DEMONIC LITERACIES
  
  Why do some of us have to try so hard?
 
I have a habit that before reading a thinker’s article, I do a brief investigation into their biography. In this investigation, I actively seek a characteristic to remember the author by. During reading Sylvia Wynter's biography, what seized my attention the most was her extraordinary and unconventional academic accomplishments. Winning a scholarship at the age of 9 to attend the St Andrew High School for Girls, winning another scholarship at the age of 18 which took her to King’s College London, and quick progression through the stages of academic pursuits at globally well-known universities which led her to teaching position at Stanford University, represents only a part of her exceptional academic life. 
Her story seemed parallel with other scholars of colour such as Frantz Fanon, Eduard Glissant, and bell hooks, suggesting a shared peculiarity among them. All of them had to exert significantly greater effort compared to their peers, theorizing in diverse domains such as philosophy, psychology, education and politics and striving for exceptional proficiency in order to be recognized. It seems that thinkers who belong to the majority group are just expected to articulate their ideas and present them in the most precise way. But scholars from minority backgrounds, marked by distinctions such as skin colour or race, should prove their equality and humanity before they can present their ideas, which requires TOO MUCH effort. This TOO MUCH becomes intertwined with their self-perception within the broader social fabric, shaping not only their self-image but also influencing how others perceive them. And paradoxically, this dynamic stands in exact contrast to the very essence they seek to convey through their theoretical endeavours. They try so hard to prove that they do not need to try harder than others. I think individuals born into minority groups must deal with these inherent paradoxes as an integral aspect of their lived experiences…
  
  THE DISSONANCE
  
  thinking about the second quote at the beginning of the wynter text, where she writes 'my generation i think, would find it impossible to emphasize the personal at the expense of the political'
  i think my generation (i can reveal now that i was born in 1996, a bona fide millenial-gen-z cusp) believes that the personal is the political. but i understand that wynter wants to minimize the emphasis on her personal life. the inclusion of personal anecdotes is a feature which lends verisimilitude to arguments. i think of frantz fanon's black skin, white masks here—his use of the personal is used to bolster his arguments about the psychological effects of the fact of blackness, and it's a very effecient device. we pay attention when he speaks of his own pain.
  writers of colour are often held to fidelity to biography, to history, to capital-T Truth. this is what i read into wynter's quote; she wants to direct the spotlight away from her personal story and how it is embedded into the larger narrative she unfolds for us in her writing. personal anecdotes are a hook, a cheap trick, playing to the gallery: here, consume my pain, as long as you pay attention. 

  
  YAHYA HASSAN
  
  Yahya Hassan was a danish-palestinian poet.
  
  
  
  he became a household name in denmark in 2013 upon the publication of his poetry collection YAHYA HASSAN: DIGTE (2013), which since holds the record of the best-selling poetry debut in danish history.

  
  
  
  
  when Hassan appeared with his Palestinian background and auto-fictional poetry collection telling tales of a 
  violentabusive/ upbringing,
  crime,
  racism and
  institutional hypocrisy,
  
  he was immediately cast in the role of ‘immigrant writer’. 
                                                
                                                
                                                
The incessant and
self-centred obsession

with the national self

and the threat of the Arab/ Muslim ‘other’

which permeated (and continues to permeate) Danish politics, culture and mainstream media outlets

provided the scorched earth onto which Hassan’s work would be received. 
                                        
                                
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HE6ZsH8ldU
from beginning till 3:37
26:46 - 29:12

  radical hybrid nature of the human—DNA and symbolic structure of culture—YAHYA HASSAN,
  how he plays with this
  —premieperker, jeg er en…—
  SELF-REFLEXIVE, poetry and artistic production as a place to address
  
  this hybridity,
  
  the intermeshment
  
  HASSAN'S POETRY VIBRATES SUSPENDED IN THIS TENSION

  
  what used to be a character trapped in its own plot, turns writer of own narrative; the writer inventing itself as it reveals itself; script flipping~ YAHYA HASSAN
  
  
   THE DEMONIC GROUND—perspective of humanness which only becomes possible through the traumatic experience of racialised difference
   
   
  
  
Film: Far From Home by sohrab Shahid Saless
  
  Far From Home
Far from home, a film by Iranian director Sohrab Shahid Saless, shows the lonely life of a Turkish immigrant in Germany, his monotonous factory job, language struggles and painfully awkward attempts to communicate with others and in general struggles to integrate within his new environment. Shahid Saless, one of the pioneers of Iranian New Wave of cinema, is known for the long scenes and very slow rhythm of his films, which are reminiscent of real life. This film is also full of monotonously repeating scenes showing the mundane factory work, the repetitive journey from the factory to home, and the long silences that the main character has in his loneliness which reflects his desperation to adapt to the new environment.
…
What I find to be a common thread between this film and Wynter's text is the fundamental question posed by Wynter: What does it mean to be human? (p. 4). Particularly here: When an individual migrates and experiences displacement, which aspects of their identity are lost, and what factors are involved in shaping of their new sense of self? Do they remain the same human they once were, or are they equally human as before? In the film, it is evident that Hossein, the protagonist, doesn’t use his intellectual faculties in his work. He functions as an integral part of the factory, where even a machine could potentially perform his tasks. Also, he lacks a shared language for effective communication, resulting in the absence of two vital components of being a human: thought and language. What happens when eating is that a man asks: "does it tase good?", He who doesn't understand anything just says: "yes yes". And the man says: "so keep swallowing it". And he says: "yes yes" again without understanding anything. He doesn’t even realize that he may have been humiliated. Which may be a "gaze from below" as Wynter says. The fix system of his new environment denies him the opportunity to discover and reconstruct the human dimensions and express his original narrative of life.
  
  
Emotional literacy

“Feeling Power: Emotions and Education” by Megan Boler. 


Animal Farm 

The classic book Animal Farm was published by George Orwell in 1945. This political parody describes the events leading up to the 1917 Russian Revolution and the subsequent creation of the Soviet Union using the allegory of a farm. One of the most significant works of the 20th century, the book is widely regarded as a masterpiece of contemporary literature. The story takes place on Manor Farm, where Mr. Jones, the farm's human owner, has an oppressive hold over the animals. Animals band together and topple Mr. Jones under the leadership of the pigs, creating a new society in which all animals are treated equally and cooperate for the benefit of all. However, the pigs take over and start to act corruptly, imitating the very same actions they had previously denounced in Mr. Jones.
The book is a scathing critique of the Communist government that arose after the Russian Revolution. The leaders of the Soviet Union, who promised equality and freedom for all but ultimately turned into despotic dictators who oppressed their own people, are represented by the pigs, led by the ruthless and power-hungry Napoleon. The theme of the book is unequivocal: total power corrupts absolutely. No matter how admirable the intentions, Orwell cautions that every attempt to establish a utopian society is doomed to failure because of the innate human drive for power and control. Animal Farm is a classic work that is still pertinent today. When George Orwell published the novel nearly 80 years ago, its themes of corruption, oppression, and the perils of totalitarianism were just as current as they are now. It serves as a potent reminder that the quest for dominance and control can have disastrous repercussions and that the struggle for liberty and equality is never-ending.
Speaking of demonic literacy, my choice to present Animal Farm today reflects my concerns about our today’s society and how possible is to change it. I am coming from a country which was occupied for 400 years. Million people died so that Greece would be independent again. Many of its heroes died in poverty as they offered all of their property for the cause of revolution. One of them was even imprisoned! From the Greek Revolution in 1821 till today, Greece has been ruled by corrupt men, with maybe two exceptions, betrayers who were acting against their own country and its people just to sit a little more in their very comfortable presidential chairs. Every year we celebrate Greek Liberation on the 25th of March, but in the last few years, I have been wondering if it was worth it as the result is the same but with different occupiers. 


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

~~~




As homo narrans we decided to present our own narratives of being human as praxis!

TOXIC WASTE
  
  the reading from the previous week of 'climate literacies' made an impact on me. after reading about 'slow violence,' about people slowly being poisoned by toxic waste, about how people in vietnam are still suffering the effects of agent orange, although the death count has apparently been tallyed up and filed away, i got to thinking. i always knew that my mother's hometown is in a very polluted part of china. it's a city named baotou in the province of inner mongolia, located in the north. i've been there many times, most recently in march of this year. aside from my aunt, uncle and cousin, who live in beijing, my entire family on my mother's side lives there. a quick wikipedia search (one that i would have struggled to perform if i were in china) lets me know that baotou is home to a huge dam containing the tailings and waste slurry from rare earth mineral mines about 100 km north of the city. the dam is 20 km from the city center.
  i type 'baotou' into the university's library website and jstor.org. the screen shows me what feels like endless pages of articles with titles like 'Prevalence and causes of low vision and blindness in Baotou: A cross-sectional study', 'Short-term effects of gaseous air pollutants on outpatient visits for respiratory diseases: a case-crossover study in Baotou, China', 'Health Risk Assessment Research on Heavy Metals Ingestion Through Groundwater Drinking Pathway for the Residents in Baotou, China', 'Trace elements in scalp hair from potentially exposed individuals in the vicinity of the Bayan Obo mine in Baotou, China' and so on and so forth. i open some of the articles and scan a few abstracts and download some stuff, start reading an introduction. my brain churns away information about what the hell rare earth minerals are, what they are used in, how the bayan obo mine became the world's greatest source of rare earth elements, the impacts of the toxic waste by-products the mines produce, but my eyes are all flickery and my stomach fills with bile and eventually i have to look away from the screen. i think to myself 'do i really want to know this?' it's two weeks later and the tabs are still open in my browser, untouched.
  
  the thought that my family is being slowly poisoned by toxic waste while they're enjoying lamb skewers and salty mongolian milk tea is unthinkable. 
  
    i think there's a definite shared dissonance the 'non-western'/racialised subject experiences here, enmeshed in academia, theorising about death and destruction and poverty in far away places, discrimination, etc. the cold and distanced tone which academia tends towards feels impoverished and insufficient in speaking about these topics. because those bodies and places are a part of me, some of those experiences are mine, or my family's. 

  The moments of feeling Otherness
Offering a personal reflection on this matter, I can say that, since I immigrated from Iran, situated in West Asia, to the Netherlands in Western Europe about a year ago, I can feel these paradoxes more deeply. Everything starts long before I think about it, from the very first moment, from the airport. The architectural design of airport subtly guided me towards the long queue designated for passengers holding non-European passports, creating an unconscious trajectory. Without any awareness, I found myself separated from European passport holders, who proceed through their designated queue without any passport verification, swiftly overtaking those in the neighbour line. This was while non-EU passport inspection process entailed multiple verifications by numerous personnel. Even presenting evidence of university enrolment and responding to various questions were insufficient, as further investigation was required to authenticate the validity of my passport and visa. Consequently, some agents examined my passport under intense lighting condition and from close distance to dispel any doubts of forgery. When they finally finished and gave me permission to enter, I felt relieved. It seems that I have successfully completed the last step of the never-ending and exhausting steps of immigration. I was still happy with this victory, when suddenly this mean thought disrupts my peace: Wasn't this process humiliating? So why did I feel victorious after that irritating investigation and eventually crossing that gate? Could it be that my brain's opiate reward-punishment system, as wynter mentions (p.10), was working reversely? At that moment, I was thinking how deeply rooted in our Middle Eastern identity is the anxiety of being allowed into a Western country. This anxiety has intertwined with our ontological perspective, shaping our perception of ourselves and of the world. Being granted admission to western nations should be considered a significant opportunity that one must 
has a great sense of gratitude about it. Tolerating the humiliation of being perceived as unequal and to be treated with suspicion, is a part of this gratitude. And this process of separation and fostering a sense of otherness is so integrated into societal norms and structures that its underlying origins often scape from our conscious thoughts. It reminds me of this quote of Wynter:
This commonsense naturalized story is cast as the only possible realization of the way the world must be, and “is”. (p. 11)
I didn’t know why I am in a separate line; I just knew that is an unquestioned reality…