IRISCInternational Research Institute into Spirituality and Change |
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DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY (Irving Berlin)
by Ian Ball A consideration of recent work in Romania, particularly the city of Iasi, Moldavia. The following article was presented to the International Research Institute into Spirituality and Change (IRISC) at the University of Wales, Bangor, 18th September 2000. It contains some additions to that article which have been included in { } brackets. "In most of the arts subjects, the modern university does not teach one to be a doer, but only an historical critic. You don’t learn to be a performer; you only learn how to be a good critic of other people’s performances. You are taught to be cool and to remain at one remove from your subject, dealing with it in a manner that ensures it is never going to make the slightest difference either to your own life or to anyone else’s." 1 We are our story - our lives live out and express that story. We may be this that or the other, we may write as at a distance from our subject, but embedded in all we do and say, is our story - what we wish to tell others is always present. We choose our work and the details of our life as a means of expressing something of ourselves. The article is the result of much experience and some reading. ‘Research’ is much too grand a term for a series of thoughts and responses to something I have been doing. It loosely hides a catalogue of errors and some considerable drinking. It has been, like so many pieces of so-called ‘research’, written backwards, a justification of existing belief. I would wish now to consider more thoroughly the issues of ‘relationship’, concerns of ‘culture’, the sense of ‘the other’ and many assumptions such as that there is an east and west. It does not sufficiently represent place, people, or action - though maybe, because it is a personal story, it tells you something about me. New lamps for old? "Keep me burning till the end of day" goes the song. Flame is indicative of life. We ‘smoulder’, we ‘burn’, our ‘light goes out’, we are ‘enflamed’ (instinctively, I add ‘with desire’!), but we can be smothered, doused, wet. "He who is not on fire cannot set others on fire" - and some (quoting the prophet Amos) are as "brands plucked from the burning". Agni (the same word as ‘ignite’) is fire - that Indian god, full of spirit who exists in the earth and sky but also darts between, in the intermediary space. A mediator, present in all brilliance and all shining things and presiding at all sacrifices. He is ‘the all-pervader’, present in illumination, being the power in knowledge and perception. He is also a flesh eater! What is it that we wish to be - and do we wish or need to be ‘burning till the end of day’ as ‘lamps trimmed and burning bright’? What sort of spirit is in the lamp? It is now ten years since I began working contact with post-communist Eastern Europe - particularly Romania. In this article I will consider some aspects of the core of my activities there - ‘to assist (desired) change’. WHY CHANGE? FOR WHY DO ROMANIANS -AS A SOCIETY AND INDIVIDUALLY, WANT CHANGE? WHY AM I ENGAGED IN THIS ACTION? Was Communism the last throw of the dice by a Christianised (philosophically) Europe? It feels to me like that. The situation was not so much one where a ‘Grand Narrative’ evolved as where one was rationally constructed and then (irrationally, given the fine-tuning of the Stalinist approach) imposed. "the sense of unbounded optimism" of 1990 has given way to "a difficult and contentious present and an uncertain future; of conflict over land and the massive out-migration of intellectuals, educators, and the economically ambitious" the only way to begin to overcome such a problem is to accept responsibility for one’s own life and band together with one’s neighbors to create a lost local corporatism. The obstacles in the way are daunting; I hope they are not insuperable. 2 It is easy to understand why Romanians wanted change. Their system, to survive, required considerable State repression of groups and individuals and it also failed to deliver material advantages that, even in the hidden-away depths of Romania (most of Romania, unlike GDR, Hungary Czechoslovakia, was well beyond the reach of western media) people were aware were occurring elsewhere. The Stalinist system created a ‘Solitude of Collectivism’ 3. A fracturing of social networks and prevention of any publicly accepted form of individual initiative. The system also prevented the development of public space where meaning, truth and values are developed and established - and even in a variety of ways, negotiated and agreed. Spiritual space - as demonstrated by the sanctuaries of organised religion - was denied. Thus such places survived, but only by being turned in on themselves. It was compounded, in Romania, by the madness of Ceaucescu who seemed to believe, by his actions of selling abroad everything possible (including humans!), that if he cleared all foreign debt he would in some sense own the whole country, in the manner that one ‘owns’ a goat or cow. This action of Stalinism is morally horrendous. It is the ultimate privatisation. Personality and character are built through contact and relationships. In effect, what the system was doing was preventing people develop as humans. Ceaucescu’s wife Elena often described the Romanian population as ‘worms’. I will be referring to a variety of aspects of ‘solitude’ throughout this article. Total control is however, impossible. As with a formal school lesson where students are regulated in rows and the teacher appears to be totally dominant at the front, there is always another life occurring at the back of the class. It is subversive and maybe rather unpleasant (I draw on personal memory!), but it is vibrant in its own way. Thus in Romania people existed as best they could and tried as much as possible to survive the oppression. The drive was to circumvent national policy, which, particularly in its last years created increasing deprivation. - "if only we had a little more food it would be like wartime" 4. However "such circumvention was for the short-term benefit of households and of little relevance for long-term social change... the revolutionary potential dissolved in a haze of compromise and status pretensions" 5 Atomisation occurred. The focus and horizons of people’s concerns became very local: Kaplan asked Adrian Porciuc of Cuza University in Iasi what is the ‘crowd symbol’ of Romanians: "In the Middle Ages, the Latin Romanians protected their church against invaders by, in effect, transporting the church deep into the forest; just look where our monasteries are located. Our church, like all Orthodox churches, became the hearth of culture during the Turkish oppression. But psychologically speaking, the church was more. It became the supreme symbol for one’s hearth and home, whose security was always being threatened by plunder and starvation. The home, the family seated around the humble table with food on it, that is the Romanian crowd symbol. Thus you must protect the sanctity of your home and not let it be destroyed. "We are a people whose hatred, when they are analysed, can be reduced to the fear of an empty stomach. The utmost pride of a Romanian during the Ceaucescu years was to provide food for his family table. "Ceaucescu’s rule was like that of the Turks. Inside their minds, our people are still in the forest, only now unbolting their doors, looking this way and that, very suspiciously." 6 It is said, that Moldavia where Iasi is the principle city, is the home of the runcible cart! It is not that the elements of this situation are essentially different to elsewhere - simply that compared with for example Western Europe, the problems are deeper, probably more embedded and the scale of difficulty in certain areas is considerably greater. Robert Kaplan writes of the revolution in 1989 "there was more going here than the downfall of a communist tyranny. Stalin may have provided the foundation, but the rest sprang naturally from the soil" 7 - "nazism and Communism worked to magnify the tragic flaws of Romanian political culture out of all proportion" 8 In a sort of gestalt fashion, the sum of these difficulties (and many other elements of society that pre-date communist control) produce a whole that presents a very different society from that of Western Europe. Romania ‘an echo Dostoevsky’s world: the inside of a ghoulish, Byzantine icon, peopled by suffering and passionate figures whose minds were distorted by their own rage and belief in wild-half truths and conspiracies’ 9 "Romanian manners have always been an unfortunate and dangerous palimpsest" Atop the Latin bent for melodrama was a Byzantine bent for intrigue and mysticism, inherited from the Orthodox religion and from centuries of Byzantine political and cultural influence. This mystical streak was further intensified by the Carpathian landscape itself, darkened by fir forests and teeming with wolves and bears, out of which arose a pantheon of spirits and superstitions and the richest folk culture in Europe." 10 The quotes give some sense of the complexities of the situation. It is very difficult to assess the extent of these elements. I have a series of experiences that seem to support what Kaplan is saying. Yet reflection on the present activity also suggests that, whatever the history, the situation is much more positive than the quotes suggest. The major question is "How, in this situation, does one develop programmes that will work in assisting those who are asking for development". I have no answer - we are simply making it up as we go along - ‘improvisation rules ok’. This article is a part of the process. It is ten years since I first went there - and there are certain changes in people that are very positive. I have tested the immediately following views on friends there and they generally agree with the analysis. In 1990 people walked with their heads down, they shuffled, they were the fearful inmates of an oppressive asylum. Despite 6 months of ‘freedom’, I felt that they did not believe that Ceaucescu had really gone. They lived in expectation of a return to oppression. On my return exactly a year later one noticeable change was that people’s heads had risen. They didn’t ‘walk tall’ but they walked with more confidence. Furthermore the extreme shortages (of everything) were lessening and there was evidence of initiative and entrepreunership. This had existed in a few individuals in 1990 - but the small booths that tried to sell everything were, in 1991, becoming established in every town. In 1990 I visited a bar that had been the birthplace of Vlad Tepes (The Impaler and original Dracula). It served nothing but an almost undrinkable instant coffee called ‘Nes’, an even less appetising green liquid that was called (undoubtedly erroneously) ‘juice’ and Havana rum. Many other drinks were advertised. The situation was akin to Peter Seller’s parody of the tea room in "Balham: Gateway to the South". Generally shops had displays - usually of very large yellow and green paper flowers and sometimes pictures of the items they purported to sell - but there was nothing inside! Food shops contained rows of dusty glass jars with some form of pickled vegetable inside and labelled (sometimes) ‘compot’. In 1992 I returned to the ‘Dracula’ bar - and in the attractive cellar drank the most delightful locally produced ‘lager’ beer! In such ways one has marked the change - the new Coca-Cola plant with national distribution, street lights, traffic lights working consistently, the day that suddenly in every town there were Mars ice creams - and more recently, the ability to get cash direct from a hole in the wall! This May I visited my first purpose built Romanian Shopping Mall. In 1998 after an absence for nearly 4 years, one major human change was that I noticed was that in city streets many people behaved differently - talking, joking and walking with a relaxed and easy step. Now it is possible to engage strangers in easy conversation and whilst a western outsider is still unusual and noticeable in the provinces - people still ‘look’ - I now, meet people in the street with whom I have had previous contact. We meet as friends with smiles, handshakes and exchange of news - it often feels very ‘normal’. These things matter, but the deeper and ancient anxieties remain and can often be sensed as one moves around the city. These anxieties are compounded by other changes. In the same ten year period the value of the currency - the Lei (meaning ‘lion’) has gone from the artificially 26 to the pound sterling to nearly 30,000 per pound - and journeys through the country are marked by the rusting, rotting hulks of former industrial plants
- they were ever thus: Cruel ugly things throughout the Communist world, factories in Romania seemed to belong to a deeper circle of hell: barbed wire and concrete gate enclosures, filled with mountains of coal, and desultorily picked over by the odd cow or sheep. The plant stood in the middle, like a body without a skin: a mass of bile green intestinal pipes, fitted with rusted gangplanks that crossed over and long walls of plate glass and smoke-blackened cement, on top of which stood an asbestos roof with scrap-iron chimneys puffing pure black smoke into the air. 11
but now many are silent. WHY ME? ‘Rockin’ My Troubles’ (Connie Mclean’s Rhythm Boys April 1936) Are our lives are but a process of self-exploration? We are brought into the world and are moulded by a situation where we control little. We venture forth - or do we? The word venture seems appropriate to the manner in which we should be developing. Its Latin origins link it with meanings producing ‘to arrive’, ‘to come’, ‘stranger’ and to ‘fall into’ or ‘go as far as’. It can also be associated with gambling - risk and danger. We need to consciously venture - the manner will vary but the process of moving into new situations, making new relationships is important to our very nature. If we are not allowed to venture, our energies - our own internal complex communities - working away inside, will make their own journeys - and they may not be healthy for the whole body. It may not always have been so but now we seem to need movement of some sort - and we need to be aware of the process. Development and change are part of what we are and what we need to do to 'be' anything. There is no fixed goal or knowable answer - we simply ‘move’ - a series of ‘falling intos’. Even though it may not be obvious to our self, in our venturing we often seem largely concerned with uncovering or satisfying the elements of ourselves that developed during our early days. We are forever satisfying a series of yearnings and cravings. In witnessing a whole Society that has been prevented from venturing, one meets again and again situations and characters that one also sees in daily life at home. {This point was exemplified by the response given by John Fazey in examining a UK institution under pressure - ie the ‘mood’ amongst many people in the University sector. Whilst recognising that many, if not all the problems encountered in work in Eastern Europe have UK parallels, it is very important avoid using that recognition as a means of dismissing the Eastern European experience. I frequently have to deal with such ‘dismissive’ comments. The situation in Romania is vastly different from the UK - much greater than even we, who work there, will sometimes recognise. The problems are deeper and wider and most problematic of all, extremely difficult to assess.} The discoveries that we make as we range over the earth, though not always made conscious, can only be personal discoveries. And those discoveries, though sometimes and maybe often, are painful, should also produce moments of great sweetness and personal satisfaction. We dig the garden more than we ever have time to admire the product. Thus it was that last November, whilst reading a Harry Potter novel and in the middle of a major energy draining project, I realised I was a magician! It took a long time to become aware of this quality. Twenty two years ago we (to be fair "I") had named our first son "Gwydion". In Welsh tradition he was one of the Three Poets of the Isles of Britain, one of the Three Magicians of the Isles of Britain - a shape-changer (such are poets) and "the best teller of tales in the world" 12. "That’s my boy" I thought (he presently is a ‘telephone based customer service advisor [debt bureau]’ for British Gas). It was an evening in central Romania, a vine covered terrace and the two of us - him a journalist - musing on reasons for our activity together, whilst slurping the product of the plants around us. "Ah", says my journalist friend "I see it now. You are helping us escape from our prison whilst we are helping you escape from yours". Merlin lies forever bound and trapped - fortunately I had found freedom to develop my magic. We need to venture - and yet we can become trapped. When this happens a release is necessary - and some form of understanding (not necessarily always formulated) is needed in order to find the appropriate space in which to act out our freedom. There is a creative need in us seeking appropriate material and context. In this sense all work should be therapy - and all action with others should be therapeutic. In itself the exploration of what is appropriate activity for any situation is a specific task in itself. And so I attach myself to those, in this particular, sufficiently interesting place, who wish to explore. In some sense I want to be no more than be a form of tourism manager, helping find the appropriate journey for those with whom I contact. Magical mystery tours. However that requires a particular style. I do not have a series of brochures to which the client can refer. We have to write our won brochure together. Thus the contact requires a considerable personal knowledge and intimacy. ‘Shooting High Dice’ (Mississippi Sheiks 1933) That’s what all this is, a risk and full of danger - and not just for me, but for those with whom I associate. But believing (is that the right word - this is more than "belief") that we are all in a process of self-discovery and of growing self-awareness (is "denial" the only other option?), it is the only way forward for me. Romania, a gentle (and unrecognised) influence on me since 1968 became an arrival in 1990 when departure from other places (literally, escape from the classroom) was essential. Now it is space within which I continue to explore self and society. An intermediary place - a neither here not there. I fly, move around for a few days, return and continue my work there through cyberspace. It is also a place of privilege. Whatever problems occur, and however strange and difficult we, who continue our work there, seem to the locals, they are appreciative. There is energy in their anxiety - and our presence is often honoured. It feels curious - we only want to do a simple thing. The place is, for many of those who have persisted over the years, a place of ‘becoming’. There is a genuine mutual respect as we all face the difficulties. {There was much discussion about how we are received and treated. We are constantly made to feel important. This happens in a variety of ways - but essentially our whole treatment is as if we were VIP’s -met at airports, escorted everywhere, extra attention in restaurants etc. This is very flattering, but is a marker of ‘anxiety’. When we have removed such attentions and cease to be so important we will know that progress is being made towards ‘comfort’.} THE PRESENT: ‘Kickin’ The Gong Around’ (Arlen -Koehler. Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra Jan. 1932) Energy, flow, expression and movement. Creating tongues of fire. We, all volunteers, are working to identifying the change makers, and then to offer support. We assist in making contacts and developing relationships. The fracturing of relationships with the imposition of communism, has left people with a profoundly damaged sense of self and severe communicate problems. Kideckel’s title ‘Solitude of Collectivism’ provides an almost perfect image. Despite ten years of ‘openess’, Romania still feels isolated. It feels isolated to the visitor and inhabitants often express similar feelings. It manifests a host of fears and attitudes that accompany such isolation. However the increasing opportunities are producing situations where rapid development can occur. There is a growing acceptance of the need for ‘change’ and of the need, for example, of ‘training’. However there is little understanding of what those terms mean. Many exhibit a great desire to ‘be’ or to ‘be like’ the West. A visitor to Russia was constantly being told that Moscow has 7 ‘MacDonalds’ - whilst at the same being time prevented from visiting the local flea markets where some amazing pieces of art were being sold. Certain terms are accepted without a real level of understanding, and local experience is often influenced by bad examples. International companies provide ‘training’ - but these are usually from standard western packages which have no contextual bearing and are delivered by ‘experts’ who fly in, teach and then disappear. The rapidly changing nature of the present is becoming important. The generation under 30 years old is very different to its elders - and that under 25 even more so. I suspect that for those now aged 15 there will be another major shift. So there is a change - at least amongst the student population with professional backgrounds. Furthermore, the arrival (since 1990) of the ‘mediascape’ and more recently ‘cyberspace’ are clearly having a major impact. The sense of peripheral disadvantage leads to the highly skilled emigrating and others often simply take whatever chances arise. Thus an increasing number of people are ready to engage fully in the world of change and development. The continuing effect of the ‘solitude’ is difficult to assess. We are shaped by language - our ability to talk defines our ability to create, to act, to control. Communism was stultifying. The inability to communicate openly and honestly has created what may be the greatest problem for this society and for those wishing to assist development. Under Ceaucescu people learned ways of communication that suited their needs. The National Theatre in Bucuresti managed to present Macbeth (?) as a criticism of the Conducator (Ceaucescu) and perform it in front of him! Thus there were some interesting developments, - it is a wonderful place for poetic metaphor - but I would guess that we who work there often fail to understand the full meaning of what is being said to us. Without a reasonably agreed understanding of what is being said and the confidence to communicate, people lack power - and maybe even become powerless. In this fractured state there is a lack of any local support network (formal or informal). ‘Trainees’ return - and face effectively a brick-wall. They have to relate to a society where no one is very interested in others. It is a form of anomie. The members of this society having been effectively ‘abused’ and also, at the same time, having been complicit in the abuse, have no way of breaking out of a ‘solitude’ that they cannot, in many cases, even recognise. Developing a concern and interest in what others are doing has to be learned. Can it be learned after a certain age?
This aspect of the situation is possibly the core of what concerns us. At this point all the various elements of this article combine. So there are a host of interesting issues with which any appropriate training programme must be concerned - all require an ‘opening up’ of the individuals concerned - particularly of their personal feelings. This is profoundly difficult in any situation but becomes even more so with people affected by so much solitude. Most societies are used to people ‘networking’. In the UK the advert: "I know a man who can" indicates an approach to relationships. Positive gossip - networking -- we do this almost naturally. Mobile phone technology has increased our chatter and babble. The recent fuel crisis (occurring as I write this) illustrated the degree to which this has developed - the question was posed (on BBC Radio 5 14th September 2000) as to whom, in this apparently totally dispersed, decentralised, leaderless dispute, the government was supposed to talk in order to resolve the crisis. ‘To a web-site’ was the facetious (but not entirely ridiculous) answer. This chatter and babble from which so much is created, has not been the case in the post-communist world. However: many young people now use mobile phones - are now joining the ‘babble’ - not a Tower of Babble, but a web of potential. Romanian society still seems to have a considerable underlay of the ‘traditional’ and Moldavia is regarded as the home of Romanian culture and spirituality. I cannot guess how much or how ancient - but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the ‘traditional’ is deep and that some of this traditional worldview is still close to mediaeval 13. The imposition of centrally planned industrial plants (almost randomly scattered throughout the land) with accompanying urban concentrations, was imposed since World War II. Thus the concept of what it is to be a person for many people, particularly in the very large rural areas, may be very different from even ‘modern’ (i.e. since 1500) 13. It is probable that the work on change and development is with people who, moulded in the communist world of solitude, are still considerably influenced by ancient tradition. Yet I hesitate, - every time I try to define, I find myself hedged about with images, particularly of the young adults. They are so varied - large numbers formally devout and traditional, clearly obvious to the visitor, but also great numbers of fashionably dressed, mobile phone using ‘party-goers’! SO WHAT ACTION DO WE TAKE? ‘I gotta right to sing the blues’ (Arlen/Koehler: Jack Teagarden 1933) The approach that we have taken is small scale, very flexible and intimate. We need to almost establish a small ‘culture’ (in the biological sense), feed it, keep feeding it and grow from that. So we need the ongoing small group that can expand as necessary. My preference is for creative activities that produce a flow of ideas, conversations, contacts and practical action. Within a series of such activities and projects we aim to freely engage participants in personal and social development. This is the creative action. Learning to treat our self as a work of art which we can (self) shape to some degree, within the nature of the given material. There is a need to develop this sense of ‘coming’, ‘falling into’ and ‘passing on’. Everything contingent and impermanent - but everything significant in the moment. Have we achieved this small thing? Using a building metaphor, I would judge that at best, we have only just got the digger on site to begin clearing the ground - and actually we may only just have reached the point where we have identified a suitable site. Though on the apparently barren site there is a ‘small culture’ of about five Brits and Romanians busily feeding! Why?
We wish to assist desired change, but we also work against a number of approaches that people have and in a sense ‘believe’ to be correct - i.e. the desire to occupy position and hold on to everything for themselves and their families ("a haze of compromise and status pretensions"). These attitudes may not be expressed - but they are manifest. So in a real sense we may be working against what many of our Romanian colleagues instinctively desire! This was certainly the case with my first attempts at assistance in the town that, in the more progressive and humorous mood in Iasi, we simply call "RV". There one person told me that I was virtually owned and controlled by another. Not true, though I was the ‘bread’ on his table - in a very real sense, given that he used my presence to advertise his language school. {This point raised questions: we are trying to help people achieve what they to desire eg. economic improvement, closer links with others in Europe. We are there because we have been invited. However present practises and behaviours, created during the communist period and now ‘naturalised’ are blocking such developments. Thus ‘instinct’ (in the example the desire to ‘possess’ a beneficiary), needs to be changed. Individual desires might be satisfied - the person I used as an example has very successful Language School. The desires for general social improvement cannot be achieved without effective communication, the construction of trust relationships and the sharing of knowledge and power. Our work is attempting to assist such developments. During the communist period many people had to build own little protected space - and they had to jealously guard what they had created. Thus people are often suspicious of others engaged in similar work -and rather than co-operate, they fight. Though very damaging, this attitude is completely understandable. It is possible that the specific work on creating a publicly accessible trail through the city of Iasi - ‘The Green Line Project’ is actually providing people with a neutral space in which they can share their energies. The project was created by young people who are effectively ‘powerless’ and therefore not seen as threatening. Maybe, just maybe, by assisting these young people we can help them avoid the destructive addiction of jealousy.} Strategies have to both allow people to feel comfortable in themselves and yet have a very clear vision as to where one is trying to move. And the movement is not just their movement - it is our movement. We cannot be outside the process. The personal journey applies to all involved. But there is a very different "return" for those of us who come from outside Romania. Issues involved in assisting change Change and Development. In encouraging development there will inevitably be change. Can there be change without development? I guess that when we use the word development we are also implying that there will be a particular type of change in people. We are using the word to mean something ‘appropriate’ for the person or group involved. "Us" and "Them". The sense of "us" having something that we are providing to "them" is very strong - and in the case of Romania is underscored by the ‘orphanages’ and health issues. We ("us") try and maintain, in general conversations, that there is a sense that we are involved in "equal receipt of the good" - i.e. that we in the UK can gain considerable practical benefit from Romanian experience - in equal measure to what they gain from us. This is probably an error, an understandable well-meaning liberal error, but nonetheless an error. The situation is much more akin to that of doctor/nurse - hospital patient. Yes, there is much personal learning in being hospitalised - but it is not something we do voluntarily! The recipient in this case is not used to negotiation with the ‘provider’. We/us try to adopt an ‘enabling’ position, but find that initial action has to be prompted. Without that initial action there would be (has been and still is) silence. For the recipient is trained not to speak, not to question, not to ask. The recipient is conditioned to operate privately and often by a form of deceit (part of the ‘solitude’). The recipient is trained to wait - but has not been encouraged to hope. This is compounded by our being ‘Western’ - where the streets are paved with gold! There was a long expectation in Eastern Europe that the West would somehow solve all the problems that people faced. We all have attitudes founded on experience - thus many people in Eastern Europe actually believed that the westerner was rich because our governments gave us money! It took me some rapid and hard thinking to realise why that was believed and produced a major surge on my learning curve! Occasionally there is a phrase that expresses the depth of feeling which accompanies, is a part of, this ‘waiting’. When I went with an American colleague to one meeting at which we were to try and begin a development process, the organiser (without any consultation with us) explained how two years previously the British, with my presence, had visited and he continued: "And now, ladies and gentlemen, after forty five years of waiting, I am pleased to tell you that today ‘The Americans have landed’". I know that internally we both expressed a profound "Aaaagh"! Following a recent failure to gain funding for a specific programme I received the following message: "I'm sorry about the Lottery fail - this was the big piece of news I told you at the phone I wait from you. Sorry, there were some dreams here about it..." Interestingly, though I had been told on the phone that "we wait for the news", I had not understood the meaning - the comment had not made it explicit. And I would judge that the speaker was not explicit because of this ‘waiting’ condition. The issue was almost too important and exciting to even dare to mention! I am sure we can all think of such occasions - and I guess that most of our memories will relate to childhood. Is it like having a continual internal ache - one day will be Christmas day and we will all get the present we desire? There is (or has not been) within this Society no intention or process to assist people in working out their inner desires - of turning their feelings into action. A deep expectation lived in a society of continual frustration. We, who living ordered lives in reasonably comfortable conditions and having a range of possible satisfying activities need to retain recognition of this ‘expectation’. Involvement in such situations as these should never be casual or short-term. Our ‘culture’ is growing, more local people are becoming ‘providers’ rather than ‘recipients’. Developments have been achieved from very close - almost intimate - contact with our Romanian colleagues. It is partly a matter of building confidence and trust between specific individuals - to reach a point where conversation can be genuinely open and equal. One major factor in all this was pointed out to me in 1993. "But Radu - I’ve done nothing" "Yes you have - you keep coming back". We would like view ourselves as ‘enablers’, but maybe I need to recognise that I am the donor or provider. I may not like that - but I have constantly been regarded as the one who will provide. Sometimes if I have not delivered what the recipient (usually privately) desires, then I have been ignored - even rejected. Despite all our attempts to ‘enable’ we need to be constantly aware that we cannot help being something else as well. Thus sometimes I sign my emails as "Voievod" - and voievod has a meaning that can equate with ‘robber baron’! 14 There is a request for assistance. Assistance is provided. But that is the process of recipient and donor - and that can create problems. Whilst I do not here want to try and develop the issue of ‘gain’, in writing this I have been trying to guess, without asking them, what it is that is most valuable to the wide range of colleagues and contacts. In October 1999 I stood outside a cathedral amongst a crowd that gathers every year for a major festival. I was clearly recognised as being ‘different’. A man approached and asked Cristina, one of our closest friends in Romania, a question to which she responded. It was clearly about me and we had nodded at each other as he approached. "What did he want" I asked - he clearly wasn’t begging "He wanted to know if you were the American Ambassador" He had walked away whilst still looking back at us. It was clear that actually what he really wanted was simply to be close - to have some point of contact. It is still a regret that I did not engage him in conversation. I believe that despite ten years of a more open society, the greatest gain for almost everyone is the contact with the outside world. Having worked in Romania through the days when it took three weeks to send and receive answers to messages (and that required the correspondent to be a good communicator), the greatest pleasure for me - not quite a gain, but nearing it - is the development of email and the mobile phone. They have made a vital difference. Of course we gain - and the gain is more than simply a ‘feel-good’ factor, but the gain for the outsider is a different order of gain. ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained’. New lamps for old? Aladdin’s uncle wanted the old lamp - the one with the magic. To what extent can a degree of polishing bring life and energy back to the old lamps? I cannot say - but have enough experience now to know that even those who seemed to have been most a part of the oppression are capable of great leaps of the spirit. Recent memories include: a farmer and family driving horse and cart back to their near hovel at the end of a hard day in the fields - but a full, smiling, cheerful faces as we take their photograph two guys in their ‘sixties’ who have, incredibly, managed to organise the construction of a huge glass clad World Trade Centre and hotel complex several veterans of the Second World War discussing their survival of British bombing with me - and then expressing regret that they had let down the younger generation by not doing more (from their positions of considerable power as senior army officers) to resist communism a young man sitting and smiling at me. He, who was in the army during the revolution of 1990, armed and ready to shoot to kill but who now has energy, passion and commitment to change. He sits and smiles in his new office as he becomes a TV executive and a leading influence in his city
‘Baby Won’t You Please Come Home’ (Warfield-Williams. Fletcher Henderson: Jan. 1927) Rows and rows of dark and shadowy routes and roads, streets and passageways were enlightened by lamplighters. ‘He who is not fire cannot set others on fire’ - the motto of my old College. The place where my Romanian encounters began ‘Madness, hatred and rage are like orgasms, a tide that carries us away’ writes Petru Dimitriu 15 he continues ‘I had only to love and forgive, and thus endow the universe with value, structure and order. I. I who was no one and nothing, at the most this intensity of will and being, emerged from some unknown source that was not me but thou, the world. I knew that I did not even exist, that my will itself was no more than a complex of determinisms and responses to outward urgings, and that the triumphant "me" which was freely abolishing itself was neither free nor itself, but a speck in the tissue of the universe, transitory and dissolving, unique only in appearance.' This important text in my development, read first in 1968, became part of my father’s memorial service thirty years later (he died whilst I was in Romania) and still it contains for me the ‘ring of truth’. {There was discussion about the degree of my personal involvement and commitment to specifically, Romania. This also included some general questioning about the reasons anyone might have for being involved in such situations. It was accepted that it just happens to be Romania - but I/we could be working elsewhere - and if we can create a reasonably strong foundation in Iasi, then undoubtedly, whilst still maintaining links, I would be off venturing into new territory. As I stated at the beginning, research is often written backwards. Chance created this involvement in Romania and I now find reason to justify it! My first visit there was with the whole family in 1990 - after ‘the Wall’ came down we simply decided that rather than travelling to Spain, it would be more interesting to turn left at Calais - the rest just followed from that decision.} The activity which involves me is, if it is effective, an enlightenment - a raising of consciousness and a brightening of the lives of those whom we (Romanians and British) all meet. A discovery of each other’s light and a sharing of the light. I have an image of us all furiously polishing, - burnishing each other’s lamps - which does sound vaguely rude!
‘Won’t you came along with me, we’ll take a boat to the land of dreams where all the dark and light folks meet’ (Basin St. Blues, Williams. Jack Teagarden: 1931) It is in a sense a pilgrimage. With spiritual issues? Well one walks a pilgrimage knowing that that is what one is doing - the title implies a certain attitude to the journey. The developmental pilgrimages that I have performed over many years do not contain much overt religion or often much talk about ‘the spiritual’. The key matter is for each person to be able to place one foot in front of the other and to continue doing that until we have all arrived at our agreed destination. We know what it is we are doing - the term pilgrimage gives us that. We do not need to concern ourselves with constantly reinforcing it through actions and words that would slow our progress. It is a performance - and each walked pilgrimage creates many stories.
‘Lets do it’ (Cole Porter) Whatever ‘gain’ there is only comes from being fully a part of the pilgrimage. There is a constant absorption of so many details and a sharing of experience in a common agreed purpose. The spiritual does not occur in any ‘abstract’ sense. It cannot be ‘separated out’. It is a creative be-coming, but one that depends on social contact and in the shared journey, a social contract. Being human is both an aesthetic and spiritual experience. I find it increasingly difficult to see why people need to impose anything ‘external’ on (in) our travelling, developing, celebrating selves - ain’t that enough? ‘All right, you cats been talkin’ ‘bout you got rhythm. Now come on here, lets see what we’re gonna do here, swing on now, lets go’ Armstrong intro to ‘I got Rhythm’ (Gershwin) Nov. 1931 Performance and action, a movement that creates ignition. A burning which devours in a series of wonderful passions. Agni is the mouth of the gods. Movement through space, wind, is the breath of the gods that sustains all 16. Tongues of fire. ‘Feelin’ no pain’ (Livingston. Red Nichols and His five Pennies August 1927) A mutual journey - a shared journey passing many places, creating much merriment, remembered through stories. Some genuinely ‘burn’ with a desire to continue the journey. Enthusiasm is visible - we are as lamps burning. Greetings are enthusiastic, partings sad and emails begin with phrases like ‘Hi, bro’ - meaning ‘brother’ (which in Welsh has a more powerful ‘community’ implication). We also have some sense of what it is that we are doing and of where we are going. We are at least: ‘Helping people become comfortable in their own place’ We have started our story - and are still busy composing the details, long may it last. "Destin" (extras) "Gaina pe care am cumparat-o aseara Congelata Inviase, Facuse cel mai mare ou din lume, Si i se decernase premiul Nobel" Destiny (extract) The chicken I bought last night, Frozen, Returned to life, Laid the biggest egg in the world, And was awarded the Nobel Prize (Marin Sorescu)
Notes: 1. Don Cupitt. PhilosophyÕs Own Religion SCM Press. London.2000 p.47, 2. David A. Kideckel. The Solitude of Collectivism: Romanian Villagers to the Revolution and Beyond. Cornell University Press. Ithaca and London 1993. p9 3. Ibid 4. Robert D. Kaplan Balkan Ghosts, A Journey Through History. PaperMac London 1993 p83 Kaplan’s descriptions are from 1990 and are thus in many cases ‘dated’. He has also been called "the American cultural doom monger" (Adam Burgess: Europe Divided. Pluto Press 1997. p96). I use him because his descriptions do give a flavour of the place - and thereby, some of the depth of problem that I have experienced. 5 Kideckel op.cit. p7 6 Kaplan. op.cit p 7 Kaplan op.cit. p84 The West presently places considerable emphasis on the history of this region (just as it claims to be at ‘the end of history’). This appears to be in contrast with the Nineteenth Century who viewed the region as having no history (when of course, national ‘history’ was extremely important)! My guess is that ‘westerners’ have themselves a long history of viewing the region as somewhat barbaric - rather mediaeval Italians saw northern Europe as ‘Goths’. This is a very important issue and colours our attitude and action. 8. Kaplan op.cit. p87 9. Kaplan op.cit. p183 10. Kaplan op.cit. p94 There is nothing special about this - are we not all ‘palimpsests’ - a whole series of personas overlaid one on top the other and with some of those elements ‘unfortunate and dangerous’ in some form or another? 11. Kaplan op.cit. p105 12. The Mabinogion. Translated Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones. Everyman London 1973. p57 13. However the strongly felt mystical tradition of Orthodoxy - the local mediaeval context has an emphasis on personal subjective inner experience which could in some senses relate to more recent Western positions. I have no idea how, if this is so, how it influences or in any way assists present desired change. Many (in the West and Romania) would see the general influence of the Orthodox Church with its rigid hierarchical behaviour, as less than helpful. 14. The word meaning chief or military leader has Indo-European origins. It relates to the Sanskrit: Vayas: strength, which relates to Vayu. Vayu is the ‘Lord-of-Wind’ and cosmic life breath - and associates with words associated with movement and travel. Thus it also relates to ‘voyage’. 15. Petru Dumitriu, Incognito. Fount Paperbacks London 1978. 16. One of the wonders of traditional Indian philosophy is that it is playful - creative words and images are stretched in all manner of directions allowing all manner of levels of human experience to be expressed. |
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