Freedom of Speech

“It was time for us to not see each other for a while; we really needed a break."
The young woman across the aisle was clutching her cell phone, staring out of the train window as she conversed. The car was fairly quiet and all passengers could follow her side of the conversation.

“We needed to take some distance.” That sounds like private information to me, and, if possible, I would want to avoid sharing such personal details with strangers. This is an old saw-horse for non-natives in the Netherlands: we converse more readily than the natives with strangers in public spaces, but we prefer to keep details of our private lives out of those public encounters.

Having said that, there is visible evolution underway; conversational boundaries appear less daunting. Whether or not this is happening independently of the ever-increasing vociferousness of the xenophobic right-wing (on occasion this can trigger responses such as “if you don’t like that in NL, just look at your own country” or “you can leave if you don’t like it” – before things get that far, I try to say: most countries seem to have one. Both countries which continue to supply me with passports certainly do), I can’t say.

More good news: xenophobes from England travelled to Amsterdam this weekend to join their Dutch comrades in an anti-foreigner demonstration, which basically fizzled out due to poor attendance. The righties were indignant about being forced to hold their rally far from the city center. Police kept the xeno’s and rival groups at a safe distance from one another, and I believe the Brits even got a free ride back to the airport in police vans. With so much hostile debate - on the streets and in parliament, for that matter – one doesn’t necessarily want to spend a train trip as witness to the hashing out of a private relationship, no matter how skilled the speaker may be. By the end of the young woman’s conversation with her estranged (business?) partner, she was chuckling and suggesting time and place for coffee.

For those wanting to avoid uninvited input of this nature, the Dutch railway system offers an alternative: many trains include a ‘Silence Car,’ a compartment where conversation, use of telephones and over-modulation of audio devices are discouraged. I respect the zone – not even my emery board comes into view. ‘Silence’ (and the Dutch equivalent ‘Stilte’) appears on the windows for those seated inside. The phone and conversation ban is also introduced with small visual aids on the walls. The challenge can be to identify the car before boarding, by catching a glimpse of the sign as your train speeds up to the platform before screeching to a halt. I scan the cars with some anxiety as they pass; my successes in entering Silence Cars have been purely coincidental.

Several recent occasions come to mind, all of them on trains passing through Amsterdam on their way to Schiphol Airport. Natives who have unwittingly taken seats in the quiet zone can generally be cajoled into a reflective state or at least into reducing their conversation to a whisper. Some collapse in giggles when asked by fellow passengers to respect the rules; others demonstrate belligerence – all of which contributes to even more noise.

A good number of the passengers are foreign visitors on their way to catch a flight home at the end of a busy working day or week. Once on the train, they are experiencing their first moments of leisure, remembering local hosts fondly. They make phone calls to offer thanks and to finalize agreements; they ask people to look out for a vest or scarf carelessly left behind. A Swedish businessman had evidently been working hard: he was slap-happy with laughter as he bid his hosts farewell. A Greek salesman ran a last inventory check, commenting on items held up from the open briefcase on his lap. A man speaking a minority language from the Surinamese interior was harangued into silence by a businesswoman (with whom I shared a moment of significant, simultaneous eyebrow-raising) speaking Sranantongo, the unifying language of Suriname, along with Dutch, of course. A group of French-speaking women introduced great mirth and good cheer into the wordless zone with chatter and laughter (please consult video fragment below). A fellow passenger, again across the aisle, explained (breaking off her glare at the rather derelict figure, with a bandaged hand and unkempt hair, hunched sideways in the bench across from mine in utter oblivion as he emitted a loud, grating snore) - she explained in a delightfully heavy Amsterdam inner-city accent why this was okay:

“They’re foreigners, they don’t know the rules.” I was grateful for this unexpected encounter with a glimmer of tolerance in the zone where we were meant to have immunity from exposure to any and all contrasting views.

But where could you go?

I am already on the alert while approaching the multi-story building – in the absence of a sidewalk, I’m forced to walk either on the rim of the bicycle path or in the soggy grassland at its edge, where my foot is quickly engulfed by mud. The bicycles hurtling along the straight stretch of road before the curve around the building are being pedalled at significant speed, the cyclists absorbed in phone conversations, composing text messages or pressing ahead to meet deadlines – the options for the pedestrian aren’t good.

As I reach my destination, a broad sidewalk looms, but weaving around abutments near the front entrance reinforces the vigilant mode – one of the outdoor columns under the overhead protrusion of the first floor is built in at a sharp slant. The column's trajectory appears haphazard and does not enhance a sense of stability.


To my relief, the mood is altered inside, where a front desk belies activity: computer lights blink, rotating stools are askew, as if just vacated, and the digital sign board and clock are blinking. The message is that security measures are in force, but nobody is around to scrutinize my arrival.

In the utter silence I proceed to the upper stories: along a ramp, a staircase, a transitional passage which leads through a dining zone (closed today, the packaged ingredients safe behind a roller shutter) and past the elevator, which I board. The meeting room I must find has a number in the thousands, but one digit provides the clue to the actual floor, where I emerge and see another glimmering digital display, directed, it seems, at me, condemning me to this empty stretch with information indicating that I have arrived.

Along the open-plan dual-passage hallway, through the ceiling-high windows bordering office spaces equipped with high-tech gear, I see no one, I hear no one, and a dream-like mist descends as I inspect the lifeless corridor. I decide to walk back to double-check the location details and en route I encounter the evacuation chair, neatly fastened to a central wall. The white figures on the green plastic are my only company this day – my eyes dart from the word ‘escape’ back to the digital sign board on the opposite wall and then to the elevator door, where a menacing grind warns of its opening.

Let's be Civilized: Not allowed to show you (Pt.3)

Previously on Life Before News:

Not allowed to show you (Pt.1) – May 25, 2007

So far this much is known: Not allowed to show you (Pt.2) – June 5, 2007

From the rough graffiti displayed on January 30 to – by reassuring coincidence - an elegant anarchist cocoon: “Coming soon…” is the full text on the English-language webpage of the Library I entered on the day when the Dalai Lama and Barack Obama appeared together on front pages of newspapers everywhere. If you like that 19th-century polished wood sensation, this Library is a beautiful place, with a reading room seating 24, books locked behind well-cleaned glass, a conference room for public events and the Director’s office still sheltering a pianola (nostalgic and silent in our times; as innovative as the Library and its new collection back in the day), the only visual reminder of the space’s original purpose as a music room, where pianos and sheet music were at the disposal of any visitor who cared to drop in and play a few bars.

On a brief working trip to Barcelona, I had gone in search of a quiet place to read and write. In this city of monumental architecture, an ornate neighborhood retreat on a smaller scale would surely be just around the corner. It was: a library set in the former home of a 19th-century mustachioed left-wing anti-Catholic intellectual and anarchist, a playwright and Freemason, who instructed the trustees of his will to build what would become Barcelona’s first public library (although to this day run by a private foundation), open to all regardless of gender, age or social class and free of censorship on social, political or religious grounds. Any such symbols were banned (everywhere, including the Boardroom), as clearly spelled out in the Library’s very own rule book, a significant stipulation considering that the Library was opened in 1895, on the eve of the Montjuïc Trials, the torture of anarchists by the Spanish military and ensuing decades of bloodshed and violence - a history beyond the scope of this post, but one which is indeed still subject to review and revision as hidden documentation comes to light.

The Library staff agreed that I was free to write anything I want about what appears to be a pearl of an institution, but they issued clear instructions to the effect that - although I had followed proper procedures and obtained permission to take photographs inside through swift composition of a brief handwritten letter explaining my motivation, where I also made it clear that no commercial gain would result from using the photographs I envisioned taking of the abundance of text in view (not only on bookcovers, but inside the glass display cases [carrying paraphernalia from the world of Freemasonry which had survived previous eras of censorship under the dictator who missed the opportunity of destroying this subversive material when he ordered the Library closed rather than ransacked] and within the tiled floor under our feet and the tiled frescos overhead, the latter featuring the names of great scholars and writers in an inspired flow including a sequence which I particularly enjoyed: the moustachioed Edgar Allen Poe*, the tormented early 19th-century Boston-born writer, so popular in Europe, who laid the foundations of the modern thriller, the moustachioed and bearded Confucius*, the Chinese philosopher whose name now adorns the official Institutes of Chinese Culture which are mushrooming in hundreds of towns and universities around the world from Tehran to Texas, from Norway to New Zealand, funded by the Chinese government, a perfectly normal official cultural strategy made all the more interesting if one considers that flaunting Confucius was until relatively recently not done, and, next to him, another author whose work is recited thousands of years after its creation: the moustachioed and bearded [frankly they could all have lost the facial hair and that would have been fine by me] Valmiki*, India’s sage, poet of poets and author of the Sanskrit-language Ramayana epic almost 2500 years ago) – their instructions made it clear that I should not in any way, especially via internet, share pictures I might take, hence this quixotic ode to an urban retreat for all, a hub for scholars still reading through the collections behind glass, an ode which I conclude without identifying the research institution by name, out of what may in part be excessive deference to their desire to control the information and image flow and in part my own wish to enhance imagined scenarios where the dream-like hush of the dark wood, tile and marble interior of the Library is central, where the books have not yet been forwarded into the digital zone.

*The names of these illustrious men adorn the library interior, not their portraits.

RTS Can Mean Different Things

Censorship of books in the USA works in fascinating ways. It’s grassroots - no official 'Office of Censor' decree in use here. Citizens can approach libraries and schools and challenge specific titles. If the challenge is successful, the work in question could be either restricted or banned. "Banned Books Week" was recently celebrated throughout the land - in support of freedom of speech, not censorship. Events happened thanks to librarians, teachers, journalists, authors and book-sellers, who want pages to turn across the land, not disappear from shelves. The list of endangered books, with details on who challenges what and where, is a story in itself: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm

While reading from my computer screen, I glanced over at the black seal of the Egyptian censor, in protective custody on my office shelves since 2001, when I produced a radio program on censorship in Egypt and subsequently sent CD copies to all of the speakers. One of them was the Director of a human rights organization in Cairo, another an outspoken government critic. Their copies never arrived. Instead the censor apprehended my envelope, opened it and read the personal thank-you notes. The censor then - with or without listening to the CD, I'll never know - put the CD back into the envelopes, secured the envelopes with the censor's wax seal, wrapped them together meticulously with white string, and marked them as 'RTS' - return to sender (me). Somewhere along the way the paper envelopes had become shredded and torn, and a transparent plastic bag had become the protective carrier for what remained of the contents.

The censored parcel arrived back on my desk in the period following 9/11 and the start of the War in Afghanistan. Although of course this was the most appropriate end to a discussion of censorship that I could imagine, I remember that my heart was pounding as I examined the evidence, linked to grim circumstances elsewhere. In Egypt itself, the government had been clamping down on the whole spectrum of opposition, from right to left, for some time. Progressive Islamic scholars had been forced into exile for their modern ideas; secular scholars were punished for critical thoughts and fundamentalists had been driven out of the country and into radical training camps in the mountains of Central Asia. On the streets of Cairo, once the publishing center of the Arab world, conservative students burned piles of 'anti-Islamic' books. At the same time, the Library of Alexandria, the largest in the ancient world, was under re-construction. This contradiction had drawn me to Egypt in the first place.

In those troubled times, I was not surprised to receive the package. Various explanations of its journey came to mind:

The careful return was an overt show of power, a manifestation of government skill in blocking communications between its critics and the outside world;

A lone renegade employee in the Censor's office had salvaged the CD's from stacks doomed to destruction and smuggled them back into the 'outgoing mail' pile so that we would know what was going on in his/her country;
My handwriting was illegible on the stained envelopes, and the careful return was an act of great courtesy by a postal services worker;
The title 'Censor' did not actually appear, in so many words, on the envelopes and seals. I had imagined this into being while listening to the interpretation offered by a trusted Arabic-speaker of my acquaintance, who unfortunately was no longer available for consultations when I turned my gaze to an 11th-century text of a Customs Official in Alexandria, part of the cover design on plastic bank statement files distributed for customer use. Now I remember: the Bank blocked my use of that image.

Please see the post from May 25, 2007:

http://lifebeforenews.blogspot.com/2007/05/not-allowed-to-show-you.html

Both intended recipients of the CD are overseas at the moment; perhaps I should resend.

Award-winning Utopias: travelling to possible locations to write this

Please note: the above image is the start of a video clip; duration 00’27” (twenty-seven seconds).

A first choice would be a provincial cafe.
It could be so relaxing, so down.
So grand - a monumental
converted residence in a big country town.
The staff glides along behind a marble bar.
These North Country people are rich.
So why go here to write this?
There’s no tension-filled entrance,
when the author slips in,
looking past the regular clientele
for a place to stop,
the resident heads always tilt
in suspicion
at moments like this, and
here's where the author would get the jilt,
unaided by other-worldly messages, or intuition.
But the newcomer just eases through, surviving the swallow.
What a fantastic place for disorientation.
What can you do, when you reach
the back, which has been renovated
into a rounded wall. No corners to lean against, and
it takes up most of the hall.
No tables back here (please don’t leave the group).
There’s comfort in knowing that someone
has created this setting. It didn’t just grow here,
as just another accidental destination.
It’s merely the result of a few bad decisions.
This could have turned out differently.
You could have selected a location to write down something
you already knew,
but finding a location to write this means
you don’t sit down next to images that follow you,
the usual crowd.
Those you don’t yet know
slink in from the shadows.
They say “we’re joining you.”
There’s a formality, a propriety to it.
A little ritual all the way through it, that always
gets things going: Say hello. Say thank you. Grab a hand.
Grab something. They seduce you into staying.
You position yourself accordingly
at a reasonable distance from this place
where you have chosen to be.
You found a chair, enjoy the reprieve, but
How will you know when it’s time to leave?

Things to think about on escalators

I was looking for a reference work on the fourth floor of the Central Public Library of Amsterdam. As spelled out on an English-language page produced for their website (http://www.oba.nl/): "The right to information is enshrined in law and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." An employee assigned to the fourth floor reference section had said that if there were any books with detailed info on the subject of drums from the Colombian Pacific rainforest, a key element in a text I was translating from Spanish into English, they would (probably) be on the shelves I was circling.

Coincidentally, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the FARC, had reportedly just kidnapped (reportedly, because even with witnesses describing the culprits, their identity as FARC rebels has not yet been confirmed) a new group of people vacationing in the region referred to in the aforementioned text about the drums. The kidnapping itself was reported in international news sources but had not left what you would call a lasting impression. That's not surprising, as the new hostages vanished in the news shadow of another related event, the release by the FARC elsewhere, just days before, of two people who had been held for years. Those were high-profile negotiations. Colombia and Venezuela, the USA and France - just a few of the countries involved. The rainforest kidnapping may have now drawn Norway to the table.

I thought of this while scanning books for references to Afro-Colombian musical instruments. None were found that day, but a visit to this relatively new library is always fun. At the ground floor reception desk, visitors can pick up a foldable map of the ten-floor building, presented as Europe's largest public library. The classic library hush does not apply here, with scheduled and spontaneous piano performances audible on multiple levels, blending with escalator chatter from those en route to upper-level meetings, lectures, presentations or the view from the top-floor restaurant (n.b. the tuna sandwich displayed here upper right is no longer on the handy foldable map, perhaps in conjunction with the first recorded break-ins at the library, evidently carried out by individuals in search of restaurant cash).

Typed Like He Talked

He was the most professional newsreader on the night shift at the radio. His colleagues preparing to read the news (to other listeners, in other languages) routinely entered the soundproof booth way in advance to shuffle papers, sift through the news items to locate pronunciation hurdles and to fumble with the soundboard knobs in the minutes leading up to a broadcast. Throats were cleared, tissues and water set near the mute button by the microphone, the double doors firmly secured to increase the intensity of the concentration. But he always strolled in at the very last minute, never late, slipped into the chair and found the bulletin on the table. A swift flip through the sheets of paper as if separating a deck of cards, and he read the stories on air, sight unseen, without hesitation.

A veteran sports announcer back at home in the Southern Cone, he survived for a time as a dissident and eventually fled to Europe where he was granted political asylum in Holland. Presiding over broadcasts to his continent of origin provided steady work, but it was too easy and what he really wanted to do was to return to live football commentary. When the opportunity to apply for this work arose in Spain, he was nervous for the first time in years. To prepare for the interview and announcing test, he sat in front of his TV during a live football game, turned off the sound, and recorded his own roared commentary on the players, their moves, the scores, prospects for the season and club histories, all of which he understood profoundly. There was no hesitation here either, and the only word which received extra time and, astoundingly, even more volume, was ‘GOOOOOOOOAL!’ The neighbors in his Dutch apartment building were concerned, and they called the police, who were relieved to discover that the man who had been shouting non-stop was unaccompanied. They silenced him that day, so there really was only one practice session, but he got the job in Spain, and sent a few letters, which rang true.

So Far This Much is Known - Not Allowed to Show You Pt.2

I had written to the bank requesting a translation, should they have it, of an Arabic text on a plastic file given to their clients. In response, the bank sent me another product for clients: a paper file (which tucks inside the plastic one) with relevant design background information on its inside cover. Eight examples of bookkeeping techniques throughout the ages are depicted, including the 11th-century Egyptian customs book with the Arabic text. Five or six lines of introductory text accompany each image. I thanked the Communications Department for the reply and repeated, very gently, my interest in viewing an actual translation.

The response from the bank was that the translation had already been sent to me. In the bank's view, the summary is the translation. I don't expect to hear from them again and may never learn about the full content of the writing on the plastic file. At this stage I am proceeding on the assumption that the bank does not have a translation of either the Arabic text or the Hieroglyphics on another image I inquired about: the hat-shaped papyrus scrap, which, as it turns out, is not papyrus at all, but an unglazed pottery shard known as an ostracon, from the Greek 'ostrakon' meaning a shell or earthenware fragment used as a voting ballot, among other things.

According to the bank's blurb, the Egyptians used these shards for taking notes. The terra cotta roof-tile fragments which are smashed onto the streets of Amsterdam by heavy wind storms in the winter are sometimes quite beautiful, but I'm pleased that I do not have to carry them around as my notepad. In the old days, papyrus cost money, whereas an ostracon could be picked up off the streets anytime you wanted to jot something down. The actual hieroglyphics in the bank design seem to constitute a note declaring Taurine's intent to repay his debt to Papnoute. That's all I know.
Both the ostracon and the customs book images are on my computer, and perhaps one day I'll learn more.

Not Allowed to Show You

How long should I have remained standing in silence, waiting for answers from a man frozen in concentration as he stared at a page of words I did not understand? I had asked this local consultant for help in translating a text. Interrupting the meditation to apologize for trouble caused before swiftly departing might have been offensive, indicative of a lack of faith in this person’s willingness or ability to decipher the blurred script. A compromise became possible when the reader looked up as another matter called his attention, allowing me to express gratitude and leave.
I do not yet have the wanted details. This much I do know:
The 11th-century text is in Arabic, covering two pages of an open book depicted on the front of a plastic file supplied by my bank for storing monthly statements. The other recognizable object on the file cover is a scrap of papyrus with hieroglyphics running horizontally across the fragment, suggestive in form of a rimless high hat with a commanding lower V which would run across a forehead down to mid-nose. I read neither Arabic nor hieroglyphics, so I called the bank to request a translation, and was informed that the Arabic text is from the 11th-century Egyptian mathematician Ibn al-Milli. Employed as a Customs Official in Alexandria, he hoped to be succeeded by his son Mohammed and wrote a textbook dealing with the math-related aspects of Customs work, such as calculating foreign exchange rates. The hieroglyphics on the papyrus scrap - not a hat at all, but apparently used as legal tender - would take longer to translate, but the Communications Department has promised to get back to me on this one. I requested permission to display close-ups of these graceful texts as they appear on my plastic file, but the bank said no.