<![CDATA[Sharing Culture - David's Blog]]>

<![CDATA[Sharing Culture - David's Blog]]>Tue, 26 Jan 2021 16:58:38 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[The Carrolup Story: A Storytelling, Education & Healing Resource]]>Mon, 12 Nov 2018 22:50:22 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/the-carrolup-story-a-storytelling-education-healing-resource

First of all, my sincere apologies for not blogging for some time. I've been very busy developing up a new initiative, the first part of which has just been recently launched. On Saturday 10th November, we let people know that our new Storytelling, Education & Healing online resource, The Carrolup Story, was now live.

This initiative has been developed with John Stanton, former Director of the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at The University of Western Australia, and Ash Whitney, a web developer in Neath, South Wales (UK). We are very excited about our new website and the response from our audience has been very positive to date.

'Traumatised Aboriginal children living in the squalor of a 1940s government native settlement in Western Australia create beautiful landscape drawings that gain international acclaim and challenge a government's racist policies.'

Please check out the website and my Welcome. You can read a summary of this enthralling Story described in 12 parts. In addition, we summarise the importance of the project and I describe how the project developed from my perspective. John starts describing his role in his first blog. There are lots of other sections to browse through. Details of our Facebook page and Facebook Group are provided the website.

Of course, this is only the first stage of the website. John Stanton and I will both be blogging regularly, and we will have guest bloggers in the future. An eBook, The Aboriginal Child Artists of Carrolup, will be published early in 2020.

We hope you enjoy the new website. Feel free to let us know what you think. Meanwhile, I leave you with a film clip of John Stanton talking about the importance of the project during an interview with myself.

]]><![CDATA[The Healing Power of Country]]>Mon, 10 Sep 2018 09:10:22 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/the-healing-power-of-country

As some of you know, I have recently been to the Kimberley, as part of a nine day Kimberley Adventure Tour from Darwin to Broome here in Australia. The trip was an Adventure of a Lifetime, shared with 12 other travellers, a travel guide (James Duffy, aka Duffman) and driver Carlya Bell. We travelled in The Beast.

One of those 12 co-travellers was best mate Erik Pileblad, a doctor from Sweden who I have known for 35 years. We worked together as neuroscientists with the Nobel Laureate Arvid Carlsson in Goteborg in the 1980s. Erik also felt this was a trip of a lifetime. He too fell in love with the Kimberley.

I recently posted on my Facebook page a number of photos and film clips from our adventures each day. If you want to follow the trip day-by-day you will need to trawl down the page until you get to the last posting from Day 1 - the beginning of our Adventure. I warn you, there are quite a few postings, but the pictures are well worth the effort.

Whilst in the Kimberley, I experienced a peace I have not felt for a long time. Like many of us, I have experienced traumas which have impacted on my emotional wellbeing. I have struggled for periods of my life.

The impact of ‘losing’ three of my children after a relationship breakup, and now living on the other side of the world to them has been enormous. At the same time, I am so lucky to be with my partner Linda here in Perth and to live the happy life with her that I do. However, the pain lurks in the background, the memories of past traumas surface from time to time.

In the Kimberley, that emotional pain did not surface. I started to feel at peace with myself. And with my past. I loved every moment of our days, waking up to magical sights and sounds, and sharing the beauty of this magical Country with a great group of people.

I began to realise the healing power of Country, something that I’ve known about, but not experienced in this way. My experiences made me reflect on how Aboriginal people are connected to their Country and how they treat it with the utmost respect. They know that this connection is central to their wellbeing and facilitates healing.

Country is a living being. And it does have the power to heal. I know that now. I felt that healing power. The Kimberley touched me in a way I could not have imagined. I still feel those sights and sounds and the feelings I experienced. They still bring tears to my eyes.

I also felt the healing power of social connection. The being with a group of special people, the sharing of experiences, the banter and the jokes, and the adventures we shared. The shared love of country. Connection is Healing.

Thank you, fellow travellers. Thank you, Duffman, a multi-talented man with a big heart, and our lovely driver Carlya.

But most of all, thank you Kimberley. I will never forget the peace you gave me. The Healing Power you possess.

]]><![CDATA['A real history of Aboriginal Australians, the first agriculturalists' by Bruce Pascoe]]>Mon, 06 Aug 2018 23:50:27 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/a-real-history-of-aboriginal-australians-the-first-agriculturalists-by-bruce-pascoe

Indigenous writer and anthologist Bruce Pascoe draws on first-hand accounts from colonial journals to dispel the myth that Aboriginal people were hunters and gatherers and "did nothing with the land that resembled agriculture".

In this powerful talk, Pascoe demonstrates a radically different view of Australian history that we all need to know – one that has the potential to change the course of Australians' relationship with the land.

Bruce Pascoe's career has spanned teaching, farming, bartending, writing, working on an archaeological site, and researching Aboriginal languages. A Bunurong, Tasmanian and Yuin man born in Melbourne, he grew up on a remote island in the Bass Strait.

Bruce has written more than 20 books. His non-fiction book, Dark Emu (2014), won the Book of the Year and Indigenous Writers' Prize in the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Awards.

He says, "Aboriginal people have always had a story to tell. We have always been storytellers and artists and singers and dancers and we've just brought this into the general Australian culture. Non-Aboriginal Australians enjoy it and are starting to embrace it".

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

]]><![CDATA['We are here. We have survived. Help us take a stand for our nation's future' by Jackie Huggins]]>Sun, 05 Aug 2018 09:42:30 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/we-are-here-we-have-survived-help-us-take-a-stand-for-our-nations-future-by-jackie-huggins

Important article recently published in the Guardian. Well worth a read.

'Truth-telling is not just an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issue. Truth-telling is, and always has been, a national issue. Historically and contemporarily, much of Australia has been blind to the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Over a year ago, I was one of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates who gathered at Uluru to deliver the Statement from the Heart.

In the lead-up to this gathering, there were extensive consultations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the country.

The Statement of the Heart was the culmination of these consultations. It contains the collective wisdom of first peoples from different nations, language groups and walks of life.

The Statement requested three things: a truth-telling process, agreement making and a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament.

The theme of this year’s Garma festival is truth-telling. This theme is timely. The time to tell the truth is long overdue.

A truth and justice commission would tell our stories; the atrocities of the last 230 years, yes, but also our stories from the beginning of time. It would provide a public space for our voices, our cultures, our stories, our grief, our histories, our trauma and our successes.

A truth and justice commission could fundamentally change the course of Australia’s history. It could fundamentally shape our national identity, moral character and the direction we take as a nation.

How can Australia truly own its national identity without properly knowing and celebrating its history? Without facing up to its past and making reparations?

Australia is home to the oldest living continuing culture on Earth. Remains of first peoples have been dated to between 60,000 and 85,000 years old.

Thousands of Australians travel to Rome and Greece each year to learn about their ancient societies and visit historical sites. These “ancient” cultures existed around 3,000 years ago.

We have an incredibly rich national heritage on our doorstep but all too often it is ignored. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are often thought of as a “problem” to be solved. While we face a number of challenges, our cultures are intricate, ancient, ongoing, evolving and, in some places, thriving.

Part of the truth and justice commission’s mandate would be to unearth the cultural histories and traditions of various Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations. 230 years of colonisation has led to significant loss of culture for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. While some of this can never be retrieved, much remains to be revived and rediscovered through truth-telling.

We are here. We have survived. We form the basis of Australia’s national and cultural heritage. And it is about time that our histories, cultures and stories are told and celebrated on a national level.

While no one alive today is to blame for the atrocities meted against us by their ancestors, many Australians feel a sense of sadness for what made this nation possible.

Every non-Indigenous person in this country today has benefited from our dispossession, whether they realise it or not. They are on our land.

Publicly acknowledging past wrongs and holding public space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ histories is a way for contemporary Australia to reconcile with its violent past, knowing that today’s society is doing what it can to redress historical wrongs and move forward towards a more positive future.

Engaging with our history provides an opportunity for national reflection about the kind of nation we want to be. Learning from the mistakes of our past in order to prevent repeating them is a critical part of consciously shaping our future.

Truth-telling is also a necessary precondition to our healing from the past and moving forward.

Intergenerational trauma, often misunderstood or dismissed by non-Indigenous people, is all too real for my peoples. Sometimes I hear, “Well that happened so long ago, isn’t it time Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples got over it?”

To that I say: the stolen generations officially ended in 1967, but continued in some places into the 1970s. That’s 50 years ago. Many peoples living today were forcibly removed from their families or had family members forcibly removed. Their children watched their suffering, and inherited their grief and trauma.

This is not to mention dispossession, massacres, violence, rapes, discriminatory policies, mass incarceration, desperately overcrowded housing, racism, and countless other social wrongs.

How do you expect us to even begin the healing process if our circumstances are unknown and our stories are not publicly told and acknowledged?

Unaddressed trauma directly contributes to poor social outcomes. It is a source of great national shame that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are left with this burden, with little to no assistance.

I end this piece with an appeal to non-Indigenous Australians. To my mind, it is simply unfair that in a country we have inhabited and protected tens of millenia, our voices are routinely and systematically silenced. But this is the reality in which we find ourselves.

Support our request for a truth-telling process. Not just for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but for all Australians. Take a stand for our nation’s future.
•
Jackie Huggins is a Bidjara and Birri-Gubba Juru woman from Queensland and is co-chair of National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples'

]]><![CDATA[The Indigenous world view vs. Western world view]]>Tue, 31 Jul 2018 23:19:51 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/the-indigenous-world-view-vs-western-world-view

How we see the world determines how we act. Western thought sees us at war with each other over resources. Indigenous philosophy, we are all related as individuals in balance with nature.

]]><![CDATA['Google and Disney join rush to cash in as Māori goes mainstream' by Eleanor Ainge Roy]]>Sun, 29 Jul 2018 01:15:27 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/google-and-disney-join-rush-to-cash-in-as-maori-goes-mainstream-by-eleanor-ainge-roy

An interesting read from the Guardian today. I had to smile wryly about western organisations wanting to 'cash in' on Indigenous culture.

'Max Smitheram, 54, has attempted to learn te reo Māori (the Māori language) on numerous occasions, but he has never stuck with it – until now. A pakeha [European New Zealander], Smitheram attends free weekly classes and practises at home with his Uruguayan partner, who is also learning the language.

“I had a longstanding wish to learn Māori. It is really interesting to have the opportunity to understand different ways of thinking and understand more about my home,” said Smitheram, an environmental planner. “It is an important part of the heritage and identity of New Zealand.”

Smitherham is not alone. Te reo is undergoing a revival in New Zealand, with jam-packed classes and waiting lists now common. Māori language teachers from Auckland in the North Island to Dunedin and Invercargill in the South say they are unable to meet demand for their services and free classes routinely draw hundreds of students.

John McCaffery, a language expert at the University of Auckland school of education, says the language is thriving, with other indigenous peoples travelling to New Zealand to learn how Māori has made such a striking comeback. “It has been really dramatic, the past three years in particular, Māori has gone mainstream,” he said. “What we’re seeing is a clear indication that the language’s status and prestige has risen dramatically and research shows that is one of the key indicators of whether children and young people will be interested and committed to learning it.”

According to Statistics New Zealand, the proportion of Māori people able to hold an everyday conversation in te reo decreased 3.7% between 1996 and 2013. But anecdotal evidence suggests numbers of non-Māori speakers of the language are rising, as are young Māori adults and professionals, who would not have been captured in the last census.

Big business is on board, too. Google has launched a Māori version of its website, Vodafone has helped Google Maps record more accurate Māori pronunciations, Disney has released a Māori version of the hit Polynesian film Moana, and Fletcher Building has rolled out bilingual signs on all its construction sites.

“There’s an increasing sense that te reo is good for identifying your business as committed to New Zealand,” said Ngahiwi Apanui, chief executive of the Māori Language Commission. McCaffery echoed his point, saying more than a third of Māori teaching graduates were snapped up by big business keen to build stronger relationships with Māori and tribal groups with significant financial portfolios.

The status of te reo as an increasingly admired language – with its speakers garnering respect – is a long way from the period following the second world war when Māori speakers were chastised for using their language. Young Māori recall being beaten or whipped for speaking te reo in schools and government institutions such as orphanages, and at home more Māori gave up on the language and learned English to get jobs as a vast migration from rural to urban began. By the 1980s, fewer than 20% of Māori spoke te reo.

Now it is very different. According to surveys by Te Puni Kōkiri, a Māori public policy group, “attitudes towards the Māori language among Māori and non-Māori are improving”, and “the Māori language currently enjoys a high status in Māori society and also positive acceptance by the majority of non-Māori New Zealanders.”

Maori words such as kia ora (hello), Aotearoa (New Zealand), kia kaha (be strong) and kai (food) have long been part of New Zealand English. But the use of others is spreading. The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, recently gave her child a Māori middle name: Te Aroha, Aroha meaning “love”. The gesture was welcomed by tribal groups, who said Ardern was improving relations between the government and Māori people and also sharpening her own language skills.

On New Zealand’s national day, Waitangi, this year, the first 49 seconds of Ardern’s speech on the sacred treaty grounds were delivered in te reo, while former prime minister Bill English spoke te reo for five minutes. Current Labour ministers Nanaia Mahuta and Peeni Henare are fluent speakers while the Green party co-leader, Marama Davidson, learnt as an adult.

At Buckingham Palace in April, the prime minister began her Commonwealth toast with a Māori proverb, in a video that has been watched tens of thousands of times.

In June, the Māori heavy-metal band Alien Weaponry’s album Tū went right to number one in New Zealand and has had more than a million streams on Spotify, while last year Wairua by the Māori group Maimoa Music was the most-watched YouTube clip in New Zealand, seen more than 5.5m times. In 2016 the Māori pop song Maimoatia shot straight to the top of the iTunes chart in New Zealand, knocking Justin Timberlake off the number one position. Producer Marama Gardiner, a fluent te reo speaker, said the song was designed to build confidence in young speakers of te reo, who could sometimes feel shy practising their language skills. “I want people to be singing a great te reo song all over the world. That would be such a boost of confidence for speakers in New Zealand, that their indigenous language is not dying but adapting.”

A larger range of Māori programming has also played a significant role in normalising the language, including publicly funded Māori TV, whose presenters and journalists speak only in Māori, with captions provided.
All signage is now bilingual in government offices, hospitals and most public spaces and the first bilingual children’s playground was opened in Rotorua this year.

Mainstream broadcasters on commercial channels such as TVNZ and TV3 have shown a commitment to using Māori live on air and ignore critics who complain of feeling excluded.

Television news presenter Kanoa Lloyd, of Māori descent, began introducing te reo words to her weather reports in 2015 and received a torrent of complaints and online abuse. She has continued to use te reo on her prime-time show The Project. The governor-general, Dame Patsy Reddy, revealed this year that she had started learning te reo, but said she was concerned about the shortage of Māori teachers nationwide.

Last week the Labour minister Kelvin Davis held a hui [meeting] with Māori language experts, seeking their advice on how to get more New Zealand teachers speaking the language, so they could teach eager students. Davis is himself a conversational Māori speaker. “We want them to have the confidence and competence to be able to weave te reo into their lessons, [and] to normalise te reo in the classroom,” he said.

“We want all New Zealanders to feel that te reo is just a normal part of our lives and that we can switch in and out of languages as we see fit.”

Māori language experts say the language has never been more widely used, normalised or respected. The dark days, they say, of Māori speakers being beaten and punished are long gone.

“I think there is increasing awareness that there is intrinsic value in learning te reo, that it is the language of this country,” said Dr Arapera Bella Ngaha, who is studying the revitalisation of te reo at Auckland university. She relearned te reo as an adult after she was banned from using it at boarding school. “It has become cool and I am very happy about that. For a long time we thought it was over.”'

]]><![CDATA['Drugs alone won't fix our epidemic of depression' by James S Gordon]]>Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:00:00 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/drugs-alone-wont-fix-our-epidemic-of-depression-by-james-s-gordon

My 14-year old daughter Natasha arrived safely from the UK in the early hours and she is still asleep. It is wonderful to have her here.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to put up an excellent article on depression by James Gordon, Founder and Executive Director for the Centre for Mind Body Medicine in the US, from the Guardian.

The New York Times recently published an important investigative report shining a long-overdue light on the painful, sometimes disabling experience of withdrawing from antidepressants – drugs that millions of Americans have been taking, sometimes for decades.

The recent deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain threw into stark relief the human toll that depression can take. But the problem is complex, with multiple factors. We are seeing a striking increase in the number of Americans diagnosed with depression, and an accompanying increase in suicides. This is coupled with the promiscuous and sharply increasing prescription of antidepressants to 34.4 million Americans in 2013-2014, up from 13.4 million just 15 years earlier.

And this pervasive prescribing continues despite the lack of proof of the drugs’ long-term effectiveness; their mixed results even with short-term treatment; the frequent side-effects – weight gain, gastrointestinal problems and sexual dysfunction – that are themselves depressing. Meanwhile, we are paying the prohibitive financial costs of depression – an estimated annual average of $210.5bn in treatment and lost productivity.

These numbers raise critical questions: why are so many Americans becoming depressed? Why do rates of suicide, depression’s dire and irreversible consequence, continue to increase – by 25% since 1999 according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report? Why are we treating vast numbers of these depressed and suicidal people with drugs that are of limited effectiveness? How can we do better?

Depression is characterized by low energy and despondency, negative self-esteem, pervasive pessimism, difficulties with eating, sleeping and sexual functioning, and helplessness and hopelessness. It is caused by biological, psychological, social and economic and spiritual challenges which are increasing in number and severity and often compound one another. These include decreases in social support and the loneliness that follows; high levels of stress about the economy, and the future; the hyper-competitiveness and hypercritical self-assessments of youth; sedentary lifestyles and poor diet; and our addiction to our digital devices.

The prevailing psychopharmacological treatment is based on the theory that depression is a neurotransmitter disorder. Pharmaceutical manufacturers and physicians are fond of making an analogy between depression and type-1 diabetes. The bodies of type 1 diabetics do not produce enough insulin, so diabetics receive insulin by injection. Depressed people, the analogy goes, are incapable of producing adequate amounts of neurotransmitters and must be prescribed drugs to increase them.

This is incomplete and misleading. Some depressed people may have lower levels of serotonin or norepinephrine. But no one knows how many, and doctors rarely measure these levels before prescribing drugs. A variety of emotional, social, nutritional and environmental factors affect a person’s fluctuating neurotransmitter levels, which in turn affect how a person functions. In other words, low levels are likely to be the symptoms, not the cause, of depression.

Unfortunately, the prevalent view of depression as a “Prozac deficiency disease” prevents many Americans from seeking out a more comprehensive, safe and effective approach, grounded in self-care and group support.

Meditation is fundamental to this approach. Slow, deep breathing relaxes our body, quiets our mind, and lowers the stress which often precipitates depression. It quiets activity in the amygdala, a portion of the emotional brain responsible for fear and anger, and enhances activity in the hippocampus, which mediates stress and memory and is damaged by depression. Meditation thereby promotes functioning and increases tissue mass in the frontal part of the cerebral cortex, where depression has inhibited judgment, self-awareness and compassion.

Meditation also makes it easier for us to connect with others who may provide comfort, intimacy and support. It gives us perspective – helping us see that what seemed insurmountable is manageable. It promotes compassion, and facilitates finding mood- and life-enhancing meaning and purpose.

Physical activity complements meditation. As a depressed person moves, she overcomes her inertia, releases tension and reclaims and enjoys a body that seemed alien, even hostile. Jogging, tai chi, yoga and dance all lower stress and stress hormones, may help rebuild the hippocampus and enhance activity in the frontal cortex. Exercise by itself can be at least as effective as drugs in relieving depression.

Food is a third healing ally. Deficiencies in vital nutrients that are low in the standard American, processed food diet are more prevalent in people with lower incomes, but widespread among all Americans. At least 30% of adults are deficient in vitamin D, preventing them from effectively synthesizing serotonin and making them more vulnerable to depression. Other nutrient deficiencies – including folic acid, vitamins B6 and 12, magnesium, zinc and chromium – may also play a crucial role in depression.

Populations high in omega 3 fatty acids (present in fish and fish oil) are less depressed, as are people with a healthy balance of bacteria in their intestine. Supplementing one’s diet with vitamins, minerals and the gut-healing bacteria of “probiotics” may be crucial in relieving depression.

These self-care tools enhance the production of the neurotransmitters that drugs are aimed at – serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine – without damaging side-effects. And the active engagement that self-care requires may itself be the most effective antidote to depression’s hallmark symptoms of hopelessness and helplessness.

Speaking to a compassionate, knowledgable professional and participating in supportive, stigma-free, educational small groups also helps. This human support helps depressed people overcome loneliness and develop more effective strategies for dealing with self-defeating behavior, and encourages them to rediscover – or discover – connection, meaning and purpose. When we are suicidal, it can be life-saving.

Scientific evidence and common sense tell us it’s time to make comprehensive programs of self-care and human support the norm for relieving depression, promoting resiliency and renewing enthusiasm for life. Prescription drugs, which can sometimes be helpful, should be a rarely used last resort.

James S Gordon MD, a psychiatrist, is the author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression and the founder and executive director of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine'

]]><![CDATA[A long-awaited visit... and a break]]>Wed, 25 Jul 2018 07:00:00 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/a-long-awaited-visit-and-a-break

My youngest daughter, 14-year old Natasha (Tashie) is en route from UK and arrives just after midnight. I haven't seen her since early January when I last visited my children and grandchild. Tashie hasn't been here for four years (when photo was taken), since after regular trips over she developed a fear of flying. Recently, she told, me she wanted to get over the fear and come and see her family and friends here. We are delighted!

I'll be taking time off from Sharing Culture and my Carrolup project while Natasha is here. I'll try and blog a little on Sharing Culture, but please bear with me if I don't.

I am then going on a Darwin to Broome 9-day tour through the Kimberleys with a very close Swedish friend - a boys' holiday as Erik calls it. We have both long dreamed of seeing the Kimberleys! Erik and I worked together during the time that I lived in Sweden from 1981-84, in my former days as a neuroscientist.

Obviously, I will not be update the website whilst away. Normal service will resume on September 3rd.

]]><![CDATA['Life-saving optimism: what the west can learn from Africa' by Chigozie Obioma]]>Wed, 25 Jul 2018 00:43:33 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/life-saving-optimism-what-the-west-can-learn-from-africa-by-chigozie-obioma

Here is an intriguing article from the Guardian online. The photograph is from Stefan Heunis/AFP/Getty Images.

'Nigeria, like most African nations, has been taught and dictated to since its independence, largely seen by the rest of the world as a receptacle for ideas rather than a generator of them. But is there something the world could learn from us?

During the past few weeks in Nigeria, I’ve interviewed some 40 strangers whose lives, like those of most people in the country, were mired in want and suffering. Everywhere, people ambled about sweating, their skins wearing gradations of deprivation. Everywhere you turned there was a conspicuous lack of opportunities. Beggars walked about naked or in rags, bearing their ailments as banners to request help. Even those who were fully clothed – many looking flamboyant – seemed to be in urgent need of help, aching to achieve a certain dream.

A few days before the trip, I had spoken to a group of young students enrolled in a mentorship programme at an American university. My friend who directs the scheme had told me that many students came in with suicidal thoughts, and about the difficulties of trying to help to prevent them from sliding into this pit.

This phenomenon – of reaching the edge of life, of losing any sense of meaning because of adversity – was something I would not have contemplated witnessing a few years ago while still living in Nigeria. But, having lived in the US for the last five years, having known friends in depressive states, and having seen how, in my three years teaching at a university, young students have taken their own lives almost every year, I have begun to slowly understand it.

There is a lot that can happen that can be too much for a young person, or even anyone, to handle. On the first day of class, I often ask my creative-writing students to write about their childhood. Often, these students are forced to confront their pasts: the father who ran away and delivered them to foster care; the mother who worked two jobs to raise them; the grandparent who took them to the farm every day. And when they write fiction, much of it is often filled with stories around loved ones who have died, or some other dire circumstances. Their lives, despite living in the most prosperous nation in world history, are mired, tarred, blistered, even shattered.

In Nigeria, most of the people I spoke to were living shattered lives but in a poverty-stricken nation. There was a young man who worked a 24-hour shift as a security officer at a mid-sized hotel; a tailor who survived by carrying about a 19th-century sewing machine, stitching clothes; a man with three kids who lived on the £45-£50 per month he made selling used, weather-worn books; a man with a face badly disfigured from a power-generator explosion; a taxi driver whose car was so old and ramshackle he and I had to push it twice to start, and from whose floor I watched the road sweep past through a hole. I asked all of them one question: are you happy?

Most of them said they were happy, even if not completely. A fraction said they were not happy because of their condition. Only one of these nearly 40 people said they were depressed. Had any of them at any time contemplated suicide? This question was often met with surprise, and to some, shock. A few asked me why I would ask them such a terrible question. In fact, one – a mechanic who lived on less than £150 a month when “things were best” – was offended. He felt I was cursing him and sent me away.

At no point had any of them contemplated the idea of not living. They could not understand how anyone could come to that idea. It was foreign, something they heard of, but which was alien to the Nigerian.

Why? I wondered. Why would this hardship, this hopelessness, this great, crushing poverty and suffering not drive them to this point? The answers were mostly uniform: there was no hopelessness. Nigerians generally believe, no matter the condition, that things will turn around some day. A driver who had been off work for days because he did not have 7,000 naira (£15) to fix his windscreen wiper told me: “Suffering is even sometimes good. Christ said in this world there would be suffering.” He argued that it was the necessary state of the world. “If you lived in a world where there was no suffering, it will be an abnormality. That would make anyone miserable."

Research into happiness has been inconsistent. A 2011 poll found Nigerians to be the happiest people on Earth, and recent surveys have put poorer nations above the wealthier ones. One thing is clear: it is not quality of life that determines the way these people live and how they perceive the world. It is rather their optimism. There is an unshakeable belief that, no matter how long it takes, things will be well again. Ask the man who earns $60 a month how will things turn around. He can’t tell, but he knows they will. And if indeed things will be well, how can he be depressed? In other words, suffering is a temporary carceral state from which freedom is expected.

Undoubtedly, the source of this optimism is not rationality. One source, I think, could be traditional beliefs passed down through generations. In the precolonial cultures of many Nigerian tribes there was a strong form of individualism that essentialised a person in such a way that it is simply difficult to find a Nigerian with low self-esteem.

This was mostly why suicide is largely considered the most egregious action a person can take. One who died that way was – and even to this day in some places – not accorded a traditional burial. One wisdom often cited among the Igbo, for instance, to explain this phenomenon is that there is nothing the eyes can see that can make it cry blood in place of tears. The other reason for the optimism seems to be sourced in strong religiosity among Nigerians.

Although religion is a contributing factor in the state of the nation, as it is sometimes used to manipulate poor people and it provides food for docility, it is the major reason why the people are able to endure hardship. There is a belief in the afterlife – an extension of living that gives life meaning. If indeed life continues, then this is a phase – this lack, this sickness, this deprivation. Soon, I will live well again. But if life ends here, if all the loved ones who had died are in fact forever gone, if there is going to be no justice for all the wrongs ever done to me in this world, then how can happiness be possible?

Can any similar antidote to soul-crushing depression be found in western cultures? Indeed, suicide was outlawed in the UK until 1961. But there doesn’t seem to be an internal mitigating force comparable to that of the typical Nigerian. One reason could be the fact that people in the west (and in advanced countries) are so used to things being stable, functioning, and even successful that some can break down at relatively minor disruptions.

This might explain the preponderant use of “fixers” such as antidepressants and illegal drugs as health professor Monica Swahn observed in her recent essay. It might also explain why religion, especially Christianity, seems not to have such a life-softening effect that faith has amongst Nigerians in the west’s most religious country, the US.

While Nigeria has failed in many ways where western nations have not, its people’s mindset has helped foster a sense of life-saving optimism increasingly absent in the west. Is this resilience something the world can learn from Nigerians? Perhaps it is time we considered this.

Chigozie Obioma is the author of The Fishermen, and is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln'

]]><![CDATA[Indigenous Knowledge Has Value: Curtis Bristowe]]>Sat, 21 Jul 2018 08:23:20 GMThttp://sharingculture.info/davids-blog/indigenous-knowledge-has-value-curtis-bristowe

A wonderful TEDxRuakura talk from Curtis Bristowe that is well worth watching. The information provided is as follows:

'Curtis Bristowe talks on the power of Kawa, Tikanga, and Kaupapa to provide answers to today's problems.

In his talk Curtis reflects on his ancestors challenges, how they overcame these challenges and how we can learn from these in our own lives. This year's theme was Morphosis and reflected the ever changing world we live in.

Curtis Bristowe is a man of many strands. Among these he is a PhD student of media communications at the University of Waikato, and a teacher of Indigenous Research at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa.

An advocate for the survival and prosperity of Māori language and culture, Curtis’ research has focused on the development and implementation of a kaupapa Māori-inspired strategic communication framework. It is his hope that this framework can help business and community groups’ focus, and guide their collective purpose and vision.

There is the need to communicate our Indigenous knowledge so people may gain an understanding of its value and worth, and secondly, the opportunity to share a piece of our national history and the forces that helped shape it.

As Curtis says “There are many threads of history that make up the fabric of our great nation, and stories such as Te Kooti’s deserved to be acknowledged and remembered, lest the faults of the past are again repeated in the present.”'

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