Month: February 2016

Aung San Suu Kyi and the day of democracy

“We have been struggling for democracy since 1988… We have suffered very much but now we see the results and the fruits of our suffering. It is a beautiful beginning.”

Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party finally form the government in Burma/Myanmar. And while there are enormous struggles and questions ahead – including how she will respond to the ethnic minorities who have faced such violence and torture at the hands of the junta, and who have felt let down over the past few years at her relative silence on their situation – it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the enormity of what has been achieved.

Suu Kyi was under house arrest for nearly 15 years till her release in 2010. There are 110 former political prisoners in the 390 candidates elected to both houses of Parliament, many of who spent over two decades in prison. The first time the NLD swept the polls was in 1990, with 81% of the seats. Last year, the NLD took 86% of the seats.

A few years ago, soon after Suu Kyi was released from house arrest, I was with a group of Burmese refugees in Thailand, and they talked about how they (in some ways, literally) worshipped her. For them, far away from their homes, their extended families, and their idol, the sense of betrayal felt greater. I gently pointed out that she was getting older (she’s now 69 years old), and that perhaps in order to gain political power for the NLD, she needed to tread carefully – and in a way that may have felt too much like a compromise to them. And so/yet, here we are. I’m not sure my friends thought they would see this in their lifetimes. I think of them in Chiang Mai, and on the borders between Burma and Thailand, and I hope they are celebrating this victory for justice. However complex and troubled the road ahead may be for Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi, may it be strewn with jasmines for today.

Gems from the Ocean

20160128_192701I’m ashamed to say I’ve only just discovered August Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright known as the American Shakespeare. But what a way to discover him and his searing explorations of what it means to be black in America: through the stunning, gut-wrenching interpretation of his play Gem of the Ocean, currently playing at the Marin Theatre Company. Go see it, Bay Area peeps; you must.

Wilson is best known for his ten play cycle on the lives of African Americans in the 20th century, one for every decade. Gem of the Ocean is the first of the cycle, written second to last in 2003 (Wilson died in 2005). And for us, there were multiple performances on theatre night: the play itself, and then the responses of the predominantly white audience (AFAICT, we were one of two families of colour attending) that stayed for a Q&A session with cast and crew after.

Amongst the conversations with no clue: ‘I don’t understand where the spirituality of the original went…’ So Wilson uses seemingly Christian symbolism underwritten by Yoruba spirituality, which hybridised form dramaturg Omi Osun Joni L. Jones pops up so powerfully in her interpretation. In other words, it’s nothing but political and spiritual, just perhaps not your politics and your spirituality, Mr. White Theatre-goer.

The interpretation also breaks with the familiar idiom of ‘naturalistic’ theatre, which is how August Wilson is often played. Instead, it offers rhythm, beat, syncopation: jazz of word and gesture. Be prepared for its power, and for its getting under your skin. I found myself squirming in my seat, hardly able to sit still (such a no-no for a polite theatre-goer!).

But the best of the evening was the well-meaning road to hell: ‘I wish young black children could watch this play’… Yes, they should. I hope they do, and the theatre is doing its best to make it happen, with multiple matinee shows. But even more so, elite white people should watch this play. And not deflect the responsibility of thinking about it. Understand, as August Wilson says in the play, what black folks, people of colour, need for full citizenship in this country: “You gonna have to fight to get that. And time you get it, you be surprised how heavy it is.” (And yes, it echoes all that my Dalit and Adivasi friends are feeling right now too).

So t20160128_192717hank you, Daniel Alexander Jones, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, and the incredible cast and crew of the Gem of the Ocean. I can’t imagine Wilson being interpreted in any other way.

 

I’m back (aka the ‘Seven Year itch’)?

So seven years after I stopped blogging in 2009, I’m back on the blogosphere. There are many reasons for both the silence and the return, and I may explore them in subsequent posts. But for now, I recognise that my posts on Facebook undermine my own politics around proprietary platforms in which we are data, and (in a more pragmatic, and amused, sense) have grown in length and periodicity from the cryptic slightly-more-than-140-characters of my original and occasional posts. So be it. 🙂