North Korean 'Propaganda' is the real viral hit of 2012
"Propaganda 2012 is a 95-minute video that presents itself as a North Korean educational video intending to inform the citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea about the dangers of Western propaganda. The video's uploader, known as 'Sabine', reiterates a statement she gave to the Federal Police regarding the movie's origins. She explains how the film was given to her by people claiming to be North Korean defectors whilst she was visiting Seoul. ...
Although the origins of Propaganda 2012 are contentious, its power lies in the fact that much of its content attempts to avoid invented history. Considering the media buzzwords associated with the alleged country of origin, Propaganda 2012 turns a mirror onto the Western world and seeks to criticise its entire history and culture – from the genocide and imperialism of its past, to the interventionism and consumerism of the modern era. The movie's overall attitude seems to express an intention to educate, shock and caution its audience into realising that people in the West are governed by a super-rich ruling class (The one per cent), who do not offer them true democracy; but instead seek to invade and assimilate as many countries as possible, whilst distracting their population with a smokescreen of consumerism, celebrity, and reality television. This message is spread across the video's 17 chapters, which each attempt to focus on specific examples of Western indoctrination and oppression. The film is regularly punctuated by commentary from an anonymous North Korean professor, and quotes from Western thinkers such as Noam Chomsky and Richard Dawkins. ...
Propaganda 2012 is certainly a film where the audience takes from it what they bring to it, and a variety of emotions can be induced upon viewing. Laughter, cynicism, outrage, contemplation and reflection would all be adequate responses to the video's tough, and often graphic, portrayal of the complex world in which we are living. Yet perhaps the most important thing to remember when watching the film is that the video is available to view uncensored, on a largely unregulated world wide web, and merely represents an extreme end of the vast spectrum of free expression. Therefore, during this festive end to an austere year, enjoy Propaganda 2012 as an interesting and beguiling alternative voice that cries loudly against the dangers of religious consumerism, and reminds us to remain humble and reflect on those less fortunate than ourselves."
(Kieran Turner-Dave, 17 December 2012, Independent Arts Blogs)
CONTRIBUTOR
David ReidSHARE
(un)Smart-Mobs: text-messages used to incite racial violence at NSW's Cronulla Beach
"Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day ..."
(anonymous text message, circulated between 5-10 December 2005)
Fig.1 Sydney Morning Herald's Photographer Andrew Meares captures the fury of the Cronulla riots.
[The use of mobile telephone text messages to incite racial hared at North Cronulla beach in Sydney, Australia is a prime example of what Howard Rheingold calls 'Smart-Mobs'. Although it is clear in this case that the content of the messages has very little to do with the idea of being smart - the fact that groups of individuals are able to self-organise in this way is. Such technology allows individuals to form groups in an ad-hoc manner (in this case, groups of foolish red-necks), which is interesting give the centralised nature of most other communication avenues.]
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
Diagnosing Iranian History In Terms Of European Past
Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi pp.263-291
Europe has been constituted as the horizon of expectation for the Iranian passage to modernity. Thus European history, as the future past of the desired present, has functioned as a normative scenario for the prognosis or forecasting of future Iran. This anticipatory modernity introduced a form of historical thinking that diagnosed Iranian history in terms of the European past. By universalising that past, historical deviations from the European norm have been mis-recognised as abnormalities. Thence, the development of feudalism, capitalism, the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, democracy, freedom, scientific rationality, and industry in the "well-ordered" Europe have informed the diagnoses of their lack, absence, retardation, and underdevelopment in Iran.[33] In other words, alternative non-European historical processes have been characterised as the absence of change and as historical history.
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
Retrospective Identities: unambiguous, stable, intellectually impervious and collective
Retrospective "identities use as resources narratives of the past which provide exemplars, criteria, belonging and . ... This provides for an unambiguous, stable, intellectually impervious, collective identity. This consumes the self in all its manifestations and gives it a site outside of current and future instabilities, beyond current ambiguities of judgement, relation and conduct. In some contexts it produces a strong insulation between the sacred and profane, such that it is possible to enter the profane world without either being appropriated or colonised by it. Islamic fundamentalism enables the appropriation of western technologies without cultural penetration. Nearer home orthodox Jews in the 1920s, and even earlier, occupied small shops and business slots in the economy and retained their identity through strict orthodox practice. In the 1960s and onwards many British [Central] Asian Moslems occupied a similar economic and cultural context. The problem here for such retrospective identities is their reproduction in the next generation, and here we might expect a shift to prospective or even therapeutic positions. Age may well influence the expression of the retrospective identity through differential selection of resources. It may well be that the young are attracted to the current revival of charismatic Christianity with its emphasis upon the subjective, the emotional, upon intense interactive participation and upon oppositions to institutional orthodoxes. On a more anecdotal level I have been impressed with the revival of student fraternity rituals in Portugal, Norway and Germany. Finally we can consider nationalism and populism as subsets of retrospective fundamentalism, drawing on mythological resources of origin, belonging, progression and destiny (rise of the extreme right). Any weakening of the collective resource on which the fundamentalist identity draws and which minutely regulates conduct, belief and participation, as is likely in inter-generation reproduction, may entail a shift to re-centring identities on the part of the young."
(Basil Bernstein 2000, p.74)
Bernstein, Basil. (2000). 'Pedagogy Symbolic Control and Identity, Theory Research Critique'. Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
Marham Karimi Nasseri: In-limbo
I am a citizen of Charles De Gaulle Airport. -Marham Karimi NasseriDue to a bureaucratic glitch a airline traveller, Mr Nasseri was trapped in the non-place of the transit lounge in the Charles De Gaulle Airport at Roissy, France. For 11 years Nasseri shaved and washed in the passenger facilities, and kept himself occupied watching the eb and flow of the airport traffic. Despite intentions to settle in London in 1988 he was forced to make-do in a bubble of fast-food stores and gift shops until being freed by the actions of a human rights lawyer in 1999.
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
