Reflections on a (the?) Revolution

 © Julia Melnichenko

(Note: I wrote the bulk of this over 2 weeks ago and it’s been festering on my computer ever since. I either forgot to post it, or wanted to tweak it a bit, which I haven’t, except for the cat/football stuff at the end.)

‘Now all this is recorded, not to show what a devil of a fellow I am…[but] all this feverish gumping from place to place would be justifiable, and indeed admirable, if each excursion, besides providing one with different decorations, did actually give one a different atmosphere.’ 

Evelyn Waugh, Labels

I’m flattered to have received a few notes from well-wishers inquiring about my well-being in wake of current goings-on in Kyiv. A couple of you have even asked whether I’d care to weigh in my thoughts. I haven’t got that much to say, really, but for the sake of satisfying the handful of you who’ve enquired, so be it.

For the most part, events on the ground haven’t really touched me that much, which is all the more mysterious considering where I was, both emotionally and physically, 10 years ago. In the autumn/winter of 2004, I was nearing the end of my time in Nigeria and the Orange Revolution was in its full throes. I vividly remember sitting in bars and hotels watching CNN (BBC was hard to find) with loads of Nigerians, glued to events.

I was fascinated for a couple of reasons: first, I’d always ‘had a thing’ for Eastern Europe and the states of the former Soviet Union (perhaps a product of my Cold War, military upbringing in Europe, and being so ‘close to the action’?), whether it was history or literature. And second, I had studied Nationalism just a couple of years prior at Edinburgh, and I had read a fair bit about Ukraine and other potential hotspots in and around Central and Eastern Europe. I tend to spread myself thin - it’s difficult for me to focus on just one area - and at Edinburgh I had studied a bit about Eastern Europe, a bit about Central Asia, and quite a lot about West Africa. Hence, Nigeria, for the time being.

While I was gripped, my Nigerian colleagues and acquaintances were utterly mesmerized. They could hardly believe this show of people power, and how the public could actually force the government to run a new election. For Nigerians, that was beyond comprehension. Day after day, whenever my schedule would allow it, I’d find a TV, watch events, and inevitably strike up a conversation with anyone who happened to be nearby.

And in September 2005, I set off for Lviv, the first of my endeavours into ‘hotbeds’ of nationalism. Subsequent teaching sojourns would see me in Basque Country, Latvia (I was attracted by the Russian/Latvian language and nationality issues) and then Kyrgyzstan. There was always something going on, though usually on the minor side. Things really kicked off in Kyrgyzstan a few months after I left. I was in America doing my teaching certification, but I closely followed events as they transpired.

(for more on my time in Nigeria and Lviv, have a look at this old post.)

And now, here I am, many years later, right in the thick of it in Kyiv. And what have I got to contribute to the discussion, besides my own solipsism? Almost nothing. What can I possibly say that hasn’t already been said? This is not going to turn into yet another of my anti-technology/media-driven rants, but with the blogosphere, Twitter, news networks, live TV, photos uploaded instantaneously (some of the best coming from my friend Julia), there’s so much being said by people who know far more than I.

                                                   © Julia Melnichenko

My thoughts would contribute nothing. I hear enough from colleagues and students, I peruse the news daily – anything anyone wants to know is pretty much out there. I’m staying out of it.

The more troubling thing is, and here’s where I could face a potential backlash, I’m borderline apathetic. Or perhaps apathetic isn’t the right word – I do care, but I feel like such an outsider. Nearly 10 years ago, I was gripped by the news. Now, it’s all kicking off just a few kilometres down the road, and yet I hardly venture near events and I limit myself to what I read and hear from others.

‘The monumental ruins left behind by those past societies hold a romantic fascination for all of us. We marvel at them when as children we first learn of them through pictures. When we grow up, many of us plan vacations in order to experience them at firsthand as tourists. We feel drawn to their often spectacular and haunting beauty, and also to the mysteries that they pose. The scales of the ruins testify to the former wealth and power of their builders – the boast ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’ in Shelley’s words.’  

Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

This is a spurious connection, but bear with me. If I could choose a point where things suddenly changed for me, it would be Christmas/New Year 2006/7. That’s when I lived in San Sebastian and picked up the nasty foot injury (a broken metatarsal that was incorrectly diagnosed and still bothers me to this day). I was having a horrid time as it was, and then while in the middle of a lovely holiday down south in Andalusia, I felt a piercing pain in my foot. I could hardly walk. I had been very excited to visit the Alhambra in Granada, one of those places that I had always wanted to see. And when I got there, it felt anti-climactic. It was early January, yet there were throngs of tourists queuing up for hours. People irritated me. My foot was on fire. I felt like I was going through a perfunctory routine. I was underwhelmed by the Alhambra, thinking this place would be great turned into a nightclub. I was distinctly unimpressed, but from that point on, I’ve always cast a cynical or sceptical eye whilst on holiday to those sights that people say ‘you have to see’. I’ve become, in some ways, a lazy traveller, and lazy observer, expect for my anthropological or philosophical musings on these pages. I haven’t lost any curiosity – far from it – but I am more wary of spending time, energy and emotion on things – books, films, museums, places, sights, etc – that I don’t feel that I want to do. I give up on books much more quickly these days. Whilst travelling, I’m happy to skip places that everyone goes to or that are ‘must-sees’, according to guide books or whatever. In Barcelona a couple of years ago, we skipped all the Gaudi shit (La Sagrada Familia and the Gaudi museum) – years ago, I would have felt compelled to visit and let it bother me that I hadn’t (in 2002, I skipped out on the Colosseum in Rome because of the queues and the admission charge – I was travelling on a super-tight budget – and it nagged at me for a while). These days, it was an easy decision. It was interesting to note the reactions of people waiting in the queue for the Gaudi museum. We watched and eavesdropped a bit and we got the overwhelming impression that people were there more out a sense of ‘duty’ than a genuine desire to see the shit inside (part of this, clearly, is my disdain for Gaudi, but that’s another story).   

Anyway, in conclusion, I’m happier to meander down back streets, while away in cafés or bars people watching, and indulging in fine food and drink. History, museums, culture? Nah…

The Gaudi Museum: shit inside, I'm sure

But I [ever-so-slightly] digress. My point is [something like] this: I’m perfectly happy to sit back, let events unfold and refrain from any comment. I do care, and my support is in the right places, but I hardly need analyse events. It will suffice, for now, to let you know (the few of you who asked) that I’m just fine, in no danger whatsoever, but overall fairly emotionally detached from what’s happening. I just hope there’s an end in sight with little to no bloodshed.

I will also say this: first, I have to admire the patriotism and protestors braving the fierce cold. It’s warmed up now, but it was bitterly freezing for a stretch in late January/early February. And there’s also a chance here that I can hardly relate, not being Ukrainian. Their fierce patriotism is admirable. I probably lack patriotism, especially when measured up to the old Norman Tebbit cricket test – when it comes to world football, I split my loyalties between the US, Northern Ireland and, to a lesser extent, England (to say nothing of my Italian heritage – I could’ve been onto a real winner there). ‘Home’ for me is a pretty woolly concept. Maybe I can’t relate to what’s going on here because I lack the necessary empathy to get emotionally involved? Spending time in Belfast in the 80s and 90s affected me, but only to a small extent. A few weeks over the summer and the occasional fortnight at Christmas meant I only experienced events in fits and starts, and with only newspapers and TV to rely on. But being in a foreign country, whether Spain, Germany or the US meant that ‘The Troubles’ only got occasional coverage when something flared up – pun intended of course.

  © Julia Melnichenko

A final point

Beware of what I call ‘tunnel vision’. I use this term often with my students when they focus way too much on one concept or idea at a time, instead of a broad, open-minded approach. For example – the first that springs to mind – let’s say that we’ve been studying superlatives one week, and then a couple of weeks later we’re onto the present perfect (for my non-Tefl friends, an example would be ‘Have you ever eaten slugs?’). I then give them some discussion questions, while we’re studying present perfect, like ‘what is the worst decision you’ve ever made?’ and they start to panic because we’re long past studying superlatives and they are so fixated on present perfect that they can’t handle the mixing of the two. To be fair, this is a problem seldom encountered, but it does tend to afflict those affected by tunnel vision.

Here’s what I mean in this context, and let me go back to the past again. At Edinburgh, my Master’s dissertation focused on West Africa. Hence, I was spending quite a bit of my time in the Centre for African Studies (CAS). My girlfriend at the time, having grown up in Zambia, was also heavily into African Studies, and went on to do a PhD at CAS. I remember one day talking about African affairs with some students and lecturers in CAS, and then I casually mentioned something non-African related either as a point of comparison, or perhaps as a non-sequitur, I can’t remember. It was met with a hushed silence and awkward stares – how dare I bring up something non-African? And I found this attitude continuing in my interactions with them. They hardly cared about a thing outside their area of study. And they were like giddy schoolchildren when it came to African affairs, and not in a cute, curious way. It was downright annoying, and to this day, I really have trouble with people so narrow-minded and fixated on their own field to the point where they shut themselves off to the rest of the world. Keep an open mind, and remember – there’s a great big world out there.

I thoroughly enjoy living in Ukraine and I have nothing but positive feelings towards Ukrainians. And while every teacher on occasion bitches and moans about his students, that’s all par for the course.

But I have to say there is a lot of tunnel vision going on. Naturally the subject has come up in class, and I’ve had some great discussions with some students, and not so great discussions with others (the best might have been one 11-year old, who proudly came into class one Monday and announced that ‘my daddy hit a policeman yesterday!’ I was scared to ask ‘with what?’). The other day we were discussing the role of media and how coverage of events has changed over the years. When I was a kid, before the days of internet (curmudgeon alert!), TV and newspapers were sanitized. There was very little blood and gore. I can still recall my shock at seeing Boston Globe front-page images from Palestine while at university, a picture of severed limbs and blood-spattered pavements. I remember it being the first instance where I’d seen such gratuitous imagery. These days, to repeat myself, it’s all par for the course.

I also commented on how there’s so little ‘shock value’ these days – what haven’t we seen and heard before? I related some of my experiences in Northern Ireland from the 80s and 90s, with ubiquitous bomb squads in the city centre, buses being torched on a regular basis, riots and confrontations with police a seemingly everyday occurrence. I’d often look out the back window of my Granny’s house towards Belfast and see the flames in the distance. That’s nothing: look at the world today, and what out there is shocking? There’s hardly anything beyond the capabilities of humanity.

So there you are, I’ve said my piece on a few occasions, not to getting anyone riled up, but to stimulate discussion. Some of my students have been incredulous, and I intertwine multiple comments thus: ‘no, this is nothing like what’s happening anywhere else in the world/people have died/the government is so corrupt/our rights are being taken away/there’s going to be a civil war/etc’. My favourite might have been when one student talked about how regular buildings were being turned into makeshift hospitals, and how unprecedented this was (‘makeshift’ and ‘unprecedented’ were not, of course, used in this particular discussion). I never argue with them – the classroom isn’t always the forum for that – but I do try to play Devil’s Advocate. The point they are often trying to make, and I appreciate this, is how it hits so close to home. It’s all the more tragic and shocking because it’s happening up close, in front of your very eyes, and it’s affecting people you know. I get that, and I respect that greatly. All I’m saying…is give peace a chance. No, seriously, all I am saying is keep your eyes and ears open to the rest of the world. Pay attention. Show interest. Ask questions. Be curious. Don’t shut yourself off. This goes for all people in all places. I used to be pretty shocked as to how little my students here knew about the world (I like to call it the Oscar Pistorius test: just mention his name and gauge the reaction. I’d say close to 95% of my students have never heard of him, which I find beggars belief). But I have to be fair and say this seems to be a common worldwide phenomenon. Wherever I’ve been, students have been pretty closed off and parochial in their thinking – amongst teenagers, it’s probably worse in Britain and America, though I am wildly generalizing here based on a meagre sample size. I’d have to say that among all the students I’ve met in other parts of the world, Nigerians were probably the most clued in to what was going on everywhere else.

Another thing that has – I want to say bugged – baffled me is the endless commenting/complaining about how poor and inadequate the coverage is in the ‘Western’ press. I’ve read in various places or heard from others about the lack of substantial coverage in more mainstream sources, whether it’s the BBC, Guardian or CNN, for example. Locals on Twitter have expressed outrage about Ukraine being neglected in the press.

I’m confused: first, don’t people rely on less ‘traditional’ news sources anyway? Again, I’ve said this before, but all the so-called mainstream news sources are regularly quoting Twitter and the like these days, relying on them as reliable sources. There are so many smaller outlets around, that news has been democratized (not the word I’m looking for) and anyone can make or break it. Why care what the big boys are saying (or not saying)?

But more confusingly, on any given day – not now, necessarily, things are bit quiet, but in late January/early February – a brief look at various media sources shows that Ukrainian is far from neglected. Every time I hear a complaint, I check BBC, CNN, the Guardian, the Independent, Al-Jazeera, Der Spiegel, the Washington Post and the New York Times, and almost every time, there’s either a notable story about Ukraine either on the main page, or in the World or Europe section, unmissable. What are people talking about? What do they do, check CNN and then say ‘the Americans don’t care!’ For godsakes, and I’ve said this to people ad nauseam, don’t check CNN for a gauge of what conscientious, world-conscious Americans think or read, check the New York Times.

(I’m not saying anything about the content or quality of what’s written, though there have been innumerable complaints about that; just the fact that there is some coverage.)

And also, tunnel vision alert: there are crises all over the place now, in every continent: potential coups in Thailand; the usual mayhem in Syria, Iraq and Egypt; tensions simmering in Sudan and Central African Republic; financial armageddon in Argentina and other emerging markets; a wobbly financial system; the first active openly gay American football player. Seriously, a lot’s going on, there are a lot of stories to cover. I haven’t even mentioned the Olympics.

In short: avoid tunnel vision. Look at the bigger picture, and then see where it all fits in. It’s far more illuminating that way.

  © Julia Melnichenko

A non-sequitur: an update on gambling and cats, as a follow-up to my last post

Strange to follow what I’ve just said with something as mundane as this, but now that football season has come to an end (this time of year is the most depressing for me as a sports fan), it’s time to reflect on what might have been a lucrative gambling season.

Remember – back in my good old gambling days, I was hitting on a 75% success rate. Those days are long gone, if this season was anything to go by.

Heading into the Super Bowl (on 2 Feb), the standings looked like this:

Pedzo: 32-35-3

Olya: 31-36-3

Eshe (the cat): 38-30-2

For all intents and purposes, I’d lost. There was no way to catch the cat.

And with only one game left, Olya was upset that she could only, at best, draw level. So we decided to raise the stakes and introduce some proposition bets. With the Super Bowl, you can bet on anything, from the first scorer of the game, the over/under of points scored, how many field goals will be kicked, passing touchdowns to uniform number of the first scorer (over/under jersey number 79.5). You can also bet on some pretty ridiculous things. So we went with things like this:

Will there be a score in the first 6.5 minutes of the game?

Will a little-known, under-used player catch at least 1 pass?

What colour will the Gatorade doused on the winning coach be? (orange, clear, yellow)

How long will the national anthem be? (over/under 139.5 seconds)

Will a particular player receive an unnecessary roughness penalty?

Who will the MVP thank first? (God, his teammates, his family, his cat, no one)

There were a few others, but those were the most absurd. I was clearly desperate, and wanted to beat the cat. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Though she only went 1-8, my 3-6 performance wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit. Olya also went 3-6, so at least I didn’t lose completely. The final standings:

Pedzo: 35-41-3

Olya: 34-42-3

Eshe: 39-38-2

I’m glad I didn’t stake any real money on this season, but I may be tempted to next season.