Ruminations 100(5) (The Year of Olokun; Rage is Written on the Body): Looking Back on 2021 in Epigrams and Aphorisms

 

Pix Credit HERE

Eyo Olokun masquerades at the Eyo Festival in Lagos, Nigeria

 For the last several years, and with no particular purpose other than a desire to meander through reflection, I have taken the period between Christmas and New Years Eve to produce a s summary of the slice of the year to which I paid attention through epigrams and aphorisms.  It follows an end of year  tradition I started in 2016 (for those see here), 2017 (for these see here), 2018 (for those see here), 2019 (for those see here); and 2020 (for those see here).   

At the start of this year I noted, in passing on the Annual Oracle of the Ifa practitioners of Cuba, that this was to be the year of Olokun (The Orishas Speak: The 2021 Letter of the Yoruba Association of Cuba (Letra del Año para el 2021 de la Asociación Yoruba de Cuba) and My Preliminary Interpretation).

Olokun is effectively ungendered, or multi-gendered--Olokun is male or female or male-female, or not male or female or male-female. Olokun "is." He can be revered as the head of all of the manifestations of divinity connected with water and is thought to guard vast wealth at the bottom of the seas where Olokun takes residence. But that is the essence of Olokun--dark, submerged, the holder of treasure, androgynous or gender multiple.  The Patakis speak to Olukun's sense of mutual respect but also of his temper in the face of affront.

"Awa ntoro ilosiwaju lowo Olokun" (We seek prosperity from Olokun); and this year it is not coming. 

And, indeed, the year proved to be just that, a year of longing for things that could not be, of of rage for the things that had befallen. This was a year of submerged and violent temper, of the breaking of things, and people, and of the fluidity of people, places, things, and events. That rage proceeded from the top as well as form the bottom. It was a year of confinement--and of passion. It is the spirit of the oceans and the subconscious--and also the year that plague became institutionalized and its practices deeply embedded in the consciousness and practices of social ordering. That that produced rage--submerged for the most part, but rage all the same --chained and unchained, and of storms and tempests.  But it was also a year of binding. Populations confined, economies bound, and for those willing to bear its chains, the great wealth of the oceans, expressed not just in the fabulously expensive boats of those who managed to profit through global confinement, but those as well who forge and maintain the chains that now bind those who produce their wealth (material wealth, as well as the wealth flowing to those weave the narratives that bind collectives). And around all of it--rage.  

And it is in that spirit, the spirits of 2021, that the epigrams and aphorisms that follow are offered. In this part5 one looks at the way that the body has become the incarnation of the symbolic. It is an interesting inversion--in the name of purity mostly.  Human bodies have ceased to be themselves, but they have become a physical object on which symbols are inscribed.  The body is a collection of data; but it is also its own symbolic language--of faith, of belonging, of community, of rebellion, of conformity and of productivity. The year 2021 was especially notable for the way that meaning was extracted form the bodies of people; in this sense there was a certain element of the cult worship.  Where peole are defioned as the measure of all things, then their bodies are the instruments of that measure.  And instruments must be protected form corruption. But the reverse is true as well--in a world culture in which bodies are the measure of all things, and all things become bodies. We reach here, at the end of 2021, the core of the semiotics of 2021. 

1. The representation of a thing is the thing itself, which is, in turn the representation of another thing, the representation of which is forbidden, unless or to the extent that is inconvenient.

"The Taliban has begun beheading shop mannequins in Afghanistan for offending their strict interpretation of Islam. Shopkeepers in the western province of Herat were told to hack the heads off their mannequins after Islamist officials ruled the statues were 'idols'. Idolatry, or the worshipping of idols, is considered a grave sin in Islam which bans the worship of anyone or thing other than Allah - considered to be the only God.The ruling was issued this week by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Herat, which is responsible for administering the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam. Initially, the ministry had ordered shops to remove the mannequins completely but shopkeepers complained, saying it would destroy what little business they have left. After listening to the complaints, Sheikh Aziz-u-Rahman - head of the ministry - ruled the mannequins' heads should be cut off instead. But business owners say hacking their mannequins apart still represents a significant financial loss at a time when Afghanistan's economy has more-or-less collapsed. Abdul Wadood Faiz Zada told Italian newspaper Repubblica: 'The heads of the mannequins should be covered, not removed.  'Each mannequin costs $100, or $80 or $70, and beheading them will be a huge financial loss.'(Chris Pleasance, "Taliban orders beheadings... for MANNEQUINS: Afghan clothes stores are told their dummies' heads offend Islam," Daily Mail (31 December 2021)).

 

2. Bodies are memories; ideas depicted as bodies more so; the body itself is less relevant than its signification, though signification without a body makes  meaning impossible. 

Pix Credit HERE

"Two more Hong Kong universities removed on Friday public monuments to the 1989 Tiananmen protests in Beijing, following the dismantling of a sculpture commemorating victims of the crackdown at another university this week. The removals at Chinese University and Lingnan University in the global financial hub came as authorities have been clamping down under a national security law imposed by China. . . .Just before dawn, a 6.4-metre (20-foot) -tall bronze statue representing the "Goddess of Democracy" holding a flame aloft was removed from a public piazza at Chinese University. . .In a statement, the university said the "unauthorised statue" had been taken away following an "internal assessment".The sculpture, which had stood on the campus for more than a decade, was modelled on a 10-metre (30-foot) white plaster and foam statue erected by students in Tiananmen Square to symbolise their resolve to pursue liberty and democracy in China under Communist party rule. Also before dawn on Christmas Eve, Hong Kong's Lingnan University took down a wall relief sculpture about the Tiananmen event that depicted the "Goddess of Democracy" and a row of tanks halting before a lone protester known as "tank man"; as well as victims shot by Chinese troops. When asked by Reuters whether Hong Kong or Chinese authorities had instructed all three universities to remove these Tiananmen monuments, the office of Hong Kong's leader, Carrie Lam, said it had no comment. The sculptor of both works, Chen Weiming, told Reuters he would sue the universities if there was any damage to his works. In the main hall of the student union at Lingnan University, a towering red drawing of the Goddess of

Democracy had also been covered over in grey paint. Students responded by pasting a sheet of paper with the word "shameful" on the effaced image, but it was quickly ripped off by security guards. In an email to Reuters, Lingnan University said that items that may pose "legal and safety risks" had been "cleared, or removed and stored appropriately". When Hong Kong returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997, it was promised wide ranging autonomy and freedoms by China under a so-called "one country, two systems" arrangement. Earlier this week, the University of Hong Kong dismantled and removed an eight-metre (26-ft) -tall "pillar of shame" statue to victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.(Sara Cheng and Jessie Pang, "Two more Tiananmen monuments removed from Hong Kong universities," Reuters (24 December 20201)).

 

3. Sometimes it is more useful to focus on the objects around bodies than the bodies themselves--that way bodies can be made to disappear or solidify depending on the meaning to be extracted from them--thus one can be said to attack a bus rather than the people in the bus; the people on the bus disappear and only those banging about remain corporeal, individual, and real. 

"Jewish leaders are set to confront BBC chief Tim Davie to demand a public apology after an investigation revealed a 'colossal error' in its reporting of an anti-Semitic attack on Oxford Street.Earlier this month, a video emerged of a group of men hurling abuse and spitting at a group of Jewish teenagers sitting inside a bus, before banging on the windows as it pulled away. The incident was treated as a hate crime by police and was condemned by the Prime Minister and by the Mayor of London. But in its original report, BBC News said 'racial slurs about Muslims could be heard inside the bus', a claim criticised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. And the board has now commissioned its own independent report by forensic audio experts and a linguist which concluded there were no anti-Muslim insults. It found the phrase thought to be a slur was actually a Hebrew phrase, 'Tikrah lemishu,ze dachuf' meaning: 'Call someone, it is urgent.' . . .  The BBC is standing by its report of the incident, and a spokesman said: 'Antisemitism is abhorrent. We strive to serve the Jewish community, and all communities across our country, fairly. 'Our story was a factual report that overwhelmingly focused on the individuals the police want to identify; those who directed abuse at the bus. 'There was a brief reference to a slur, captured in a video recording, that appeared to come from the bus. We consulted a number of Hebrew speakers in determining that the slur was spoken in English. 'The brief reference to this was included so the fullest account of the incident was reported.' (Rory Tingle, "Jewish leaders are set to confront BBC chief Tim Davie to demand public apology over 'colossal error' in its report on anti-Semitic bus attack that suggested the victims used 'anti-Muslim slurs', Daily Mail (31 December 2021)).

4. Branding animals, like humans, makes physical the abstractions around which a society (or a farm) constructs its realities; branding tatoos both the body that is inked and the body that inks.

"Authorities in China have barred soccer players from getting tattoos and instructed national team players who have been inked to remove or cover them up to set a “good example for society.” A growing number of high-profile Chinese players have been sporting tattoos, including international defender Zhang Linpeng, who has previously been told to cover up while appearing for both the national team and club side Guangzhou FC. The General Administration of Sport of China (GAS) said in a statement headed “Suggestions for strengthening the management of football players” that the Chinese Football Association would set out disciplinary requirements for national team players. “National teams at all levels will strictly implement the relevant requirements of the management measures ... (and) fully demonstrate the positive spirit of Chinese football players and set a good example for society,” it said. “The national team and the U23 national team athletes are strictly prohibited from having new tattoos, and those who already have tattoos are advised to remove them themselves. ("China bans tattoos for national soccer players," NBC News via Reuters (31 December 2021)).

"In Chinese culture a stigma has been attached to tattoos - in the past they were used to brand criminals and the tattoo still has links to organised crime groups in east Asia. Tattoos among ethnic groups were often seen as a mark of the uncivilised.They are disapproved of by China's ruling Communist Party, but have become increasingly popular among young Chinese.Earlier this year, China's broadcasting regulator announced that it was tightening rules on what it described as "unhealthy content".Television and internet appearances by sports personalities and celebrities have been restricted in cases involving tattoos and men's ponytails - in some instances these have been blurred from screens. Last December, a women's university football match in China had to be called off after players were told they were not allowed to have dyed hair." ("China bans its national football players from getting tattoos," BBC News (30 December 2021)).

5. Territory is now embedded in the bodies of identity; identity has a territory and a coinage; any collective can exercise autonomy within, throughout or beyond the geographic territories of states.  

It might sound like a marketing gimmick, but the founders of the first LGBTQ cryptocurrency said they want to harness the community’s economic power with the aim of “changing the world”. The maricoin, a play on words taken from a homophobic slur in Spanish, was launched on Friday in a week-long pilot test involving 10 businesses in Chueca, known as the LGBTQ neighbourhood of Spain’s capital, Madrid. Maricoin’s backers are aiming for the virtual currency to start trading early next year, paving the way for it to be used as a means of payment at LGBTQ-friendly businesses and events worldwide. “Since we move this economy, why shouldn’t our community profit from it, instead of banks, insurance companies or big corporations that often don’t help LGBT+ people?” co-founder Juan Belmonte, 48, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Mr. Belmonte, a hairdresser and entrepreneur, said the idea for the LGBTQ cryptocurrency came to him while he was partying with friends at Madrid’s Pride event in July this year. But he traces the project’s origins back to 2017, when the ultraconservative group HazteOir launched a campaign against transgender rights by sending a bus around Spain bearing the words: “Boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Do not be fooled.” The conservative Christian group’s campaign was swiftly banned by Spanish authorities, but Mr. Belmonte said it made him realize he “had to do something” to help leverage the LGBTQ community’s economic clout in the fight against homophobia. The global LGBTQ market is huge, with research by Swiss bank Credit Suisse suggesting it would rank as the world’s fourth-largest economy, behind Japan but ahead of Germany in terms of purchasing power.A 2018 study conducted by Kantar Consulting and LGBTQ social network Hornet estimated the community’s buying power in the United States alone at US$1-trillion in 2016 – almost equal to that of African-American or Hispanic consumers. Maricoin is backed by Miami-based venture capital firm Borderless Capital, and the initiative’s chief executive, Francisco Alvarez, said 8,000 people were already on a waiting list seeking to buy maricoins before the currency starts trading. (Enrique Anarte, "Founders of first LGBTQ cryptocurrency, the maricoin, bet on ‘changing the world’," Globe & Mail (31 December 2021))