who knows?

recently, the russian ice dancing team performed a routine wearing an "aboriginal costume". they danced in an "aboriginal" style and wore dark skinned costumes with white lines and leaves glued onto it. they later recieved a lot of criticism and speculation from the media and from viewers about whether what they did was racist or inappropriate.

the aboriginal people of australia came forward and said that they didn't mind that the icedancers performed that way because although it was misguided, it was still with good intention and was meant to flatter. however there are a lot of people who think otherwise. but who are they to judge? if aboriginal people themselves are not offended by this performance than is it fair for us to be?

how deep can one persons level of understanding really go before they are limited by their own personal experiences and boundaries?

is culture something which can even be owned? the performers although elluding to the idea of aboriginals, used no actual dance or song from aboriginal culture and only insinuated aboriginal people by their dress. who are we to say they cannot dress that way or dance that way because it is already a certain culture's style? surely if that were so we would not be allowed to do anything in terms of performance.

this case is in some way similar to the case of the men at work and the song 'land down under'. yes the flute part sounds much like the folk song 'kookaburra sits in an old gum tree', but is the song not about Australia itself? to me i don't see a more appropriate place for such a well known australian folk song to appear.

in terms of the law, who actually owns that piece of music? it allegedly belongs to the descendants of the woman who created it. now this woman was a 'tawny owl' or 'guide leader' for her guides group and made it up as something to entertain the girls on their bush hike. when she died did she leave the physical rights of this song to her descendants? surely she didn't know quite how famous it would become?

should it not be australia who owns this song as it is about their nation and native animals? do we not know this song as a folk song of australia?

cultural identity seems to becoming something which some people have decided can be owned independantly, something which has become such a taboo subject, that no one can even begin to use it without asking for some longwinded response of approval.

it's all about perspective

perspective evidently has a huge impact on what you know, how you know it and what you believe. i always try to be open to other perspectives although sometimes its just so hard to understand the other side. but i was listening to the BBC news a couple of weeks ago and i remember hearing an update on the fight against terrorists. i don't remember what the news was exactly but it went something like this

"British and American troops in Iraq have successfully blown up a known terrorist hideout, destroying the building and killing several civilians. This was in response to the death of the five CIA agents who were killed by terrorists last week."

terrorism is defined on dictionary.com as

–noun
1.a person, usually a member of a group, who uses or advocates terrorism.
2.a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

and in the oxford dictionary as

• noun a person who uses violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.

this makes me wonder, i'm not condoning the acts of terrorists by any means at all, but if we have defined terrorism as frightening others and using violence for political advancement then how can we say that what we are doing is not terrorism? yes, the 'terrorists' may have killed many more innocent civilians but even the word 'more' is too much of a subjective statement to mean anything.

what are the justified reasons for the 'war in iraq'? is america fighting to protect their access to valuable oil? yes. are they fighting to protect their economic interests in the region? yes. are they fighting in retaliation? yes.

personally, i do not understand, why any of these reasons should be inflicting so much damage to people other than maybe the owner of the land which the oil is found, and the people collecting the oil themselves.

obviously i do not understand the 'war in iraq' to the degree that i should in order to evalutate it properly but how can we expect them to not retaliate the way they do when we attack and bomb their people? yes they may be fighting for something we don't believe is right, but what proof do we have that they are wrong? is it not their own perspective, their own ethics and morals? i assume to them, we are completely wrong.

all that i can say is that if you were blowing up my people, i'd certainly try and blow up yours.

who are the real terrorists here?

on knowledge

doing this theory of knowledge course really has changed my perception of knowledge because although i've always been quite critical of knowledge, now i'm just more aware of everything. or at least i thought i was.

in fact, the so called 'prank' that our principal pulled on us, really did open my eyes to just how accepting of authority i really was.

it also showed me that if something is in a power point, i will most likely believe it. and that does shock me, because that sounds rather sheepish to me, but i completely fell for the graphs and statistics that dr lennox threw at us.

i do feel really privileged to be partaking this tok class, i feel as if i have a really good oppurtunity to better myself as a learner, a thinker and a knower. i know that may sound a bit contrived, but it's true. i do believe that knowledge is more than just pure academia.

you need to know how to apply knowledge and you need to know how to interpret the knowledge you have gained. questioning, discussing and being open minded are all ways of gaining knowledge and to me, showing you have knowledge.