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“Vietnamese artists subverted not only western colonialism by adopting rock music for their own rebellious purposes but also domestic totalitarian authority.”(Joseph Haquang, Notebook 1, A08) & “Music is the soul of a nation”- Cambodian Rock Musician

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Brewed coffee being poured into Sini from a Jebena

theshookones-p2-blog

Traditional Ethiopian Coffee Ceremonies

A traditional coffee ceremony in Ethiopia begins with roasting green coffee beans. Then, using a mortar and pestle, the roasted coffee is ground and along with water, is funneled inside a Jebena and set over a heat source, most often charcoal. A Jebena is a traditional clay pot used to make coffee in the various regions of Ethiopia. Once the coffee is brewed it is then removed from the heat and poured into small cups called sini. A traditional coffee ceremony will also include the burning of incense and small treats such as popcorn or flatbread. The ceremony is often performed by the woman of the household, or one of her maids, and is considered a great honor. It is often looked down upon to decline an invitation. Overall, it is seen as a time of bonding with friends and family.

The coffee ceremony falls under the theme of Indigenous (Inter)Nationalisms because it is an integral part of Ethiopian/Eritrean culture and is nearly identical in practice between the various ethnic groups of the country.

Ethiopia has two main ethnic groups: Amhara and Oromo. Oromo make up about 34% of the population, while Amhara make up roughly 27%. The rest of the population is divided into a litany of smaller ethnic groups. The Amhara encompass the mid-to-northern areas of Ethiopia, including the capital, Addis Ababa. Oromia, the pseudo-nation of Oromo people, is mostly the southern region of Ethiopia. The focus of interest and conflict is Addis Ababa. In the Fall of 2015, the government tried to expand the booming capital of Addis Ababa into Oromia farmland by forcibly removing its inhabitants or compensating them very poorly. This was met with intense criticism and protest from the Oromo community. The group has always felt underrepresented and left out in the nation’s massive economic growth. In fact, while they make up a majority of the country’s population, they are nearly nonexistent in Parliament or executive leadership. Oromo people feel so detached from Ethiopia that many even unofficially renounce their citizenship and swear allegiance to Oromia. This is a result of centuries of strained relations between these two ethnic groups. In the 15th and 16th century, the Amhara people, as well as neighboring nations, enslaved many Oromo people, dividing them into groups based on the lightness of their skin. The lighter skinned Oromo slaves were sold at higher prices, labeled “red”, and exported while the darker skinned slaves were labeled “black” or shanqalla and sold domestically. Over time, as Ethiopia was incorporated, Oromo people and their region were whipped into submission and essentially forced to integrate into Ethiopia. As a result of this history between the ethnic groups, relations are strained and animosities have brewed.

However, in the midst of all this protest and violence embedded in difference, the coffee ceremony stays the same between the Amhara and Oromo people. The coffee ceremony holds a very similar meaning to the various ethnic groups in Ethiopia. During the ceremony, it is a time to decompress, discuss your day with family and friends, and grow closer with each other. It has a very therapeutic element that essentially removes you from your world and connects you to the people around you. My parents are of different ethnic groups, my mom is Amhara while my dad is Oromo. The differences in the their cultures are at times polarizing but one thing that always brings them together is coffee, more specifically the coffee ceremonies. It reminds people on both sides their connection to the land and more importantly to each other.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36940906

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oromo_people#History

kiara-ethn2-blog

A modern day example of the Unity Clap in practice.

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Notebook 1: The Unity Clap

The unity clap is a custom that was derived from the United Farm Workers’ Movement in the 1960’s. The movement was made up primarily of Filipin@ and Latin@ farm workers who were unable to communicate with one another due to the language barrier between the two groups, many of the workers were illiterate in English and spoke only their native tongue. Aside from the language barrier, the two groups also faced a physical barrier in their work of cornstalks. In order to communicate with one another to signify the end of the work day, the farm workers would begin a collective clap. The clap begins slowly, mimicking the thumps of a heartbeat. As the clap continued, it would increase in speed. The clap originated with the Filipin@-American farm movement and was transferred to unite the group with the Mexican-American farm workers. Since then, the unity clap has been adopted by many groups to symbolize solidarity with allies that face similar struggles and experience than those of the farm labor movement.

The unity clap shines light on Professor Wayne’s point regarding globalization and labor circulation: that although “capital moves ‘freely’, labor movement is unfree.” Both the Filipin@ and Mexican farm workers faced oppressive working conditions. The labor movement in the United States arose from the need for livable wages, reasonable work hours, safer working conditions, and aid to workers who would be injured on the job. While the goods that these workers were producing were sold on a free market, their struggle and their oppression remained unfree. They were forced to fight back to receive proper treatment. They fought not only for their job safety, but they also fought against notions against their people in general against those in America who continuously claimed the farmers’ race as inferior and treated them accordingly.

The first national occurrence of the unity clap dates back to Filipin@’s in Hawaii as early as the 1920’s. At this point in time, this community of people was organizing labor unions and strikes led by Pablo Manlapit. After a hard hit on labor trikes in 1924, many Filipin@s fled from Hawaii to head toward the mainland in America where they were confronted with oppressive labor conditions which forced them to unionize. In the 16th edition of “Phillipines Today,” it was written that in “many ways, it was a crime to be Filipin@ in California because other growers and the American Federation of Labor were alarmed and threatened by the striking workers. Moving forward, however, the Filipino Labor Union was created and successfully fought toward a 35 cents per hour minimum wage, an 8 hour work day, and an end to racial hierarchy in the assignment of farm jobs. Following this achievement came the 1938 Filipino Agricultural Laborers Association which opened membership to other ethnic groups, one of them being Mexicans.

The second occurrence and redefining of the unity clap came after 1938 where Mexican-American farm workers and Filipin@-American farm workers were working similar fields. In order to signify the end of the long work day together, the unity clap broke a language barrier in the workplace for the two groups. It was this slow breaking of barriers that helped the two groups mobilize together against their unfree labor. On September 16, 1965, at the Filipino Hall on the West Side of Delano, laborer and civil rights activist, Cesar Chavez ,held a meeting where the Mexican laborers decided to join the Filipin@ workers in the strike again the way they were being used to farm American land. The unity clap transformed from a way of communication on the field and into a symbolic closure for meetings and rallies held by the two groups.

As previously mentioned, what has served as a language between workers in the past continues to be present in the context of modern day. Many groups of people have adopted the unity clap as a way to end meetings, rallies, and other events. Groups at UC San Diego such as Kaibigang Philipin@ use it as a form of empowerment and reminder to remain in solidarity with the allies who are in need of it.

Works Consulted

Lopez, Angelo. “Filipino Americans and the Farm Labor Movement.” Portside. Portside, 30 Apr. 2014. Web. 19 Jan. 2017. <http://portside.org/2014-05-12/filipino-americans-and-farm-labor-movement>.

UCSD CCC. “Societal Foil: The Dangers of “Coalition-building”.” Blog post. UCSD Cross-Cultural Center. N.p., 05 Mar. 2013. Web. 20 Jan. 2017. <http://ucsdcrossculturalcenter.tumblr.com/post/44646685288/societal-foil-the-dangers-of-coalition-building>.

“UFW: The Official Web Page of the United Farm Workers of America.” UFW: The Official Web Page of the United Farm Workers of America. United Farm Workers, n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2017. <http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history%2F03.html>.

claricb

J 1

OBJECT: Zapatista Coffee THEMES: Indigenous Internationalism. Globalization and Labor Circulations.

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Kristine Pisikian January 21, 2017

Notebook 1

The “object” that I chose for the zine project was an old Armenian folk song entitled “Dle Yaman” written and composed by a very well-known and revered Armenian musicologist named Komitas. The song itself is a slow, beautiful, and melancholy love song but it is known primarily as the hymn of the Armenian Genocide by all of the Armenians in Armenia and the Armenian diaspora around the world. A line from the song translated to English goes as follows, “Dle Yaman, the wind has come like a fire. Oh, dle yaman, it is here like a flood.” “Dle yaman” does not have a true translation to English, but the phrase is meant to be a powerful expression of sorrow. However, in Kurdish “dle yaman” translates literally to “valiant of the heart”, or brave/fearless heart. A clip of a classic rendition of the song Dle Yaman is listed below.

I believe the song relates best to the theme of War and the Figure of the Refugee. Since the song is most recognized as the hymn of the Armenian Genocide which occurred in 1915 during the time span in which World War II was taking place between the countries all over the world. Some of the survivors of the genocide fled the country as a means of seeking asylum and thus, the Armenian diaspora grew into countries like Russia, Germany, France, Spain, Argentina, the United States and many more. Armenian men, women, and children during the time of the genocide were refugees as they had been forced to leave their country in order to escape the horrifying systematic exterminations, including deportations and mass-murder, by the Ottoman Turkish government.

The song circulated among many Armenians around the world due to the diasporic impact that the Armenian Genocide had on the living areas of people of Armenian heritage. Specifically, between a small suburban middle-class home in Reseda, California in United States, where I first heard the song played by my family when my mother first taught me about this piece of history from my culture, and Yerevan, Armenia, where my great grandparents eventually moved back to after fleeing during the genocide. The song was written and composed by Komitas in the early 1900’s in Echmiadzin, Armenia, almost 100 years before I was even born seven thousand miles away in Reseda, California. Events happening in Armenia during and after the time that Dle Yaman was composed included the genocide spanning April 24, 1915 to sometime in 1923 and the constant struggle of Armenians around the world to get countries to recognize the genocide despite Turkey’s constant denial.

Around the time where I was able to really understand the complexities of political power among countries of the world, I was thirteen and Senator Barack Obama was promising Armenian Americans that he would fight for justice and reparations for the Armenian people and finally recognize the genocide if elected President. Eight years later, there is still no recognition from the USA, a place that I was born and raised in and brought up to believe had my best interests at heart. 101 years later in 2016, despite Pope Francis referring to the massacre as a genocide, a term that Turkey constantly rejects, and countless historians calling it the first genocide of the 20th century a few decades before the Holocaust, the country I was born and raised in as an Armenian American still refuses to acknowledge the atrocities of my ancestors’ past.

Sources

http://www.musicofarmenia.com/song-number-one-dle-yaman

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/dle-yaman-dle-yaman.html-0

http://7ekm-al-alb.blogspot.com/2010/02/dle-yaman.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komitas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/world/europe/pope-francis-to-armenians-seek-peace-but-never-forget-genocide.html?_r=0

SONG LINK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBWAHfSrX8I

3:30pm

| URL:

https://tmblr.co/ZFwWne2HT7uvt