Commentary and Critique
When I lived with the Yebámasa Indians on the Río Piraparaná in South-East Colombia in 1977/78, one day, a group of Indians from Síoro Jáiro, a place directly on the Piraparaná consisting of four palm-leaf malocas, decided that they wanted to travel to the mission town of Mitú by canoe. Mitú was approximately 300 miles by river from Síoro Jáiro.
Continue reading
Colors have always been used as symbols. And their symbolism differs from culture to culture. They can carry social, political, and religious messages. And since the messages differ from culture to culture, knowledge of culture-specific color symbolism plays an important role in global marketing and communication between people with different cultural backgrounds. Let’s check into the meaning of some of the main colors.
Continue reading
The Marines in the picture below are all bowing their heads. Are they all ashamed of something? Is this the military equivalent of “taking a knee”? No. Guess what! They bow their heads because they are all praying! Oy, oy, oy! Not woke.
Continue readingAs a general concept, ‘slavery’ can be defined as the ‘ownership and/or complete control of one person by another person or by an institution or organization and the near complete loss of personal liberty and decision-making power by the enslaved person’.
Contrary to what many people think, slavery was not only endured by black people (sub-Saharan Africans) in America. And Africans were not only the victims. Black people, in particular West African governments, were instrumental in hunting down their own and selling them to the Arabian and European slave traders.
Legend tells that Kung Fu Tse, the great Chinese philosopher and administrator, when he was once asked what he would do first if he could become the emperor of China, replied: “I would define the concepts.” Kung Fu Tse understood that if you want to control how people act, you must control how people think. If you want to control how people think, you must control how they speak. And if you want to control how people speak, you must control language, i.e. the meaning of terms and of the concepts they refer to.
Continue readingBy mid-April of 1977, I arrived by STOL aircraft on a piece of savanna in the middle of the tropical rain forest that was part of the Comisaría del Vaupés. From the “air strip” it was about a two-hour march through the teeming rain forest to get to the small settlement of Yebámasa Indians, I had selected as my study group. Of course, the Indians did not know that, and my sudden arrival was a surprise for them.
Continue readingI have often wondered, why many religions and almost all of the social ideologies humans have developed so far in their quest for “justice” always side up with the poor, the oppressed, the underprivileged, the disenfranchised. Not that these groups of people would not need some special attention and help. They certainly do. But it stands out that the justice doctrines seem to side up with the poor and the weak alone and have no good word to say about the average working person.
Continue readingBetween 1783 and 1787, at the height of the German enlightenment, the German playwright Friedrich Schiller wrote the drama “Don Carlos”. Carlos is Prince of Asturias and, as the son of the Spanish King Philip II, “Infant” to the Spanish throne, i.e. the designated successor of King Philip. Don Carlos sides up with the Dutch insurgents who want national independence, individual freedom and a constitution. His friend, the Marquis de Posa, petitions the despotic King with the famous words “Sire, give freedom of thought!” and dies for the liberty of the Dutch, while Don Carlos is delivered to the Inquisition by his own royal father for his heretic views.
Continue readingDo you remember Mr. Biden saying: “If you don’t vote for me, you’re not Black.” ?
What he meant to say is that Black Americans should vote for him and the Socialist Democratic Party because he and his party stand and have always stood for the just cause of Black Americans as their good friends and defenders. Does history bear that out?
When I lived with the Yebámasa Indians along the Río Piraparaná in Colombia SA in 1977/78, I noticed that they were wearing nicely made feather caps during their dance feasts. They called them “majá joáro”. I asked the local shaman about this. “Why are you wearing these feather caps?” – “Uh the majá joáro?” he said. “well, we wear them because they symbolize the superiority of our culture.” – “And in what way is your culture superior to what other culture?” I wanted to know.
Continue reading