Stuff, &c

READER DISCRETION ADVISED: contains opinions and traces of nuts. Human Rights / Feminism / Race / Intersectionality / Law / #feelings / #awesome / #browngirlproblems / #longrants See also: sunili.net

[fromtheintersection]

How do you fight for human rights?

The fight to prevent the recent executions in Indonesia had various battle cries, not least reminders that the death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights principles and international law. At their core, such arguments were a basic and clear call for mercy and compassion.

[sunili-blog]

Human rights and international obligations are inevitably subordinate to what matters most to politicians: votes. Here’s me in The Monthly ranting about how to bridge the gap between politics and principle.

[ramblinggirle]

Miranda Tapsell’s amazing logies speech.

Full video here

[sunili-blog]

[sunili-blog]

WA anti-protest laws shake the core of our legal system

WA's proposed anti-protest laws casually abandon one of the bedrock principles of our legal system, write Sunili Govinnage and Nick Duff.

[rmdrk]

[sunili-blog]

Selfie.

[fromtheintersection]

[sunili-blog]

I was lucky enough to chat to a great bunch of writers the other week during the Digital Writers Festival about “free speech” in the Asia-Pacific:

When it comes to freedom of speech, just how much is too much and how much is too little? Should we redefine freedom of expression or is it fine just the way it is? What is the role of censorship in an age where almost everyone is connected to each other and everyone has access — as well as the ability — to create content?

Cheers and thanks to André Dao, Eleanor Jackson and Ross Tapsell for the great discussion!

[fromtheintersection]

I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the front upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.

Audre Lorde

[sunili-blog]

[sunili-blog]

I became interested in pop culture as part of the conscious discovery to find what constitutes being “American”. When I’m talking about these figures, I’m never really talking about them, I’m talking about us.

Ayesha Siddiqi in the Guardian: We need to stop waiting for permission to write

[sunili-blog]

15 Yoga Poses to Help You Detox After Crying Your Face Off For 3 Hours

Sometimes you want a blog post to just give you the answers. To help you actually DO you "to do" list and clear your chakras and be happy and inflammation-free.

There's a listicle/magazine/book/app for everything. Yoga. Productivity. Uncluttering. Mindfulness. Green fucking turmeric flavoured smoothies. Everything you need to be a better person who deserves to be in this world.

Years of depression, lots of therapy, being raised a Buddhist and a love of Bridget Jone's Diary and a mother who is a proper actual sciencey medical doctor qualified to do acupuncture and regularly does deity offerings has led me to be very open to "self-help" style books/magazines/blogs and now podcasts and apps.

I am unashamed by the fact that "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" helped me to be a extremely highly effective teenager with fricking amazing exam results and a colour coded homework timetable.

But 15 years later, having just spent a nonsensical amount of money I don't have on an "online" yoga "course" that spammed my email inbox for 30 days reminding me to be kind to myself, even though I already have a lifetime subscription to an online yoga site with video classes I have never take, I realised no blog post will help me to get to where I want to go.

No podcast will help me be mindful.

No task management app will actually get me organised.

No ad for probiotic tea on that yoga blog will ever direct me to inner peace (or help with bloating).

Because none of that shit will get me away from the darkness in my head that is always going to be a part of me no matter what, despite how good I know my life can be.

Believe it or not, I have never been in a better place in my life. I have every iota possible of purpose happening right now and the future is bright.

But everything still sucks and I am miserable because that's just how I see the world.

And it took me getting a daily reminder of how broke I am delivered by email to make me throw my hands up with the air like I just don't care and decide that need to stop striving to make things better. Because I know that it won't be. Because that is life. Because (here's a free piece of Buddhist wisdom!) life is suffering.

That might be depressing but it is also amazingly freeing. Because know that helps one to remember that we DO NOT NEED TO KEEP TRYING TO FIX THINGS.

We don't -- we just have to live. That's it. Maybe we can eat better or exercise more or knit. But we don't have to fix anything (unless it is completely fucking broken in which case take serious actual medical advice, not whacky guru bullshit from some blog).

Here's my new manifesto: I am done with the Wellbeing Industrial Complex. I am done with Yoga Journal and Zen Habits and Oprah & Deepak's Magical Meditation Waste of 21 Hours Of Your Life Extravaganza.

One of my besties has this great joke about "amethyst hippies" who waft crystals around to fix everything, but you know who the real enemy is? Amethyst capitalists. Because at least the hippies will give you a bowl of lentils at Govindas.

Mostly I am pissed off with myself for being sucked into all of this. I remember my younger brother, who is younger than me, laughing at me for paying $2.50 for a meditation app since Buddha would probably come back from nirvana to remind everyone meditation is supposed to be free.

I just need to be mindful of the fact I cannot meditate and that those Lululemon pants will not help me get on the damn yoga mat every day. I might come to it one day, when I feel like it, but fuck you, Yoga Journal and your goddamn stupid ads: we are never, ever, ever getting back together.

[lookmumimalawyer]

When a law student uses the word "penultimate" or says they're "excited by the opportunity"

[sunili-blog]

See also: "I'd like to do legal aid with refugees in Indonesia so can I volunteer with you for 2 weeks? Maybe 3. I really want to be a human rights lawyer but I have to get back in time for Law Firm Clerkship Interviews."

[sunili-blog]

How Can We Be There For People With Depression?

I have depression. I also love a lot of people with depression. I think my depression has helped me to be a relatively good friend to other people who have depression.

Luckily, not everyone has depression. But everyone probably knows and cares about someone who does. I can imagine that it's hard to look after someone like me - I know those who've looked after me over the years struggled but they are wonderful and I will always love them and respect them for it.

This piece is basically an attempted how-to-guide that goes with this excellent Stephen Fry quote:

It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.

The amazeballz Steph and Alex at Junkee worked very hard to get this in to shape, and I am very grateful to them for their excellentness.

[captainwright]

[wavveybone]

Visit Original Link

Kanye West - Blood On The Leaves

[catscatalan]

"I’m 36 years old and I have 21 Grammys. That’s the most Grammys of any 36-year-old. Out of all of those 21 Grammys, I’ve never won a Grammy against a white artist. … So when the Grammys nominations come out, and ‘Yeezus’ is the top one or two album on every single list, but only gets two nominations from the Grammys, what are they trying to say? Do they think that I wouldn’t notice? Do they think that, someway, that I don’t have the power to completely diminish all of their credibility at this moment?” -Kanye West (source HuffPost)

[sunili-blog]

Pretty much.

[sunili-blog]

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good"

One of my favourite articles of 2013 was Sarah Kendzior's "In defence of complaining" on Al Jezeera online.

I loved it because Kendzior perfectly set out how the traffickers of optimism operate (intentionally or not) in concert with the status quo. When people pointing out problems are told to "lighten up, suck it up, chin up, buck up", Kendzior points out, they are being told --

"In other words: shut up."

A lot of my time is spent thinking about structural inequalities and systematic injustices, but when I talk about them, the loudest responses are often from those who tell me to "shut up" in the guise of optimism.

Given that I have major depression, perhaps my reluctance to optimism is unhealthy -- and for sure I have been told that perhaps if I worry less about things in the world I would in fact be happier and calmer and more at peace.

The thing is: I just can't seem to shift my mindset to be "at peace" with the way some (many) things in the world operate. I can't be "happier and calmer" while ignoring the injustices I have seen and learned about because  the inaction that comes from such a feigned ignorance eats me from inside. 

So I complain and rail against things and get angry about stuff because it helps me get out of bed in the morning.

And of course, in ever the example of self-justification, Kendzior's piece gave me a response for the naysayers to my naysaying:

"The surest way to keep a problem from being solved is to deny that problem exists. Telling people not to complain is a way of keeping social issues from being addressed. It trivialises the grievances of the vulnerable, making the burdened feel like burdens. Telling people not to complain is an act of power, a way of asserting that one's position is more important than another one's pain. People who say "stop complaining" always have the right to stop listening. But those who complain have often been denied the right to speak."

For a long time I refrained from referring to myself as an "activist" and prickled when someone else called me that. Because to be an "activist" is to be a troublemaker, and a rebel.

But let's face it, that's what I do now.

The deepest holes of my depression have always coincided with the times when I have tried to live a "nice" life: follow orders, have a respectable job, get a mortgage, plan a wedding, and be "Good Girl".

Over the last three years, my life has changed for the better because rather than obeying the rules, I have started doing things that matter, and stopped pretending that it is bad to be angry.

It's actually good to be up to no good!

*With thanks, of course, to JK Rowling

(originally posted at sunili.net 13 Jan 2014; moved here because it's more a ranty-type thing)

[studioafrica]

[sunili-blog]

hello I have been meaning to do my list of the writers of colour thing but here's one they prepared earlier---

 studioafrica:

Reading List: Books Released by African Authors in 2013

A. Igoni Barrett, ‘Love is Power, or Something Like That’

A powerful short story collection from the author of ‘From Caves of Rotting Teeth’, Nigerian writer Igoni is also something of a literary activist, pioneering a 6-week reading tour by prominent African writers across 4 cities; and founder of the Book Jam reading series. Read more of his work on Guernica and AGNI.

NoViolet Bulawayo, ‘We Need New Names’ 

Zimbabwean writer Bulawayo won the Caine Prize in 2011 for her story ‘Hitting Budapest’. She recently spoke at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York where she said “I write from my blood’. This is her debut novel.

Mukoma wa Ngugi, ‘Black Star Nairobi’

The name gives it away: the Kenyan author - who splits his time between Kenya and the US - is the son of African lit giant Ngugi wa Thiong’o. He’s also a professor at Cornell University, and his first novel, ‘Nairobi Heat’, is being made into a film

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘Americanah’

Known worldwide for her speeches as well as her books, ‘Americanah’ is the Nigerian author’s third novel. The film adaptation of her bestseller’Half of a Yellow Sun’ (2006) starring Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejiofor is due to be released later this year. Adichie is the founder of the Farafina Writers Workshop which is currently accepting applications.

Taiye Selasi, ‘Ghana Must Go’

With endorsements by the likes of Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison, Selasi is quickly establishing herself as a voice to look out for. Her linguistically experimental novel follows a family dealing with love, life-building and the pains of migration. She’s also known for penning the so-called Afropolitan manifesto ‘Bye-Bye Barbar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?)

'There is a Country: Fiction from South Sudan'

This anthology of eight stories from the world’s newest nation South Sudan is published by McSweeney’s and treats themes of war, migration and displacement as well as love, described as ‘a fresh and necessary account of an emerging nation, past and present’. 

Alain Mabanckou, ‘Tomorrow I Will be Twenty Years Old’

This is Congolese novelist, poet and journalist Mabanckou’s newest novel, based loosely on his childhood in Congo. It follows 10 year old Michel, his dreams and dramas with his 12yr old girlfriend Caroline all set against the ‘big’ geopolitical issues of the day. He’s the author of ‘African Psycho’ and 9 other novels.

Aminatta Forna, ‘The Hired Man’

Forna is an author and documentary-maker of Sierra-Leonean and Scottish/British heritage. She’s the author of ‘The Memory of Love’ (2010) and her memoir ‘The Devil that Danced on the Water’ (2003) explored the conspiracy surrounding her father’s death by the Sierra Leonean government. Her new novel ‘The Hired Man’ is set in Croatia and looks at the ‘ethnic cleansing’ which followed the dismantling of the former Yugoslavia. It’s been praised by critics.

[harveyxspecter]

[sunili-blog]

Yup!

[fromtheintersection]

Intersectionality and Solidarity

[sunili-blog]

In case youse guyses aren't following sunilidotnet:

I’ve started contributing to a group blog to discuss feminism from different perspectives. Here’s my first post.

It’s about “solidarity” in a reaction to all those who say “intersectionality” is divisive.

For me, it’s the exact opposite.

As a woman from a migrant background raised in the West, my understanding about oppression and ways to address it have been strengthened by learning from the work of Black American feminists, Indigenous feminists from Australia and overseas, queer feminists and trans* feminists, and many other perspectives (such as the approaches of disability activists like Stella Young).

I feel pretty damn lucky that a bunch of amazing women invited me to share my thoughts on this. There’s a lot more of this stuff to talk about so follow @intersectoz for more.