusion and diversity, the white population is being moved away from media advertising campaigns. Multicultural images dominate most of the ads. HR departments of big corporations work hard to ensure white males are the last category of candidates to be considered for a new job. This campaign is covered up by fake scientific research suggesting that diversity is good for business, but this theoretical statement is not measured at work, and, for many, it is obvious political campaigning which is taking place to replace the white population. It is even sometimes called “positive discrimination.”

 There are laws on British land that do not allow any form of discrimination when considering candidates for a role, but stopped working, and discrimination happens against white males. Even before when this legislation used to work, it worked against white males ignoring the human right to live in the ethnic community of your choice. Why is the forcefully mixed race nations community such a good idea? Why is an infinite influx of immigrants a good idea? Is there a space for authentic ethnic communities? If some people choose, they can live in a mixed multicultural community — no problem! But if some people want to live in a monocultural community, then it should also be fine — there is no harm to anyone with this choice. 

Mixed race marriages and couples are promoted throughout the media, but let’s say the result of this is that both original races and cultures will cease to exist. There should also be a platform provided for the voices of the people who want to live in the monocultural as opposed to the multicultural community. An obvious fact is that multicultural communities don’t work for all. So let us raise this matter! An obvious solution would be to have several monocultural communities in the same country with their rights protected by law. 

Children are taught to accept multiculturalism from school, but there is no focus on the fact that their ancestors actually created this country. They have worked hard for many generations to preserve their heritage, pass it to their descendants and keep the traditions living on. Anyone who dares talk about nations or races is called “racist,” to the point where most people are scared to talk about it at all. But is it not a very important part of our life?

 

Let us not fall into the trap of directing our anger onto other nations and races who are really in the same boat as us. To be clear about relationships with other nations — I believe there is no reason why we cannot live peacefully with other nations and races who have respect for their neighbours. All the people can be given rights to return to their homeland or form a community within the Western countries, and then have a friendly discussion about the future. Other nations and races have the same issue with the globalist forces and the fact that White race is under attack, this does not mean that others are not going to be attacked next. We should be very clear that our anger should not be directed to other nations who had to leave their homelands because of wars or difficult economic situations. We should make friends with them and work together to restore our traditional national societies.

The good thing is that the White race is still alive and we are going to come together to keep our DNA, cultural heritage and traditions, and come through the hard times into prosperity. There is huge potential within us and we must believe in it. The White race has survived a great deal and against all the odds until now. We must make strong alliances with all the nations and races that are suffering under globalists and work together.

In the current situation, a big bell rings for the White race to unite, overcome all the challenges and restore the great civilization. We must take responsibility for our brothers and sisters and learn how to work together.

White Civilisation Restoration

Let’s Imagine what a proper White civilisation should look like. Under these high-level terms below it could be fairly applicable to other races as well.

  • fair wealth and resources management, without money. This is comparable to the case of parents not asking their children to earn money and pay parent in order to look after them
  • love as basis of behaviour
  • a focus on spiritual values and human potential development
  • a focus on cooperation and common goals
  • fair national wealth distribution
  • unanimity as a base principle for decisions, where group conversations happen to a point of mutual agreement
  • work-life balance that allows people to see their kids and spend only necessary time to do work. This should be quite easy to do with the modern level of technologies
  • a move to natural environments in the countryside with enough space for children to run around
  • a birthright to a part of national wealth, free housing, education and application of individual talents
  • support for families with children 
  • great connection among generations with close and extended families, who plan their future together and look after each other
  • traditional family highlighted in culture and media such as art, music, literature, movies
  • authentic and folklore influences in arts
  • easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables
  • ethical and nature-friendly science and technology
  • an educational system that involves parents
  • an option to choose to live only with people of your own specific cultural heritage

These points demonstrate potential ways to counteract the flaws of the Globalist culture of destruction. Just imagine how human potential can be developed in this environment in the areas of science, technology, arts, architecture, and a symbiotic relationship with nature.

Traditional way for Communities to Self-Organise

Kopa or Veche Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veche ) is a set of traditions that describe the natural social structure of the Rusians. Kopa Law is unwritten and passed from mouth to mouth, so there are only a few people left who learned it from their ancestors.

The meaning of the word Kopa is en masse, together. Previously, in Rusia people who lived in settlements (up to nine settlements) gathered regularly in one place, the administration centre from where they controlled their lives. Kopa mature men gathered from all nine villages or settlements for a Kopa (Veche) meeting.

A Kopa man is a leader of his household.  He is chosen as a mature man (50+ years) who is native by birth to the area he represents. He must have a grandson from his son (not from a daughter) to carry his family name. The man must be a head of the clan (the head of his family, his children and his grandchildren and their families), “rodan” in Rusian. “Rodan” this was the Kopa mature man, and all the rest were under him/report to him: brothers, sisters, women, and so on. A mature man must have his own household and provide for himself completely autonomously and independently, be a strong master.

Below are the details of how the Veche gathering is formed. Everyone gathered at the Kopa meeting and were split into smaller groups, because it is impossible for many (for example, three hundred) people to discuss one issue. Kopa men were divided into groups. First the representative of ten is voted for by ten men. “Desyatsky” is a person who is a representative of ten neighbouring families or households, who was trusted to represent the interests of the other nine. Earlier our ancestors knew that only ten percent had the ability to perceive information from the highest spiritual or information spheres. Therefore, ten people gathered – they chose a representative, then these ten representatives gathered – they chose a representative of a hundred households – “sotnik”, then ten “sotnik” gathered – they chose a representative of a thousand households – “tysiachnik”. When ten of “tysiachnik” gathered, they chose a “temnik” or a representative of ten thousand.

Here are the best, for example, ten-thousanders or representatives of ten thousand households who were entrusted with management, solved all issues related to life. The representatives chosen by the Veche (of 100 and of 1000 households) could coordinate life matters themselves, and, if necessary, created and filled administrative structures such as economic administration, internal law enforcement, external relations, etc. The administrators chosen by the Kopa Men held their place as long as they were approved, and not for a fixed term. Starting with the representatives of 100 households, people involved in coordination didn’t work themselves (those who did not plough their own bread, but received support from the community because there was no longer enough time for their household duties). Thus, there were two structures balancing each other — elected managers and appointed managers. When the appointed branch of government made a decision regarding people, it was obliged to obtain permission from the elected authorities. This was how the control over decisions took place. It turned out, for example, that the regional administrator (appointed authority) did not have the right to give an order or bring someone to trial without the consent of the representatives of ten thousand households (elected authorities). The city or the governor (the appointed authority) did not have the right to also judge by the court or do something if the representative of thousands of households did not give his consent. It was impossible to arrest a person in the village if the representative of a hundred households in this village did not give consent.

There are memories of how grandfathers gathered on the Cossack Circle, especially in 1933, then in 1937. They discussed issues and repressions that took place at that time. The last remnants of Veche Law existed in the 1930s in Rusia in the Cossack Circles. The Cossacks were the last who remembered what a Veche Law was about. It was a military class that was still capable of self-organisation.

Kopa was a vital university where everyone studied. After 31 years, a husband with a family was required to attend the Veche Meeting as a householder, but not having the right to vote. And until the age of 50, he studied Veche Law, gained experience, and just listened. He watched how the Veche works, how Kopa mature men consider matters, for example, in solving economic and defence issues, issues of internal law and order, how the elders decided on things, and how disputes were resolved. Veche also was running courts executing justice.

All the decisions that were made were never violated. Therefore, one of the principles of Veche Law was the principle: what the elders decided, the younger ones would stand on.

There was complete silence at the Veche meetings. Only the words of a speaker, sometimes of a very worried person, were heard, since the person spoke out of his heart (as they could be executed/killed). The person was completely liberated to speak his/her mind. The man is speaking while other men are listening to him, tuning in to this single wave. There were no discussions. That is, one spoke out, then the other. There was nothing like we have today — how politicians interrupt each other. There was no such thing. In the Cossack circle, it’s simple: these Yesaul (military leaders) observed everything. If someone violated the principles of the circle, immediately punishment followed. This take-off, this collective mind has always provided a solution to many issues that one person simply will not come to, whoever he may be.

Mutual responsibility was established in the assemblage, where the whole community was responsible for the misconduct of any of its members (“from small to large”).

At the Kopa gathering, forgiveness of the offender was encouraged, as well as sincere nationwide repentance of the offender. Judicial cases were dealt with according to Conscience, trying to persuade the disputants to reconcile.

Everyone, who bumped into a violation of the Veche Law or customs, was obliged to make every effort to stop this violation. Otherwise, he became an accomplice to the crime he was a witness of, and bore full responsibility along with the offender. If someone saw that some kind of violation was being committed, he was obliged to either stop it himself or call someone. If he did not do either of these two actions, then he was subject to punishment in the same way as the offender.

Direct Rule of the people — power, organised according to the principles of Veche/Kopa Law, solved the following tasks:

1) Prevention of law violation in modern language. The entire Community was entrusted with the responsibility of preventing wrongdoing.

2) Search and prosecution of criminals, that is, the execution of the court.

3) Ensuring the safety of life, property of community members and strangers, that is, non-community members also.

4) Organization of economic activity, production, and trade.

5) Organization of external defence against enemies and election of military leaders.

6) Collecting taxes for public needs and maintaining management structures.

7) Organization of cultural life and education.

Zemstvo is a territorial aggregate of urban and Kopa structures.

Zemstvo put together several local Kopa meetings from several villages or settlements.

The Zemstvo principle has always existed in traditional society. This was a way of self-government by the people, a way of organising rule on the ground, on the lands on which people lived, so that certain groups of people, nations, ethnicities, kins, clans, could manage their group in accordance with their traditions and culture.

Zemstvo was a school for the education, training, and development of administrators. This was their main task, the development of a varna/class (caste in Hindu culture) of administrators who would have to meet certain requirements.