Sunday, October 9
Yesterday we landed in Iznajar, in the southern province between Cordoba and Granada, staying at a place we found on the home-away website. There are three other couples here, and we were delighted to discover that one of the couples lives in Israel, our next destination after Spain. I introduced myself to "R" and told her that we were going to visit Israel & Palestine after we left Spain. She was taken aback. "You mean you are visiting Israel," she said. "There is no Palestine." She made it clear in our brief exchange that by mentioning Palestine in the same sentence as Israel was making a political assumption that she did not want to acknowledge.
Similarly, when I went to buy a hijab from a store in Cleveland, I told the Muslim woman behind the counter I was planning to visit Israel & Palestine. She essentially said the same thing, only from the perspective of a Palestinian: "you mean you will be visiting Palestine. There is no Israel...". No Israel??? I was completely taken by surprise. It never occurred to me that someone would not recognize the state of Israel. Both women wanted to correct me; both women's perspectives were, in their minds, "right."
These two encounters, occurring on two different lands, is a sobering reminder to me of what we will be encountering next month when we land in the Holy Land for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. It also reminded me of the long reach of these historic conflicts-- all the way to a small shop in Cleveland, Ohio; all the way to a sunny patio on a Sunday afternoon in Iznajar.
Showing posts with label uu minister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uu minister. Show all posts
Monday, October 10, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Culture Change
We heard about the death of a Steven Jobs via a news/ads monitor on a public bus in Seville. Having spent a week viewing and reflecting on what is left of one of the great cultures in the history of the Western world, our reactions to Jobs' death has left us thinking about how individuals change the world and leave a legacy.
The history of Spain is filled with people who achieved great power and wealth through successfully defeating their enemies in war, and a few of those individuals are remembered here in buildings they ordered constructed or monuments that their successors built. Hundreds of years later, however, their names are not as familiar to educated people as the names of other Spaniards, artists like Picasso or philosophers like Maimonides.
It's clear to us that you change the world by changing a culture. Culture is the interface between a people and the world in which they live. It's the expression of how a group of people experience the world, interact with it, and communicate the meanings that they find in it.
The founders of the culture we see honored in Andalusia are not honored in statues in public squares. Over two hundred years, the Al Rahman dynasty created a culture here that continues to be studied and to inspire later generations, but their successors lost the military and political battle for the country. So it's the Christian kings that we see in statues, and the Muslim call to prayer that we only hear faintly echoed in traditional Andalusian singing.
Steven Jobs changed the world's culture through technological innovations whose impact were quickly visible and understandable in the lives of a single generation. That happens so very rarely in the history of the world. Who has left a legacy of culture change is more often understood generations later. Will someone build a statue or name a building honoring Steven Jobs? Perhaps? Technological innovators are usually not as well remembered as artists or philosophers. In Akron the Inventors Hall of Fame honors those who left a technological legacy that has changed the lives of everyday people. Bell, Marconi, Edison stand out, but most of those honored there are unfamiliar names. Jobs was an inventor who also envisioned the culture change his new technology could bring about and created the corporation that could help bring that culture change into being. For that reason, he (along with Bill Gates) will have a unique place, not only in the Inventors Hall of Fame, but in the history of the world.
The history of Spain is filled with people who achieved great power and wealth through successfully defeating their enemies in war, and a few of those individuals are remembered here in buildings they ordered constructed or monuments that their successors built. Hundreds of years later, however, their names are not as familiar to educated people as the names of other Spaniards, artists like Picasso or philosophers like Maimonides.
It's clear to us that you change the world by changing a culture. Culture is the interface between a people and the world in which they live. It's the expression of how a group of people experience the world, interact with it, and communicate the meanings that they find in it.
The founders of the culture we see honored in Andalusia are not honored in statues in public squares. Over two hundred years, the Al Rahman dynasty created a culture here that continues to be studied and to inspire later generations, but their successors lost the military and political battle for the country. So it's the Christian kings that we see in statues, and the Muslim call to prayer that we only hear faintly echoed in traditional Andalusian singing.
Steven Jobs changed the world's culture through technological innovations whose impact were quickly visible and understandable in the lives of a single generation. That happens so very rarely in the history of the world. Who has left a legacy of culture change is more often understood generations later. Will someone build a statue or name a building honoring Steven Jobs? Perhaps? Technological innovators are usually not as well remembered as artists or philosophers. In Akron the Inventors Hall of Fame honors those who left a technological legacy that has changed the lives of everyday people. Bell, Marconi, Edison stand out, but most of those honored there are unfamiliar names. Jobs was an inventor who also envisioned the culture change his new technology could bring about and created the corporation that could help bring that culture change into being. For that reason, he (along with Bill Gates) will have a unique place, not only in the Inventors Hall of Fame, but in the history of the world.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Mash Up
We had an experience of a 16th century "mash-up" yesterday at the Palace of Pilate in Seville. (The name derives from the location of the Palace on Pilate Square, rather than any association with the Pilate who judged Jesus.)
The term "mash-up" is used today in popular music to describe combinations of digitally manipulated recordings of various artists' work put together (mashed up) to make a new recording. You might hear a familiar rhythm from a Michael Jackson hit, repeated over and over again like a bass line, mashed up with electronic music and original rapped lyrics, creating something entirely new, yet familiar.
After the Reconquista, wealthy Castillian nobles still saw the aesthetics and architecture of the despised "Moors" they had driven out of Seville as the mark of refinement and the height of beauty in designing their palaces. However, in the 16th century these nobles also had the opportunity to travel to Italy and experience the Renaissance and be captivated by their architecture and their re-discovery of the aesthetics and art of ancient Greece. They were collectors, not only of ancient art, (notably sculpture) but also of the best works from the painters of their own period.
Over three generations, one family mashed up all these influences together into one house, with an Arab style courtyard decorated with exquisite tile. The corners of the courtyard are guarded by Greek statuary of the gods, brought back from Naples. You can view this courtyard from the second floor rooms surrounded by 16th century paintings beneath a Renaissance ceiling design covered with carved wood in floral designs from craftsmen schooled in Arabian design.
It was an aesthetic experience at one disorienting, thrilling, and strangely harmonious.
Today we go to the Alcazar, a mashup of another kind, but one that even more clearly than the Palace of Pilate, reveals how deeply the Muslim aesthetic penetrated Spanish Christian culture.
One mysterious footnote to our visit to the Palace of Pilate: reading between the lines of the tour guide notes, we realized that the family who built the Palace was able to acquire the valuable land and the water source it sits on because it was confiscated (probably from Jews) during the beginning of the Inquisition. It's a tragic political mashup so familiar: a place of extraordinary beauty is able to be built because of oppressive acts that create immense suffering for a family or an entire people.
If you're interested in reading more from the book that inspired this journey, look at "The Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal. It's an easy' enjoyable read.
The term "mash-up" is used today in popular music to describe combinations of digitally manipulated recordings of various artists' work put together (mashed up) to make a new recording. You might hear a familiar rhythm from a Michael Jackson hit, repeated over and over again like a bass line, mashed up with electronic music and original rapped lyrics, creating something entirely new, yet familiar.
After the Reconquista, wealthy Castillian nobles still saw the aesthetics and architecture of the despised "Moors" they had driven out of Seville as the mark of refinement and the height of beauty in designing their palaces. However, in the 16th century these nobles also had the opportunity to travel to Italy and experience the Renaissance and be captivated by their architecture and their re-discovery of the aesthetics and art of ancient Greece. They were collectors, not only of ancient art, (notably sculpture) but also of the best works from the painters of their own period.
Over three generations, one family mashed up all these influences together into one house, with an Arab style courtyard decorated with exquisite tile. The corners of the courtyard are guarded by Greek statuary of the gods, brought back from Naples. You can view this courtyard from the second floor rooms surrounded by 16th century paintings beneath a Renaissance ceiling design covered with carved wood in floral designs from craftsmen schooled in Arabian design.
It was an aesthetic experience at one disorienting, thrilling, and strangely harmonious.
Today we go to the Alcazar, a mashup of another kind, but one that even more clearly than the Palace of Pilate, reveals how deeply the Muslim aesthetic penetrated Spanish Christian culture.
One mysterious footnote to our visit to the Palace of Pilate: reading between the lines of the tour guide notes, we realized that the family who built the Palace was able to acquire the valuable land and the water source it sits on because it was confiscated (probably from Jews) during the beginning of the Inquisition. It's a tragic political mashup so familiar: a place of extraordinary beauty is able to be built because of oppressive acts that create immense suffering for a family or an entire people.
If you're interested in reading more from the book that inspired this journey, look at "The Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal. It's an easy' enjoyable read.
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