My blog has moved/Blogini on muuttanut

Due to technical reasons (I find this template outdated and difficult to manage graphically), my blog has moved to WordPress/Teknisistä syistä (tämä alusta on minusta vanhanaikainen ja vaikea päivittää graafisesti tyydyttävään muotoon) blogini on muuttanut WordPressiin:

 www.anunihmeellisetmatkat.wordpress.com

This blog will be written in Finnish but I am likely to start a sister site in English soon/Pidän tätä blogia ainoastaaan suomeksi, mutta todennäköisesti aloitan sisarussivuston englanniksi pian.

Thanks to all readers,  hope to see you on the new site soon!/Kiitos kaikille lukijoille, nähdään uudella sivustolla pian!

Vanity tables and hand cream appliance

I too among millions of females (and males) around the globe have been struck by the verbosity and elegance of the BBC TV series Downton Abbey. The addiction is more severe than the one I had in my childhood for Brideshead Revisited - after all my child got named by the queer heir who was clutching on to his teddy bear!

This time Lizz Winstrell http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/22/how-i-became-a-downton-abbey-addictof the Guardian gets it all right in her column in the Guardian - one can measure the pace of the episode counting how many times the ladies apply hand cream in one evening. But the series has even got my passive offspring addicted - this means there's something very special going on in the dramatization.

My favourite character is Daisy the kitchen maid with the ears.

Agostinho under the tree

The struggles of Lusophone Africa have inspired me for a long time - don't ask me why, as I don't really speak Portuguese and have very limited contact to that part of the world. My favourite freedom fighter of all times has been Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde - the lucidity of his writing is amazing and many of the issues he raises are all but solved yet. A lot of his work has been translated into English, and my favourite text is an essay called "The Weapon of Theory". If one ever doubts the benefits of whatever third-rate university education one may have gathered, one should return to that text and feel ashamed.
Amilcar Cabral is more or less my imaginary friend. On my last holidays to Cape Verde, I was ecstatic to land at his airport and take pictures of his statue, in Espargos on the island of Sal. The airport art was magnificently communist: it portrayed the daily struggles of fishermen and their wives, and the encounters with sons and daughters returning from abroad. This must be the common Cape Verdean reality: happiness comes from abroad, through e-mails, Skype calls and Western Union sendings. The airport's contrast with the sterile all-inclusive hotel was too vast to give words to. In between, we mainly met streetwise businessmen from the mainland of Senegal and Gambia, who were much better trained in wooing the tourists than the locals. But even in the bastion of affluence, the Cape Verdian staff showed their souls: we never experienced servitude, the people were proud of their work, and didn't succumb to any bullshit.  
But now for the purposes of fiction, I have been reading the life story of another comrade, Augustiñho Neto (1922-1979), who was the first president of Angola (1974-1979) and admittedly the country's biggest national hero. He was also a poet, whose work was never published in fascist Portugal, but in
Italy and Soviet Union.
Neto spent much of the 50's and 60's in Portuguese prisons, in detention on remote colonial islands and in exile in different African countries, like Morocco and Congo. In the late 50's he was expelled to community service in the islands of Cape Verde - it was a prison without gates. He was ordered to practice his trade there for the benefit of the colonized. The records tell that he spent time on at least three islands: Sal, Boa Vista and Sao Vicence. He rode on a donkey from one village to another to see the patients.
Neto was married to a Portuguese woman, María Eugénia, who followed the husband with the small children to most destinations. His story is deeply entwined with the history of fascism - and his camaraderie with Portuguese communists was wide. Race was not the main issue in the common struggles - it looks like the Portuguese communist movement in the 50's and 60's was mature enough to overcome all racial boundaries.
Neto was a medical doctor, specialized in gynecology. Reading the biographies it seems that there were some months or years when he actually managed to practice his profession. Having a black doctor in Luanda in the 1950s was a novelty, but perhaps there were not enough black patients who trusted in Western medicine. The white Portuguese presence in Angola was huge before 1974, many profiting from cocoa, coffee and diamond trade. I do not know if the whites had the courage to consult a black communist doctor, but it looks like there are still remaining some white comrades in the country, who proudly remember his name. The number of Portuguese ex-colonists in the country is about 1 % of the population, and in addition, ca. 2% are mestizas.  
Angola is difficult to imagine, because the country has been isolated from the world because of brutal war for ca. 30 years. Illiteracy is still rampant, and people are managing their lives in the midst of landmines. The city of Luanda has become a metropol too expensive even for the European and American expatriates to live in. The music and art scene seems lively, the young people are finding their strength in fusion music like Kuduro (literally "hard ass"). I cannot imagine Angola without traveling there, as the literature is very limited to an Anglocentric ignoramus.
I have walked in the blocks of Lisbon, where the African revolutionaries used to hang out, without knowing the importance of those streets and corners. Alameda was the centre of "ultramarine" communist activities, they used to gather in the Tia Andreza's literary salon on 37, Rua Actor Valet. Nowadays the quarters are comfortable, quiet, polished, but still down-key. The resistance still prevails, one can feel it. Every street in Lisbon tells a story of furious political struggle.
There were also black women involved - although a minority, they were around and vocal. One should look into the biography of the poet and minister of culture of the islands of Sao Tome and Principe, Alda Espirito Santo, who was comrade to all the key guys. Alda is worshipped on those islands as the mother of the nation. Indeed, in Lisbon, freedom struggles were dominantly fought by people from small places. The Atlantic islands, Goa, Macao, East Timor...
Most of Neto's writing are unaccessible to me because of the language barrier. He has published several collections of poetry, translated especially in Eastern European languages. His face shines in many stamps from all over the Eastern Bloc. His warmest relations were with Cuba, which perhaps finally resulted in the invitation of Cuban soldiers to kill themselves in the bloody civil war of the 80s and 90s.
The latest controversy around the guy long gone has to do with paternity. Augustinho Neto died of cancer surgery in 1979 in a hospital in Moscow, and from there another era of war and destruction started. In the 2000s a  woman called Mihaela Marinova came to look for her roots in Angola. She was abandoned by her mother as a new born in a children's home in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1974. After the collapse of Communism, the young woman moved to work in the hotel industry in London. Mihaela claims to be Neto's daughter, and all the coordinates of the parents' rendez-vous have been recorded. DNA tests proved positive results. Neto's family denies the charges.  
Many pictures have been taken of Agostinho sitting under Portuguese trees, African trees. It must have been postcolonial resistance to avoid chairs. I wonder what Neto is thinking of - plotting, scheming, sketching, gathering his people...the struggle will continue!

Kitschy history, Finnish style

Hard to believe that this is true, but it is - every political orientation has its own shop nowadays, and as I was browsing for some evidence on the 1930's
deportations of communists and social democrats
to the Russian border, I found a shop that sells
miniature MUILUTUS cars ("muilutus" means
forced transportation). The most famous MUILUTUS in Finnish history was the MUILUTUS
of ex-president Ståhlberg and his wife from Helsinki to Joensuu in October 1930 - a moderate Social Democrat politician with no close ties with the Soviet.

Now the descendants of Lapua Brownshirts can purchase these miniature cars for their kiddies, and the famous brown
shirt can also be ordered in ladyfit and baby size. Check:

http:// kauppa.lapuanliike.fi

Praise high capitalism, hallelujah!

Antirasistista draamaa

YLE on viime aikoina yllättänyt positiivisesti. Viimeisen kahden viikon aikana on teeveestä tullut kaksi laadukasta minisarjaa, jotka kummatkin ajoittuvat 2. maailmansodan aikoihin.
BBC:n tuottama Sateenkaaren pää (Small Island) kertoo jamaikalaisista siirtolaisista, jotka seuraavat unelmiaan emomaan kehityksestä ja edistyksestä Lontooseen. Kirjailija Andrea Levy on voittanut Orange-ja Commonwealth-palkinnot tällä romaanillaan, ja sarja vaikuttaa yhtä tasokkaalta. Ihan harmittaa, että sarjassa on vain kaksi jaksoa, olisin mielelläni seurannut sarjaa koko kesän. Levyn tuotannosta innostuneena hankin myös hänen uusimman romaaninsa Long Song, joka kertoo orjakaupan loppuvuosista Jamaikalla. Kirja on niin liikuttava ja raa'an kaunis, ettei sitä raaski ahmia, vaan se pitää lukea hitaasti ajatuksella. Niin koukussa olen sarjaan ja Levyn sanalliseen arkkuun, että luultavasti tulee shoppailtua Amazonilta naisen koko tuotanto. Muutama vuosi sitten opetin afro-karibialaista kirjallisuutta. Jos saisin opettaa kurssin uudelleen, keskittyisin luultavasti kolmeen kirjailijaan: Andrea Levyyn, Jamaica Kincaidiin ja Chimamanda Ngozi Adichieen.
Toinen yllätys oli saksalainen minidraama Neekeri, neekeri, nokikolari. Katsoimme sitä yhdessä poikani kanssa, ja hän tapitti sarjaa silmät ymmyrkäisenä melkein uskaltamatta liikkua. Siinä seurattiin puoliksi liberialaisen pojan Hans-Jürgenin kohtaloa Hampurissa sodan eri vaiheissa. En voinut kuin todeta, että nyky-Suomessa eletään jokseenkin tätä samaa todellisuutta kuin 30-luvun Saksassa- "neekeriukoista" lausuntoja antavat Herra Hakkaraiset saavat porskuttaa parlamentissamme, ja naiiveina uskomme, että heidän pitäminen salongeissa lisää demokratiaa. Tuo sarja on pedagogisesti tosi onnistunut, ja haluaisin näyttää sitä isommillekin yleisöille kuin kotikatsomolle.   

Jaavalainen unelma

Näin unta jaavalaisista maskeista. Tiedän, että Jaava on Indonesian suurin saari. Tiedän, että indonesialaiset harrastavat varjonukketeatteria ja heillä on jännittäviä gongiorkestereita. Musiikkityylin nimi on gamelan. Sanasta ”Jaava” tulee ensimmäisenä mieleen kahvi ja toiseksi tietokoneohjelma.

Herään ja vietän hurmoksellisen aamun lukiessani ihmisten matkakuvauksia Jaavalta ja Balilta. Keitän itselleni jaavalaista mokkaa, vahvaa kahvia kaakaolla ja kanelilla maustetussa kermavaahdossa. Onneksi palan Jaavaa voi luoda itselleen melko halvalla sateisena sunnuntaiaamuna kylmässä Pohjolassa. Minulla on myös Tallinnasta ostettu intialainen maski, joka muistuttaa paljon balilaisten maskeja. Kuulemma tällaiset ”pelotusmaskit” laitetaan etuovelle karkottamaan demoneita. Omaan rappukäytävään en sentään uskalla tuota hurjimusta laittaa. Taloyhtiöltä saattaisi tulla nootti, jos niin tekisin.

Jaavalla nykykulttuuri on pääasiallisesti islamilaista, Balilla hindulaista. Hindulaiset vaikutteet ovat kuitenkin edelleen läsnä myös Jaavalla, ja vanhoja temppeleitä kunnioitetaan ja ylläpidetään osana maailmanperintöä.

Koko maailma halajaa Balin paratiisisaarelle, maailman aamuun. Halajan itsekin, mutta jos tuohon maailman kolkkaan joskus päädyn, aion käydä myös Jaavalla. Jaavalla pääkohteeni olisi Bandungin kaupunki, historiallisista syistä. Kolmas maailma yritti muodostaa oman blokkinsa Bandungissa vuonna 1955, se oli merkittävä askel globaalien etelä-etelä-suhteiden kehityksessä. Edelleen puhutaan ”Bandungin hengestä”.

Olisi niin coolia viettää pari viikkoa puuhun rakennetussa hotellihuoneessa ja hypätä aamuisin suoraan terassilta mereen. Bali tuntuu paikalta, jossa ei ole pakko suorittaa mitään kulttuurirasteja – kulttuuri on niin rikkaana kaikkialla, että pelkkä kadulla käveleminen riittäisi. Kaikkialla olisi lintuja, apinoita ja käärmeitä, lounasta syötäisiin käsin kansankuppiloissa joissa ei olisi kirjoitettua menuuta, vaan annokset tilattaisiin sormin osoittamalla.

Balilla ganjan myyjät muistavat Madventuresin hemmot, ja yrittävät kaupata suomalaisille ruohoa vetoamalla näihin kahteen sankariin.

Kai siellä on paljon muutakin kuin huumehöyryistä todellisuutta.

Itse matkaisin Balille piirtelemään kaikkea näkemääni ihmettä ja kummaa. Kulkisin luonnoskirja kädessä, tekisin ite-taidetta kaduilta löytämistäni sattumista.

Opettelisin sukeltamaan.  

Tutkisin ihmisten koteja, paikallista ekologista sisustusfilosofiaa. Opettelisin luopumaan turhasta.

Pari viikkoa puumajassa taatusti muuttaisi tapani nähdä maailmaa.

Lennot sinne näyttävät maksavan n. 1400 euroa per lärvä. Tietystikään en haluaisi sinne yksin, vaan koko perheen kanssa.  

Realistisesti tulen pääsemään sinne aikaisintaan eläkkeellä, mutta on hyvä pitää takataskussa kaunista ja kestävää unelmaa.

Feresi - an Iranian-Karelian piece of clothing

I stole this image from someone's blog in the US - she had collected old Finnish postcards from the 70s. I assume this is a folk band, and I should probably know who they are. I don't and the image makes me grin broadly. In my childhood, this kind of Karelia folklore was really popular.

The dress the three women are wearing is not an official folk dress, but a feresi - the everyday dress of Karelian women, worn in the kitchen and cowshed. Interesting about the dress is that it has travelled from Persia to Russia and landed in Karelia. Another, more festive variant of it is the sarafan. Different parts of Karelia had different feresi fashions - the one seen here is a North Karelian variant. The ones from the Russian side of the border seem more flashy and "Oriental". The common colours in feresis and sarafans seem to be red, blue, white and black. Usually they are worn with headgear that shows the woman's marital status. Unmarried ones wear ribbons, married ones a sorokka or säpsä.

Feresis were almost disappearing in Finland in the 20th century, until 1960s when two women active in the Orthodox church, Tellervo Riikonen and Irinja Nikkanen, decided to revive the tradition. Nowadays feresis seem to be in particular church fashion, but I am sure they are also worn in Orthodox families at different family gatherings.

I first saw a live feresi here in Tampere as I attended the Orthodox church coffee hour a couple of years ago. I must say I found them odd in the beginning, but now I am always looking forward to seeing the feresi ladies serving the coffee. It would be nice to own one, even if it was worn once in five years. As a piece of clothing, it seems to allow more movement than the actual Finnish folk dress, and it makes you look less matronly, as the dress is made of lighter fabric. Feresi specialists in Finland tell that everyone can make a feresi of their own style. It should consist of the dress, a white shirt and an apron,  but all the rest is up to you to improvise.

In the US there are lots of fashion websites dedicated to "modest clothing". Here in Finland I don't think women dress up in feresis to highlight their modesty, but rather to celebrate family history and "roots".

The most poetic part of feresis is the Russian "soul warmer" (dusegreja), a festive jacket worn on top of it at wintertime and as a bridal specialty in weddings. All women deserve their own soul warmers. This is a tradition that truly feeds the soul.

Kuplivaa

Luin juuri välipalana lukupiirimme kuukauden kirjan, Anna Gavaldan Pakomatkalla (2009, ranskaksi L’échappée belle). Anna on uusimmassaan palannut alku-uransa uskolliseen minimalismiin – edelliset romaanit ovat olleet järkäleitä.

            Muistan selailleeni kirjaa jo aiemmin, ja mieleeni tarttui lause, jossa irvokas sukulaismies laskeskelee joka toisen työpäivänsä menevän verorahoihin, joilla ”Mamadu pistää 10 neekerivaimoaan paksuksi”. Lause jäi mietityttämään monikulttuurisuuden tutkijaa: tästäkö koko eurooppalaisessa oikeistolaisessa politiikassa on kyse?

            Vaikka romaani ei suorastaan kerro äärioikeiston noususta Ranskassa, se on silti kärkevä kuvaus eri yhteiskuntaluokkien komplekseista. Kertoja-Garance etsii lohtua sisaruksistaan, joiden kanssa voi jakaa samat musiikilliset, elokuvalliset ja kaunokirjalliset viitteet, ja peilaa boheemia porvarillista kasvualustaansa toimihenkilömentaliteetin omaavan kälynsä maailmaan. Käly on farmaseutti, jolla on bakteerikammo ja alemmuuskompleksi suhteessa miehensä sukuun.

            Romaani on neljän sisaruksen road movie, jossa kolme karkaa kuolettavan tylsistä häistä vieraillakseen veljensä luona, joka on hankkinut itselleen keskiaikaisen linnan ja esittää turisteille aatelista varsin menestyksekkäästi. Linnassa ei ole vettä eikä sähköjä, ja veli murehtii huonoa flaksia naismarkkinoilla. Myös veljen lähipiirissä on häät, joihin sisarusparvi pääsee kuokkavieraiksi. Näissä häissä on tarjolla tölkkiviiniä ja morsiamen sukkanauha ryöstetään pingispöydän päällä.

            Romaanissa eniten nauratti ranskalaisten maalaistollojen samankaltaisuus suomalaisten kanssa – myös haute couturen maassa on tyyppejä, jotka pukeutuvat havaijipaitaan nahkaliivin kera ja koittavat iskeä naisia kertomalla vitsejä huorista, jotka eivät suostu ottamaan suihin.

            Kiireinen maailmamme tarvitsee Gavaldan kaltaisia kuplivia kertojia, joita voi ahmia julkisissa liikennevälineissä tai vauvan yösyöttöjen välissä. Kadehdin hänen kykyään tiivistää monimutkaisia maailmoja kirkkaiksi, pureviksi lauseiksi.

Kolahti!

Alexandra Salmela Aamulehden kuvaamana

Mun tämän syksyn Finlandia-hevonen on Alexandra Salmelan romaani 27. Muita listattuja kirjoja en tosin ole lukenut, ja tuskin ehdinkään. Alexandrankin kirjasta kuulin kaverilta, joka valitsi sen lukupiirimme seuraavaksi keskustelunaiheeksi. Mutta joo, fiiliksissä olen, en pelkästään tämän mamu-kirjailijan loisteliaasta kielen tajusta, mutta ennen kaikkea hänen ilkeästä yhteiskunnallisesta satiiristaan, joka kohdistuu koko maamme hiippahuppukansaan.
Viimeistään nyt ymmärrän, että loistavan romaanin kirjoittamiseen tarvitaan outoja kertojia, kuten lapsen pehmolelupossu tai Opel Astra. Jos olisimme kuulleet suoraan kompostintuoksuista keski-ikäistä pariskuntaa, Piiaa ja Markoa, romaani ei olisi saanut lainkaan siipiä, vaan olisi jäänyt ennalta-arvattavalle tunnustukselliselle tasolle. Maailmalla on ihan tarpeeksi keski-ikäisiä keskiluokkaisia kirjailijoita, jotka antavat äänen yhteiskunnallisesti tiedostaville, omaa itseään pelottavasti muistuttaville protagonisteille (mieti esim. Siri Hustvedt ja Paul Auster, pariskunta, joka vuolee kultaa) ja näissä romaaneissa itseironia on niin hentoista, että sitä tuskin tunnistaa. Maailma tarvitsee kirjailijoita, jotka osaavat yhteiskunnallista ironiaa ja itseironiaa sopivasti yhdistäen nyrjäyttämään ihmisten sovinnaisia käsityksiä siitä, miten kunnon ihmisen kuuluisi elää.
Yleensä en pidä eläinhahmoista, mutta Salmelan Herra Possu, joka tarkkailee maailmaa parivuotiaan juuri puhumaan opettelevan Pikku Papsun kainalosta, oli se syy, miksi haluaisin tämän kirjan voittavan Finlandian. Herra Possu puhuu juuri sitä suomalaisten lastenohjelmien tekopirteää kieltä, johon tuoreet vanhemmatkin valitettavasti taantuvat. Herra Possu puhuu markettien käytävillä, kun kultalusikalla syötettyjä natiaisiamme kärrätään muovisissa autonmuotoisissa kärryissä ja vanhemmilla on liian kiire tutkia aamiaismurojen lisäainepitoisuuksia. Ja sitten kassalle: "Jono oli pitkä ja pikku Papsu alkoi itkeä, koska hänen vaippansa oli märkä ja hänen vaaleanpunaiset enkelisukkahousunsa olivat kastuneet. Yhtäkkiä Pikku Papsun äiti huudahti:
"Voi ei, linssit!" ja lähti juoksemaan takaisin kauppaan." (s. 82-3)
Tässä kohtaan aloin kadehtia Salmelaa, joka ehti kirjoittaa ennen minua kaikesta siitä, mistä olen itsekin halunnut kirjoittaa: tofusta, linsseistä, spelttikekseistä, kuukautiskupeista, hamppupaidoista, kangaskasseista, komposteista ja ihmissuhteista, jotka alkavat rakoilla, kun arki muuttuu mahdottomaksi loputtomien elämäntapaneuvottelujen keskellä. Romaanin pariskunta ei käy töissä, vaan keskittyy täyspäiväisesti kuluttamaan toisensa loppuun. Vaikka kyseessä on rankka satiiri, kaikki sen ainekset on revitty elävästä elämästä tässä ja nyt. Me kaikki tunnemme monta Piiaa ja Markoa, joille vaihtoehtoisuus on pyhä asia, ja jotkut meistä tunnistavat itsessämme tuollaisia siemeniä.
Kirjan toinen juonne, tsekkiläisen Angien rock'n'roll-pakkomielle kuolemasta 27-vuotiaana jää minun luennassani ohuemmaksi narratiiviksi kuin suomalaisen maatiaisen ekoperheen surkuhupaisa elämä, mutta Angieta tarvitaan kutsumattomana vieraana, joka tahtomattaan aikaansaa perheen kriisin kulminaation.
Odotan innolla vastaavaa pankin räjäytystä aasialaisen tai afrikkalaisen kirjailijan kynästä. Jos tsekkiläinen kirjailija saa näin robustia jälkeä aikaan opiskeltuaan suomen kielen perinpohjin, millaista kritiikkiä saisi aikaan sellainen kirjailija, joka ei ole ennen tänne tultuaan koskaan käyttänyt pankkiautomaattia tai esiintynyt julkisesti uima-asussa?

Noli me tangere - how Anne Enright sees it

From New York Times interview

Anne Enright's Booker-winning novel The Gathering (2007) fell into my hands last Wednesday, and since then I've been wondering about her talent, the cruel precision with words. Now since the 1990s, when Irish writing was my full time business, I have taken my distance, and cannot really remember if I read her early stuff back then. Something in her style reminds me of the Irish radical feminists I met in the flesh in the early 90s - there is a passionately angry subtext, dealing with women's rights to contraception and divorce, and the so-called Catholic family values.

The ingredients of the novel are arch-Irish: the Hegarthy clan is burying an adult son who has committed suicide, and old memories of sexual abuse committed by someone close to the family pop up. The protagonist has given birth to only two daughters, and is becoming severely alienated from her husband. She sleeps during daytime when the family is out, and in the nights takes weird pleasure in driving around Dublin, emptying a bottle of wine in the car as she moves around the eerie "hoods". One would not expect that it would be possible to win a Booker with such a simple tale. But in Enright's case it's the alchemy of words, the strange constellations, that count more than the actual storyline.

The novel reminds me a lot of the two postcolonial writers with whom I am most attached to, Jamaica Kincaid and Sara Suleri (Goodyear). All three women engage in remembering the dead in a laconic, matter-of-fact, almost violently detailed way. The way the protagonist Veronica remembers grandmother's marital bed, her naked groin, may sound disgusting to some. Enright writes obsessively about the triangular drama between Veronica's grandmother, her grandfather and their landlord, who treated the tenants as his property. There is very little Irish history embedded in the story, although it stretches back to 1925, the early years of the Free State. The characters seem oddly devoid of political passions. Or, Enright has no interest in taking the role of the history teacher. The reader has to dig the politics from underneath many layers.

Enright uses the Biblical phrase from Jesus, "Noli me tangere" (Don't touch me), in the contemporary context to get into the core of the problems of a dysfunctional family. These guys are truly avoiding getting too close to one another. The Catholic kids have been taught the phrase as "Nolly May." In the wake and the funeral, Veronica and her siblings are all trying to get together without really meeting one another; drinking becomes one way of protecting oneself from too extreme emotions. In Finland, we have a special word "suojakännit" (protection drunkenness) to describe this tendency. The Hegarthy clan never drinks together, but everyone hides their own bottles and glasses during family meetings. How familiar reading this makes to us Finns! Also in this country the most appropriate place for the bottle has been under the table, close to the table leg. True "closet drunks" (kaappijuopot), on the other hand, hide the drink on the kitchen sink like in Enright's novel.

The Gathering needs to be read several times, it is not one of those books one devours in one sitting. What I loved most about it was the mixing of the philosophical and the everyday, like in the passage where Veronica loiters at Gatwick Airport, where she has stranded alone without her family, but is gathering the courage to return to them:

"And I think we make for peculiar refugees, running from our own blood or towards our own blood; pulsing back and forth along ghostly veins that wrap the world in a skein of blood. This is what I am thinking, as I stand in the queue in the Gatwick Village branch of Accessorize with my two pairs of flipflops, that sport at the plastic cleft a silk orchid for Emily, and for Rebecca a peony rose. I am thinking about the world wrapped in blood, as a ball of string is wrapped in its own string." (p. 258)

With this passage in mind, I am already looking forward to reading her non-fiction book on motherhood, Making Babies. Probably not a pink and pale blue-hued celebration. 

For those who enjoy Marmite on their ice cream

A friend hinted Anita Brookner as an inspiring literary figure for anyone planning to publish her first novel in middle age.

I may have once tried to read her novel, but found her writing style too dry (and arch-British?) and the characters too miserable to make it to the end.

Now I gave her a second try, and while still holding onto my initial observations, this time, at this point in life, I begin to understand her fans. Her novels are not the most common comfort food, but serve fantastically those who enjoy Marmite on their ice cream.

I started this time with Hotel du Lac (1984), the Booker prize winner and thinnest one of them all. Although Brookner published her first novel at 56, she has already written 24 novels – and I believe all of them deal at a certain level with existential solitude.

Hotel du Lac takes us to a well-established Swiss hotel, which does not have to advertise itself, as the clients have been returning there generation after generation. The hotel is a discreet hiding place for recent widows, too senile relatives, or people who for one reason or another have lost face in front of their nearest and dearest.

Edith Hope, an author of romantic fiction, is running from a wedding she cancelled at last minute. While moping in her cardigan in the lifeless village off holiday season, she writes letters to her true beloved David, who is happily married elsewhere and intends to remain so. She describes to David the everyday encounters with the odd hotel guests in painstaking detail, but never sends the letters. Another suitor appears on stage, offering her the kind of establishment a respectable woman writer would obviously need, in order to be taken seriously by her publisher and friends. It is an odd tale of love, written in such an ironic tone that one barely remembers the romance.

I have understood that most Anita Brookner protagonists are sexually inhibited, confessional and distant at the same time, and obsessed with self-analysis. They are happiest living their lives in the familiar quarters, greeting the same shopkeepers from thirty years back, and although they dream about escaping, somehow they don’t get it done. In the novels it rains too often, and the characters try to solve their problems by taking long walks.

From a postcolonial perspective, it is peculiar to read European novels, in which all characters are white Europeans. This is becoming rare even in today’s Finnish literature. Funnily enough, I find affinities in Anita B’s writing to two other Anitas: Anita Desai from India and Anita Konkka from Finland. The writing styles of all three women may differ, but their protagonists have something in common. Anita D. has a more positive view of humanity than Anita B., and Anita K. flirts more with alternative lifestyles and feminism, but all three Anitas offer the reader a world that has not been fully chewed and digested on her behalf.

Though Brookner is a contemporary author, writing of her own times, there are deep historical layers in the characters, as if they had been born to the wrong decade or century. There is something fascinatingly displaced in all of them, a “far out” psychology that allows interpretations sensitive to other times and places.
Now I am starting a second journey with Anita, through the novel Latecomers (1988). The third one waiting on my table is Family and Friends (1985). Let's wait and see if I come to the end of the famous Brookner walk one day.

Chimamanda rocks

I first run across Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus some time in the mid-2000s, and as I happened to be planning a course on Afro-Caribbean women’s writing, I decided to include the novel in the curriculum right away. The intensity of her prose, and the difficulty of the intimate relations she was describing, struck me as something worth investing our time on. My international students loved it, and especially those who had received a Catholic upbringing could relate to the subject matter very well.

            In all Chimamanda’s books the university city of Nsukka appears as one of the focal points. The university of Nsukka was established as the first “indigenous” university of Nigeria following the independence in 1960. It has particularly excelled in astronomy, medicine and law. The country’s first university has always been the University of Ibadan (the local Oxford or Cambridge), but Nsukka has tried to differentiate from its competitor by profiling itself as the more African alternative. For anyone from the Finnish deepwoods this makes perfect sense. We greet warmly all such initiatives. I don’t even think of it as a coincidence that Biafra adopted Sibelius’ Finlandia as their national hymn during the independence war. Small nations always find one another, no matter what the odds.

            Chimamanda grew up in an academic family on the campus of Nsukka, and in her writing, the town looms larger than life. For someone also born in the shadows of an “indigenous” university, this autobiographical emphasis doesn’t seem strange. I salute it. Through Chimamanda, I have seen vivid bits of Nsukka. It is a place with a noble nationalist history and a present that unfortunately promises too little. Her third book, the short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck, reveals the realities of campus life in the 2000s: mob violence on the campus is rampant and any degree can be bought too cheap from the examiners through bribing. It is difficult to relate this to my own “indigenous” campus experience. There probably the most daring thing one could think of would be to cycle naked around the campus at full moon – but I can’t even confess having done that.

            The second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, became an instant hit in many European countries soon after first publication. I first got hold of the book in Swedish two years ago, and sorry to say, I could not enter its universe in that language. Nigeria in Swedish was too remote to me then. I also hesitated approaching the Finnish translation, on the same grounds. Now on my holidays, I liberated an English copy of the novel on the isle of Lefkada in Greece, where someone had left it untouched at a book recycling joint. After this, her art has truly started making sense to me. I was accidentally “bounced back” to her.

            Chimamanda is only a “small girl”, in her early thirties, and critics worldwide have already rated Half of a Yellow Sun as a global classic. In the literary beehive, she has sucked all the honey too prematurely, and she may have to bear also the negative consequences of such instant fame. In my country, she is being read everywhere in local flower hat aunties’ well-meaning book clubs. I can find a Finnish translation of her novel on every petrol station of this country.    

            The novel does reflect deeply upon the horrors of the Biafran war and the ethnic divisions of Nigerian society, but first and foremost it is a document of post/colonial gender relations, in a situation where modernity and tradition clash violently. The novel has five protagonists, “her children”, as the author calls them, all of who experience lapses and doubts in their intimate relations. It offers every reader a possibility to identify with someone – not pinpointing at any character’s innate moral superiority. Everyone in the novel makes fatal mistakes, everyone is rough and edgy.

            It is a novel about heterosexuality, written in a way that doesn’t make too rigid boundaries between Africa and the West. Black and white protagonists intermingle creatively. Things happen, between the races and in-between. The notion of “race” is easily dismantled. Neither does heterosexuality mean much to the protagonists. Chimamanda offers no simple “boy meets girl” stories. This fact alone renders her writing apart from the majority of European literature. Much of recent European literature is much more heteronormative and racially confined than this.

            In Chimamanda’s world, all relationships are defined by intricate complexities. She writes: “ Olanna gently places a pillow beneath her head and sat thinking about how a single act could reverberate over time and space and leave stains that could never be washed off. (p.245) ” In this passage, Olanna is making a decision against all odds to return to her partner, who was too easily seduced to illicit sex during her short trip elsewhere. It would be difficult to think of an European Olanna, wife of a university lecturer, adopting the fruit of her husband’s lapse to brief rash lust.  Chimamanda writes very open-mindedly about common law marriages, infertility and adoption, to my understanding against the stream of everyday African sensibilities. The twin girls, Olanna and Kainene’s liberal lives seem very bizarre to me, based on the stories African friends displaced in Finland have told me about foolproof patriarchal heteronormativity and their less privileged families. The twin girls’ avant garde attitudes would have been extreme even in the Finnish 1960s – a time when “women were still women and men were still men”.

            Chimamanda insists on portraying the fringes of Nigerian society, the kinds of possibilities available if people broadened up their minds to accept the multitude of the human condition. She is positively “well ahead of her time”. I am not sure if this kind of loosening of family morality is what mainstream Africa is welcoming in this millennium. Chimamanda does not proscribe this, she only pokes at “possible lives, possible futures”  pending somewhere in the future. Having already been exposed to other kinds of sets of life, other norms of organizing everyday life, other forms of reasoning, the relationship puzzles Chimamanda brings us may be Africa’s unavoidable future.   

If You Love - ponderings on musical drama

Yesterday I bought a DVD copy of Neil Hardwick's musical "If You Love". A friend of mine, with whom I shared formative years at Birch Village, where a great part of the film was cast, recommended the film to me. I didn't remember to go and see it at the movies. Now it entered my life at the point when I am writing my own multicultural drama. Glad I saw it, glad to have shared it with a local of that landscape- but I also have some critical comments to make:

1. Starting from the obvious: the film openly criticizes, in my opinion in a classical leftist way, the contemporary polarisation of class divides in Finnish society, and plays on old leftist classics, such as the key tune "If You Love". It really tries to make some political points, but fails to convince anyone, when you read from the cover that it's been sponsored by Hesburger, Oriflame, National Lottery etc. The presence of the sponsors in the film was too obvious, leaving the viewer with very little imagination to fill the gaps.

2. I felt empowered by the way Hardwick sees Birch Village. His way of playing with the locality was one of the strongest points of the film. I believe it's a continuing prose poem to a landscape that rarely gets positive attention in the media. I used to live for two years in one of the monstrous towers the film portrays (the red student house, not the Blue Gazebo), but as the scenes have been filmed on sunny summer days, they really don't bring the worst out of the "hoods". There's a lot of light and hope in the imageries. If compared to some other recent films and TV series depicting Finnish suburban life (Jari Tervo's Mogadishu Avenue, Johanna Vuoksenmaa's Nousukausi), this film doesn't exoticize the "hoods" or make them look more miserable than they are in real life. Hardwick actually humanizes Birch Village. But upon doing this, I believe he uses very conventional methods that point out towards middle-class tastes and values. There is an artsy red-haired auntie living in the Blue Gazebo of Birch Village, but when the film shows her apartment from the inside, it looks rather like a posh loft apartment in Eira. In real life, Birch Village apartments do have grey plastic floors and worn-out beige cupboards. I would have preferred to see a bit more of the council house aesthetics in the film. (The African restaurant scene was, on the other hand, the most beautiful scene in the whole film, and the only passage where I truly enjoyed the stylicization. I would love all our suburbs to have restaurants like that!)

3. A lot of the dancing was just crap. No need to explain this any further.

4. The history of Finnish pop/rock music appeals to Finnish audiences, but very little to the "Mamus" who have not lived here long enough to witness that history. Because the film has a strong multicultural theme, I would have wanted the film to show more of the multicultural realities of the people. In this case, it would have required some further studies on Nigerian aesthetics. If the people in the film have real Nigerian names, then there should have been more cultural details. The love couple's meeting remains now a bit shallow. In real life, people discuss the cultural differences in vivid details, and these discussions can be empowering.

5. I also felt that there were too many songs, introduced in a chaotic and haphazard manner. My favorite musical scene was Afia's performance of Eppu Normaali's "Joka päivä ja joka ikinen yö" on a typical Birch Village playground. That scene spoke to me deeply. It showed the possibilities of hybridity, performed in a creative manner. A lot of the other music and dance acts left me cold.

6. There is a big difference between commercial films and artsy films. Kaurismäki films mainly employ character actors, who may not be the prettiest and sleekest in physical appearance. "If you love" employed many kinds of actors, some of whom shone out with their outstanding personality (for instance, Mervi the single mother nurse), but others were cast only on the basis of good looks (Ada, the main character). The migrant actors definitely beat many of the Finnish ones. Ada and her blonde friends were a great disappointment. Tony (Chike Ohanwe) was promising in his debut in the film world, and I would love to see him in a completely different role in the future. Romantic Romeo role is not the ideal role for him. He is too talented to play that kind of role.He would do better in a more ironic role.

7. I would like to know how much Hardwick has been watching Bollywood films as of late, and how much of that tradition he thinks he has introduced to the Finnish cast. I see a very strong Bollywood component in the film, and cannot compare it with any other experiences of watching (European) musicals. But then, in Bollywood there's a certain degree of professionalism, which was absent in this film. I was very puzzled about the genre, and cannot yet say if the puzzlement is positive or negative. 

Goddess dreams

Last August I saw a vivid dream about the Queen of Soul visiting us in Tampere. In the dream, I had been recruited to host her and attend to all her needs, and I was quite stressed out by the task. She was wearing African clothes, not the ones in the Amazing Grace album cover, but similar ones in blue and brown shades. The photo attached here is the only picture I have found of Aretha from her "African period", which I believe took place in the early 70s. In my dream Aretha was already in her 80s, and much slimmer than she is today. She was glowing with health and good energies. This is why I started calling my dream "a goddess dream" - rarely have I woken up feeling so excited and empowered by my own nocturnal filmmaking.

The goddess dream has not left me. Every now I return to it and wonder about its meaning. After having the dream, I spent days reading about Aretha Franklin's life. And I noticed that I had forgotten her recent performance in Obama's inauguration ceremonies, which I did see and was moved by her singing "My Country ´Tis of Thee".

Maybe the most meaningful Aretha song to me was her duet with Annie Lennox: "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves". I wonder where strong feminist pop music has disappeared. Especially the kind of feminist music that can cross cultural barriers. Global feminist music. Possibly Aretha doesn't call herself feminist, but her singing has empowered women on all continents. By sharing my goddess dream, I would like to celebrate that dimension of her music and life.

Vesipiipullinen iloa

Niina Hakalahden Tuukka-Omar (2010, Tammi) onnistuu siinä, mitä olen kauan odottanut: monikulttuurisen lastenkirjan kirjoittamisessa ilman opettavaista monikulttuurisuus-sanan alleviivaamista. Sen päähenkilö on suomalaisen äidin ja syyrialaisen isän poika, jolla on muitakin haasteita elämässään kuin jatkuva kahden kulttuurin välillä kipuilu. Kirjassa on paljon arkisesta arjesta temmattuja elementtejä, kuten yökastelu ja se tosiasia, että niin monen maahanmuuttajataustaisen miehen on elätettävä perhettään ajamalla bussia tai taksia, mutta näitä elämän tosiasioita maustaa hulvaton maagis-realistinen huumori.

            Koska Tuukka-Omarin isä Ali on arabi, hänen on säännöllisin väliajoin päästävä polttamaan vesipiippuaan ja lentämään matollaan korttelin yli. Hakalahti siis kerää kaikki arabikulttuuriin liittyvät kliseet ja kierrättää niitä pilke silmäkulmassaan. Mutta ei siinä kaikki, hänen supisuomalainen äitinsä on töissä suklaamunien yllätystehtaalla, ja vetäytyy jatkuvasti autistiseen yksityisyyteensä suunnittelemaan hahmoja, joille tapahtuu noloja asioita. Kirjassa kaikki aikuiset ovat jollain tapaa vinksahtaneita, eikä vinksahtaneisuus noudata mitään kansallisia, kulttuurisia, etnisiä tai uskonnollisia rajoja. Tämä outouttaminen muistuttaa minua vähän Roald Dahlin kirjoista – myös Jukka Lemmetyn kuvakielessä on jotain samaa. Ehkä tarinankerronta on astetta lempeämpää kuin Dahlilla; aikuiset eivät Tuukka-Omarissa ole ilkeitä samalla tavalla kuin joissain Dahlin kirjoissa, mutta hengenheimolaisuutta on ilmassa, eikä se tunnu häiritsevältä, vaan tarinaa rikastuttavalta.

            Tuukka-Omar ei ole erityisesti poika- tai tyttökirja, mutta puhuttelee luultavasti eniten sellaisia lapsia, joilla on outoja harrastuksia tai joiden kodeissa on jotain suomalaiskansallisesta ”perussetistä” poikkeavaa. Hakalahti on omistanut sen omien lastensa lisäksi kaikille niille, jotka ovat joskus tulleet valituksi viimeiseksi urheilujoukkueeseen. Kirjan poikaparivaljakko Tuukka-Omar ja Paavo jännittävät keväistä leirikoulua, jossa on tarkoitus selvitä yön yli eräkämpässä. Toisin kuten monet luokkakavereistaan, pojat eivät ole suostuneet liittymään partioon, mutta opiskelevat iltaisin salaa eräasioita kirjaston kirjoista. Heidän ystävyytensä kantaa läpi kriisien, ja kaiken kruunaa möreä-äänisen ”varaäidin” Niilon rekrytointi lehti-ilmoituksen kautta.

            Vaikka poikia voisi joku kovis haukkua nörteiksi, heillä on oma maailmansa, huumorinsa ja tapansa selviytyä. Hakalahden kerronta on reipasta ja toiminnallista, joten luulen, ettei siihen laiskempikaan lukija heti pitkästy.

            Tuukka-Omar on kirjoitettu kaikille, ja sen ehdoton vahvuus on täydellisessä multikulti-propagandan puutteessa. Aihepiiristä saisi aikaan poliittisempaakin kuvausta, mutta keskittyminen ennakkoluuloihin ja yhteiskunnan rakenteelliseen rasismiin luultavasti karkottaisi suurimman osan lapsilukijoista. Itsellänikin on hyllyssä monia (ulkomailta ostettuja) ”monikulttuurisia” lasten- ja nuortenkirjoja, jotka olen äitinä lukenut ahmien ja joihin lapset eivät ole halunneet tarttua lainkaan. Oletan, että tämä kirja riemastuttaa sekä lapsia että aikuisia, vanha- ja uussuomalaisia, ja siksi toivoisin tämän vinksahtaneen perheen tarinalle jatkoa.

Francophone Africa

Been listening to Amadou and Maryam (a blind couple from Mali, nowadays world stars) for quite a while. I love their more traditional African songs, but the true realization happened when listening to their later hit on Songlines magazine's free CD: the song "Sabali" hit the jackpot last summer, and I wish to purchase the couple's latest two albums ASAP. The latest albums seem to be a curious fusion of electronica, traditional African sounds, combined with instruments from all over the world. The couple have not stood still, but have moved on from being distinctive African artists towards genuine global divas. "Sabali" was mixed and mastered by the ex-Blur singer Damian Albarn, who also seems to have moved from Britpop to world music.

I love African French accents, because they are something even I with my ultimate rusty skills can understand. As I keep on listening, the travel fever increases and I look at the map longingly...

God knows. I know nothing about Mali but the other Mecca of world music, Benin, seems also inviting.

Elastic realities - Tobias Hecht's After Life (2006)

Tobias Hecht wrote After Life on a Guggenheim grant after having studied the lives of street children in the city of Recife, northeast Brazil for a decade. He has won a Margaret Mead prize for his earlier ethnographic writing, and a notable literary prize in Spain for his fiction.
Surprisingly, After Life has not yet received as much attention as his earlier works.  I believe it is an ethnographic text still waiting to be found, both by academics and lay people. As it is published by Duke University Press, the current primary audience may be limited to other anthropologists.

I have been tempted to read After Life for some time now, so it was a moment of joy to finally get hold of the book at the university library.
I cannot but admire Hecht's approach to the project of ethnographic writing - by recycling the oral and written data his true-life informant Bruna Verissimo delivered him over years of interaction, he found that the only way to do justice to Bruna's stories of his many selves was to write a novel. Bruna, a youth brought up by the streets, a sex worker and transvestite, invented alternative selves, whom s/he interviewed on the tape recorder provided by the curious ethnographer. Over the years, Hecht found out that very few of Bruna's stories were literally true, but nevertheless they reflected an ethnographic reality of the historical moment, a collection of episodes that could have been. The novel reminds us of the elasticity of all storytelling, for whichever purposes.

Hecht resolves his dilemma of representation by creating a purely fictional character to replace Bruna Verissimo. Aparecida is perhaps an alter ego, one of Bruna's many apparitions, a former street child, prostitute and junkie trying hard to establish himself as an activist and artist. The informant's strong sense of agency and willingness to produce his/her own narrative with the help of a researcher from the North reminds us slightly of what happened to Rigoberta Menchú in the 1980s (and especially the aftermath of her Nobel prize victory - how other anthropologists wanted to prove the falseness of her narration). Hecht is aware of the similarity of his approach, acknowledging Menchú's position in the history of Latin American testimonial literature. However, After Life is not a simple testimonio. It is far too complicated a narrative to be treated as a voice of the dispossessed, or marginalized people. Neither is it a human rights narrative. Seen from a comparative perspective with works that attempt at claiming rights and speaking for a group that may not speak without an intermediary, After Life is not primarily an ethnographic piece. It is ethnographic fiction, but the emphasis lays on fiction, as artistic expression. The novel does create its own universe. It shows more than explains. It can be understood without the normal academic explanations.

However, not unlike in much of academic ethnography, written to appreciate postmodern sensibilities of the Western academically educated readers, also in Hecht's novel the personality of the protagonist, the ethnographer, receives perhaps more attention than the informants. Zoë, an American professor on sabbatical, who due to her singlehood and childlessness can travel light and change plans at a whim of a moment, returns to Recife after many years' break to meet up with her old informants, all street children. Much of the narrative deals with Zoë's depression and violent sense of paralysis - a plot that partly builds a sounding board for her informant's narrative, but also in its vividness becomes almost too consuming and overpowering. The narrative of her mental breakdown was convincing but at the same time I was not sure if I could deal with it.

The most powerful passages in the novel are passages in which Zoë finds release from her illness while going through her field notes about her interaction with Aparecida:

"A life like the mouth of the Capibaribe: a current flowing from one place to the tides, the mixture of flesh and salt water, the sordid runoff from the city, a meeting place spanned by decaying bridges. And so, like Aparecida who crichets into the night, Zoê begins to knit together the incongruous strands, searching for the beginning in the middle, the denouement where it doesn't exist, translating, rephrasing, reinventing, bearing." (Hecht 2006, 79)

I also found the passages in which Brazil's everyday religiosity of the streets is reflected informative and empowering. While getting a bit annoyed with the protagonist, I enjoyed those parts of the novel that show the political and social tranformations of today's Brazil ("the big picture") in the globalizing world.  The phenomenon of gated communities and secluded lifestyles seems to be everywhere.

The photos and passages with authentic Portuguese conversation worked particularly well.

Pahempaa olla puolueeton kuin antibrechtiläinen: Han Suyinin postkoloniaalia analyysia

Han Suyin on ilmeisesti vielä elossa oleva 93-vuotias kiinalais-belgialainen kirjailija, jonka tunnetuin teos on Hollywood-klassikoksi noussut Päivien kimallus (A Many Splendoured Thing). Vuosikymmenten aikana hän on noussut eritoten ”euraasialaisten” puolestapuhujaksi ja aasialaisen rasismin vastustajaksi. Hänen nuoruudessaan ei ollut helppo kasvaa ”sekarotuisena”, ja ne monietniset todellisuudet, joita hän kirjoissaan kuvaa, saattavat aueta paremmin vasta tämän päivän lukijoille kuin aikalaisilleen. Hän kirjoittaa kulttuurisesti hybrideistä todellisuuksista tarkkanäköisesti ilman turhaa jargonia.

Kirjailija tunnetaan myös lääkärinä ja sinologina. Hänen persoonansa ympärille on perustettu kirjallisuuspalkintoja, ja löysin myös Facebookista fanisivuja. Oletan, että tämän päivän mobiilille, Euroopan ja Aasian välillä liikkuvalle nuorisolle Han Suyin saattaa olla suurikin idoli. Länsimaailmassa hän joutui jossain vaiheessa epäsuosioon, koska häntä pidettiin liian maolaisena, tai hän siis kirjoitti liian sympaattisesti kulttuurivallankumouksesta läntisiin lehtiin.

Pelastin romaanin Neljät kasvot (1963) Hervannan kirjaston kierrätyskorista. Luin kirjan tietämättä mitään kirjailijan taustasta, edes sukupuolesta, ja oletin sen olevan täyskiinalaisen, vallankumousta länteen paenneen miehen tuotos. Luin kirjaa miehen kirjoittamana, koska siinä oli niin paljon eroottisviritteisiä kuvauksia naisista miesten silmin. Tosin seksuaalisten aktiivisten, normeja rikkovien naisten määrästä olisi pitänyt osata arvata, että kirjailija oli nainen. Romaanin hahmot ovat tämänkin päivän näkökulmasta herkullisen outoja: omaksi suosikiksini nousi valkoisia eurooppalaisia vauvoja adoptoiva kirjailijaprinsessa Sumipoon, joka matkailee konferensseissa koko hovinsa kanssa ja muistuttaa maneereiltaan hämärästi erästä meidän aikojemme tunnetuinta pop-ikonia. Tässä hänelle tyypillinen repliikki: ”Ne olivat niitä valkeita ja mustia aikoja, jolloin oli pahempaa olla puolueeton kuin anti-brechtiläinen. Minusta alkoi tuntua, että olin häneen rakastunut. Ajattelin, että olisi äidillinen teko selvittää hänen tunnesotkunsa.” (92)

Teksti tuntui äärettömän modernilta, kyyniseltä ja maailmanpoliittisesti valveutuneelta. Se kuvaa neljän vuorokauden tapahtumia Kambodzassa ”puolueettomassa” kirjailijakokouksessa, jonne vain länsimaisilla ja muutamalla rikkaalla aasialaisella kirjailijalla on ollut varaa lentää. Siinä parodioidaan mitä tahansa kansainvälistä konferenssia, jossa on tähtiä ja satelliitteja, opportunistisia bändäreitä. Viidessäkymmenessä vuodessa niin vähän on muuttunut näissä piireissä.

Vallankaappausta odotellessa herkkähipiäiset paperinpyörittäjät laitetaan suorittamaan ruumiillista työtä lapion varteen pelloille, joilla buddhalaiset munkit lausuvat meditaatioitaan. Koska romaanin ajanjakso on niin tiivis, se pysyy nerokkaasti käsissä ja onnistuu tiivistämään aikansa keskeiset poliittiset kysymykset yhteen episodiin. Siinä eletään Bandungin afroaasialaisen kokouksen jälkeistä aikaa, jolloin panaasialaisuus oli korkeassa kuosissa. Pidin erityisesti romaanin dramaturgiasta.

Kaikki hahmot ovat yhtä lailla narreja, itseriittoisia ja vieraantuneita ns. tavallisesta elämästä. Heidän elämänsä tuntuu pyörivän pitkälti seksin ja viinan ympärillä; osa porukasta on tietoisesti tai tietämättään myös mukana oopiumkaupassa. Tarina muuttuu dekkarinomaiseksi siinä vaiheessa, kun erään päähenkilöistä hotellihuoneesta löytyy suklaarasia, joka vaihdetaan kiireen kaupalla kantajansa huomaamatta.

Postkoloniaali kritiikki erityisesti tuntui osuvalta, siinä oli yksissä kansissa kaikki olennainen imperiumeille vastaanpuhuminen, ajalta ennen kuin Edward Said onnistui tekemään siitä tieteenalan. Han Suyin onnistuu kuvaamaan aasialaisen intellektuellin monia kasvoja: teoksessa vilisee kommunisteja, sosialisteja, äärioikeistolaisia, monarkisteja, buddhalaisia, epäpoliittisia hedonisteja – ja kaikki lopulta taistelevat samasta paikasta auringossa saman ankkalammikon rannalla.

Romaani oli älyllinen ilotulitus, jota aika ei tosiaankaan ole jättänyt. Ottaisin tämän mielelläni lukemistoksi postkoloniaalin teorian kurssille. Han Suyin onnistui esittelemään siivun lähes koko Aasian 50-60-lukujen historiaa harvinaisen suorasukaisella, jaarittelemattomalla tavalla.

Abi Morgan's "The White Girl": the politics of looking back

Last Tuesday the Finnish YLE1 showed the prize-winning and according to some sources "controversial" TV drama, "The White Girl", written by Abi Morgan. The film took us directly to the Pakistani quarters of Bradford, where a white working class single parent family had been emergency housed after a violent marriage. It is a story of ethnic separatism, and of white "outsiders" who are no longer privileged in the eyes of the migrant community.

The film has been received with wildly mixed feelings. Morgan has been accused of political correctivism, social pornography, or a tendency to show the white working class life as more scum than it could possibly ever be, anywhere in Britain or even Europe. It does not transcend the class divide, her critics claim.

I don't read the film first and foremost as a commentary about the British working class in peril, but for me it worked as a powerful reminder of the politics of looking, the politics of gaze, and counter-gaze. In the film, the white family's eldest daughter Leah approaches Islam, and finds comfort in daily prayers, while her mother is focusing on destroying herself through alcohol, drugs and a violent on-and-off relationship with her ex. The film shows clearly the rationality of a person's search for spirituality in a turbulent life situation. It could be any religion, but in this case it is Islam. Leah's choice to start imitating the daily acts of her classmates and neighbours has not been exoticized, but it is shown as the most likely and most intelligent choice a minority child can do. I understand that in the UK there are several Muslim-majority public schools, in which the curriculum has been Islamicized in the way Morgan portrays. In such a school, a white girl is an exotic bird.

It is true that Islam in the film is idealized, and shown in the most poetic, aesthetic form. All the Muslims in the film were sympathetic characters. Not all adult whites were bad, but morally ambivalent and weak in willpower. Very cleverly, Leah's mother was portrayed, amongst all other deviant characteristics, as illiterate (shaking the myth of the illiterate Muslim housewife). And the film's aesthetics bordered on ghettoization and third worldization. It showed the everyday life of a part of Britain that has for long been underprivileged and at the same time contains many other worlds.

To the film's critics I would like to pose a counter-question: if the film's perspective was so upsetting or irritating, isn't that a sign of something happening in the minds of the viewer? And isn't that what filmmakers are supposed to do, to choose a point of view and stick to it? I at least enjoyed to travel with Leah into the local mosque and experience with her the first steps of practicing a new faith. I enjoyed the acting, the dialogues, the dramaturgy, and the details of the settings, and the camera technique. I have never been to Bradford, and have not quite seen similar "third-worldization" of European housing areas in my own eyes. I have for many years wanted to travel to Bradford. Now this film caused in me a strong impulse to fulfill this idea.

But even more importantly, the film succeeds in showing, not only through the white family members' perspective, but also from the perspective of the local Muslim community, what the white working class neighbours' life might look like. In Finland, all the so called multicultural novels and films focus on the migrant experience as minority experience, and the emphasis is on how to integrate in the clean, punctual and orderly Nordic society. This film does something else, it turns around all the questions and shows us the possible future faces of Europe. I have rarely seen a film that manages to condense a social and political conjuncture, a turning point, a knot of signs in such a powerful package.

Piilotus on normaalia toimintaa

Juha Suorannan Piilottajan päiväkirja (Like, Helsinki 2010) tekee 142 sivussa sen, mitä itse olen odottanut kymmenen vuotta tapahtuvan suomalaisessa keskustelussa maahanmuuttopolitiikasta ja monikulttuurisuudesta: siinä siirrytään reippaasti sanoista tekoihin, asiantuntijuudesta lähimmäisyyteen.

Koska Suoranta ei ole mitenkään erityisesti profiloitunut monikulttuurisuuskysymysten tutkijana, odotin tämän kirjan lukemista jännityksellä. Mielestäni ajastamme kertoo paljon se, että kuka tahansa voi joutua tilanteeseen, jossa hänen on yhtäkkiä muodostettava kantansa Euroopan Unionin maahanmuuttopolitiikkaan. Suorannalle kävi niin, kun hän eräänä maaliskuisena päivänä istui koneelleen ja sai avunpyyntöviestin kollegaltaan Yhdysvalloista.

Sain kirjan suoraan kotiovelleni kirjailijalta itseltään viime perjantaina. LIKE oli antanut 200 kpl kirjoja Ashraf Sahilin opintojen tukemiseen. Kuuluin 200 nopeimpaan tilaajaan. Olin myös kuuntelemassa Suorantaa kirjamessuilla lauantaina. Viimeistään haastattelua kuunnellessani vakuutuin siitä, että nuoren yksin maahan tulleen turvapaikanhakijan piilotus on Eurooppa-linnoituksessa normaalia, arkista toimintaa. Suoranta halusi korostaa, ettei pitänyt eikä edelleenkään pidä itseään aktivistina, vaan hän käsittää piilottamisen tavalliseksi lähimmäisen työksi. 

Meillä on maa täynnä monikulttuurisuuden ja maahanmuuttopoliittisten kysymysten asiantuntijoita. Joskus tuntuu, että "puhuvia päitä" on enemmän kuin maahanmuuttajia. Joskus asiantuntijan ja maahanmuuttajan roolit sattuvat samaan henkilöön, mutta enimmäkseen asiantuntijat ovat suomalaisia, korkeasti koulutettuja naisia, jotka puhuvat sujuvasti järjestelmän kieltä. Meillä on hommafoorum täynnä parodiaa mokuttajista, jotka ammatikseen pyrkivät eroon eurosentrisyydestä. Mitä tahansa Suorannan kirjasta tullaankaan sanomaan, en näe mitään mahdollisuutta, että tämä kirja nousisi äärioikeiston parodiseksi bestselleriksi. Kirja on kirjoitettu niin arkisesta, maltillisesta ja tolkullisesta näkökulmasta, ettei siitä löydy reposteltavaa. Uskoisin, että se tulee elämään omaa elämäänsä monenlaisten lukijoiden arjessa ja inspiroi muitakin toimimaan rohkeasti.

Olen hämmentynyt Piilottajan päiväkirjan uskonnollisista virityksistä. Vaikka itsekin olen etsinyt jo pitkään vastauksia kysymykseen lähimmäisyydestä kristillisestä kirjallisuudesta, en ole vielä niin sinut henkisen/hengellisen etsintäni kanssa, että pystyisin kirjoittamaan siitä avoimesti. Suoranta uskaltaa, hän kertoo erityisesti kohtaamisistaan ev.lut seurakunnan työntekijöiden kanssa ja tuo ilmi kirkon hahmottumattoman roolin turvapaikan antajana. Hän kirjoittaa siunauksesta, varjeluksesta ja epätavallisista enkeleistä. Piilottajan päiväkirjassa on keski-ikäinen kirkosta eronnut professori jokseenkin rähmällään elämän perimmäisten kysymysten äärellä.