CONVERSATION
CONVERSATION
CONVERSATION
HUMAN TRACES:
ETHIOPIA
HUMAN TRACES:
ETHIOPIA
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
THE BALANCE OF FACTS
DESTINATIONS
DESTINATIONS
The Dreamtime, or the Dreaming, portrays the Aboriginal beliefs in spiritual existence. According to the tribes that first settled down in the continent, the Dreaming's roots date all the way back to the very begging of the creation of the world. The meaning and ideology of the term is generally not so well-understood by non-indigenous people as it is referred to as part of the culture of one of the early nations, which differs from modern perceptions.
The Spirits were the creators of everything. They made the land and the seas, the rocks and the plants, the sky and the earth. They were the higher power and the Australian Aborigines spent their lifetimes honoring this power, which guided their path and shaped their way of thinking. Not only creators of everything, which could be seen as well as felt, the Spirits also gave the Aborigines the Dreaming.
The time when everything started existing according to the initial Australians, was called the Dreaming. This is the foundation of the continent's culture. The origin of the Dreaming goes way back - 65 000 years back in time to be exact. The Ancestors of the nation shaped the land, forming some parts of it as sacred. The Aborigines were very careful and overprotective of those places, strongly believing in their significance.
The Australian Aborigines are known to have believed that the world didn't have any shape and was therefore empty. Darkness dominated, and life was simply asleep, but this changed when the creation began happening. After the Dreaming and the influence of the Spirits, objects began taking shapes and came to be. They created the four elements: water, earth, air and fire, as well as all the planets, the Sun and the Moon. The Dreaming therefore is a continuous process, which never ended. It is a small cosmos on its own, unifying the past, present and the future into one.
The Australian Aborigines' home riches so many vivid areas of the continent, including Fraser Island, Tasmania, Palm Island, Groote Eylandt and Mornington Island. The Aborigines had very strong believes in relation to the powers of the land, claiming that they never owned it - it rather owned them. The only reason they were able to call it their home is because they were looking after it and the land was taking care of the people in return.
Equally important to the Dreaming was the tribes' understandings of the disappearance of the Spirits. There came a time, when the creators of everything vanished from sight. Some of them were thought to have started living in sacred places, which is why the Aborigines perceived their homeland to be so sacred. The ancestors of today's Australians used to believe that the creators started living in rocks, in water holes and some went up to the sky to guide the people from above and keep them safe. Others transformed completely, taking the forms of the rain, the lightnings and the thunderstorms so they could be part of peoples' life.
Among the hundred's different Aboriginal languages, there isn't a word to describe 'time', because to them this simply doesn't exist. Dreaming and Dreamtime are used to replace it and summarize the ideologies of the Aborigines about everything they knew, everything they could see, feel and experience. This is why the Dreaming has such a vivid, and overwhelming meaning and has survived the obstacles of time. For the past couple thousand years, the Dreaming has built a rich cultural heritage that can identify a whole nation.
Read more about the Land, its connection to people and the way it has been perceived from different generations in the very first print issue of ORIGIN. The Land Issue covers varied topics, most of which remain related to cultural aspects of the land and its importance.
A lot of people travel to explore places and learn about them which is the message that ORIGIN wants to spread. With traveling, however, comes certain responsibilities that we should all be aware of. Elephants riding has become a popular way to explore locations by land. People have been doing this as part of their trips, mostly to places such as Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia and other parts of Asia. It is a common thing to see in certain places in Africa as well. We investigated the activity to explain why it is wrong and riding elephants should be banned everywhere.
Our first print issue studies culture and traveling represented through the land. We explored various location around the globe and learned what makes the land so valuable, which nations cherish it and how it helps us establish an identity. Traveling is important to us but traveling responsibly and making an impact is what we feel proud to stand behind. This is why riding elephants as a way of amusement should be reconsidered.
Let’s talk about the details. Elephants are very caring and extremely intelligent animals. It is a well-known fact that they never forget anything. When kept in captivity instead of spending their life in the wild, elephants die younger. Unlike in other species, this is common for the gentle giants and is often a result for stress.
Many African cultures respect elephants, believing they symbolize strength, loyalty and power. However, power can be a very tender concept. Elephant used as a tourism tool suffer from great pain daily. Elephants can be hurt very severely from the weight of carrying people and a trainer on their backs. The reason for this is the design of their spines. They have sharp protrusions, extending upwards from their spine instead of having round spinal disks. The protrusions and the tissue that serves to protect them can be harmed easily from weight pressure. Once a damage to their spine has been made, there is no going back and sometimes the harm can be irreversible. While this can’t be physically seen, the harm that the chairs can do to the elephants’ skin is. It is often the case that the chairs and the weight on their back can damage the animal’s skin and cause pain to their body. The chair, called Howdah, that gets attached to their backs, rubs on their skin and can cause blisters, which can sometimes get infected.
The training that elephants are required to go through when in captivity sometimes adopts a traditional Thai ‘phajaan’ or ‘crush’ technique. Explaining the technique would compare it to the animals’ spirits constantly and continuously being broken by the means of torture and social isolation. This is done in order to tame them. Elephants are wild animals, this is their nature as they are born in such conditions. Making them safe and obedient around people requires them to go through such training. As horrible as it sounds, in some places young elephants are taken away from their mothers to be abused with nails, bull hooks and bamboo sticks to make them obey rules, given by people. The animals often lack sleep and are starved to become submissive.
Actions from such nature are cruel and harmful as the technique is used to crash the animals’ spirit. Once wild and free, elephants become a source of tourism and entertainment. Nobody, who cared about sustainable tourism should ever ride an elephant.
In a sense, elephants have a human soul. They socialise and feel everything – pain, happiness, grief, sadness etc. They spend their life building families and finding friends. The largest land animals are a gift from nature and it is our responsibility to take special care of them and make sure they live according to their nature. Many animals, who are kept in captivity, are forced to live in isolation and carry heavy loads all day long, which is a wrong way to treat them. Their strength and power shouldn’t be abused but treated gently and celebrated by people. Elephants require minimal care to stay happy and healthy, which comes from giving them freedom to behave naturally and socialise. It is our responsibility to be culturally aware while traveling and make sure to spread awareness about the problem.
You can read the rest of the article as published in the LAND issue.
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US
An observation on what changed socially after the situation on the Mexican border and how we continue to build walls to separate us 60 years after WWII
Opinion piece and artwork: Emily Georgieva
Photography: Steal my Art
14 April 2019
Throughout 2018 the issues at the Mexican American border became a story revolving around separation and segregation. This is a story about a wall in a world of many others. This is the Mexican border and the role it plays in the distance between us.
It may seem surprising that 7 was the total number of border walls in the world by the end of World War II. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, there were 15 walls. Thirty years later, we live in a world where over 77 border walls separate countries and their people. What is perhaps more pressing, is that the numbers only continue to grow.
History seems to reveal that throughout time, people have always found ways to divide from one another. We view people’s ethnicity, race, beliefs, nationality, social standing and other factors as labels. Segregation seems to be at the very core of this need to distinguish people as ‘others’, whom we should separate ourselves from. Examples of this are the recent events at the Mexican border.
Much was said and written about the issues occurring at the border and the people, trying to cross it. The stories of the Mexican refugees kept the media busy for a while. The president of the United States called them a ‘threat’, while the United Nations intertwined with his drastic ‘zero tolerance’ policy. The events from 13th October 2018 put the very idea of borders and fences into wider perspective. From a social aspect it could be said that instead of moving forward, humanity is perhaps taking a step back.
The media portrayed the Mexican citizens, but their voices were hardly heard. This was until a journalists stepped up to report from within the refugees’ camps, which brought some changes to the political air. President Trump’s decision to separate children from their families, upon crossing the border with US were criticised by global organizations. While some spoke of the dehumanisation of the Mexicans, the tension around the events escalated with the acceptance of Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy.
Those, who crossed the border without a visa or other documents, were treated as criminals. Children were detained, regardless of being accompanied by adults. The Department of Health and Human Services reported that total of 2342 children had been taken away from their families at the border between May and June 2018. While the United Nations called for an immediate end of the tactic, Trump’s administration declared that whoever was to cross the border illegally, would be deported.
The concept of the ‘others’ emerged. Built on the very foundation of foreign settlers, America was now declaring immigrants as a threat. It has been estimated that illegal immigration is the highest-ranked national problem in the States. However, reports show that in 2017 illegal entry from Mexico to the US was lower compared to past 56 years. Up until recently the conversations of building a wall between Mexican and American soil had just started. Today the issues at the border are a bitter reality with thousands of people left stranded at refugees’ camps, hoping to escape the terror and violence; striving to find better life opportunities abroad.
In February, over 76 000 people were seeking asylum at the US southern border. This is considered to be the highest number in a decade. Political instability, corruption, climate change, poor living conditions and violence are among the factors causing people to fear and push them to migrate. In late March 2019, it has been announced by the US government that aids will be cut El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, on the basis that people migrate from those territories to the borders of US.
In late March and early April hundreds of Central American migrants have been stopped in El Paso, a city that is a home to one million people. The US border patrol has to stop migrants under the Paso del Norte bridge connecting El Paso with Ciudad Juarez in Mexico because they were escaping from their homeland in search for more opportunities and a fresh start in the US territory. The conditions they had to face were unacceptable and dehumanising to say the least.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued a complaint about children having to sleep outside on the bare ground. The conditions people face by the bridge in El Paso have been described as some of the worst humanity have seen in recent history. The harsh weather conditions, short food supply and sleeping conditions have been criticised by many, including Dee Margo, El Paso’s Republican mayor. He talked to the media about his concerns of Donald Trump’s intention to close the border permanently and expressed his concern about how this will affect the economy of Central America. A lot of people travel for work to the territories of different countries and this will undoubtedly shake their economic stability. Numbers prove that over 23 000 people travel for work from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso and 50 000 residents of El Paso go to Mexico for the same reasons. Margo also stated that not the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) federal agents and the border control, but the Congress and Trump’s decisions are to be hold responsible for how men, women and children are ‘inhumanly’ treated by the El Paso bridge.
El Paso’s native and a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Beto O’Rourke criticized Trump’s decisions to close the border and treat immigrants so poorly. The president of the United States visited El Paso in February and announced the city as having one of the highest rates of crime for any big city in the US, which was a statement proven to be untrue. He called out the Congress demanding them to fund the building of the wall. He is serious about his decision and intends to put his words into actions sooner rather than later.
In the 21st century it has become simple to remain connected and reach one another, regardless of the distance there may be in between. Yet, it is equally as easy to feel distant from one another even when people live on the same continent. The recent event surrounding the US – Mexico wall and the way immigrants have been treated serves to prove that the concept of neglecting people as ‘others’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘immigrants’ is sadly still not an old-fashioned one. We live in a world of walls that continue to increase. Coexisting with one another and learning as much as possible from those, who are different than us is a way to think forward and crucial for achieving existential progress. Rather than dividing people, nationality, race and languages should be used to unite us all.
We all have a choice – to fight what we consider different or to rise in support and acceptance of one another. In the end of the day, we like to believe that if it was us or our loved ones facing difficulties, that someone would be there to hold out their hand and help us. It is the simplest, most human thing to do.
Read the full article in our print LAND issue. Head to the ‘About’ page to learn more.
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NOMADSofORIGIN is an independent annual publication with a focus on sustainable travelling and global cultural values. Each issue features interviews, engaging articles and photo guides, which take our nomadic readers through different destinations and introduce them to local people's perspectives.
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