An afterthought on 12.6.2010

Despite having lived in 6 different countries during my life, I still have so much to learn about culture, identity and respect. It's humbling to realise that. I read over my post from two days ago and realised I wrote it feeling somewhat frustrated and a bit angry, and I feel that my intolerance came through perhaps a bit too much, especially in the part about culture and language. It can be difficult to embrace difference while juggling the many differences that fluctuate within your own identity.

I think that, as I am thinking more and more about belonging, establishing some kind of sense of community and having a network of friends and family to give their support which will be particularly important if I am blessed with a family one day, I am more and more conscious of the way I construct my identity. To some extent my identity is a case of pick and mix (although I can assure you I am by no means an extreme case), which makes for a lot of thinking as to what aspects of culture and society, and of what culture and society, you want to take on as your own and pass on to the next generation. I feel like I have spent at least 10 years mulling over this matter and only now am I starting to see myself a bit more clearly. Or so I thought.

Yesterday I was speaking with my dear anthropologist about the fact that, while I am keen to try and do something new and "settle down" a little bit more when I move back to Spain, how silly I feel about getting involved in a community that isn't mine (Gracia, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain), and about my interest in being involved in a project to do with Latin America because, as I already pointed out, I am not from that continent. He astutely asked me why I was so keen to be involved in something to do with Latin America, and why did I think I had to get involved in working with e.g. a support group for Latin American women. Was there not something else I could do that wouldn't make me constantly question my involvement and my own identity?

I was a bit taken aback by his question. It made me realise that not only had I limited myself to a certain idea of Latin America and of being involved in some kind of community development project, I had undermined my own identity. I was trying to come up with a way of fitting a mould that I was never going to fit instead of creating a space for myself. That is not to say that I could or should never be involved in something that purely corresponds with who I am (if it were the case I don't think I'd ever find anything!). It simply made me realise that I sometimes compromise myself for no reason and seek ways of being me which maybe aren't who I am at all.

When a Colombian friend of mine said to me a while back that I was "practically Colombian", I took it as a wonderful compliment and a sign of friendship and acceptance from someone who takes pride in her country and her heritage, but also as a sign of perhaps having something of an insight to life and culture in her country. Now that the football World Cup is on, I join my Mexican friends in the pub, wear my Pumas t-shirt and support the Mexican team in some kind of desperate attempt to identify with these people who I have learned to love, but at the cost of what? At the cost of my Finnish and "other" heritage? Why do I sometimes not feel so strongly about those heritages?

For the past two months or so I have been reading and learning a lot about Colombian political systems due to the presidential elections in Colombia that have their final voting round on the 20th of June. I am also reasonably knowledgeable on Colombian education policy because of it is an integral part of the dissertation I'm working on. What frustrates me is that I probably know more about Colombian politics and education policy than about their Finnish equivalents. And occasionally I take this frustration out on my dear anthropologist, who, while taking an interest in Finland and its culture, is by no means as interested in it than he is in his own culture. And there is no reason why he should be. Having a strong interest for Latin America and having many friends and a significant other from that geo-cultural region, I sometimes I forget - as funny as it may sound- that in fact I in am NOT Latin American, never will be and should never even strive to be. Although I have learned to embrace my uprooted Finn-identity, I sometimes think that my identity is an obstacle. It of course, is NOT an obstacle. I just sometimes make it into one. I sometimes exaggerate the importance of other cultures and belittle "my" culture. And sometimes vice versa - being annoyed at people who think the Finnish language is "weird", or praising the Finnish social security system and every other possible system to high heaven.

Why is it that after all these years I still have such a love-hate relationship with my Finnish heritage? Or, better yet, why do I still struggle to find the right balance of my "other " heritage, all the many heritages and cultures that I love and can identify with due to my uprootedness? Why the imbalance?

All those cliches about getting to know yourself and finding yourself are true. It takes time to get to know yourself. It takes courage to live your life the way you want to. A dear friend of mine recently said that she was more afraid of succeeding than of failing, and I felt that at least to some extent I could identify with her feelings.

It's madness!

Why are we so afraid of ourselves?!

In praise of difference, (in)tolerance, the fine art of being (un-)PC, and the mysteries of a foreign language

Sometimes those who consider themselves the most open-minded and tolerant people are in fact the most intolerant ones. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) did well in writing political pamphlets for both the Whigs and the Tories back in his day - at the end of the day, politics is a full circle where the extreme left meets the extreme right and they are exactly the same thing, exactly as good or bad as each other, with very similar political agendas.

And the same goes for tolerance and intolerance, "religion" and non-"religion" (the word "religion" in inverted commas because it is a word and concept widely ill-defined and misunderstood). What I witness time and time again is self-proclaimed tolerant people expressing intolerant ideas in the most audacious manner. By tolerance I refer to something like not interfering with or judging a person or an idea without careful consideration and respect.

Let me give you an example: a weed-smoking, apparently left-leaning woman in her late 20's with a rock n roll attitude and a passion for international relations and social justice goes on about how open-minded she is, then proceeds to slag off a small group of practicing Catholics standing in the other corner of the room. A second example: An association of self-proclaimed neo-hippies (or hippies with credit cards, a friend of mine so aptly once put it), set up a cafe where people can come and go as they please, paint, play music, sleep on the battered sofas and bring their own lunch if they want. But alas, should a person who does not fit the stereotypical hippie and who may decide to have an un-hippie bite to eat in the cafe, (s)he is asked to leave. An allegedly open-minded young professional struggling to tolerate a new acquaintance who to him/her seems completely intolerant due to his/her faith and belief system.

I recognise my own false tolerance in similar situations. To tolerate someone you think is more intolerant than you can be intolerable, but often highly necessary. I can understand intolerance. Some things simply cannot be tolerated (and by this I mean very serious things). But acceptance of and respect for even the more conservative, allegedly more intolerant people is vital. How can one be open-minded and think that their open-minded way is the only way?

Nobody wants to recognise their own intolerance.

Now, a second, related, matter that I find intriguing is political correctness. I enjoy being un-PC in certain company. You cannot make un-PC jokes around most people. I find that despite enjoying making un-PC jokes, I find it difficult to understand and - here it comes again - tolerate authentically un-PC people.

The Spanish language is full of un-PCness. It is quite refreshing. You can call your chubby friend "Fattie", your anorexic friend "Skinny", your dark friend "Blackie" and your hairy friend - well, "Hairy", or, even better, with a little twist of irony, "Baldy" (the last one I keep getting confused with as the word for hairy, peludo, and the colloquial term for bald, pelado, are different by only one vowel). And best of all, they are actually considered terms of endearment.

Now, there are elements of this example of un-PCness which I don't really appreciate. Most of it has to do with ethnic minority naming within the community. Some rather racist or at best segretationist expressions are accepted as funny expressions that form part of the language and the culture (at least in Spain).

And so now we come to the difficult part - my intolerance. I have written about the importance of tolerance. But I am actually very intolerant of some un-PC expressions and attitudes. I am intolerant of intolerance. My problem is that I struggle to tolerate intolerant behaviour, in myself and in others.

One of the things I struggle tolerating, and now we come to the culture/language part again, is a possessive, diminutive term of endearment in Spanish (to my knowledge more common in Latin American Spanish than in Spanish Spanish). For example, calling someone "my dear so-and-so" when quite clearly the person is not theirs, and possibly not that dear to them either (or vice-versa). I have had many a discussion about this topic with a very dear (and now I use the word in what I consider the true sense of the word) anthropologist I know. I can understand close friends and family calling each other "dear". Even "my" goes. I have learned to use and appreciate the "my dear so-and-so" expression to an extent, and the diminutive, "my dear little so-and-so" as well. But I don't understand why everyone calls everyone else "my dear little so-and-so". Surely if "my dear little so-and-so" applies to everyone, it applies to no-one at all! If everyone is your dear, who truly is your dear? Then again, I understand and appreciate these terms of endearment. I even know that just because someone calls another "my dear so-and-so" it often simply means that you care about the person, or that you are being patronising towards them, or, from what I have gathered (and correct me if I'm wrong), most commonly, it means absolutely nothing. But it is this what I interpret as indifference towards the spoken word that I struggle to tolerate, even though to an extent I feel I understand it as well as I possibly can as a non-native speaker. And what I struggle to tolerate is the fact that I still struggle to tolerate this. Why do I still struggle to accept the fact that ahora can mean anything from "now" to "never"? Why is it that, even if you appreciate a different way of thinking and being, do the best you can to adopt it and know that you may never truly understand, it is still so hard to tolerate such difference?

Then again, maybe I am being tolerant in this matter. After all, I want to understand. Or, better yet, I want to not care about not understanding this aspect that I get hung up on time and time again.

Perhaps I am being too hard on myself and on other tolerant wannabes out there. Perhaps I am being too hard on those who don't even want to be tolerant.
Perhaps tolerance is simply a matter of will, understanding and time combined.

Perhaps tolerance isn't the word I'm looking for.