Tag: culture

What Has Happened To This World?

Photo Autumn

Weather-wise, it was a typical day for England. A little foggy and drizzly. I arrived with two bulky suitcases that did not actually contain too much. Some clothes, some shoes, some documents and notes. Most of the space in one of the suitcases was occupied by a massive and very heavy Oxford English Dictionary – a symbol of my dedication to mastering the English language and a continuous and nagging reminder of how much I still need to learn. At the time, this dictionary was the only materialistic possession that really mattered to me and regardless of its weight I had to drag it along with me.

I was never a very practical type. More of a dreamer, adventure-seeker, hungry to see what’s beyond the horizon of my little but picturesque village in Poland, hungry for knowledge and new experiences, always thirsty for doing things by my own, finding out the truths for myself. I wanted to experience life elsewhere with my own skin, touch it with my own hands, enjoy it with my own soul. Just to live and pursue the dream of learning and finding out. Speaking English was not just a symbol of freedom and adventure. It was a swipe card that opened more than one world and enabled me to explore more than one reality. Amazing things happened ever since I put my foot beyond our Polish boarder. I looked after two Nigerian children while working as an Au-pair, wore a pink Thai dress while a waitress at a Thai restaurant, poured Fosters while bar-tending with Australians, celebrated the year of the Dragon with my Chinese students, devoured pieces of Black British writing at university, dipped bread in a fragrant curry while sitting on the floor with my Afghan friends, I sang nursery rhymes in Greek to my son’s best friend and celebrated my son’s baptism with our dearest friends of other beliefs.

But why am I writing this? I’ve been listening to the news and looking at the headlines and I’m getting concerned… it is alarming to see that attitudes against diversity are being promoted and are spreading around the world. For what reason?

The globe has been wounded and scared many times by attitudes similar to those. The trees of our genealogy are witnesses to those events. Many people went through great efforts and reconciliation processes because they wanted to learn to love again. And they did. And they love. And they cherish. And they care. Most of us individually have not experienced severe hatred, we haven’t been exposed to maltreatment at the hands of others – so my questions are: Why are so many hearts around the world closing? Are padlocks in fashion or something?

Key

Accepting old earth: a word about identity (read the postcard)

Identity is a big word. One that grows significantly in size the moment we leave our country – this is usually when we start feeling slightly uncomfortable wearing our own background. We notice the labels attached to nationalities, those that belittle and misrepresent them and we become afraid of being labeled too. We feel trapped or challenged or ashamed or just uncertain to the point that we are unwilling to admit who we are, where we are from and what we did in the past. Because we don’t want to be categorized. Because we don’t want to be judged. Because we don’t want to feel ashamed.

I used to feel like this and then I seriously questioned myself: ‘Why do I feel this discomfort? Why am I so stressed? Do I need to be so stressed?’ At the time I did not find a thought that would comfort me. Until I did a very sensible thing and signed up to a literature module called European Encounters, European Lives (led by Dr Christine Berberich) which successfully pushed my boundaries of (self)understanding. There we read texts about trauma, memory, displacement and lost or denied identity. We felt the anguish of those who experienced the First and Second World Wars and were by circumstances forced to live elsewhere and that sometimes this elsewhere was not much more accepting of who they were than the place where they came from. We talked about surnames being changed or appropriated to the new location and we read of the often tragically damaging and irreversible consequences such identity change had for their owners. Withdrawal. Depression. Worse.

This is when I learnt that one of the nicest gifts you can give to yourself and everyone else is the gift of acceptance. Acceptance of where you and they come from, of the values that you cherish and the languages you speak. It’s the only right thing to do: to embrace identity for what it is. If your identity is monocultural, embrace it, don’t try to make it fit in, it will fit in anyway; if your identity is multicultural, embrace it too, don’t deny yourself your multicultural roots, cherish them for what they are and don’t worry, it will fit in anyway. There is no need to be selective about identity, there is no need to choose one. There is no need to reject yourself and there is no need to reject others. The world is superdiverse. Our communities are superdiverse…

We have extensive root systems and like plants we need a bit of old earth to settle well in a new environment. We need to be accepting of that old earth. On that earth we grow and blossom, our children grow and blossom and our neighbourhoods too. Towards the new and towards each other…

 

Yorkshire, UK
Lombardy, Italy
Wielkopolska, Poland