The way of ‘he’ in Nanjing

Nanjing, China—“O God, with a thousand names…” I could have invoked.

What is striking about this picture? Close to 200 eminent persons belonging to and professing different religious faiths, as well as eminent persons not professing any faith, gathered together at the 3rd Asia-Europe Interfaith Dialogue in Nanjing, China. (Two previous ones had been held in Bali and Larnaca.)

They came from 39 Asian and European countries. Diplomats and government officials outnumbered the religious leaders and civil society representatives. The majority (124 of 158 official delegates, or 78.5 percent) were men.

During the three days that they were gathered, no prayers were said, no chants were heard, no outward display of religiosity was seen. There were no common rituals (usually musts in multi-religious, multi-cultural gatherings I have attended in the past).

I must note that, in contrast, Filipinos (the women especially) are big on rituals when it comes to ecumenical faith gatherings no matter how tense and serious these are. In the Philippines we usually start off with priests, imams, pastors, nuns and lay leaders leading the opening prayers. Especially in so-called interfaith dialogues.

There was none of the above in this in Nanjing. That’s what struck me. Those are externals (internal?), you might say. Well, I thought prayer—communal and personal—was basic to all faiths, a wellspring from which understanding, peace and goodwill could flow forth. For prayer is the language of the heart. In Nanjing the language was diplomatese.



Prayer was not in the agenda in this dialogue. Talk was the thing. So was listening. And the flow of things had been pretty much decided on by the main sponsors—China and Italy. Veterans of assemblies know how these things are conducted and how closing statements and resolutions are arrived at, if you know what I mean.

And as journalists invited to attend (we weren’t participants) we could only observe. But before the big three-day interfaith event we had our own small Asia-Europe journalists’ colloquium where our topic was interfaith issues too. And we had our own intercultural bonding.

The main event began with the delegates visiting three religious sites—a Muslim mosque, a Buddhist temple, where orange-robed monks came out in full force, and the Amity Printing, a huge facility where bibles in different languages are printed. I must say that the Chinese government pulled all the stops to showcase what they have in the interfaith department.

The out-of-Nanjing trip to picturesque Yangzhou was a treat and one hoped dialogue was going on even during the boat rides on the lake. Some of us wanted to go to the Nanjing Massacre museum during the breaks but it was undergoing renovation. (The Japanese pillaged Nanjing and killed 300,000 in 1937.)

China which has a population of more than 1 billion has four major religions—Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) with membership of over 100 million. The state-approved Catholic Church has not yet merged with the “underground” church which is loyal to the Vatican. I spoke with the rector of the Catholic seminary and he told me the applicants are many. I will be interviewing him by email.

So, what were the main issues tackled? Interfaith dialogue (IFD) and globalization, IFD and peace, IFD and social cohesion and development, IFD and the promotion of cultural and education cooperation.

Globalization was closed to journalists but we managed to sneak in. We hopped over to social cohesion and development which turned out to be livelier. Filipino bishop Ephraim Tendero, director of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, managed to put into the statement, with great effort I must say, the issue of immoral loans that poor countries are forced to pay back with the blood of their people. I hope it is not stricken out in the final version.

One of the plenary speakers, Philippine delegation head Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez of South Cotabato and chair of the Interfaith Commission, left a lasting impression with his emphasis on dialogue at the grassroots. He made the word grassroots a byword and stressed the importance of implementing peace initiatives at the local community level.

For it is at the grassroots that real life happens, where strife and harmony are played out. “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another,” Gutierrez said, quoting Jonathan Swift.

An interesting footnote: It was decided that interfaith dialogue should include those who do not belong to or do not profess any religious faith. Atheists are also believers in something. Was this a concession to the “godless” communist government of China?

By the end of the week, Chinese food was coming out of our ears but I know I will miss it soon. I will also miss the stape words--peace, harmony, integration, inculturation, understanding, respect, dialogue, tolerance.

With all these words swimming in my head, I was still able to catch something from the closing remarks of Ye Xiaowen, state minister for religious affairs. He spoke about the spirit of he.

Chinese religion, he said, is immersed in the way of he which is to seek understanding though dialogue and coexist in peace, jointly address problems and achieve common development. In the supreme state of he, every one manifests beauty and goodness while appreciating and allowing all kinds of beauty and goodness to coexist in order to achieve a unified world.

Here’s to the spirit of he.

‘Trauma, interrupted’: Naming the pain

What can art do in the face of global suffering? Can artists interrupt the trauma or do they intensify the pain when they step into it and try to do something to ease it?

These are some of the questions posed by women artists in the art exhibit “Trauma, interrupted” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (June 14–July 29).

The art works in different media are the 18 artists’ expression of their deep emotions (rage, shame, hope, peace) and resolve that have arisen from pain and trauma they’ve had to deal with—their very own or the collective pain and trauma of the women they have encountered.

The exhibit explores the links between trauma, art and healing. The art works, curator Dr. May Datuin said, challenge us to come to terms with a range of traumas, including those resulting from conflict situations, natural disasters, human rights violations, mental and physical afflictions.

The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Tomasa Salinog or Lola Masing of Antique whom Japanese soldiers turned into a “comfort woman” during World War II. She died last April 6 at the age of 78. The exhibit also honors the more than 50 Filipino comfort women (the Malaya Lolas) and many Asian women who had come forward to speak about their ordeal and demand recognition and apologies from the Japanese government. (So far, no apologies. Most former comfort women have refused to accept funds from Japanese donors.)

It is also dedicated to women from all walks of life, women who have been wounded emotionally, spiritually, physically, and who seek to become whole again.



“Trauma, interrupted” is about naming the pain, looking it in the eye. But it is also about stepping back and looking at it from another vantage point. As psychologist Dr. Sylvia Estrada-Claudio told the exhibit crowd, “Art makes people step away from reality, from coherence and logic.” Yes, to step out of the here and now and return to the source of pain and look at it with new eyes. But not to dwell there and make it a place of no return. There is a time to emerge from that hole and go back to reality.

There is no single formula for healing, Claudio said, and healing could take place in many levels. Many Malaya Lolas’ healing took place in a communal level. These women’s trauma had festered in their souls for more than 50 years until someone like Rosa Henson broke the silence. With her revelation, the dam broke and the comfort women’s collective voice rang out to jolt those who might have forgotten. They were no longer ashamed.

Here are some of the artists speaking about the spirit of their art.

Brenda Fajardo (Philippines), “She and I (Siya at Ako) series, oil: “In the past it seemed easier to focus on the negative. (But here) I show the evolution of the victim to victor, strengthened by the feminine spirit-being we associate with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the babaylan, Isis, Sophia, etc. She is the moon with strength of the sun, the yin and the yang in one. As spirit, she is transparent. The text (in gold) coming in from nowhere is inspired by meditative verses. I find the series a turning point for me, as a crossing of the threshold of space and time with the realization that SHE is there.”

I felt unusually drawn to the third in the series. I kept gazing at the luminous SHE, the healing woman-spirit, and then decided to take a photo of the painting with my cell phone.

Terry Berkowitz (USA), “The Malaya Lola Project”, photographs with soundtrack: “This project has brought me a deeper awareness of the suffering that has plagued women throughout history. It has allowed me to meet, interact and work with some very incredible women who survived the events of 1944.”

Yong Soon Min (USA) “Wearing History”, installation: Yong spray painted each of the 75 years on her clothing in order to have a personal daily connection to history. The business cards she gave out say: “I’m wearing, close to my heart, one year of the 75 years since Japan established the first comfort station in 1932. Over 200,000 women were coerced into sexual service for Japan’s military. In demanding that the Japanese government accept unequivocal official responsibility for this war crime, I wear a year every day.”

Sally Gutierrez (Spain) “Crying Room/Patch-worked Dreams), video: “This is an intimate journey into the soundscape of the crying room, where the pain from the girls’ damaged lives erupts in all its brutal, unprocessed intensity. Primal therapy, which is controversial in some countries, creates a sheltered space where abused girls can face their traumas and start their personal journey toward healing.”

Lyra Garcellano (Philippines) “Burning Beds”, oil on polaroid photos: “The bed is always considered a refuge, a resting place, a source of rejuvenation, and even a provider of comfort. But how can there be refuge and comfort when brutality pervades our surroundings? Do we merely close our eyes and sleep through it?”
Garcellano’s “Flowers for our Generation”, silkscreen on paper, tries to achieve a wallpaper effect with images of guns shaped as flowers.

Ann Wizer and Naomi Wizer-Green, “Pain Drain”, installation: The mother-daughter collaboration recreates Naomi’s bathroom—her place of refuge—where she has been writing poems and communicating pain for herself and for her mother to read later. In this therapeutic space, viewers are invited to write their pain, fears and secrets.

Almost all the artists’ works—many of them installations—invite to interaction and participation. Go, name your pain and begin to find healing.

The power of “The Ninth”

Pacifists, fascists, religious, communists, Nazis, romantics, tyrants, humanists, revolutionaries, despots, freedom fighters. What do they have in common? They have felt inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, particularly its fourth and last movement known as “Ode to Joy.”

What is it about “Ode to Joy” that movements and leaders who hold divergent beliefs and ideologies have claimed it to be the anthem that embodies their quest?

Last week the German Cultural Center held another screening of “Tne Ninth”, the award-winning documentary by Pierre-Henry Salfati. This was part of the long-running celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome which created the European Economic Community, the forerunner of the present 27-member European Union. “Ode to Joy” is the EU’s anthem, by the way. It was re-arranged for the EU by Herbert von Karajan.

It’s a familiar tune, only many don’t know that it is from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor’s last movement, which ends with a rousing orchestral and choral climax that could set you aflame. Beethoven’s inspiration for the finale was Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode on die Freude”.



As a musical composition “The Ninth” has been analyzed and deconstructed so often that it has been likened to the Mona Lisa smile. Salfati’s documentary film steps over the flats and the sharps and moves on a different plane.

Yes, the film answers the question “who” (have been drawn to it?) which means presenting documentary evidence from different climes and times which are in themselves historically important. Indeed, a lot of archival research went into the making of this film. Great historical black-and-white footage from different eras where “Ode to Joy” figured made it to the film. There’s a lot, too, from vintage movies on Beethoven’s life.

As to the “what” of it, it could be anybody’s guess—yours, Salfati’s. Is it the total grandness, the simplicity of the melody, the lyrics, the message, each and all of the above? But is it really the “what”?

Or is it the “why”? And the “because”?

Because, methinks, there is a divinely infused ingredient there that even Beethoven himself wouldn’t have been able to pin down as the reason for it all.

Beethoven (1770-1827) was already totally deaf when he composed “The Ninth”. (He lost his hearing when he was 45 but continued to compose.) The symphony premiered in Vienna in 1824, and Beethoven, then 54, couldn’t hear a single note of it. The suffering German genius didn’t have the slightest idea then how encompassing the spirit of this work, which had its trips and falls on the way to immortality, would be.
“The Ninth” didn’t spring to life like the rest of Beethoven’s works. Beethoven had nurtured his own lofty longings and “The Ninth” was his desiderata on freedom. While creating it Beethoven is portrayed in the film as agitated sometimes, frustrated the next, and ecstatic at last when he has his eureka moment in Schiller’s poem that is to be the soul of his symphony’s splendorous peak.

In his dark night in a world that had fallen silent Beethoven harkened to music only he could hear and sat down to share it with the world. His cry to God: “Do you have to break the ones who get close to you?” Sounds like Teresa of Avila.

Salfati’s documentary starts off with the mundane—a London auction not too long ago when Beethoven’s manuscript, a yellowed sheaf, fetched a whopping 1.9 million pounds.

Salfati’s opus is a great tapestry. He has woven into his film elements of history, culture, sociology, anthropology, visual arts, music. The sacred, the mundane.

The Who’s Who in world history have indeed harkened to the strains of “Ode to Joy”. There is awesome footage from the Berlin Olympics with Hitler present and Jessie Owens winning the gold. If you’re a cinephile you might recognize some vintage Leni Riefenstahl. And yes, Hitler’s suicide was announced over the radio with “Ode” as background music and there is a film clip of it. They should have used Wagner’s soul wrenching “Liebestod” because Hitler was a Wagner fan.

Lenin had considered “Ode to Joy” as the working masses’ anthem and there is footage showing him with the music playing. He later decided on the “Internationale” which is quite riveting in itself.
Popes, too, basked in “Ode to Joy”.

Japanese soldiers prepared for war with “Ode to Joy” playing in the background. As Japanese war planes plummet into the sea Salfati ups the music of Beethoven to magnify what for the Japanese was a heroic end.

“Ode to Joy” was not meant to be an anthem for war but a hymn of freedom. Salfati made sure the tyrants and totalitarians did not have “Ode to Joy” all to themselves. Salfati shows proof aplenty that Beethoven’s joyous opus was and is also playing in far corners of the globe where freedom reigns and where there is a yearning for it.

Salfati shows a succession of great conductors who have given “The Ninth” a long, great life. People of all races and from most unlikely places are singing the hymn, the young, the old, the robust and the weary. In the film there is a portion where “Ode to Joy” is played as rock. The next frame shows Beethoven roused from his sleep and breaking into a sweat as if saying, “Mein Gott!” We had a good laugh there.
Freedom is a hunger. “Ode to Joy” is a symbol of our collective longing to be free and happy.

It’s playing now and I’m listening. Human voices one with the symphony and at once becoming the symphony.

“Be embraced, ye millions! This kiss for the whole world, Brothers beyond the star canopy, Must a loving God dwell…Joy, beautiful spark of the Gods, Daughter of Elysium, Joy, beautiful spark of the gods.”

The grace of remembering

Last week’s column (“Disappeared”) which was about remembering those who vanished in the night, and where I used excerpts from an article (“The Missing and Dead and those who Survive to Tell the Story.”) that I wrote in the 1980s elicited some heart-tugging feedback. One of them was from poet Grace Monte de Ramos who had been moved many years ago by that feature story that came out in the Mr.& Ms. Special edition (the “subversive” edition edited by the present Inquirer editor in chief) and was “provoked” to write a poem.

For Grace, last week’s column piece again released a stream of memories.

I seldom use readers’ letters and the ensuing exchange of thoughts (via e-mail) in this column but maybe this one with Grace would resonate with those who believe that we should not totally leave the past behind.

****

Dear Ceres,
I've just read "Disappeared". Was this so long ago, you ask. Yes, it was, because from this remove I can't recall if I ever thanked you for the story that you reprinted today. You see, the women in the story were the inspiration—though I find that word insipid in this case; it was more of provocation, instigation—for my poem "Brave Woman".

It was not an easy poem to write, and it took me some time to get it to move. That happened only after I let go of my third-person, omniscient-point-of view voice, and allowed the mother to speak and tell the story herself. (Did I say "allow"? It felt more like "compelled".) It was her story, after all. The poem belonged to her.

"Brave Woman" was first published in 1983, if I remember correctly, and it was last published (as far as I know) in 2003, as part of an anthology of anti-Iraq war poems (“Poets Against the War”, edited by Sam Hamill, published by Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books). I believe it is also in some textbooks.

But to tell you the truth, I am a little tired of it. Sometimes I wish I could bury it, lock it away with other juvenilia. How could I let it go, though?

You could not let the story go. We cannot let it go, because more than 20 years later, mothers are still going through the same ordeal. Twenty years, and it seems we haven't learned one lesson!

Obviously, more work needs to be done, even as the mourning continues. So tiring, if you think of it. The task looks formidable, Sisyphian even. But I hope you never tire of it. Thank you for writing about Manang Dina and others like her, thank you for giving a face and voice to the women who bear the burden of injustice.

God bless,
Grace

Here is Grace’s 1983 poem, “Brave Woman”:


I am a mother of sons.
Two joined the army when they were young;
There was not enough money for school,
They had no skills for jobs in foundries
And factories, and it was easy to sign up
And learn how to handle a gun.


I am a mother of sons, two sons
And one, the youngest, now gone.
In his youth he was taken
By men whose names I never will learn.
I only know they were soldiers, like my sons,
Cradling fearsome guns.
He was a fine young man. I took care of him
For seventeen years and they took him away
And now I am searching for his bones.


I will never learn their names.
Alone I try to imagine the scene: were their faces
Bearded or clean-shaven?
Perhaps their bodies were robust.
Did they wear uniforms the color of shrivelled
Sampaguita or fresh horseshit?
How pointed the bullets from their guns?


My soldier sons come home
When life in the barracks is still.
I hide their brother's picture;
It makes them cry and remember.
Perhaps they, too (God forbid it),
Have given other mothers sorrow.
Perhaps my son had to pay for what they borrowed.


I cannot cry, though I am told
It is better to cry and let go.
Where is my son's body for me to bury?
I only wear my grief in the lines
Of my face, my sunken cheeks.
Silent, I mourn a woman's
Bitter lot: to give birth to men
Who kill and are killed.

****

I wrote back to tell Grace that yes, she had thanked me a long time ago and sent me her autographed book of poems. And she replied: “See, it really was a long time ago, since I've forgotten about thanking you and all! Where did the time go? Here I was trying to slip into domestic anonymity, hoping to live out the rest of my life as a hermit (with internet access)—but the world intrudes. You've written many columns that have moved me, but that one really compelled me (that word again) to actually let you know. It got me depressed and I had to do something to ease the aching.

”Yes, you may use my letter, but maybe you should leave out the first two sentences in the second paragraph… (I did not delete it, Grace.) The poem might sound corny to me but maybe the young people who don't remember martial law will take something from it.”

The aching, yes, the aching in remembering. But it, too, is grace.