Shaken, Yet Still Standing

SDP - social democratic party of finland
Originally uploaded by heipmann

Yesterday´s elections were quite exciting, I have to say. It is always fantastic and good for democracy when things get shaken. Here a few observations:

- True Finns: Most of Finnish media is making the wrong analysis on this political party. Putting the party leader Timo Soini and his folks in the same category with the Dutch islamophobe Geert Wilders is a misrepresentation of the truth. The policy and popularity of True Finns works much more on the anti-establishment card than on xenophobia. This is quite obvious when you listen to them in debates. The party has a natural attraction amongst poor pensioners or unemployed youth - people feeling abandoned by the illusion we call the welfare state. Taking these fears and this anger seriously is a difficult challenge for the rest of the parties.
And let´s face it: how low would the voting rate have been WITHOUT True Finns? The fact that people wish to express anti-establishment sentiments and disappointment by voting is something we should take joy from.

- SDP: That old poster in the picture tells it all. SDP´s slogan: We will make some noise on your behalf. A political party unable to provide a role for the citizen deserves a defeat. As someone wrote on Facebook today: the problems of this party-turned-institution are the same as the Lutheran Church´s. And it is not saved by recycling Blairite slogans from 1997. Defending the System goes down badly at a time when people are seeking for a sense of involvement and belonging. Yes We Can is not only a disguising slogan for old politics, it means that you actually involve people in making change happen. It is a new way of doing politics and calls for a new way of building trust and communities. If they have the courage, this is a great opportunity for Social Democrats: empowering the people in the margins to be change makers in their own lives.
And let´s face it: we have come far from the 1903 goal on the separation of church and state when the leading man of the Social Democrats is a priest who is not even a member of the party.

- Greens: Good tail wind, have to give them that. I am not really interested in the boxes provided by other parties for the Greens: garden party of the right or the new Communists? This discussion does not really solve anything and is purely an intellectual masturbation exercise of political hacks.
If I would be making strategies for the party, I would try to find ways to diversify the party´s image from the current one: an upper middle-class smart party posse setting themselves above the rest of the society. The Greens should listen carefully to the increasing comments on arrogance and inability to understand other view points. Softening of actions, image and policy might be worth considering.

- National Coalition (Kokoomus): Kokoomus is still the biggest party in Finland although they did not make their target of keeping four seats. The party ran a campaign relying highly on the youthful Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs (neither of whom were running). They ran a campaign focusing on good mood, simplifications and happy-happy-joy-joy - an exemplary campaign of the republic of entertainment.
But the party stumbled in the last weeks when some candidates pushed some content to the surface which did not fit the party line. Cartoon TV ads do not explain away candidates calling immigrants social bums or questioning climate change.
This is the destiny of all parties controlled by spin doctors: there comes a point when you need to realise that you just cannot control it all.

All and all, the results tell a good story. The parties which have invested in their local actions and on bringing new people in did well in these elections. The ones at a loss with their objectives were punished by the voters. This is what we call democracy.

Minorities in the Media

Henry Jenkins
Originally uploaded by Joi

"One is tempted to argue that African-Americans (and other minorities) enjoy greater opportunities to communicate beyond their own communities now than ever before. But we need to be careful in making that claim. Recent research suggests that there are far fewer minority characters on prime time network television shows this season than there were five years ago. There remains an enormous ratings gap between white and black Americans: the highest rating shows among black Americans often are among the lowest rated shows among white Americans. The exception, curiously enough, are reality television programs, like American Idol, which historically have had mixed race casts.

We've seen some increased visibility of black journalists and commentators throughout the 2008 campaign season -- and they may remain on the air throughout an Obama administration -- but we need to watch to make sure that they do not fade into the background again. But, if we follow your argument, even those figures who make it into the mainstream media are, at best, relaying critiques and discourses which originate within the black community and at worse, they are involved in a process of self-censorship which makes them an imperfect vehicle for those messages.

The paradox of race and media may be that black Americans have lost access to many of the institutions and practices which sustained them during an era of segregation without achieving the benefits promised by a more "integrated" media environment. And that makes this a moment of risk -- as well as opportunity -- for minority Americans.

I suspect we are over-stating the problem in some ways. There are certainly some serious constraints on minority participation in cyberspace but a world of networked publics also does offer some opportunities for younger African-Americans to deliberate together and form opinion, which we need to explore more fully here."

In the quote above, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins brings together the two issues that I am focusing on at the moment: future of media and diversity. Jenkins upholds his reputation as a critical, academic but enthusiastic researcher. In his blog, Jenkins is currently engaged in a debate on the future of African Americans communities online with Dayna Cunningham, the Executive Director of the Community Innovators Lab at MIT. In her first post, Cunningham described how the black voice is disappearing from the media sphere:

"However, I would argue that today, black politics has largely been reduced to the electoral and legislative spheres; African American media too often promote black celebrity and individual advancement, and along with much of the black civic infrastructure, rarely focus on freedom discourse as a means of exploring strategies for collective political action and accountability to black interests. Perhaps only the Church has survived as an independent space for black voice--and even the Church is sometimes compromised by "prosperity gospel" preachers who have little time for freedom discourse."

Jenkins answers well to the concerns expressed by Cunningham and acknowledges the risks posed by the fact that online it is very difficult to contain ideas in a certain context. There are still two chapters to follow in their discussion, I recommend staying alert.

This Is What This Election Is About

Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama last Sunday, which was a major blow for the Republicans. Out of the entire interview, this reasoning touches me. This is why they should vote Obama.

Added later the same day: And what I was trying to point out, the phenomenal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd puts down in the way that only she can. Thanks for the tip, Mr Minnesota.

Printed Element of Surprise

Quran
Originally uploaded by manitoon

A friend of mine, a great Swedish journalist Arne Ruth, described well a while back the rare quality - some could say unique selling point - that newspapers and magazines possess. According to Arne, the web very seldom leads us to information that we did not know that we were interested in. This is very evident on Google where we seldom bump into stuff that triggers us if we were not specifically looking for it. According to Arne, that is the key selling point of the newspaper. I must say I agree with Arne to a large extent. I am still desperate for a way to cope with the insane amount of content that would still contain an element of unpredictability.

A clear example of this wonderful quality of newspapers was the Guardian of last Friday, which I picked up on my way to a lunch on my free day. While eating my sandwich, I glanced through the news section. Before I got halfway, I threw the newspaper into my gym bag. I bumped into it again on my lazy Sunday and found myself getting completely excited by a big article on the Qur´an. Madeleine Bunting´s and Ziauddin Sardar´s debate on interpretation of the holy book actually taught me new things. Sardar´s radical position of trying to read the Qur´an in a straight forward way, without the historical load really fascinated me.

"For me the Qur´an is a living, dynamic book", Sardar wrote. "This is not just a definition of a believer. It is also a statement about belief...So, with new determination, I say that we Muslims have to teach ourselves to read and think about the Qur´an without the weight of tradition and classical commentaries. Muslim scholars and experts should not exist as gatekeepers, permanently excluding us from using our knowledge and insight to make sense of the Qur´an for ourselves."

Through what kind of Google search would I ever bump into this?

The Real American Idol

In a bit more than a week, I am giving a lecture to a professional audience in Geneva on how ´we´ and ´they´ are produced in youth cultures. When preparing the lecture I have been going through a lot of audiovisual content (fancy expression for hanging on YouTube) and value studies of European youth. I wish to elaborate a bit on the shared or divied values today and between generations. The quest made me go back to one of my favourite moments on Dutch TV some months back: the winner of the Dutch Idols Nikki decided to sing a gospel song in the finals of the competition and got criticism from one of the jury members (gay celeb singer) for the song selection. In that moment, I felt like the Dutch society was accurately presented in a matter of seconds and forced into dialogue.

Well, the moment came back to me watching the annual charity show of the American Idol called Idols Give Back. The star-studded show for Aids work featured everyone from Miley Cyrus and Fergie to Brad Pitt. However, the most fascinating moment was when this mainstream of the mainstream programme ended with the finalists singing together a religious song called Shout To The Lord. This was not a song they picked themselves but was for sure selected by FOX. Fascinating, wouldn´t you say? It seems like religion - more accurately Christianity - is getting cool again on both sides of the Atlantic. Or religion has consumer power? Or both. I keep watching these clips again and again in awe.

I find it wonderful that people are in touch with spirituality and wish to express it. But the difference between the Dutch and the American example is important: in the Dutch Idols Nikki chooses to express something important to her when in the American Idol mainstream entertainment adopts religion as a collective practice.

Anti-climax

HH567637
Originally uploaded by arianne.smidt

Last week was supposed to be Geert Wilders' boost to worldwide fame. The Dutch right-wing populist politician had been drumming up fear and anxiety for months by keeping the release date of his film Fitna secret. Fitna is a calculated attack on Islam and Qur'an. Foreign journalists - including a friend of mine from Finland - travelled to Amsterdam to interview muslims and to witness the likeable violence.

On Wednesday afternoon I got a call from my journalist friend. She was hunting for images of the multicultural clash in Slotervaart, one of Amsterdam's problem neighhbourhoods as characterised by the government. My friend told me on the phone that what they met were Dutch muslims fed up and tired to talk about the issue.

Wilders did not shot himself to grandiose lecturer fees and to international talk shows. His film was pulled off from all websites, he was blamed for using people's work without permission and - most importantly - people sort of consciously ignored his attack on islam after a day. The most common remark I heard was not irritation and anger, it was:"You know, I started watching it and it was really really boring and badly done. I just fastforwarded through it."

Ignoring was not only a Dutch reaction. Altogether it seems that Mr Wilders' attack was miscalculated and ineffective. I may still be proven wrong but as things are now, there is reason for joy. One should not underestimate one's audience, Mr Wilders: we just won't take any sort of crap.

Today on my way to work I glanced through Metro (flat tire, that's why the tram). Mediamatic - the brilliant Dutch new media and culture organisation - did it again: superb reaction to Wilders' film: www.fitna.nu