Burmese Crisis Challenges Indianapolis

Two Indianapolis posts in a row doesn’t bode well for my not-so-disciplined approach at reaching out across the state.

Given the movement in political science over the last forty years or so to act more and more like a hard science, there has been a tendency to think of the discipline as just one more academic pursuit that cares more about charts, graphs, spreadsheets, and databases than it does about people. And while it’s true that political scientists do tend–like their distant cousins in chemistry, biology, and physics–to publish dispassionate essays in esoteric, thickly-worded journals filled with sigmas, deltas, and other symbols of practically alchemical use to the casual reader, it is also true that at the core of political science are real human stories, often tragedies, that political scientists are hoping to understand.

The crisis in Burma is one such story. There are a lot of “political issues” here for the chart-hungry political science student. Using linear regressions to isolate the variables at work in a post-junta state may sound appealing to some. Others may want to to find out which variables can turn a pro-democracy uprising into a full-scale rebellion or possibly a civil war. Others may wish to study the impact of non-responsive dictatorships in a globalized age. These studies are no doubt useful, but after all the data collection is done there are (conservatively) 3 million people in Burma who have been uprooted from their homes (PDF). Many of them have moved to other housing in the country, many more have found their way to refugee camps. And many of them have fled their homeland to find safety outside the jurisdiction of the blood-hungry military dictatorship that rules there.

There are two Burmese communities in Indiana, one here in Indianapolis and another one in Fort Wayne (which, according to the October 17, 2001 USA Today story “Deluge of Burmese Exiles Taxes U.S. Agencies” at 3,000 refugees, is one of the largest in the country).

This Thursday from 12-1 you can sit in on a meeting at the IUPUI Campus Center (Room 308 ) to discuss how the crisis in Burma has been impacting IUPUI. Discussion like this help fill in the gaps between the charts, graphs, and news reports on one side and the real human story on the other. When things go wrong in distant places like Burma, we are all affected.

From the IUPUI announcement:

Burma’s rule by an oppressive dictatorship has resulted in an increase in the number of refugees fleeing government violence. Indianapolis has become a major resettlement city for these refugees and IUPUI has become a school of choice for many of the college age refugees. Attend this presentation to learn about life in a refugee camp and the challenging experience of being resettled in a new country.

For more information contact Campus & Community Life at 317-274-3931 or cclife@iupui.edu.

This entry was posted by: Jim

Indianapolis–April 4, 1968

The plan is to write Indiana humanities stuff during the week and reserve the weekends for either not blogging at all or blogging about the broader world of the humanities. In any case, other obligations kept me away from the computer most of the day yesterday so I failed to get this up. Which means I am neither not blogging nor blogging about the broader world of the humanities. So there’s that.

What follows is the text of the speech that Robert Kennedy gave the night Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. It was 40 years ago yesterday. Kennedy was put in a curious dilemma that night. On the one hand he was campaigning for president of the United States–a professional but also deeply personal mission. The confines of running a national campaign often means putting aside one’s individual morality for the sake of the higher cause.

On the other hand, one of the most important, and certainly the most visible and nationally famous figures in the Civil Rights Movement had just been assassinated. Perhaps it made it easier, or perhaps it complicated matters for Kennedy that their politics were similar.

In any case, Kennedy would either have to cancel his speech–an exercise in humility and of his personal beliefs. Or he would have to give his campaign speech–which, although crass, would help him deliver his message as he headed into the tough primary races ahead.

Kennedy instead sacrificed his personal agenda to talk to the people about what concerned them that night. And he gave them a choice: to continue on with the righteous contempt they felt that night, or to mourn the loss of such an important leader but to also honor him by marching forward in the manner he would have appreciated and respected.

Other cities rioted that night while Indianapolis mourned as civil people. It is, to me, one of the most honest and most sincere speeches given by an American politician.

“Ladies and Gentlemen – I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because…

“I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

“Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

“For those of you who are black – considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible – you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

“We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization – black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

“For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

“But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

“My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

“So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love – a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We’ve had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it’s not the end of disorder.

“But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

“Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.<

“Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much.”

You can listen to the speech here.

This entry was posted by: Jim

Immigration: A “Future” Perspective

Dr. Allert Brown-Gort of of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame was a panelist in the last Immigration Town Hall.	It seems that all over the state people are just really starting to take note of the striking changes that immigration is causing in Indiana.As I mentioned yesterday Purdue University Galleries and the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette are teaming up to exhibit masterpieces of Mexican Modernism and it doesn’t stop there. The Indiana Humanities Council has adopted immigration as its 2008 theme for grants and programming; Indianapolis is about to host Indiana’s first MultEthnic Conference and the Indiana Historical Society has been hosting a three-part Town Hall series on Indiana immigration–past, present, and future. On Thursday April 17 the third installment Immigration: A “Future” Perspective
will be presented and I have every anticipation that it will rise to the high level of the previous two meetings. The IHS has worked very hard to reach out and take advantage of the highest caliber panelists/moderators available to ensure that the series provides the most value to its audience.Given the extreme importance of immigration in the founding and advancement of the United States I think it immensely worthwhile to reflect on what contemporary immigration may mean for Indiana. Immigration: A “Future” Perspective Thursday, April 17, 2008 Time: April 17, 7 p.m. Location: Frank and Katrina Basile Theater Cost: FREE Indiana Historical Society 450 West Ohio St. Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-232-1882 800-447-1830

This entry was posted by: Jim

Una Herencia Mexicana: Mexican Modernist Art

I have wasted the past few days fretting over what should be the inaugural post on Hoosierati. Since I live in Indianapolis it is easy to come by humanities-related events here. But too many people already think that Indiana is really just Indianapolis and I wouldn’t want to to encourage this narrow view of the Hoosierscape. While it’s true that the Indianapolis culture scene has representatives of all the major forms, modes, styles, genres, eras, etc, it by no means holds a monopoly on it.

Beginning on May 16 and continuing on through August 22, the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette in conjunction with the Purdue University Galleries will be presenting Una Herencia Mexicana, an exhibition of Modernist Mexican art.

I’m particularly fond of this as a first posting here, not because I have anything shimmering to say on the subject but because this one event showcases so many of the aspects of the humanities.

It’s art. That’s almost impossible to ignore. And while art is “art” and not “humanities” in strictly congressional senses of the words, an exhibition of art is more than the art itself. An exhibition is by nature commentary about art, about its importance and about other works and artists with which each piece is in conversation. Exhibitions are made up of pieces chosen around a guiding theme which almost inevitably leads to a defining statement.

Sometimes the message is nothing more than, “This art is important,” while leaving it up to the viewer to find out why. Sometimes, as in this case, the message is deeper, as the Art Museum says on their website about the exhibition:

Mexican artists of the 1920’s through the 1950’s had a huge impact on art throughout the Americas. They sought to create imagery of relevance to the Mexican people and move away from the avant-garde abstraction of the time.

Thus this exhibition, in addition to being “art,” is also “history.” Modernism is an important moment in the history of art, and while artists may still incorporate fundamentally Modernists principles or concepts into their work, as a movement Modernism was an artistic response to a certain time and, in this case, place. That time-place was Mexico after the Revolution but before social, political, and economic realities first began aligning themselves with the notions that the revolution was fought for.

In that sense, this particular exhibit is also sociology, political science, and the more humanist side of economics.

This exhibit is also multi-cultural and multi-ethnic.

If the study of art is important in understanding a culture, and I don’t think I would be alone in arguing that it is, there was probably an Indiana once where it wasn’t very important to understand the art of Mexico. That Indiana is part of the past now. A recent Sagamore report documents startling double-digit growth of Hispanic immigrants in Indiana. In some places Hispanics (and most of them are from Mexico) now make up 25% of the population. In other places it’s as low as 4% but even that is a substantial number considering where we were just seven or eight years ago. The art of Mexico is very quickly becoming a fully integrated part of the American art narrative.

More importantly the paintings of this era document political ideas that are still very much a part of the Mexican psyche. Some, like equality, anger over abuses of power, courage, sacrifice for one’s values, legitimate representation in government, are ideas that all American citizens will find familiar. Others, like the level of anger, the depth of despair, the stark and forthright acceptance of death as a part of life, are alien and possibly intimidating. But as clues to the Mexican psyche they are helpful in setting the stage for future conversations about and, more importantly, with new Americans.

Sidenote: I have no idea whether or not the painting in this post, “Zapata” by José Clemente Orozco, will be a part of Una Herencia Mexicana. I simply like it a lot and think it displays some of the things I’m talking about here: Mexican art history, Mexican political history, and Modernist art. This painting, if it is a part of the exhibit is making a short trip from its usual home at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Museum hours and address are:

Tuesday through Saturday: 11am – 4pm
Closed Sunday and Monday

102 South Tenth Street
Lafayette, IN 47905
(765) 742-1128
Fax: (765) 742-1120

This entry was posted by: Jim