Dear Rory Stewart,

My name is Fatima Lasay, artist-writer based in the Philippines.

I would like to bring to your attention a BBC News article "Celebrating art in Afghanistan" announcing the launch of a project by your organization, Afghanistan's first contemporary art prize -- in particular a number of statements made in the News article which I consider propaganda that reinforces damaging perceptions upon the public.

On "They have laid bare the schism in this laudable project to bring cheap computing to millions of children across the developing world." From BBC News

Surely the real question underlying the One Laptop Per Child project is not the nature of the operating system -but the nature of "computing" itself.

The article "ARPA's 50th Anniversary and the Internet: a Model for Basic Research by Ronda Hauben"(1) really does need close scrutiny -because (in my view) it sketches the rise of a pernicious Military-Industrial complex (as warned against by President Eisenhower) -but which has now become even more dangerous by linking up with educational and entertainment systems (the edutainment business) to become the Military-Industrial-Edutainment complex.....

The BBC article "Lesson one: no Orwellian language"suggests that education has somehow been undermined through the corruption of the very language used to discuss education itself.

Professor Richard Pring of Oxford University believes that education has been taken over by an "Orwellian language" which has started to control the way we think and act, pointing out how the aims and values of education has become "dominated by the language of management."

More examples of this language are:

While thousands of people converged in Makati yesterday (Feb 29) for the inter-faith rally seeking President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's ouster, the shape of the country's future leadership is being designed via the automated ARMM elections (August 11, 2008 as per RA 9333), a test pilot leading to the 2010 presidential elections (May 10, 2010).

In reference to The Economist article "The Laptop Wars", The Economist.com asks: "Will charity or profit end the digital divide?"

Do you think that there is a "digital divide" in your country? What does "digital divide" mean?

The Economist.com says, "Nobody disputes the merits of making laptops available cheaply to children in the developing world."

The laptop wars
Jan 8th 2008
From Economist.com

Will charity or profit end the digital divide?

F. Landa Jocano, Filipino Worldview. Ethnography of Local Knowledge. (Quezon City: Punlad Research House, Inc., 2001), p. 25-28.

F. Landa Jocano, Filipino Worldview. Ethnography of Local Knowledge. (Quezon City: Punlad Research House, Inc., 2001), p. 161-192.

Jesus T. Peralta, Glimpses: Peoples of the Philippines. (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2003. Originally published by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2000), pp. 8-12.

At this point, I would like to expound upon that operational aspect of diwà, pagsasadiwà or “articulation”, as a crucial cognitive-linguistic facility in art and the creative practices.

In his discussion of the babaylán in Philippine history and within the context of a Filipino psychology, the Filipino historian and leader of the Pantayong Pananaw (“from-us-to-us perspective”) movement in the social sciences, Zeus A. Salazar presents a significant but, in my view, incomplete, concept of pagkatao (a term which translates to “personality” encompassing concepts of “self” and “being.”) He writes: “Sa teoryang ito, ang tao ay may katawan (aspetong panlabas o “katauhan” ng tao) na kinapapalooban ng kaluluwa at ginhawa.

Within the context of diwà, the principles of buhay (life) and bisà (inherited life force) are established through an equilibrium of three parameters: first is knowledge, which refers to a number of variables, namely, káluluwá (soul), pangingisip (cognition) and kamalayan (consciousness); second is body, which refers to both the physical body (katawan) and ginhawa or “breath”, “ease of life”; and third is language, which refers to wikà (internal-external language) and pagsasagisag or “symbolization” (whether biological or socially constructed).

According to Filipino anthropologist F. Landa Jocano, diwà represents the ideological dimension of the Filipino worldview, the rules governing the systematic ordering of ideas that the Filipino – whether on a national, tribal or personal level – employs for a conscious meaningful purpose.

Visiting a musician friend once, we talked about the role of Philippine folk music in the underground struggle after the imposition of Martial Law in 1972. In the discussions, my friend would often reply or explain things with a song, one of which was about a couple who both belonged to the Communist Party of the Philippines. The song, which somehow reflected his own personal experience, described the breakdown of the couple’s relationship that neither Marx nor Lenin nor Mao could resolve. The chorus (and conclusion) of the song was that love, not ideology, was important.

Just a few weeks ago, I was sitting on a rock in Sirpalesaari Island a few meters off the coast of the capital city of Helsinki in Finland. Blessed by the occasion of a warm Scandinavian summer, I thought of the impossibility of a similar experience – of the right to life and living spaces – in my own city in Metro Manila. As a young child, I was often told by my parents to inhale the smell of the sea whenever we passed along Manila Bay, because it was supposed to be good for one’s health.

ABSTRACT

Diwà has been defined in academic circles as a body of internal rules governing the systematic ordering of ideas that the Filipino whether on a national, tribal or personal level employs for a conscious meaningful purpose. In this essay, the author proposes a re-definition of diwà as a self-determined system of aesthetic equilibrium, of the mind struggling to balance its experience of contradictions. Diwà, the author proposes, is based on the principles of buhay (life) and bisà (inherited life force) with knowledge, language and body as the parameters of equilibrium. Thus, such re-definition of diwà enables a reframing of firmly held notions of these parameters, consequently providing the basis for a critical analysis of media, technology and the creative practices.

“Sungdu-an: A Confluence of Artists” by Kristine Luiz Alave. National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Feature 2002. http://www.ncca.gov.ph/culture&arts/features/features-03-04-sungduan.htm

“Sungdu-an 3: Making the Local: NCR3 – National Capital Region: Nation Concept Renewal for a Nation-in-Crisis Redeemed” by Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, from the first draft submitted to the National Commission on Culture and the Arts- Committee on Visual Arts (NCCA-CVA), February 2003.

In our art and technology development and “regeneration” programs we can analyze how development and cultural policy redresses the reality of socioeconomic inequality through a triad of communalism, sovereignty and autonomy.

In current global developments, artists are once again targeted not only as “free” intellectuals but this time as paid fodders for the commercially-driven canons of the latest vogue of “creative industries.” For the “developing world”, it pays to be meticulous of development and especially education, particularly in the politics of education and development where beggars cannot be allowed to become choosers.