(CULTURAL DIVERSITY)

LET US SAVE THE DREAMS OF GREEN ANTS

- AJEET COUR

This is not exactly a Paper. The sort of Paper presented in sophisticated, international conferences.

These are scraps of my own questions which keep troubling me !  These scraps resemble the ones you scatter around after tearing off a useless paper on which you have been scribbling things, which were so very important, you thought, but did not make any cohesive sense.

Like fluttering birds in the blue skies, fluttering and falling, wounded with bullets in the middle of the flight !

I want to share these scattered, torn scraps and strips with you, because I need you to focus your intellectual microscopic lense on them, decipher what has been scribbled and why, and perhaps make some sense out of them.

I want you to hold in your hands those wounded birds whose feathers are soaked in their own blood, and whose shocked eyes pierce your heart.

What is ‘Folk Culture’ ? How do you define culture ?

Is it our art and literature ?

Is it our anthropological heritage ?

Is it our way of life ?

Is it how we think, behave, go about our business of life ?

Is it about our traditions ?  Our historical memories ?

And who can be sure that Time does not distort those

historical memories ?

What are the parameters which define and determine the cultural diversity ?

And haven’t the accepted cultural norms been undergoing constant changes over centuries of human existence on this planet ?

Was buying and selling of slaves not a component of human culture in certain parts of the world ?

Weren’t  human sacrifices a part of culture ?

Weren’t gladiators a part of entertainment culture ?

Weren’t fighting wars for territories not an essential part of human culture ?

Weren’t expanding empires for power, for supremacy, for glory, not a part of culture ?

Weren’t mummifying the kings after their death,  and surrounding them  with all their queens and concubines and   slaves,  mostly by poisoning them and mummifying them, along with  the choicest of foods and clothes and jewellery, so that the mighty kings shouldn’t be deprived of the comforts and luxuries they were  accustomed to in their lives, and keep enjoying them  till eternity,

a part of  culture ?

And, discovering new lands by those couple of nations who had the knowledge and the money to build strong ships, and had the courage to negotiate the turbulent oceans ? What was the culture involved ? To establish their supremacy over new lands, make the inhabitants their slaves, whipping them to load their own food and minerals and wealth on the ships of the invaders ?

In the half-lit grey Museum in Mauritius I saw a unique map of the world. The continents and oceans of the world were lying flat on a sepia-coloured paper, the size of a medium-sized table. It was lying there, the world, with a thick red line dividing it in the middle.

What was this red line ? A couple of centuries back,  the Dutch and the Spaniards occupied  that lush green island by turns, fought each other, turned out one,  while the other ruled over it. Eventually, they sat across the table, and decided to divide not only that island but the whole world into two halves, “One part you explore, exploit and rule ;   the other we will !”  -  they decided, cheered, and raised toast to this unique decision.

The whole world  was lying there, on an old, worn-out, sepia-coloured, hand-made paper, with a river of blood flowing in the middle. And I was reminded of more recent histories of similar  rivers of blood : during Partition in our own country, during the World Wars, during ethnic cleansings, vast chunks of humanity brutally killed and uprooted !

Which culture and which civilization are we talking about ?

The same brutality  can be witnessed even without apparent wars. Because wars are being fought every day, brutality lives on, rich becoming richer and the poor pushed to starvations and deaths ! And the ancient knowledge systems, still surviving in segments, in the mindscapes of triblas & adivasis.

Wars continue to be fought in the name of nationalism, patriotism, religions, territories !  And believe it, for cultures too !

With the technological revolution, globalisation has brought people closer as never before.  But at the same time it has stolen our dreams from our eyes, compassion from our hearts, sensitivity from our souls !

If we are really concerned about folk culture, and are concerned about respecting the cultural diversity of   billions of people living in this world, if we really believe that aesthetic and ethical experience are an essential part of our culture, if we believe that we must respect the otherness of the others, if we really believe in the importance of let us foregrounding the culture of our common people expressed so fully and beautifully through folk tales, songs, myths, legends, proverbs, rituals, dances and plays.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS EVENT EMANATES FROM THE FACT THAT CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND RESEARCH AND CULTURAL PROGRAMMES FOCUS ON THE INTELLIGENTIA AND THE ELITE. THE WHOLE CULTURAL THRUST IGNORES THE VOICE OF THE MASSES, WHICH CAN BE HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD THROUGH ORAL TRADITIONS OF FOLKLORE AND FOLK SONGS WHICH ARE LYING AT THE ROOT OF HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL MEMORIES OF OUR SAARC NATIONS.

It is within our oral traditions, our folk theatre, folk songs and folk tales, that the souls of our societies reside. They showcase the culture of the masses, the simple and the naïve people who unravel the mysteries of life through their centuries old oral expressions, and are closer to life, nature, birds, plants, animals ! We sing of changing season and rivers, of births and deaths ! We have songs for all stages of life : right from the third month of pregnancy, to death. We , the people of the SAARC region are the only people who sing and cry, cry with howling songs for the dead body lying on the floor.

It is the folktales, folksongs, myths and legends of the South Asian region with common roots, which need to be deciphered and understood if societal issues are to be adequately and comprehensively addressed, and if we want to hear the voice of the voiceless, and want to reach out to them through cultural connectivity focusing on their way of life..

And if we want to decipher cultural diversity, we will have to probe deep into those ancient folk tales and folk songs, myths and legends, which gave shape to the cultural identities of human groups, inhabiting different parts of this planet.

Spending tons of money on the five-star seminars, talking about alleviation and elimination of poverty, is not going to make poverty go away !

Spending millions on mainly performing arts in the name of promotion of culture, because they look glamerous, is not going to create awareness about cultural diversity.

Who am I to advise such an august body as UNESCO ? But being a creative writer I am convinced that I am a part of the cultural mainstream. I honestly feel UNESCO should rather allocate sufficient  funds to get such valuable work done all over the globe. To locate, record, and document the vanishing folklore, folk tunes, folk instruments. To preserve folk and tribal arts by encouraging the artists and looking after them because they  are our vanishing treasures.

It is urgently important now, today, when civilizations are dying, when languages are dying because our ancient oral traditions of folklore of folklore is dying, our ancient knowledge systems are dying!

Years back, I saw a film ‘Where Green Ants Dream’. It

was a part of an  International Film Festival. Never heard of it after that. I am sure everyone like me, or like that

film-maker, who raise dangerous issues, are wiped out !

The locale of the film was Australia. An American company buys a whole chunk of land which was home to a few villages, with a few original inhabitants living in those villages a quiet life, with that rarest of the rare gifts

of contentment which a million luxuries cannot buy or acquire.

The American company is building a huge shopping mall

with their burgers and cokes, and are going to build factories all around.

A group of original inhabitants, who are called ‘aboriginals’ by the Americans, sit quietly in the middle of that dusty square, unperturbed by the noise of huge bulldozers. They sit there without moving their bodies. Only their eyes blink !

The American bulldozers, the size of mini-mountains, are puzzled ! How  to make those aboriginals vanish !  -  is the big question.

The owners of the all-mighty American company argue with them. They don’t even look at the white, polished, sausage-faced owners.

Eventually, gradually, it is revealed that their leader is the only one in that group who speaks the original language of those aboriginals. An interpreter is located. He translates the leader’s decision :  ‘we cannot let these Americans trample over this sacred land of our ancestors and construct their monstrous buildings, because under the land of our ancestors, green ants are dreaming’.

Wasn’t  that a clash of civilizations when the monstrous

bulldozers smashed the dreams of green ants and crushed them under their mass of weight ? Isn’t unduly to serve that lonely man, the only one left who spoke the language of his ancestors! Isn’t it our duty to save his language, and all the languages which are dying ?

Isn’t it our duty to save dreams and hope ?

Isn’t it our duty to save the green ants, colourful kingfishers, the butterflies, and the whales ?  And stories of their lives so beautifully starched and painted in our folklore? 

Let’s do something concrete if we want to respect cultural diversity. Let this Conference initiate and churn out some concrete, solid, workable proposals and recommendations which will contribute substantially to the UNESCO Convention which is going to be adopted next month!

AJEET COUR
Chairperson
Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature