mardi 27 octobre 2015

LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE: A CUBAN AMERICAN WOMAN EDUCATOR AND AN AMERICAN CUBAN MAN LAWYER

BORN IN CUBA, RAISED IN MIAMI, FIRST DEGREE FROM UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, THE SECOND ONE, A DOCTORATE IN PSYCHOLOGY, FROM YALE
SHE IS A CUBAN-AMERICAN, PRESIDENT OF ONE OF THE LARGEST UNIVERSITIES IN AMERICA, COMMITTED TO EDUCATION, PROVIDING CHANCES FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT OTHERWISE GET AN EDUCATION. SHE IS OPENLY GAY

THE OTHER ONE IS BORN IN MIAMI OF CUBAN PARENTS, EDUCATED AT UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, POLITICAL SCIENCE AND THE SECOND DEGREE IN LAW, PAID OF HIS STUDENT LOAN OF $100.000 WORKING AS A LAWYER. ELECTED A SENATOR FROM FLORIDA, HE IS HOPING TO GARNER THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT
HE IS AN AMERICAN-CUBAN AND IT IS OBVIOUS WHAT HE IS COMMITTED TO. IT IS CERTAINLY NOT THE  ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN AMERICA
A member of the UW faculty since 1986, Cauce became interim president in March 2015, having previously served as provost and executive vice president, and the UW Board of Regents selected her to become the UW’s 33rd president at a special meeting Oct. 13, 2015.
Throughout her career, Cauce has championed access to higher education, including through the Husky Promise, which provides full tuition to eligible Washington students who otherwise could not attend college. As part of her strong belief in ensuring access to higher education for all, just one month into her role as interim president she engaged students in an honest discussion about race and equity, launching an effort to create a more just and diverse community.

The UW also views innovation as an imperative, and as part of that in June 2015 Cauce announced the launch of the Global Innovation Exchange. A partnership between the UW and Tsinghua University, with foundational support from Microsoft, GIX will educate the next generation of innovators through a project-based, globally focused curriculum available nowhere else.
Raised in Miami after emigrating with her family from Cuba, Cauce earned degrees in English and psychology from the University of Miami and a Ph.D. in psychology, with a concentration in child clinical and community psychology, from Yale University.
During the course of her career at the UW, Cauce has been appointed to various leadership positions, including director of the UW Honors Program, chair of American Ethnic Studies, chair of Psychology, executive vice provost and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 2011 Cauce was named provost and executive vice president, responsible for overseeing the education, research and service missions of the university’s schools, colleges and other academic units.
For her teaching, scholarship and advocacy, Cauce has received numerous awards, including the Dalmas Taylor Distinguished Contribution Award, the Luis Fernando Esteban Public Service Award, the James M. Jones Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Psychological Association, the Grace Hopper Exemplary Leadership Award and the Distinguished Contribution Award from the Society for Community Research and Action. In 1999 she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest honor the University of Washington gives to faculty members for their work with students in and outside the classroom.
(FROM UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON WEBSITE)
FROM BBC ABOUT RUBIO

Where Rubio stands

  • Immigration: Used to be pro-citizenship but now takes a harder line
  • Iran: Will undo nuclear deal "on day one"
  • Pro-life: Right to life "trumps virtually any other right"
  • Healthcare: Repeal Obama's signature law that extends insurance to millions
  • Climate change: No evidence that humans responsible
  • China: Promises to "get tough" about human rights
  • Gun laws: Violence is due to mental illness


The former brings GLORY to the University of Miami, the latter just INFAMY.
Any intelligent person can see the difference.. A Cuban American is not the same as an American Cuban

lundi 26 octobre 2015

The Good Polish Doctor who saved thousands of Jews and Non Jews .. via False Typhus tests

I was so touched by this article that I have decided to put the entire article without editorializing.
Brave doctor, who lived by a cyanide tablet by his side, so that he could take his life if he was caught by Gestapo, was warned by a German soldier patient that Germans planned to kill him, so he was able to escape.
Polish or German, there are good people in this world with good conscience. I am happy for all the Jews and non-Jews this good doctor and his associate saved!G

The Epidemic That Saved Lives

Typhus is a bacterial-borne disease which is transmitted by flea, tick, and mite bites. It can be fatal if untreated but, thankfully, in almost all cases antibiotics are effective. And by today's standards, it's rare; an understanding of the disease has led us to control pest populations better while emphasizing personal hygiene, limiting the ability for the bacteria to spread. But go back to World War II and that wasn't the case. Typhus wasn't as treatable and less sanitary conditions led to more epidemics. To keep the disease from spreading throughout military units, Nazi Germany policy required that soldiers avoid those afflicted.

And because of this, thousands of Jewish lives were able to be saved -- with the help of a little medical misdirection.

The German typhus-prevention protocols were, as one would expect from such a regime, draconian when it came to Jews who had the disease --  Jewish patients were executed and their homes burned. But non-Jews were treated somewhat humanely -- they were quarantined until such time that the disease passed. And when it came to typhus control, pragmatism triumphed. If an area had a large enough population of non-Jews with typhus, the Germans would quarantine the entire community, even if there was a significant Jewish population in the area. 
 

It's that latter fact that Eugene Lazowski, a Polish doctor (pictured above), exploited. The test for typhus was pretty simple. If the person had the disease, his or her blood would have antibodies which the immune system produced to fight off the infection, even though that battle was often a losing one. And as it turned out, those antibodies did not just react with the typhus-causing bacteria. They also reacted with a strain of the Proteus bacteria called OX-19, which can be rendered harmless to people. To test for typhus, a sample of a person's blood was mixed with a strain of Proteus OX-19, according to Atlas Obscura. If the mixture became cloudy, the patient had typhus antibodies and, therefore, typhus.  

That's where Lazowski came in. Lazowski served in the resistance for much of World War II and provided medical services in his village, Rozwadów. He collected blood samples from people in the area -- Jews and non-Jews, Poles and Germans -- and sent them to the Germans for review. Lazowski realized that these blood samples could be used to protect thousands of Jews from concentration camps. If the Germans detected typhus among the non-Jews, Lazowski surmised, the Nazis would quarantine the area and, as a result, leave the Jews there alone. The only problem: to do that, you actually had to spread typhus.

Until Lazowski found a work-around. 

It turns out that by injecting people with the dead Proteus OX-19 bacteria strain, one could fool the test. The body would produce antibodies similar to the ones caused by a typhus infection, and therefore result in a positive test when the person's blood was tested -- despite the fact that the person wasn't ill. And injecting people with Proteus OX-19 was easier than one would thing, at least for Lazowski. Because Lazowski was a doctor in the area, many laborers who passed through Rozwadów sought treatment from him. He injected them with the harmless Proteus strain and eventually, the Germans drew an inescapable conclusion: Rozwadów was a hotbed for typhus (even though it wasn't). The area was off-limits for Nazi operatives, which meant that the Jews in the area were relatively safe. 

Lazowski was able to "infect" enough people in and around a dozen different Jewish ghettos to save the lives of an estimated 8,000 people, according to a publication by the American Medical Association. He may have been able to save more but the Germans ultimately grew wise to his scheme, and he had to flee Rozwadów. He made his way to Warsaw and then, after the war, moved to the United States. He passed away in 2006.

mardi 20 octobre 2015

FROM PIERRE TO JUSTIN PIERRE TRUDEAU: SOME HOPE FOR THIS WEARY WORLD

History repeats itself
From Trudeau to Trudeau
Vive CANADA
One calculates time with changes in environment that influences ones thinking and changes its direction.
40 years ago Pierre Trudeau led the Liberal Party to victory in Canada
43 years later his son Justin Pierre Trudeau has done the same, to an astounding victory.

People talk about another time soon after the war, when the world had Nehru, Adenauer, Nasser, Kenyatta, Nkrumah; those bright stars took their grave their ideologies and inspiration. And of course not to forget that Giant of a Leader, Lee Kuan Yew...
Now we are left wanting for someone of that stature to come back, to enlighten people or satisfy the hunger for truth among the enlightened people. Look what is happening in Malaysia; while its neighbor has reached the Developed country status, the PM Najib is mired in corruption charges... of close to a billion dollars… welcome to the club of Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Obiang of Guinea Ecuatorial! Look at the Republican contenders for the President of USA! Where do these people live? Another planet?
We definitely need more Merkels and less Sarkozys. Hope Justin Trudeau brings honour to Canada and cleans its reputation from years of Conservative rule. There is no more Nelson Mandela, but we do have Zuma!
Everyone loved Mujica of Uruguay, Lula of Brazil... While there were many detractors Chavez was immensely popular and Fidel remains unique for his special contributions to humanity in face of such opposition from outside his country.
Perhaps the lack of dynamic and humanistic leaders that we flock to a humanist figure like the Pope Francisco, who has projected gentleness to the world.

Perhaps Justin Pierre Trudeau would follow those footsteps and march to the drummer to bring prosperity not only to Canada but also to the rest of the world he encounters.  Good Luck

vendredi 16 octobre 2015

ANCIENT WISDOM AND THE NEW SCIENCE

ANCIENT WISDOM AND THE NEW SCIENCE

When you are with Indigenous people, you begin to understand intuitively, myth, history, symbolism. Claude Levi-Strauss recognized this 80 years ago when he worked with the Indians in Brazil.
When I was introduced to Yogic Philosophy by my good friend MC in KL, I was amazed at the similarity of the philosophy of Yoga Sutra of Patanjali and the oral traditions of American Indians.
Later when I got to know the Buddhist traditions in Myanmar, once again the similarities stood out rather than the differences.
Here is a sentence from Swami Sivananda:

Worry has caused new deadlier  disease like blood-pressure, heart-trouble, nervous breakdown, etc.  Fear checks the flow of blood, and even poisons the blood.  Laughter and cheerfulness increase the circulation of blood.  They are blood-tonics.
-- Sri Swami Sivananda
and I follow this up with words by Lame Deer, a Lakota Indian

"Laughter - that is something very sacred, especially for us Indians."
-- John (Fire) Lame Deer, ROSEBUD LAKOTA
Here is the commentary on that:

Laughter is mental, laughter is emotional, laughter is physical, and laughter is spiritual. Laughter helps us find balance. If we get too angry, laughter will turn that emotion in a balanced direction. If we have a mental picture of someone who is too strong, laughter will help ease the tension. If the body is stressed, laughter will release natural relaxants into our muscles and our nervous system. Laughter often changes our attitude. We need to lighten up and laugh more.  ( American Indian Elder Wisdom )
Nobody would argue now that the tools and behaviour and compartimiento of yours that brings you happiness would also lead to Health. Of course, the cynical logic of the western mind ( Oh Descartes?) would question the qualitative nature of these statements.
Sooner or Later Science catches up.
Elizabeth Blackburn, an Australian Scientist working in the USA won Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work with Telomeres
Now we know that stress would shorten telomerre length, how to avoid the shortening ?
Laughter of course.
Back to the Indians!
Among the Native Indians there is a concept which I would call SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, it is your part in the welfare of the Universe that includes your family and tribe and animals and birds and trees.. in short your environment. 
The Jewish equivalent of it would be TIKKUN OLAM, healing of the UNIVERSE , in fact the world OLAM, which often appears in Jewish prayers has a more elaborate meaning in Hebrew, rather than WORLD as it is commonly translated.
Eternity
עוֹלָם
Hebrew words used for space are also used for time. The Hebrew word qedem means "east" but is also the same word for the "past." The Hebrew word olam literally means "beyond the horizon." When looking off in the far distance it is difficult to make out any details and what is beyond that horizon cannot be seen. This concept is the olam. The word olam is also used for time for the distant past or the distant future as a time that is difficult to know or perceive. This word is frequently translated as "eternity" meaning a continual span of time that never ends. In the Hebrew mind it is simply what is at or beyond the horizon, a very distant time. A common phrase in the Hebrew is "l'olam va'ed" and is usually translated as "forever and ever," but in the Hebrew it means "to the distant horizon and again" meaning "a very distant time and even further."

For me, the Social Responsibility of the Native Indians (which includes Relationship, Mitakuye Oyasin, We are all related) and the concept of Tikkun Olam resonate well.

samedi 10 octobre 2015

Happiness and Health

Recently while in the Amazon River region, I was asked: what do you do keep yourself healthy?

There are Medical and Anthropological answer to this question and surprisingly enough, they do not coincide!
The Doctor would say:
Do not become Overweight, defined as 23 kg/M2 in people of Asian Ancestry (weight in Kg divided by Height in Metres squared)
Do not smoke
Eat Healthily (Most Health Care providers are notoriously ignorant of Nutrition)
Exercise regularly.
Some even may murmur about Positive Attitude towards Life.
An Anthropologist would say:
Be Grateful for the things you have
Practice Mindfulness. Enjoy the present moment fully, do not long for the past or worry about the future
Be a humble person
Health and Happiness cannot be separated. That may be the reason why happy people tend to do well when they are ill and recover quicker than less than happy people
Remember what the great American Philosopher once said:
Look at all these people, trying to stave off the inevitable decay of their bodies.  (Woody Allen in Hannah and her sisters)
Why don’t the joggers ever smile?
I said Good Morning to every single Health Conscious Chinese/Indian/Malay joggers along the path in Malacca, Malaysia and not a single one returned the smile or the greeting! As my good friend Joe would say: A smile is a must, even if you are exercising to stave off that inevitable decay?
I have never exercised in a Gym but have walked plenty along the Amazon River, for me the latter leads to Happiness and Health!

 WELCOME TO AMAZONIA!


mercredi 7 octobre 2015

CULTURAL IDENTITY IN THE EMERGING WORLD OF ASIA IRAN INDIA MALAYSIA

CULTURAL IDENTIY IN THE EMERGING WORLD
Personal thoughts about IRAN INDIA MALAYSIA
The idea to write this blog came when I was on a long distance flight reading FT of October 3. 2015
There was an interview with Daryush Shayegan, the Iranian Intellectual, who speaks six languages including Turkish, Sanskrit and German and has published 17 books mostly in French.

He reminded me very much of his contemporary scholar of the History of Islam, Bernard Lewis, a British Jew.
I thought of India, and especially the only place I know in India is a small town in the southwestern part.  Hindus, Muslims and Christians share the space but only grudgingly. Muslims are the most aggressive and most disliked; the Christians the more sophisticated and the Hindus possibly the more intellectual.
Then there is poor Malaysia, where the majority culture is backtracking fast into the past, the Chinese who are the engines of the society afraid of the Other and the Indians, oh squeezed oranges of Malaysia, waiting for visas to Australia or USA or Canada or any other country that would admit them and recognize their academic qualifications usually gained in India while maintaining a distance from the land of their ancestors.
Of these three countries the most interesting from any point of view is Iran despite a theocratic government but the people have managed to free themselves into a post Islamic situation. 
As Shayegan would say: the young generation has plural identities. But in India and Malaysia, the identities are ethnic as well as Western, but a poor photocopy of the Western civilization. A large proportion of Iranian educated people especially women can assume their places in the west without problem, in contrast to those from India or Malaysia. At a recent International congress of my medical specialty, Endocrinology, there were at least 80 Iranian young scholars, mostly women. They were self-poised and confident and about to take on their path to a greater glory for themselves, their families and perhaps for Iran itself. One of them said to me: I am glad the theocracy forced Islam upon us, making it so easy for us to reject it. The Indians at the congress who numbered a few, had a distinct cultural luggage with them, they acted as if they were in disguise, hiding their culture to which they are tethered. When it comes to intellectuals, Iran is way ahead of India, which has about 20 times its population; Malaysia and Singapore are not even on the screen. As a good Chinese friend of mine in Malaysia said, our ancestors migrated here to survive and they inculcated the survival instinct which is counterproductive to intellectual endeavours. How many of you can name a single Malaysian or Singaporean writer or poet?  India because of its sheer size of humanity has produced a number of excellent writers, my own favourites are Pankaj Mishra and Amitav Ghosh, both of whom live abroad, but who has the depth of Shamloo?

But what strikes you when you meet someone from Iran or Malaysia or Singapore (a wasted Nation) or India is that HOW MUCH WESTERN THEY THINK THEY ARE?
Western dress, frequenting bars with low class Europeans and eating Italian food does not make you WESTERN! Why is this attraction to the WESTERNERS rather than the WESTERN culture and philosophy? Iranians can stand up to Westerners as equals whereas other Asians consider the European a superior beings, sad considering the nature of Europeans in their midst.
I found Sheyagan’s approach to dialogue of civilization very refreshing.  To quote, Shayegan says his idea was not so much an east-west dialogue but for Iran to initiate a dialogue between eastern civilizations, through dedicated centres in Cairo, New Delhi and Tokyo.
Buddhism went to China from India. It was an Indian prince, Dara by name who translated Upanishads from Sanskrit to Persian.
Dara Shikoh (Urduدارا شِكوه‎), (Persianدارا شكوه ‎‎) M 28 October 1615 – 30 August 1659 [Julian]/9 September 1659 [Gregorian]) was the eldest son and the heir-apparent of the fifth Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. His name دارا شكوه in Persian means "as magnificent as Dara". He was favoured as a successor by his father and his sister Princess Jahanara Begum Sahib, but was defeated by his younger brother Prince Muhiuddin (later the EmperorAurangzeb) in a bitter struggle for the imperial throne.
Did you know that partition of India and the exodus of 1947 may not have happened if the Moghul Prince Dara who took an enlightened view, rather than sectarian, of Hinduism and Islam. His brother, Aurangazeb defeated him thus chartering another destiny for the country later to be called India, which had known nothing but foreign rule until 1948.
Tolerance is what is necessary, absent in Malaysia, India and Singapore but preached by all intellectuals in Iran.
I have great faith in Iran, great faith in its future, since it has already gone into the future, waiting for the ageing Theocrats to disappear. Living in a country like Cuba, which is already living in the future, without sacrificing the humanity of the individual, I can well understand it.  India may send a rocket to the moon, but it will be a long time before it can catch up with the humanity of a poor little country like Cuba
What I found in my travels in India, Malaysia and Singapore was INTOLERANCE of the other, as if it has been woven into the fabric of the society and a total lack of understanding of the western philosophy, because they were not tutored in their longstanding and magnificent philosophies of India or China. Constructed identities such as Malaysia and Singapore makes it easier to cut your connections or pretend to be something new without connections to the past. A soul with roots is an injustice, said the poet.
It was interesting to learn that the court language of Delhi of Moghuls was Persian and most of what we call “Indian food” manufactured by Bangladeshis from Silhet province is actually Iranian in origin? Modified of course with spices available locally. Any Iranian can walk in to an “Indian” restaurant in the west and identify the dishes.
The word Moghul itself is Persian, denoting a Mongol or a Barbarian, descendants of Tamerlane. (Whose birthplace I visited in Uzbekistan)
So I salute you, Iran without Mullahs, the Iran of Hafiz and Khayyam, the Iran of Makhmalbouf and Panahi, the Iran of Shamloo and Shajarian!
And Soheil Nafisi! And his haunting voice…
(you can watch Soheil Nafisi, Ahmad Shamloo at youtube)

And to quote Shayegan for my friends in the East:
Tolerance is accepting the other and taming your ego.

I am a Jew, I look forward to visiting Iran
And to my father, who spoke Persian.


dimanche 4 octobre 2015

PLANET OF PRE DIABETES: THE CASE OF COLOMBIAN AMAZON

PLANET OF PRE-DIABETES
OR
HOW I GOT A DISCOUNT AT A PHOTOSHOP IN COLOMBIAN AMAZON
One visionary leader in the year 2000 went against the then enthusiastic endorsement of globalization by eager politicians from the Left and the Right, from the East and the West. He predicted that Globalization will increase the gap between the rich and the poor will create a greater proportion of marginalization among the Youth of the World.
What he did not mention that Globalization would also bring PRE-DIABETES, a condition created and hijacked by the Drug Companies (Pharma) and the Doctors in their employ.
The current mentality prevalent in the medical circles and exported to the developing countries, is that, if a collection of laboratory tests could be given a name (Whatever happened to Metabolic Syndrome?, the current catch words are Pre-Diabetes and Cardiac Risk in Diabetes), then it can be treated with medications, letting the doctors and other care providers off the hook from searching for the reasons and treating the social conditions that gave rise to “Pre-Diabetes”
(Acanthosis Nigricans a skin marker easily seen on the back of the neck has a good correlation with impending glucose dysfunction)
The Prevention programmes of the Omaha and Winnebago Tribes (in an isolated part of Nebraska, thus of USA and the world) were the first ones to point out that the condition that gives rise to Diabetes, can be detected in children and it was purely cultural and social in nature, Wisely they did not assign a name to it, wisely avoiding medicalization of a social condition, which might punish the sufferer with castigation and accusation. The medicalization might lead to drug treatment of a social condition which needs social interventions.
Leticia is a small town at the Amazon region where the borders of Colombia, Peru and Brazil converge. It had changed colonial hands more than once, mind you, the local native population were never consulted and now is the capital of Amazonas province of Colombia. Indians who were Peruvians all of a sudden became Colombian and of course they had relatives in Brazil. I had written about how this fragmentation destroyed their identity and led them to a cultural barrenness. Afraid that the town might maintain its Peruvian identity, much like the Amazonian towns on the Peruvian side, the government of Colombia encouraged people from Antioquia, Bogota and Tolima among others to come and settle or at least influence the character of Leticia. Many came, and most stayed and it is their descendants who own most of the businesses, whether selling handicrafts or imported from Bogota goods or Auto Rickshaws from India or Motorcycles from China. The Indian once again is pushed into the background and the tremendous mixing gave rise to an Indian look without an Indian culture to the town.




I am a Letician, became the cry of Identity, along with Globalization of plastic produces, it also became an identity to be a Pre-Diabetic, as the population quickly put on weight, gathering a taste for the plastic food imported while living in the Amazon basin!
One such entrepreneur is CR, a descendant from the time of mixing in Leticia, which gave him a dark hue skin colour and pretty white wife. He owns LetiColor Leticia where all your photographic needs are attended to. His operation is rather busy, with pregnant women coming to be photographed with their bare bulging bellies while the husband or partner tenderly holds her, clad in nothing but underpants! Intimacy revealed at this special time of their lives, occasionally an older child or children are included in the photo, usually fancily dressed in laces and ribbons and cheap Chinese shoes.

I wanted to get a message printed on a Tee Shirt and another one on a drinking mug.  I asked him the price and he stated them, shouted some orders and I tried fitting the tee shirt on his wife who obliged thus making it possible to choose a size and a style.
While chatting, laughing and watching his coworkers busying themselves with the mixture of clientele that is very representative of Leticia, I noticed a small pill card containing a few Metformin 850 mg tablets. I looked at it and asked him, are you not too young to be taking these?
CR who is not yet 30 began his story. His business is flourishing that means that he is always sitting at his computer and works long hours. There has not been any exercise for the past many years and the food portions had increased as had his body size. His wife chimed in, he does not like to walk, has his little car parked in front of the store. A random blood sugar had been done and a doctor had interpreted the results to be Pre Diabetic in range and ordered these medications, he takes one a day regularly, a habit which is new to him.
Oh Globalization, Pre Diabetes is thy name, I thought to myself. I was genuinely concerned that the attraction of wealth and irregular hours would make this young man with a pretty wife, succumb to the kinds of consequences of high blood sugar that we see in North America. I started talking to him right then and there, about nutrition, what to avoid in this Amazonian backyard and what to increase , told him the difference from Fruit juice freshly made and easily available rather than the ones in the can or a box. Two things you must avoid, if you are not to get Diabetes, one is the excessive desire of the Colombian palate for Bread (many a Colombian might have bread and milk for dinner!) and avoid any drink that comes in a can, and can I avoid Diabetes if I take these medications? He asked eagerly. This is a social disease and the results would come from your changing your lifestyle, he screwed his nose and forehead, but his pretty wife looked at him pleadingly, poor favor, listen to the doctor.

Two days later I came back to the store, I was given the merchandise I had ordered but CR was not in the shop. I told them that I am going around to the Café Barbacoa for a Pintado (small café much similar to Cortadito of Cuba). An Amazonian downpour delayed my return, but there he was. I had the Accu Check device to check the blood sugar. He had eaten two hours before, his breakfast, without bread. He said to me, doctor, I am happy you are interested in me; I will follow your advice as I don’t want to get Diabetes. The machine showed his random blood sugar reading to be 119 mg/dl which is a fairly good value two hours after breakfast. I congratulated him and he looked so pleased. When I come back next time, I want you to be leaner, in all fairness had lost about 7 kg, his pretty wife looking on encouragingly. He sounded genuine, when he thanked me.

I told him, I had received my merchandise, and that I would like him to email me the designs and I wanted to pay.
No, Doctor, you have been kind to me, I cannot accept any payment from you.
The amount involved was not large but I was really touched by this gesture. I handed him my card and said to him, you can write to me with any medical questions you may had.

Gracias y Hasta Luego
As I am returning to the Indians of Nebraska, I cannot begin to reread that great Medical Anthropological text:
Shamanism, Colonialism and the Wild Man
A study in Terrror and Healing
By Michael Taussig, an Australian Jewish Psychiatrist with a PhD degree in Medical Anthropology who teaches at New York.

It would be a good background reading about the Globalization and the disease among a population subdued and terrorized in the Amazonas in the 19th and early 20th Century, when the Peruvian City of San Antonio became the Colombian City of Leticia

vendredi 2 octobre 2015

CONFUSION ABOUT CULTURAL IDENTITY: SOY LETICIANO, CASE REPORT FROM lETICIA IN COLOMBIA

I AM NOTHING. A BEGINNING OF CULTURAL CONFUSION AND LACK OF IDENTITY AND HOW IT IMPACTS HEALTH
I have just been to Leticia, in Colombian Amazon, my fourth visit in four months. As Pico Iyer would say, I am amazed how familiar I feel in Leticia, a town 500 miles from the nearest road to the other parts of Colombia, a city most Colombians do not know. If you are interested in the Amazon River and the cultures around it, you would certainly know about Leticia.  Also last night I finished reading an essay by my good friend YMC in Kuala Lumpur, a narrative about her identity as a Chinese Malaysian.
 (this was the first Indian in Leticia who said to me: I dont belong to any tribe)
(On the left, an Ethnic Indian who said, I am Nothing; on the right is a Ticuna woman who still uses the Ticuna language, which has five tones and difficult to learn, at home)
The main indigenous group that inhabits the Forest nearby is Ticuna or Maguta. Their creation story as depicted at the Maguta museum in Benjamin Constant was explained to me by its director, Metacu, whose Portuguese name is Nino Fernandes. The Great Spirit of the Maguta people had four sons who came out of his knees and each one was designated special talents. One of the brothers Yoi wanted to fish and each time he yanked and threw the line back to the land, the fish transformed itself into People. An earlier myth relates a younger brother Ipo grated himself with the thorns of a bush and that was thrown into the River and transformed themselves into Fish. They are a large tribe by Brasilin and Colombian standards and Metacu told me that in the Solimoes region of Western Brazil there are at least 8 villages of more than 1000 Ticuna and there are large territories which belong to the Tikuna/Ticuna.


 (face marking distinguish people and their respective clans)
 (sequestration hut for puberty ceremonies)
 This was the first Indigenous Museum in Brazil

(here with the director of the Museu, Metacu, a Ticuna from a village called Filadelfia, who speaks Ticuna, Portugese and Spanish)
Benjamin Constant and Tabatinga are in Brazil, Leticia is in Colombia, Santa Rosa and Islandia are in Peru, but Ticuna live in all three countries. This artificial division has had some culturally damaging effects on Ticuna for whom these borders are artificial. For example, as Evangelical Christianity has become popular in Brazil, Ticuna living there are also swept along with it. Borders and the wars between Peru and Colombia as well as Brazil with its neighbours all have contributed to the cultural decimation of the Ticuna. But as one of their elders describes: o povo que vai vivir sempre... We are the people who will last forever.
Visiting the museum and chatting with its director, as well as visiting a Ticuna community which strongly clings to their cultural values, I began thinking of the many Indians who live in Leticia. Colombia who describes themselves as: We are nothing; we don’t belong to any tribe!
 (she also said she didnt belong to any tribe)
(wearing a fake Ticuna headgear used at schools)
The grand majority of the Indians in this region are Ticuna, with Huitoto, Yagua and Kokama in small numbers.  It seems that when there is a cross border marriage or alliance between members of various tribes, they seem to lose their cultural identity very fast.
Over the centuries a system of clans had developed and intra clan marriage was and is a taboo. Perhaps these cross border marriages break this taboo which then castigates the person (by family or self-castigated) to a no man’s land. They are racially Indians and gather around other Indians, who are in similar position, and very soon a Ghetto is formed and the original identity is lost. I am a Leticia, is an oft heard refrain.  In rejecting or being castigated for their cultural identiy, they reject their ethnic identity, so they end with nothing. They intermarry among themselves and soon a distinct group of people are born. The best example are the Mestizos of Mexico, who once upon a time had a Spanish ancestor but rejected their cultural identity and ethnic identity and now have a distinct Mexican identity which they share with Mexican citizens of Jewish, Arab, Japanese, Spanish ancestry. I echo my Meskwaki teacher’s words: When you ask a white American, she said, they say they are ¼ English, ¼ French, ¼ German and ¼ Romanian; but they don’t realize that four ¼ do not add up to 1, but add up to zero.
The fact that the child belongs to the tribe and clan of the father also may confuse the issue when they are living in a city and not in their traditional “long houses or round houses”
As a Medical Anthropologist, I have a strong interest in this negation of one’s cultural identity which leads to problems of health. One can cling on to one’s Ethnic identity but reject the cultural identity and this leads to disease and illness and suffering.
The best example of this is the East Indians from Indian Subcontinent (the former British India) who die on an average 15 years earlier when they migrate to USA or Australia or UK. Because they maintain ethnic identity ( as Indians, Pakistanis in the UK, Indians in the USA, Asians in Australia) but are very eager to accept the immigrant country’s culture which is usually damaging, especially when it comes to adopting the new food for the old (good food of their native countries given up for processed food of the new countries)
Mexican-Americans have a high rate of disease burden; their socio economic status is the lowest of all immigrants, educational achievement the lowest.
Octavio Paz, the Mexican poet and writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature and who had lived in Los Angeles in the mid-1940s, had written the following in his introduction to his classic book, The Labyrinth of Solitude: (about Mexican Americans)
They have lived in the city for many years, wearing the same clothes and speaking the same language as the other inhabitants and they feel ashamed of their origin, yet no one will mistake them for authentic North Americans…. What distinguishes them. I think, is their furtive, restless air, they act like those who are wearing disguises, who are afraid of a stranger’s look because it would strip them and leave them stark naked.
I have noticed this furtive, restless air about East Indian migrants to the USA as well who avert looks of strangers, especially other migrants. As an aside, Octavio Paz had served as Mexican Ambassador to India.
It is nice to conclude this lament, quoting my favourite Chilean poet (who belonged to all), who also served as Chilean Ambassador to many countries including Burma, Ceylon and Dutch Indonesia
A slice of his poem EXILIO
Así es de injusta el alma sin raíces:
Rechaza la belleza que le ofrecen:
Busca su desdichado territorio:
Y sólo allí el martirio o el sosiego.
My translation:
A soul without roots is an injustice
It rejects the beauty that is offered to it
Looks for its own desperate country
Only there it finds martyrdom or Tranquility.



How does this impact the health of these "Cultural Nothings"?
To prove their eagerness to integrate into the majority culture they are imitating, they metabolically transform their bodies becoming fat and obese, filling up their ancestral gut metabolism with newly chemicalized food and processed powders, which create inflammation and disease.
(these are the drinks available at Islandia, Peru. Almost all of them are manufactured by Coca Cola Company!)

Once I gave a lecture on the Diseasess among
The Oppressed, The Exiled, The marginalized, The disciminated...
You can imagine the stress of belonging to any of these groups whether you are in the West or the East( Workers in the Gulf Region, Domestic workers in Malaysia and Singapore, Adivasi of India). We can do out little bit to help this helpless majority: Show respect, as the Meskwakia advised me.

Once again I will resort to Pablo
When your cultural identity is lost, you are like a boat without an anchor, it has no direction and goes wherever the wind takes you..

When you are eager to become an American or Australian, the first change which is feasible for you, before your accent become americanized, is to change the food..

As Pablo continues in his poem  Exilio
El destierro es redondo:
un círculo, un anillo:
le dan vuelta tus pies, cruzas la tierra,
no es tu tierra,
te despierta la luz, y no es tu luz,
la noche llega: faltan tus estrellas,
hallas hermanos: pero no es tu sangre.
eres como un fantasma avergonzado
de no amar más que a los que tanto te aman,
y aún es tan extraño que te falten
las hostiles espinas de tu patria,
el ronco desamparo de tu pueblo,
los asuntos amargos que te esperan
y que te ladrarán desde la puerta.
Fishermans Ode to the Sea by Pablo Neruda
It may also apply to the Ticuna who pray to the Amazon Spirits to Abre tu caja verde y dejanos a todos en las manos tu regalo de plata; el pez de cada dia 

Open your green treasure box and leave for all of us in our palms your gift  A FISH FOR EACH DAY

(this is a favourite poem of a Australo French Bretonne Jew in Quiberon, Bretagne, France)

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