Faves - what's yours?

by Sylvie Shaw

My favourite band of the moment is from Lebanon, or perhaps it's just my fave tune of the day. The band? Mashrou' Leila. The song? Imm El Jacket. Lyricism and heart; moving and intriguing. Why don't I know this song/band/music?

Much of my going-to-sleep/waking-up time is spent in tune with Monocle Radio 24. I've grown accustomed to their very eclectic music selection. Coming from a listenership of mainline pop, groovy salsa and Pat Methany's fusion jazz, all tinged with SBS Pop Asia, I found Monocle's music jarred. Yes, they sometimes played (and play) listenable tunes including ones I'd already garnered from J-pop and K-pop, especially 2NE1's 'I am the best' (which I first discovered mashed up on SYTYCD with Mark and Jenna), or the 'oldie' W & Whale's R.P.G Shine (criticised for being an over-simulated US pop song) - but sometimes I just had to turn off or turn over.

But this is only the beginning of a mediated music journey into songs which lift the spirit and carry with them the seduction of theoretical exploration into global media and spirituality and religion. Here we revisit the theoretical marvel developed by the anthropologist, Clifford Geertz.

What makes something religious? Geertz (1993) in his Religion as a cultural system lays out a five step pathway to guide us in our religious explorations. He says religion can be defined as: (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men [sic] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic (1993:90).

Importantly, Geertz unravels his 5-point coda and in so doing reveals its deeper significance, on this occasion, the depth of meaning about the relationship between sacred (even secular sacred) symbols and the establishment of powerful, long-lasting and pervasive (persuasive?) moods and motivations. He lays it clearly:

'Whether one sees the conception of a personal guardian spirit, a family tutelary, or an immanent God as synoptic formulations of the character of reality or as templates for producing reality with such a character seems largely arbitrary, a matter of which aspect, the model of or model for, one wants for the moment to bring into focus. The concrete symbols involved—one or another mythological figure materializing in the wilderness, the skull of the deceased household head hanging censoriously in the rafters, or a disembodied "voice in the stillness" soundlessly chanting enigmatic classical poetry—point in either direction. They both express the world's climate and shape it.' (95)

In this way, the symbolic resonances situated within the global wealth of religious and spiritual practices (including mythical apparitions and ancestors past) merge into a two-way habitus in which dispositions are framed and reframed in continuous confluence. In the process, religious worshipping and ritual performance evoke more than reverence and solemnity - although they do that too. Marvellously he writes:

'The moods that sacred symbols induce, at different times and in different places, range from exultation to melancholy, from self-confidence to self-pity, from an incorrigible playfulness to a bland listlessness—to say nothing of the erogenous power of so many of the world's myths and rituals.' (97)

Sacred worship and ritual actions affirm the dispositions of practice for community and the individual. They reinforce understandings and modes of behaviour and uphold the way of story and ethos.

What's especially telling about Geertz's outlook is that raises other questions about the nature of religion and the way it shifts and slides in the contemporary world. What's significant in the postmodern and postsecular restaging of religious traditions (and not only in the west) is that religious practice takes on the mantle of secular and popular movements and objects which hitherto were not deemed to be religious or spiritual, but were instead (and in some places still are) blasphemous or sacrilegious. 

This blurring of the sacred and the profane, and the accompanying sacralisation of the profane (religions embracing pop and rock genres), and profanisation of the sacred (sacred objects as high street fashion items) are bound together in an ongoing flow of redefinitioning (religion) and repositioning the place of religion as a vital (and everyday) component of social life.

But can secular projects actually be or become religious? Religions were slow to embrace pop music, at least initially and still in some places, but the rush to embrace different genres from hip hop to black metal, or hard rock to grunge has been global. The early NY and LA African American poetic and political street rap has been transmuted and re-imagined linguistically and culturally. Music speaks. It informs, delights, inspires, transforms. To hark back to Geertz, it can also create moods of exultation and melancholy, along with an incorrigible playfulness, a bland listlessness and the ecstasy of erogenous power - and can do this all at once.

Inspiration from Geertz and Durkheim colours my worldview and religious dispositioning. And music still calls as function and emotional repertoire as a backdrop - or foreground - to our actions, moods and motivations. As a religious experience, music seals and re-opens - it sparks and enlivens to heady heights or, in sacred sound and in silence, it can re-open our wounds and sufferings.

Music can also heal. Admidst sounds of drumming, bells, cymbals, gongs, accompanied by sacred dance, repetitive chant and soaring rhythm, music binds the listener within the cosmic tree - entranced, enchanted, enraptured.

Apparently there has been a hiatus in the way that religious studies viewed or reviewed religious music. At least that is the view of Guy Beck in his book Sacred sound: experiencing music in world religions. He maintains that 'the purely silent approach to religious studies easily forgets to treat 'Holy Scripture as 'living' ['breathing'] text, whether in chant or song (2006:7). Within the enlivened sounds of the divine, Beck underlines his view that 'sacred sounds' stir the religious adherent to reach and 'understand religion at its deepest level' (8). And I would add, to experience it as an embodied expression of faith.

'... it is really the power of the oral form of the scriptural text that truly invokes the emotional, intuitive, and memory-laden processes in the majority of religious practitioners'. (8)

But these emotions emerging from sacred music, as well as the music itself, have been repositioned in pop culture, as if the notion of the sacred itself is being stretched. To illustrate this idea further, the phenomenologist of religious Geradus van der Leeuw  simply said that 'music is a world in itself' which reaches across space and time (cited in Sylvan 2002:33). Listening to music we are transported to other realms, memories, places, dreams, and imagined pasts, presents and futures, and all the while, while being in the now.

With music we journey to and with the 'wholly other' of Rudolf Otto (1923). Or to and with the numinous. But how does this journey in a contemporary pop cultural setting take us into that holy or divine space of musical expression that Beck elicits?

Van der Leeuw (1963) explains that the outflow of sublime and sacred music moves the adherent though 'its overpowering character. We cannot express it; we find ourselves in the presence of the wholly other'. People can be 'swept away' while travelling on an oceanic feeling. He says: 'We are on a ship. The waves are smashing violently against the sides of the ship. We feel different' (1963:231).

But could it leave us shipwrecked, transformed by its violent smashing? Or does it transport us to a place of safety when the waves die down? Here I am thinking (in metaphorical terms) of the graphic scene in Life of Pi as Pi and Tiger (Richard Parker) lie exhausted and half-dead after the huge storm.

'Pi Patel: We're dying, Richard Parker. I'm sorry.
[Pi sits on the bench and places the tiger's head on his lap, Pi weeps and turns his head up to the sky]
Pi Patel: Amma, Appa, Ravi, I'm happy I'm going to see you soon.
[Pi looks down at the tiger]
Pi Patel: Can you feel the rain?
[Richard Parker opens his eyes slightly, but remains listless]
Pi Patel: God, thank you for giving me my life. I'm ready now.' (Screenplay writer, David Magee; novel author Yann Matel, MovieQuotesandMore.com, 2014)

Through the movement of waves and the surgings of storms, the spiritual uplift and the falling back into the abyss of deep despair are 'moods and motivations' - emotions so intimately bound up with the practice of faith.

Sorry, I digress - a diversion from sacred music into sacred story....

As Geertz so evocatively wrote, religion, however it manifests, is created of 'a system of symbols [sacred forms of music] which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men [sic] [through connections with the musical sacred] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence [music and ritual enhance and affirm scripture and holy text] and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality [Eliade's hierophany in which the sacred reveals itself in music (1959)] that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic' - and faith embeds itself into our hearts and lives.  

Oh well, enough of reflecting on waves, storms, and hierophanies, let's get back to pop and Monocle's Global Music with SHINee's Dream Girl, and We were Evergreen's Daughters.

References
- Beck G.L. Ed., 2006. Sacred sound: experiencing music in world religions. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
- Eliade M. 1959. The sacred and the profane: the nature of religion. Trans. W.R. Trask. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
- Geertz C. 1993. Religion as a cultural system. In The interpretation of cultures: selected essays, 87-125. Fontana Press.
- MovieQuotesandMore.com. 2014. Life of Pi quotes. Sublimely symbolic, http://www.moviequotesandmore.com/life-of-pi-movie-quotes.html#1
- Otto R. 1923. The idea of the holy: an inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational. Trans. J.W. Harvey. London: Oxford University Press.
- van Der Leeuw G. 1963. Sacred and profane beauty: the holy in art. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- Sylvan R. 2002. Traces of the spirit. The religious dimensions of popular music. New York: NYU Press.

Image source
Pixabay. 2014. Concert Performance Audience Lightshow Music Party, http://pixabay.com/en/concert-performance-audience-336695/

News - Do I really want to read it?

by Sylvie Shaw

Listening to Monocle Radio 24 each day has given me a new focus on the news of the world. The station tempers the often overly-superficial coverage of global events as dished up by mainline daily, hourly and even half-hourly news updates. The shows on Monocle present stories providing detailed background to current events and interesting context about what is happening in the world. You hear about testy and compelling issues from places you rarely hear of - or issues you know little or nothing about. The western mainline media could certainly have a similar focus but instead of informing, they choose simplistic, multi-platformed, decontextualised so-called entertaining stories that show scant relationship to broader world issues, only the homogenous world the media projects.

This is Baudrillard's hyperreal representation. When Baudrillard (1995) wrote 'The Gulf War did not take place', he observed in a wide-ranging way what the media were projecting as obfuscation. The difference was that he did not accept the mediated representation of spectacle and disconnected hyperreal images. It was, as Guy Debord (1994) stated, a spectacle of ideology:

'The spectacle is the acme of ideology, for in its full flower it exposes and manifests the essence of all ideological systems: the impoverishment, enslavement and negation of real life.' (Debord 1994, point 215).

And a real lack of engagement.

Taking Debord into the virtual world, Benoit Detalle makes an Adorno and Horkheimer-like uncompromising critique of the viewer/reader and the mediated effect, noting: 'We, suspending self-critical thought, all bow before the supreme virtual event.' Detalle continues, likening the coverage of war to the direction of a Hollywood movie.

'It becomes instant history, unchallenged and unchallengeable.' (Gerbner in Baudrillard 1995;3)

But we, audience are no longer permitted to see real war action, wounded bodies or hear the cries of families, refugees and devastated children. The journalist drives through a bombed-out, dusty streetscape that could be anywhere and voiceovers an instant report from an empty place, where residents have joined the long queue of refugees walking toward the safety they hope for. Detalle calls this style of coverage 'a clean war'. 

But it is only what the media chooses to show us. There is other footage, images of the dead and wounded, but on Australian television, these images are missing. War is sanitised, manufactured and manicured. It was not always like this.

I grew up in the era of the Vietnam war and watched the bloody coverage on nightly news as the family sat down to dinner. It was, as Skyhooks sings, 'a horror movie shocking me right out of my brain' - and onto the street in huge antiwar activism.

These days, numbed by the delivery of rapid-fire disconnected technovated-images in all sorts of mediums, the otherness of war is mixed in image and language with the immediacy and familiarity of sporting events where sporting heroes (significantly men) play out their games with military precision and tactics. Is this link too stark? Yes, but I am trying to reflect on my own reaction to knowing what is going on in the world and what I need and want to know about. The trouble is, I know far more about sporting heroes and celebrity antics than what is happening on the frontline in the Ukraine, Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, Thailand, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Sudan and several other conflict-ridden regions. Detalle quotes Debord again:

'The spectacle cannot be understood either as a deliberate distortion of the visual world or as a product of the technology of the mass dissemination of image. It is far better viewed as a Weltanschauung that has been actualized, translated into the material realm - a worldview translated into an objective force.' (Debord 1994, point 5).

Taking this spectacle into the Baudrillard's world, Douglas Kellner (nd) summarises the effect of the hyperreal barrage of images which blur 'entertainment, information, and communication technologies' in a hegemonic roll-out. The mediated 'postmodern universe' is the world of the hyperreal that delivers, Kellner says,

'experiences more intense and involving than the scenes of banal everyday life, as well as the codes and models that structure everyday life. The realm of the hyperreal (i.e. media simulations of reality, Disneyland and amusement parks, malls and consumer fantasylands, TV sports, and other excursions into ideal worlds) is more real than real, whereby the models, images, and codes of the hyperreal come to control thought and behavior' (Kellner nd, 11).

As I write this post, I am listening to a precoverage of the European Champions League and the football World Cup on UK sportalk radio. For the moment I've bypassed Monocle 24 for the more prosaic. Monocle rarely covers sport (or religion) perhaps because it is too banal. Or because the station knows that the mainline media emphasis on sport and player as celebrity and myth has the ability to take the audience's mind away from reflecting on what's happening in the world, the conflicts on the myriad battlefields especially in Africa to and puts right up front, the sporting (battle)field in a created for TV mega-event.

The difficulty is the nexus being created - or at least the one I feel caught up in - the critique of the media and the enjoyment of media engagement. I am caught in the tantilising coverage of the Giro and the dominance in the early days of the 'green-edged' Australian cyclists, my delight in the K-pop super-hit 'I am the best' from the girl-group 2NE, and my fascination in the outcome of the big game tomorrow. Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid. In Baudrillard's postmodern universe, the media's seduction has won me over, while at the same time, I wake in the middle of the night to contemplate the result of this seduction, which blurs the real from the imaginary, and hypermediates my life and desires.

But personal reflection aside, and another contemplation more relevant to our course. It was a big question posed in the Washington Post earlier this year: Is religion losing ground to sports? The article by Chris Beneke and Arthur Remilard (2014) sets an historical frame to the question, pointing out that religious leaders have 'long feared that religion and sports would vie for loyalty - and that sports would win.' Again, the fine line between critique and love of the game is played out as a succulent edge-of-the-couch action packed sporting event, which for many, becomes a quasi-religious experience of excitement, ecstasy and supreme fandom. 

On the other hand, as Best and Keller (nd) remind us:

'The info-entertainment society reduces all of its genres from news to religion to sports to the logic of the commodity spectacle.'

References
- Baudrillard J. 1995. The Gulf War did not take place. Bloomington, Indiana.
- Beneke C and A. Remillard. 2014. Is religion losing ground to sports? http://www.americasquiltoffaith.org/faithtoselfgovern-blog
- Best S and D. Kellner. nd. Debord and the Postmodern Turn: New Stages of the Spectacle. Illuminations. http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell17.htm
- Debord G. 1994. The society of the spectacle. Situationist International online, http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/tsots09.html
- Detalle B. 2012. Glued. http://www.benoitdetalle.com/GLUED_benoit%20detalle-1.pdf
- Kellner D. nd. Jean Baudrillard. http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/baudrillard.pdf

Image source
Pixabay: close-up foosball football games table, http://pixabay.com/en/close-up-foosball-football-games-88488/

  

Representation and Indigeneity: lines in the sand

by Sylvie Shaw

One of the significant issues in Writing Religion and Spirituality is to consider what, who and why certain groups are being written about and depicted in certain ways in various mediums. This week we foraged within media representation and Indigeneity. 

The picture has vastly improved in Australia with NTIV, shows like Message Stick and Living Black, and dramas such as Mabo, Redfern, and The Gods of Wheat Street. 'The Gods', a new ABC drama, is promoted as: 'Taking Australians into the home, and hearts, of an Aboriginal family, 'The Gods of Wheat Street' aims to fill a huge gap in Australian television. Series creator Jon Bell says the production, which explores modern Aboriginal stories, has been described as 'Black to the Rafters' (Burin 2014). 

What this series aims to do is to introduce the wider Australian community to a regular Aboriginal family in rural New South Wales. The characters and storylines are designed to be positive, to lift the mediated stereotyped images and stories from Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander so-called 'problems' to a show which promotes 'identity and...connections to family, country and culture [and] present-day lives of Indigenous Australians'. 

Television reviewer for The Australian newspaper, Graeme Blundell (2014) reports the show as:  

'heartbreaking at times and often inspiring, a story of dogged courage, resilience and tragedy that illuminates the indigenous experience. It’s also mischievous, sly and beguiling, and especially fascinating for those of us who know little of Aboriginal life. And it’s characterised by occasional moments of that typical Aboriginal deadpan use of wry, ironic humour that takes the piss out of do-gooding authority and adds even more poignancy to the family shenanigans.'

Another media reviewer, Paul Kalina (2014) writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, interviewed the series director Jon Bell about the series and his intentions. Aimed at both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal audiences, the show seems framed in a similar mould to Home and Away and Neighbours. 

Bell, a Wirad­juri, Bundjalung and Yaegl man from rural northern NSW, makes a strong shift away from what he calls the 'flotsam and jetsam' of mainline media, as if Aboriginal people 'don't have a choice or are victims of bigger circumstances'. 

As well as being a show for and about the everyperson (Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal), Bell introduces elements of Aboriginal culture perhaps missing from other TV soaps - themes around spirituality and the supernatural. This helps to situate the otherwise super-natural perspective as a cultural norm and adds to the real-life realism of family and country.

Specificity of location and country connection also helps overcome the homogeneity of much reporting of Indigenous people in Australia. The series shows how Aboriginal identities are not static. They emerge from 'particular historical moments, experiences, relations, position with the social order, and from both the opportunities and constraints that govern our realities' (Harris 2013:13).

But one question remains for me. Currently there seem to be two versions of Australian film and television - one which represents the ideology of secular whiteness although Australia is a multicultural and multifaith nation, and one which aims to redress this dominance and present a story for all Australians. Is there a way of bringing these two mediated worlds together?

US law, crime and hospital series are populated by ethnic and racial representation but largely overlook Native Americans. The feel good Canadian breakthrough show, Little Mosque on the Prairie, showed Muslim and non-Muslim characters working and socialising together. But in Australia the two worlds - Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal - are still set apart in most media. Certainly there are instances of both ways and intercultural storylines but they are not frequent. Why? I can't answer that but perhaps one important reason for the growth and spread of Aboriginal media is the invisibility of Aboriginal people (Asians and other ethnic cultures too) on screen, an issue raised by many writers and researchers over many years - and still.

For example, Paul O'Hanlon (2014) writes that over the 6,790 episodes of Neighbours (up until Dec 2013), 'only 3(!!) ...featured an Aboriginal character (Sally Pritchard) played by Brenda Webb way back in 1994'. O'Hanlon has documented the limited Aboriginal and Islander representation in mainline TV and ABC dramas and other programs over the years. But my observation is that one of the few places that regularly feature Aboriginal people on the media are in sports programs, from Marngrook to other footy shows featuring former players like Wayne Carey, and many other current players, notably Adam Goodes, the 2014 Australian of the Year - although on the footy field itself, racism and racist slurs still occur as Goodes experienced last year.

According to Rekhari (2008:131, in Rodriquez 2011/2012: 13), representations of the other also refers to representations of self. 'The signified of the ‘Other’ is always indicated as being secondary to the primary ‘self’, reducing Aboriginal characters and their representations to the expectations of this binarism', sometimes still reflected in a homage to the primitive in opposition to the civilized (Rekhari 2008).

Viewing the contemporary onscreen world, I wonder if the invisibility of Aboriginal people, Asians and others' ethnicities is an unconscious rendering of the stereotyped Australian identity as whiteness? Is it a lack of awareness by media producers and writers about the diverse composition of the Australian community? Is it a ploy to try to sell the Aussie beach cultural stereotype overseas to encourage tourism and migration? Or perhaps it could be the feeling of producers that overseas audiences may not warm to images of the real (not reel) Australian society? I don't usually like so many rhetorical questions but in this case I find it hard to find answers that do not include racism (unconscious, institutional, personal) and prejudice.

Rodriquez underlines this criticism by citing a shift in the popularity of Aboriginal art and culture and thus in the construction of Aboriginal identity: 

'In contemporary multicultural world, Australia constructs its first inhabitants as a cultural brand that can be commercialized, and cinema has not missed the chance to use them as a narrative asset. Representations of Aborigines in the last decade have moved from ethnically marked to a genuine exploration of the possibilities of the alien culture. This process, of course, implies the use of a positive make up upon Aboriginal culture.' His comment seems to create another problematic binary to unravel.

Going back, let's celebrate the role of Aboriginal media for prying open Australian film and television to allow a glimmer of diverse Aboriginal and Islander representation and a glow in the plethora of local and international awards these shows garner. 

References cited 
- Blundell G. 2014. The Gods of Wheat Street tackles eternal dreams of family. The Australian, April 12, 2014, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/the-gods-of-wheat-street-tackles-eternal-dreams-of-family/story-fn9n8gph-1226879115226#
- Burin M. 2014. The Gods of Wheat Street: a TV drama about a family who just so happens to be black. ABC North Coast NSW, April 5, 2014, http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/04/04/3978556.htm
- Harris M. 2013. In M. Harris, M. Nakata, B. Carlson, Eds., The politics of identity: emerging indigeneity. UTSePress, University Library, University of Technology Sydney.
- Kalina P. 2014. The Gods of Wheat Street: An Aboriginal Home and Away, Sydney Morning Herald, April 10, 2014.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-gods-of-wheat-street-an-aboriginal-home-and-away-20140409-36bri.html
- O'Hanlon P. 2014. The under-representation of Aboriginal people in the media, Feb 27, 2014, http://indymedia.org.au/2014/02/27/the-under-representation-of-aboriginal-people-in-the-media.
- Rekhari S. 2008. The "other" in film: exclusions of Aboriginal identity from Australian cinema''. Visual Anthropological. 21.2 (2008) 125-135, http://www.tasa.org.au/conferences/conferencepapers07/papers/31.pdf
- Rodriquez PV. 2011/2012. Shooting the Other: representations of Aboriginal and Torres Islander masculinities in 21st century Australian cinema. MA in Construction and Representation of Cultural Identities, University of Barcelona.

Image source:
Pixabay: the dunes desert sand

Representation - Who is the other? And who is us?

By Sylvie Shaw

Often in mainstream media reports, there are elements of a divided society where dualistic framing makes for simplistic and easy to follow storylines. Tabloid coverage pits groups against each other when an issue may be far more complex than the surface representation. This could be as straightforward as a division between good versus evil - we are good, the other is chaotic; we are brave, the other is cowardly; we are winners, the others losers. This differentiation is played out in media coverage of events - on and off the sporting field, in local debates over unemployment, poverty, welfare, same sex marriage and who has refugee status. 

Stories are framed in a way that constructions of those WE may disagree with, or are confused about, again underline the US/THEM perspective. This gaze affects body, ethnicity, religion, age and national identity. It creates an ideology about, and a practice towards the other which have personal, political, social, cultural and religious ramifications. For example, studies on representations of Muslims and Islam in the media since 9/11 show an increasing number of stories depicting negative framing (Pappas 2012).

Sociology researcher Christopher Bail (2012) reviewed press releases from community and other groups, even fringe organisations, about issues related to Islam. Common themes in their media releases included the use of emotions such as fear and anger - these garnered the most media attention. In response to this negative media coverage, Muslim groups constructed their return commentary along two main themes - the first were unemotional  condemnations of instances of terrorism (not picked up by the media), while the second were more emotional reactions to discrimination against Muslims and the media tended to cover these perspectives (See also Ogan et al. 2014).

In Queensland religious vilification is against the law under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991, along with vilification on the grounds of race, sexuality and gender identity. Under the act, discrimination on the basis of religion includes both a religious belief system and an absence of any religious belief system. This act, and others like it in Australia, are designed to protect those vilified and to promote racial and religious tolerance and harmony among religious groups in society. However, Zimmerman (2013:459) argues that often the reverse may occur:

'Aiming at promoting “cultural diversity,” these laws have become a permanent vehicle for religious extremists to silence the debate by allowing them to claim that they, rather than their beliefs, have been attacked'. He sets out to show that 'there might exist under the Australian Constitution an implied right of freedom of speech...'.

Zimmerman's article focuses on cases in Victoria around religious vilification. I won't be discussing the case studies here, but based on his observation and analysis of certain cases, and in the context of Australia's identity as a multicultural and multifaith nation, he suggests there is a danger that religious vilification laws in Australia may not promote the sense of cultural diversity and harmony they aim to achieve. He argues strongly that:

'Because of its postmodern underpinnings, religious vilification laws, such as the RRTA (the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act), seem to uphold the rather incredible premise of moral equivalence between all religions, so that no religious ideas or practices deserve to be strongly criticized and/or repudiated.' 

Is such a moral equivalence between all religions wrong or problematic? Zimmerman seems to think so, outlining that all religions and religious institutions have different value systems and, as a result, 'produce rather different kinds of society'. What he suggests is that relativism, universalism and essentialism may impinge too much when differing values and belief systems are played out in a legal context.

In supporting his stance, he cites the different views held by religious adherents and institutions on a range of contentious and potentially divisive issues. These issues include such significant ethical topics as slavery, capital punishment, abortion, and euthanasia. More broadly, religious perspectives may reflect or influence social values, or are reflected or influenced by political systems in different cultures, legal systems including approaches to war (citing Durie 2005).

The issue I have with Zimmerman is that he concludes by promoting the issue of free speech - and thus the freedom to express (or promote) hate speech. But hate speech can affect an individual or social/religious/cultural/political group  negatively, emotionally psychologically, and spiritually. To highlight the damaging ramifications of hate speech and negative representations of the other (or THEM), Letts (2002: 354) likens these effects to experiences of trauma:

'In general, the overall short- and long-term effects suggest that the consequences of hate speech might be similar in form (but sometimes not in intensity) to the effects experienced by recipients of other kinds of traumatic experiences'.

Religious vilification laws may not be able to prevent hate speech but it can assist those suffering traumatic experiences by showing that Australian society maintains such actions are unlawful. However, not all potential cases of discrimination are deemed unlawful. This occurs as anti-discrimination legislation provides certain exemptions for religious organisations which enables them to affirm their religious identity and values (which in non-exemptive situations may be deemed discimination).

'Religious institutions controlled or run by a body established for religious purposes (e.g. a catholic seminary, Jewish rabbinical school, or Buddhist monastery) may discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic when employing people, provided that discrimination is necessary to conform with religious beliefs or sensitivities. This covers schools run by religious bodies' (ASA 2014).

Not all religious organisations support the presence and intention of anti-discrimination exemptions. For instance, the Australian Sangha Association opposes the practice saying it conflicts with Buddhist principles: 'Religious organizations are perpetuating divisions and suspicion, when they should be leading the way in creating a fairer, more loving and compassionate community' (ASA 2014).

Another legal case that centres on religious values and legal exemptions took place recently in Victoria. The Victorian Court of Appeal upheld an earlier case that a youth group associated with gay issues had been discriminated against. 

The case began in 2007 when a Victorian rural health centre involved with issues of youth suicide amongst gay youth was refused accommodation at a Christian campsite. The case was originally taken to the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal (VCAT) by the health group. VCAT found that discrimination had occurred on the grounds of sexual orientation. Almost seven years later the Court of Appeal upheld VCAT's original decision - that the Christian group had discriminated by refusing to allow same-sex attracted young people to stay at the camp.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity Act allows religious groups to discriminate if the discrimination is made on the grounds 'genuine religious beliefs or principles' (Russell 2014). But in this case, such religious exemptions were not deemed to apply.

Critics of the court's decision perceive that religious exemptions have been 'watered down' - a move seen to 'restrict the ability of religious organisations to operate within their own faiths' (Towers 2014), and to prevent the freedom to practise religion. According to the Christian organisation Freedom 4 Faith (2014):

'Religious freedom has long been an integral part of Australian life, recognised by the common law. However, freedoms that were once taken for granted in Australia can be taken for granted no longer. There are also issues about potential conflicts between freedom of religion and other valid principles of modern society such as freedom from improper discrimination'.

In contrast, the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (VGLRL) supports extended restrictions on religious exemptions 'to allow greater freedom from discrimination for LGBTI people, and greater transparency in how these exemptions are applied' (Cook 2014). 

Representations are constructed in multiple and situated ways. Divisions of US and THEM are continually in flux; values and behaviours may shift according to religious, political, social, cultural and mediated positionings. For religion, these positions are heightened when certain religious adherents or groups 'cannot tolerate the existence of those who have different views or beliefs...and refuse to accept any way of understanding the religion other than their own way of understanding' (Hamid in Glazov 2010). Further, according to Satter (in Glazov): 'A religion becomes an ideology when its man-made elements become an idée fixe and are seized upon as an idea that can be imposed on all political and social institutions in the interests of power.'

To counter the extremes of these ideological impositions and idées fixes, Karen Armstrong, and her initiative The Charter of Compassion, calls for US to 'always treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion compels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures...and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect'.


References cited
- ASA [Australian Sangha Association]. 2014. Anti- discrimination exemptions for religious organizations. http://australiansangha.org/australiansangha/policies/anti-discrimination-exemptions-for-religious-organizations/ 
- Bail C.A. 2012. The fringe effect: civil society organizations and the evolution of media discourse about Islam. American Sociological Review, 77(7).
- Clazov J. 2010. Symposium: When Does a Religion Become an Ideology? Frontpagemag, June 4, http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/symposium-when-does-a-religion-become-an-ideology/ 
- Cook R. 2014. LGBTI youth win discrimination case against Christian group. GNN (Gay News Network), April 16, 2014, http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/
- Durie M. 2005. Notes on the Victorian Racial and Religious Tolerance Act (2001), address at the Seminar on Religious Tolerance Laws of the Christian Legal Society of Victoria, June 2, 2005.
- Freedom 4 Faith. 2014. National agenda for religious freedom, http://www.freedom4faith.org.au/reading.aspx
- Leets L. 2002. Experiencing hate speech: perceptions andresponses to anti-Semitism and antigay speech. Journal of Social Issues, 58(2): 341-361.
- Ogan C, L. Wilnat, R. Pennington, M. Bashir. 2014. The rise of anti-Muslim prejudice. Media and Islamophobia in Europe and the United States. International Communication Gazette 76(1): 27-46.
- Pappas S. 2012. Negative portrayals of Muslims get more media attention. LiveScience, November 29, 2012. 
- Russell M. 2014. Christian Brethren-owned camp discriminated against gays: court. The Age, April 16, 2014.
-Towers K. 2014. New anti-discrimination laws ‘erode religious freedom’, The Australian, May 9, 2014.
- Zimmerman A. 2013. The unconstitutionality of religious vilification laws in Australia: why religious vilification laws are contrary to the implied freedom of political communication affirmed in the Australian Constitution. BYU Law Review 3(4): 457-504, http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2013/iss3/4.

And then there was one

By Sylvie Shaw

Once there was a cat, a stray, who came to visit. He would come twice a day for food. Only rarely did he visit three times, and then in the late afternoon. He was black, boney and young.

I called the cat Mr BC (for short for Black Cat). He ate quite a lot and soon his coat became glossy. He also started to put lush fur around his skinny bones. I gave him special kitty milk and meat. He wolfed it down. Sometimes I tried to talk with him but he seemed interested in only one thing. Filling his hunger. He would visit, eat and then slink quietly away.

As he grew, I had to widen the small hole under the fence as he was finding it more and more difficult to squeeze through. He looked so well; I hoped he'd stay. But he never did.

Always he kept a distance between us. When I went out to fill his bowls, he would run and hide behind the Buddha statue on the verandah but every now and again he would peak out around the corner to see what was happening. When I went back inside, he would tiptoe to the bowls and drink the milk first. After almost licking the pattern off the milk dish, he started on the meat.

I've fed Mr BC for the past two months. The morning visits are often a bit riotous though. When I get up in the morning there is always a gaggle of birds sitting on the verandah railing waiting to be fed. Butcherbirds, Magpies, Currawongs. Crows. Whenever they see Mr BC they emit a loud raucous alarm call. Initially he ran away with all the noisy bird-yelling. To counter the noise he now comes earlier when it is still dark or just breaking into dawn.

When Mr BC visits at night he bumps into the possums eating their apples and oats on the verandah. Sometimes he thuths or hisses at them. He never chases them or tries to attack them.

One night I heard more than thuthing. Mr BC emitted that low cat growly meow that comes when another cat is near by. As my two cats are indoor cats, and rarely venture outdoors, I went out to investigate. There, coming up the stairs was Mr BC. What? Then it clicked. No wonder he was eating so much morning and night. There were two Mr BC!

The two cats are identical. They have exactly the same mannerisms - drinking the milk first, hiding behind the Buddha statue, keeping their distance in exactly the same way and eating a lot. Now each shares a part of the day to eat their fill.

When I realised what was happening I just laughed and laughed. How clever of Mr BC x2. Then I looked more closely at the cats. The only difference I can spot is that one cat has a slightly longer tail than the other. Both are equally handsome. And smart.

This week, as our class sat outdoors by the beautiful lake and spent time in reflection and reverie, and the water dragon climbed into the student's handbag, I thought about the trust of animals and the affection and joy they bring when you least expect it. 

Image source:
Cat Black Cat Power Mieze Black Animal, http://pixabay.com/en/cat-black-cat-power-mieze-black-233367/?oq=cat%20OR%20animal

Biophilia, spirituality and the natural environment

by Sylvie Shaw

Biophilia or the biophilia hypothesis outlines that people have a natural and innate inclination to affiliate with the natural world. The hypothesis was birthed by scientists Stephen Kellert and E. O. Wilson (1993) who observed that humans co-evolved with nature over eons. In the process people developed an adaptive response to the world around them. This evolutionary relationship continues to influence our health and wellbeing, physically, emotionally, intellectually, morally and spirituality.

The dimension of spirituality is found in the way people derive meaning from their connection with nature. It is grounded in people's relationship with the other, that is, with something special, sacred or divine that creates a sense of purpose for one's life.

Other significant dimensions derived from biophilia include the aesthetic dimension or scenic beauty, the humanistic dimension which relates to feeling good in nature or experiencing nature emotionally, or the moralistic dimension where one's connection with and experience in nature may charge us to take care of nature. But along with biophilia is its converse - biophobia - where people fear nature and natural things.

Often a fear of nature is stimulated by media representations from horror movies of giant spiders or attacking crows. Nature is also negatively represented in ads promoting insect killers (harmful chemical sprays) for supposedly killer insects, or in movies like Jaws with bloody scenes designed to make the viewer afraid to go back into the water. This manufactured or mediatised fear of sharks is real - but it comes at a time when there are fewer and fewer sharks and many species of sharks at risk, as are several places in their homespace, the marine environment.

Despite these and other media constructions of risk-filled apocalyptic nature disaster movies, benevolent and romantic nature is often portrayed though documentaries in which the beauty of the natural world might encourage us to explore the great outdoors. In stepping outside, we rekindle those evolutionary feelings of biophilia. What's important about biophilia, Kellert and Wilson (1993) assert, is that it is integral to our human health and wellbeing.

With biophilia in mind, today in class we spent time on the edge of the beautiful lake at The University of Queensland. Surrounded by university buildings and with the sound of the lawn mower not far away, the class sat quietly within an intimate and tiny forest of melaleuca trees. As a group we spent time in reflection, observing nature, listening to the birds, watching the ripples on the water, communing with the coots, ducks, ibis and other bird species, and the resident water dragons.

One adventurous water dragon, on the lookout for food, came close, so close in fact that it climbed into the bag of one of the students and sat there for a while, looking quite at home. By not going outside, we would lose the precious memory of such an experience. We spend so much of our time indoors and in a less-natured, even denatured urban environment, and as a result we undergo what Robert Michael Pyle (1993) calls 'the extinction of experience'.

So to what extent does the media influence our lack of nature connectedness in the urban realm? Certainly electronic media is enticing, even addictive, so much so that here I am writing a blog using electronic media - about being in nature. At the same time, I might be watching a beautiful documentary on the wonders of the deep, visiting a zoo, aquarium or the one of the ersatz mariney sea-worlds. Along the way I could purchase a stuffed seal, or a colourful picture painted by elephants. 

The media create dramatic renditions of natural events or environmental disputes through news reporting. It offers bite-sized chunks or frames of reinterpreted information so fast that images pass by without us often understanding what the story is really about. Framing of stories, says Matthew Nisbet (2009), is a device for paring down or dumbing down important stories about climate change or nature devastation. The way the story is framed can give more weight to one side of an argument or another. For example, when reporting on climate change, while the IPCC and leading world scientists lay out the researched facts year by year showing the situation is problematic, the media can frame the story in such a way that these facts are open to question. The result becomes community scepticism and lack of support for urgent action.

Nisbet (2009) recommends that: 'To break through the communication barriers of human nature, partisan identity, and media fragmentation, messages need to be tailored to a specific medium and audience, using carefully researched metaphors, allusions, and examples that trigger a new way of thinking about the personal relevance of climate change.'

As the media tends to be our major source of information gathering, and social media the major source of information sharing, it is important for us media receivers to be savvy about the messages being delivered, especially in view of media framing, short sound bites, and the often over-simplification and lack of backgrounding of stories. 

Approaches to raise awareness is to use celebrities such as Leonardo dicaprio, Kate Blanchett to promote issues of environmental concern. Other campaigns prefer the use of glorious nature images to appeal to people's sense of the aesthetic. Depicting the beauty of natural environments might have more advertising pull than giving people more facts - which may then be overlooked by those in the mainstream media. A different form of communication is needed suggest Nisbet et al. (2010:329) and a new vision for nature care.

'... building societal action in response to climate change will require a new communication infrastructure, in which the public is (1) empowered to learn about both the scientific and social dimensions of climate change, (2) inspired to take personal responsibility, (3) able to constructively deliberate and meaningfully participate, and (4) emotionally and creatively engaged in personal change and collective action'

The documentary series Years of Living Dangerously (2014, Showtime) is also aiming to present a new way to approach climate change. Perhaps following kind of the advice of Matthew Nisbet and colleagues, the series produced by Hollywood luminaries such as James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger uses other celebrities as interviewers and their reporting of case studies to tell personal stories about the effects of climate change.

The first episode highlights two main stories intercut throughout the show. The program covers the plight of farmers in Syria affected first by severe drought and then by war. Then the show journeys to the town of Plainview, Texas and reveals the role of faith bound up in climate change denial versus the campaigning role of climate scientist and evangelical Christian Katharine Heyhoe, recently named as one of Time Magazine's top 100 influential people.

been named one of TIME's 100 most influential people in the world - See more at: http://www.gospelherald.com/articles/51048/20140428/christian-scientist-katherine-hayhoe-named-among-time-magazines-most-influential.htm#sthash.rgJRmsKQ.dpuf

But with issues like climate change and wider environmental destruction, is mediated nature and celebrity culture enough to change current cultural norms in places like Australia about the need for environmental concern and care? Is it enough to stir our feelings of biophilia enough for community support to be garnered?   

 In an article titled 'Phenomenologically investigating mediated “nature”', researcher Tony Adams (2005) suggests it might be. Adams explains that the nature of his study was to explore people's experiences of mediated nature compared with the real thing, what he terms 'authentic nature'.

For Adams, mediated nature is depicted 'in innovative, exciting ways ...[which] provide our bodies and senses with fresh perspectives towards nature-related phenomena. For example, when characteristics of nature become mixed with shopping mall composition, we are introduced to new ways of experiencing both shopping and the wilderness (Price, 1995). Or, by mixing nature-related characteristics with theme parks, we may acquire new attitudes about and feelings toward entertainment industries and the natural world (Davis, 1997).' Really?

Assuming that mediated nature provides positive benefits, Adams interviewed people about their experiences with media. The process was revelatory. One of the problems he discovered during his analysis was an imbalance in his research design. He had placed too much emphasis on locating mediated experiences from his interviewees, so much so that he overlooked the authentic nature experiences they were describing. For instance, he did not seem to hear his participants when they spoke about the peacefulness of being in nature, the sensorialness of the experience, and the way they felt they got more out of connecting to authentic nature than mediated nature. Adams was only looking for the way they responded to media, so did not react to the comment made by one of his interviewees who stated:

'Well, to me, it’s great to experience nature on television. You can learn a lot, and information can go into your brain. But it’s not the same thing as actually smelling a tree or actually touching a tree or having the feeling of it.' (Adams 2005:520). 

At least Adams' participant made the distinction between authentic nature and hyper-real nature, so perhaps Baudrillard's simulacra may not have as much power as he originally surmised. But back in 1991, Katz and Kirby threw out a warning of what can happen when people put nature at such a distance, that they become unaware of the extent of the exploitation of the natural world.

'The exploitation of nature is coincident with its constitution as something apart and 'other'. Within the ideology of western advanced capitalism, this metaphoric space is attractive in part because it has been constructed as so different from ourselves, as 'poles apart'' (Katz and Kirby, 1991:265). 

Despite such a damaging prospect, the gap of being 'poles apart' can be mended by frequent and meaningful experiences in nature. As we spend time in nature, observing the changes of the seasons, the movement of the tides, the rise and fall of sun and moon, and listen to the bird call at dawn, we can be changed by these encounters with nature places. Insight, personal transformation, feelings of spirituality and transcendence can emerge though spending time in the outdoors.  

Reconnecting to nature helps us rekindle the feeling of biophilia. This innate quality is part of our unconscious awareness of being human. It might, as Kellert and Wilson (1993) hoped, encourage us to take care of nature so it is not poles apart but a conscious and integral part of our lives.

References
- Adams TE. 2005. Phenomenologically investigating mediated “nature”. The Qualitative Report 10(3): September 2005 512-532, http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR10-3/adams.pdf
- Davis, SG, 1997. Spectacular nature: Corporate culture and the Sea World experience. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Katz C, A. Kirby. 1991. In the nature of things: the environment and everyday life. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, 16(3): 259-271.
- Kellert SR, EO Wilson. Eds, 1993. The biophilia hypothesis. Washington DC: A Shearwater Book (Island Press).
- Nisbet MC. 2009. Communicating climate change: why frames matter for public engagement. Environment 51(2): 12-23.
Nisbet MC, MA Hixon, KD Moore, M Nelson. 2010. Four cultures: new synergies for engaging society on climate change. Frontiers in Ecology 8(6): 329-331.
- Price, J. 1995. Looking for nature at the mall: A field guide to the Nature Company. In W. Cronon Ed., Uncommon ground: Toward reinventing nature, 186-203. New York: Norton.
- Pyle RM. 1993. The extinction of experience. In The thunder tree: Lessons from an urban wildland. New York: The Lyons Press.