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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 22nd, 2008 Young Artists Auction Off Masterpieces: Proceeds to UNICEF Emergency Response. Paint for the Planet highlights children’s call for leadership on climate change Paintings chosen from among 200,000 entries by young artists from around the world will be auctioned off as part of Paint for the Planet, an event organized in New York by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). All proceeds will go to UNICEF to support emergency response for children affected by climate-related disasters. Where & When: 23 October, 2008: 25 October: 7-9 pm Auction at the Harvard Club of New York, 30 W. 44th Street Who: Six young artists from Burundi, Colombia, Malta, the United Kingdom and the United States { None from Asia ? } will be in New York for the event. UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner and Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will be present at the auction. Why: Paint for the Planet features a selection of stand-out entries from UNEP’s International Children’s Painting Competition. The paintings, which showcase children’s fears and hopes for the planet, are a powerful plea from children for leadership on climate change before it is too late. Paint for the Planet is a launch pad for the ‘UNite to Combat Climate Change’ campaign to support the call for a definitive agreement at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009. To attend the auction at the Harvard Club, journalists must RSVP. For more information, visit www.unep.org or contact: Jim Sniffen, UNEP New York office, at james.sniffen at unep.org or tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210 Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 27th, 2008 From: briefing at unwatch.org
UN Watch Exclusive from Nigeria: Today’s Durban II Text In this Issue:
{See also www.UNWatch.org to get a fill of our indignation at how the UN is being misused by the oil barrons and their friends. Do not expect here Ethics, UN Charter ideas, or UN Human Rights ideals. The only positives come from indignation expressed by a handfull of UN Member States. Even some of these will not speak up all the time - this because of the daze that comes from their addiction to oil.} UN’s ‘Durban II’ African Prep Meeting Slams Israel, Free Speech; But Silent on Darfur Atrocities and African Ethnic Violence.
UN Watch’s Leon Saltiel (right) participated at this week’s conference Abuja, Nigeria, August 26, 2008 — Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed alarm over the declaration adopted today by an African regional meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, which will now shape the UN world conference on racism to be held in April. “The declaration (CLICK FOR TEXT) fails to address racial and ethnic crimes committed by Sudan, tramples international human rights guarantees on free speech, places Islam above all other religions, and targets Israel alone, implying that it is uniquely racist,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer. “Regrettably, Durban II is looking more and more like the original Durban debacle of 2001.” The stated objectives of the African regional conference, which opened Sunday and closed today, were to review regional implementation of the 2001 Durban declaration, and map the way for the UN’s Durban Review Conference on racism set for Geneva in April. But the declaration adopted today “failed to review any African country’s actions, and its inflammatory provisions now threaten to derail the world conference in April,” said Neuer. The Canadian government is boycotting the April meeting and its preparations, saying it will “not be party to an anti-Semitic and anti-Western hatefest dressed up as an anti-racism conference.” French President Sarkozy and cabinet ministers from Britain and the Netherlands have warned that a breach of red lines could also trigger their boycott of the 2009 meeting in Geneva. French Minister Rama Yade repeated the caution in a statement this month to the French parliament. “By failing to review the performance of African countries on racism and related intolerance, the conference is ignoring its primary mission, and squandering a golden opportunity to help Africa’s many victims of racism and xenophobia,” said Neuer. “Apart from UN Watch’s plenary speech on Sunday, neither the conference nor its final declaration addressed the Sudanese government’s crimes against humanity in Darfur, including the ethnic killings of at least 200,000 black Africans, mass rape, and the displacement of over 1 million men, women and children,” said Neuer. When UN Watch representative Leon Saltiel addressed the Darfur atrocities in his speech to the Abuja conference on Sunday, Sudan immediately interrupted with an objection — supported by Algeria and Morrocco — and chairman Martin Uhomoibhi of Nigeria ruled that country situations could not be mentioned. “Moreover, the text fails to review the xenophobic attacks that recently broke out in South Africa — the leading organizer of the Abuja meeting and the overall Durban process — where foreigners, notably from Zimbabwe and Mozambique, were targeted in May during a wave of anti-immigrant attacks in which at least 62 were killed and tens of thousands were displaced,” said Neuer. “Nor does the text review the ethnic crimes in Kenya this year that killed 1,000 people, displaced another 600,000 and burnt down 40,000 buildings, in an outburst of tribal bloodletting. Millions of African victims of xenophobia — present and future — are ill-served by the conference’s grant of impunity for racial or ethnic crimes committed in African countries.” The new text calls upon states to avoid “inflexibly clinging to free speech in defiance of the sensitivities existing in a society and with absolute disregard for religious feelings.” Other provisions in the text on “incitement to religious hatred,” said Neuer, “mirror efforts by Islamic states at the UN Human Rights Council to insinuate Islamic anti-blasphemy prohibitions into international law. Yet UN expert on religious freedom Asma Jahangir and other international human rights experts have expressly opposed ‘defamation of religion’ resolutions, which seek to alter international human rights law by defining religions — instead of individuals — as the bearers of rights.” The declaration’s attack on free speech contravenes the Article 19 guarantee of freedom of expression of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose 60th anniversary the UN will be celebrating next week with a major gathering at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. (At the event, UN Watch will be chairing a NGO panel discussion on the UN Human Rights Council.) “The language goes far beyond the recognized norms for balancing prohibitions of racial hatred with respect for free speech, which is the lifeblood of democracy. If the right to express one’s beliefs — to question the dogmas of the day in society, law, politics, art, science, and, yes, religion — is to be restricted by the ‘feelings’ and ‘sensitivities’ of others, this will mark the end of free speech as we know it,” said Neuer. The text’s special emphasis on Islamophobia (paragraph 20) “seeks to impose a hierarchy of religions, placing adherents of Islam above all others,” said Neuer. “This is contrary to the basic principles of equality enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and undermines the very premise of the global struggle against racism.” The declaration makes only one reference to a country situation, “reiterat[ing] its concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupations.” Neuer asked, “Why is a non-African situation mentioned in a declaration about Africa, one that references neither Sudan’s racist killings, nor any other country in Africa?” “The special reference to the Palestinian issue implies that Israel is practicing racism. This reverts to the discredited rhetoric of the UN’s 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution, sponsored by the Soviet and Arab blocs, which was repealed by the United Nations in 1991, and which has since been repudiated by its highest officials,” said Neuer. “Portraying Israel’s conflict as racial is more than political mischief; it’s an attempt to dehumanize Israelis and their supporters as uniquely evil. We regret that African states today allowed the extreme political agenda of certain Middle Eastern governments to undermine their legitimate cause.” The UN, however, today tried to offer a different interpretation. “It is only one paragraph that mentions the Palestinians, so the interest of Israel was never badly damaged,” Ibrahim Wani, from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told Reuters, after the 3-day talks in Abuja. UN Watch participated at the African conference as an international non-governmental organization. The plenary speech delivered by UN Watch representative Leon Saltiel on Sunday (see below) was interrupted by Sudan, after he addressed the situations in Darfur and Zimbabwe, and described Libyan hypocrisy. UN Watch Defends Principles and Exposes Hypocrisy in Plenary Speech to Durban II Prep Conference in Africa UN Watch Speech to Regional Conference for Africa Preparatory to the Durban Review Conference Abuja, Nigeria, 24 August 2008 Delivered by UN Watch communications director Leon Saltiel (Video of speech will be published soon)
Thank you, Mr. President. We assemble here in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, in the heart of Africa, to discuss how to fight racism, and to prepare for the Durban Review Conference that will take place in April 2009. That I have come here from afar is testament to the great importance that UN Watch attaches to the African cause, to the global struggle against racism, and to the outcome of this gathering. Mr. President, UN Watch has always stood in solidarity with the African people in their struggle for human rights, equality and freedom. A half century ago, UN Watch founder Morris Abram was a leading advocate in the American civil rights movement led by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. It was Mr. Abram who won the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case that recognized African-American voting rights, under the principle of “one person, one vote,” and who went on to head the United Negro College Fund. In 1993, guided by the same vision of human rights and equality, Morris Abram founded UN Watch. Since then, we have been a leading voice at the United Nations for victims of persecution—for Africans in places like Darfur and Zimbabwe, as for millions of other victims of racism and intolerance around the world. Mr. President, It is with this legacy, and with these principles, that UN Watch urges this conference to rise to the occasion. Let this African gathering give voice to all who suffer from racism, persecution and intolerance. Let us promise that the crime of slavery shall never be forgotten. That men and women everywhere should be treated with basic dignity and equality. Let us be true to the universal principles of human rights that underlie the struggle against racism. Mr. President, We will only advance toward these goals if we stay on the true path—by avoiding dangerous diversions, and by remedying the wrongs of the past. We must prevent a recurrence of the foul actions of 2001, which paradoxically turned a conference on racism into a platform for racist hatred and anti-Semitism. Let us oppose the campaign by certain governments and lobby groups to distort the language of human rights for a narrow and extreme political agenda, which only distracts from and harms the African cause. Let us ensure that our outcome document—which will influence the final declaration of the April conference in Geneva—will neither single out nor demonize any country or people. Finally, let us keep this conference a serious one. Its credibility is at stake when countries preach one thing while blatantly practicing the very opposite. Consider, for example, the official submission of Libya that is before us today. The Libyan government speaks of racism against the African people and how it confronts, and I quote, “[a] new form of racism related to house helpers [and] (maids).” Yet just last month, when Mr. Hannibal Qaddafi was arrested in Geneva for the crime of beating his African maid and African house-helper, [At this point in the speech, Sudan interrupted with an objection, supported by Morocco and Algeria.] Libya fully supported his actions. Worse, Libya then punished one of these African victims by kidnapping his mother. With this same country being the chair of the committee organizing the Durban Review Conference, what should the world think? Mr. President, The eyes of the world are upon us. When history is written, let it be recorded that in Abuja, in August 2008, the struggle against racism was advanced, and not harmed; promoted, and not politicized. We owe its victims—in Africa and around the world—no less. Thank you, Mr. President.
Writing in reply to a parliamentary question, Rama Yade, France’s Senegalese-born Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Secretary, warned that France will walk out of the UN’s Durban II process if it veers off track. “France will not maintain its participation at any price,” said Yade in her response published on August 5. “The President said at the dinner organized by CRIF, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights herself said to the UN Human Rights Council: France will remain engaged in this process only if the review conference does not depart from its assigned objectives.” Read More…
The UN Human Right Council’s expert on Palestine yesterday praised a boat trip to Gaza by pro-Palestinian campaigners, without revealing his own close ties to the group. Falk is best known for his repeatedly expressed support for the conspiracy theory that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were an “inside job” by the Pentagon. Read More… Qaddafi Rights Prize Awarded to Former Malta PM for ‘Defending Palestinian and Iraqi Oppressed Peoples’ Even with the Qaddafi servant-beating episode still unresolved, the Libyan human rights prize went ahead and announced its annual award. The International Committee for the Al-Gaddafi Award for Human Rights awarded its prize for 2008 to former Maltese prime minister Dom Mintoff, the Tripoli Post reported. “In their appreciation of those honourable leaders of the North who have stood by justice and rights and who defended the causes of oppressed peoples, especially in Palestine and Iraq, the International Committee of Al-Qathafi Award for Peace of 2008 is awarded to the European leader and former Prime Minister of Malta,” the committee said… Read More… UN Watch Feature Interview in German Weekly
Die Genfer NGO “UN Watch” kontrolliert seit 1993 die Arbeit der Uno im Hinblick auf Menschenrechtsfragen. Sie ist mit dem Ame rican Jewish Committee assoziiert. Ihr Vorsitzender, der Kanadier Hillel Neuer, tritt regelmäßig vor dem UN-Men schen rechts rat auf. In einer Rede im März 2007 kritisierte er sehr drastisch die Arbeit des Rates, der “die Sprache und Idee der Menschenrechte entstellt und per vertiert” habe…” – Feature interview of H. Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, by Ivo Bozic in “Die Atmosphäre ist totalitär,” Jungle World, Aug. 7, 2008. Read More…
Make your voice heard: visit UN Watch’s new blog and add your comments: http://blog.unwatch.org/. UN Watch RSS Feeds UN Watch is pleased to provide RSS feeds for its content. This feature will keep you up-to-date with UN Watch’s latest press releases, briefings, reports and commentary. You can choose from the different feeds and subscribe to them with your RSS reader. Subscribe. To support the unique and vital work of UN Watch, please contribute here. tel: (41-22) 734-1472 fax: (41-22) 734-1613 Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on August 5th, 2008 Libya says Mediterranean Union will divide Africa: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi - the only one who was invited to the launching of the Mediterranean Union, but declined to attend - he prefers to see Arab dominance in Africa - not North Africa as part of a European Alliance.
Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi has reaffirmed his critical stance towards the Union for the Mediterranean - the brainchild of French President Nicolas Sarkozy - saying it will divide the 53-nation African Union. “We have good relations with European countries, with the European Union, but I do not accept integration into the Union for the Mediterranean,” Colonel Gaddafi said on Monday, July 4, 2008, AFP reports.
Mr Sarkozy’s plan brings together 43 states - the 27-member EU as well as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Monaco and Mauritania. The aim is to boost ties between the EU and its southern neighbours. At the moment, it is focussed on six specific projects, including the cleaning up of Mediterranean pollution, the development of maritime and land highways and the setting up of a joint civil protection programme on prevention and response to disasters. In addition, he has accused the EU of wanting to dominate its southern partners, once under European colonial rule. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 29th, 2008 Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Credit Sarkozy for working to revive a club - that is the Mediterranean Club. By CHRIS PATTEN, OXFORD, England, and posted as http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/eo20… Maybe it is time to be a bit more generous to French President Nicolas Sarkozy and look at the outcome of what he does rather than the way he does it. The original launch of the Mediterranean Union almost sank the whole enterprise. Appearing to speak without giving the issue much thought, Sarkozy initially proposed a club of European and mostly Arab states along the Mediterranean’s shore. It would have been in essence a French-run enterprise that the rest of Europe would have paid for. This did not go down well, particularly with the Germans.
So the auguries for an attempt to revitalize Europe’s relationship with its Mediterranean partners were not good. But by the time of this month’s grand Paris Summit to send the new club on its way, initial suspicions had largely dissipated. Sarkozy bowed to his European critics and enjoyed a diplomatic triumph. We shall soon see whether there is substance to the initiative, or whether it is just a coat of fresh paint on an old and tired idea.
There were aspirations for a free-trade area by 2010. There were pledges of political integration based on shared values. There were people-to-people links. There was a forum where Israelis and their long-term Arab foes could sit together and discuss other matters than the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Development projects were funded through grants or cheap loans, and these have probably played at least some part in increasing the attractiveness of the Maghreb and the Mashraq to foreign investors. There was some lowering of agricultural and other tariffs by the EU. Dialogue on political reform, and the euros to support it, helped further the process in some countries, notably Morocco and Jordan. There was some cooperation on common problems like illegal drug use and immigration. Yet, the successes of the Barcelona Process were modest: a great idea on the launchpad had difficulty getting off the ground. So Sarkozy deserves at least 2 1/2 cheers for trying to revitalize it. But if the Mediterranean Union is to achieve more than was managed in its first manifestation, a number of things will need to happen.
Second, however slow we have been in opening up a real Mediterranean market, the barriers to freer trade between Arab League countries are just as great. Third, it was excellent that, in Paris, Sarkozy began the process of bringing Syria in out of the diplomatic cold. Hopefully, his attempts to act as a peace broker between West Bank Palestinians and Israel are also blessed with success. But the truth is that Europe, for all the gallant efforts of Javier Solana, has been absent from serious politics in the Middle East. We have not dared cross the absentee monopolists of policy in Washington. Europe should get more seriously involved, even at the risk of occasionally irritating America, which may be less likely to happen once the Bush administration is history. For a start, we should recognize that there will be no political settlement in Palestine without including Hamas. What would incredibly have been former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s first visit to Gaza in his first year of peacemaking had to be canceled recently because of security concerns. Enough said. Europe must decide how serious it is about all the admirable stuff in the Barcelona Process regarding pluralism, civil society, the rule of law and democracy. Should a shared concept of human rights be one of the foundations of our Mediterranean partnership? If so, what are we in Europe proposing to do about it? If this is just blah-blah, better not say it. We discredit ourselves and important principles when we say things we don’t mean. ————- Lord Patten is a former governor of Hong Kong and European commissioner for external affairs. He is currently chancellor of Oxford University and co-chair of the International Crisis Group. www.project-syndicate.org) Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 27th, 2008 During a one-hour debate organised by Brussels-based think-tank The Centre on Tuesday, 26 February 26 2008, Mr Jouyet, French EU affairs minister, indicated a certain change in France’s plans to create a Mediterranean Union. “There is no Mediterranean Union”, the minister said, specifying that one should now speak of a “Union for the Mediterranean” which is a “semantic shift that is not neutral.” The French idea of a Mediterranean Union involving a union of EU and non-EU Mediterranean states, has been particularly criticised in Germany, which fears it will be detrimental to the already existing EU policies in the area. Earlier this week, a postponement of a Franco-German meeting initially planned for 3 March prompted speculation that disagreement over this specific project was the cause. The proposed Union for the Mediterranean is only about “completing and enriching” the already existing policies, as the Mediterranean is an important EU border, he said. “For my part, I am optimistic that we will find together with our partners, in particular with our German friends, an agreement on the modalities [of the project],” he added. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 5th, 2008 Virtual Conference on Climate Change Diplomacy - MALTA - February 7-8, 2008. as per e-mail from: Yasmeen <yasmeen@diplomacy.edu> The conference on Climate Change Diplomacy will be broadcast in Second Life. There will be a live audio feed broadcast from the conference that will be held in Malta on 7-8 February. Key Speakers include: This Second Life broadcast follows in the steps of a virtual press conference that took place at the end of a vital meeting of the world’s Small Island States that took place in the Maldives in November last year. Maltese Foreign Minister Michael Frendo participated in a historic joint virtual press conference, together with the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Maldives, through Second Life, in a bid to draw the world’s attention to the devastating impacts of climate change on the world’s Small Island States and to highlight the effects of the global warming on individual people around the world. The press conference took place outside the Maldives Virtual Embassy on Diplomacy Island in Second Life. Video speeches of the three Ministers were transmitted followed by a question and answer session with Maldives virtual diplomats and representatives of DiploFoundation who developed Diplomacy Island. This was the first press conference of its kind and aimed to use modern communications channels to reach a wider international audience. Look forward to seeing you there! Best regards Yasmeen Ariff Conference Coordinator Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 1st, 2008 Cyprus and Malta adopt the EURO. EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS, January 1, 2008, by Elitsa Vucheva - The European currency is today (1 January) replacing the national currencies of the two Mediterranean islands of Malta and Cyprus, bringing the number of EU states using the euro to 15 out of the 27 member states. The euro will replace the Cypriot pound and the Maltese lira, which currently equal €1.71 and €2.33 respectively. Cyprus and Malta joined the EU on 1 May 2004 together with eight other states and follow Slovenia which in January 2007 became the first “new” EU state to join the euro club. The Maltese €1 and €2 coins represent the eight-pointed Maltese cross, seen as a symbol of the Maltese identity; the 10-, 20- and 50-euro cent coins feature the Maltese coat of arms; while the Mnajdra temples, considered to be one of the world’s oldest free-standing temple groupings, are seen on the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins. The Cypriot €1 and €2 coins feature the idol of Pomos, seen as representing the country’s contribution to civilisation since prehistory; the 10-, 20- and 50-euro cent coins represent the ancient Kyrenia ship symbolising the island’s historical importance from a trading point of view; and the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins depict a species of wild sheep representing the island’s wildlife. Cyprus and Malta got the green light to introduce the euro in May 2007, after fulfilling the necessary criteria, including a government deficit lower than three percent of GDP, a government debt not higher than 60 percent of GDP, as well as price and exchange rate stability. On both islands, thousands of euro converters have been distributed to households to facilitate the transition to the new currency. However, both Cypriots and Maltese citizens have indicated they fear the euro entry may be followed be a possible price rise – as it happened in Slovenia in 2007. Strangely, Britain also introducing the euro because of its bases in Cyprus! As a side-effect of Cyprus’ adoption of the euro, the European currency will also be used in British military bases on the island. The bases include Dhekelia, Episkopi and RAF Akrotiri, and some 10,000 British service personnel and their dependents are currently stationed on the island, according to French news agency AFP. “It’s good news for Cyprus so we have to mirror the republic’s harmonisation with the EU as far as possible, otherwise it would make life unbelievably impossible”, British forces Cyprus spokesman Captain Nick Ulvert told the press agency. The euro could also bring the economies of the divided island closer together, as the northern Turkish part of Cyprus may adopt the currency unilaterally, according to Reuters. Northern Cyprus, which is recognised only by Turkey internationally, is currently using the Turkish lira, but would have no objection to introducing the euro, the agency reports.
Of the remaining 12 countries currently not in the euro zone, only the UK and Denmark have chosen not to adopt the European currency for reasons of economic sovereignty – but they have the option to join in the future. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 3rd, 2007 Chen Zhen (1955-2000, he died of leukemia in December 2000) was one of the outstanding artists of the Chinese avant-garde artists who disillusioned by post-Maoist reform policies left China in the mid-1980s. Both of Chen's Parents were medical doctors, and during the cultural revolution were sent to the country-side. When they could return to Shanghai, Chen started first to study medecine, but dropped out and decided to be an artist. Eventually he decided to leave, and as the door to the US was closed to him, he went ln 1986 to Paris. In Paris, Chen continued to develop his work into a transhistorical projection with intention to create a "utopian harmony by accentuating contrasts." Originally a painter, in Paris, he turned to sculptural and installation works, using among other means also the human body, illness, and Chinese medical practices, as methaphors to explore the complex interplay between the material and the spiritual, the communal and the individual, the inside and the outside. In his last years, his illness had probably also impacted his works. With the help of Chen's widow, the Kunsthalle at the Museumquartier in Vienna, organized a "Homage to Chen Zhen" exhibit, May 25 - September 2, 2007. The exhibit included about 40 of his works. Thanks to my having come to Vienna for the August 27-31, 2007, meetings on climate change, and to the fact that I was limited by the UN media people to have my contacts with the participants only outside the proper meeting rooms, I was able to catch also this important exhibit that I found extremely topically relevant to the goings-on at the meetings. A main object of my interest was Chen’s 1999 installation that he titled - “Exciting Delivery.” In this large work we look at a large dragon snake, a reference to a typical Chinese heavenly dragon, or if you wish - a menacing black cloud in the sky - made of interwoven bicycle tires - and on the strands of bicycle inner-tubes, lined up on these tubes as if they were roads, we see an innumerable horde of toy cars as if they were parasites on the dragon’s skin. The whole thing is painted black and is seated on a triangle made by three bicycle wheels. The shape of the dragon is also reminiscent of shapes of internal body organs, that he was designing in his last years. Though usually they were also symbols of cleanliness or medical purification, with one installation made of blown glass. “Exciting Delivery” can also be seen as a large black kidney with parasites in this context. The bicycle and the dragon are features of Chinese identity, while the heavenly dragon is an ancient cultural symbol, the bicycle may be an indication of Maoist modernity, which is linked with the car as a symbol of “Western affluent society.” The catalogue of the exhibition says here that “The past, the present, and the future merge into a complex triangle bursting with suspense. The used materials and emerging forms, critically hint at the social change brought about by economic and cultural association with the West.” As I returned to see the exhibit at a time of a guided tour, I asked the guide if one could see in the cars the menace that this black blob of a cloud, with its parasite cars, does generate by sitting on the back of the bicycle wheels, that had already become at the time part of China’s existance - perhaps this cloud with its cars is the invasion of China by the West? The lady quoted to me one of Chen Zhen’s statements: “I don’t play with incomprehension, I try to create it.” At a time when the words globalization and multiculturalism were not part of the prevailing language in the discourses dedicated to an explanation of the world, Chen Zhen evolved ethical and aesthetic maxims which, with faresightedness, brought the critique of globalization, interculturalism, and ethnicity into international discourse. Chen was a boundary crosser, he became a “cultural homeless” who created symbolical bridges between different realities. In his life, cut short by his leukemia, he managed to work in many different places. Besides his beloved Shanghai, and his adopted Paris, he also had a third main cultural home in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, where he loved to do projects with local underpriviledged children. Another installation that I found extremely interesting was his “Purification Room” conceived in 2000, his last year of life. He covered space and objects with brown earth - sort of a monochrome grave - this to show people today’s objects as they will be discovered by the archeologists in the future … it is sort of an archeology of the future. The above reminded me of another China related exhibit that was shown at the Vienna Kunstlerhaus 29.4 - 26.8, 2007, “The Terracotta Army,” that I was able still to catch at its closing day. That was a very similarly looking archeology that dealt indeed with the past - so no wonder about this Chen concentration on archeology as evidence. While the exhibition tour guide was saying that in 2000, when Chen designed this installation, he obviously has not seen yet the 9/11 pictures of 2001, but then I asked her what if he did make reference instead to Hiroshima, and the intended shocking idea being thus of life in the West being covered with this sort of ashes? People usually associated this sort of ashes with that particular bomb that was thrown in the East? Is this again a reference to a disaster in progress? A third installation - titled “Homage to Duchamp” - designed in 1955 - shows a panel made of mesh in which on one side there is a cover of rags, and on the other side there is a cover of ashes from burned paper. This panel can swing between two door-frames that have no openning. On one it says “No door to Earth” (the rags), and on the other side it says “No way to Sky.” This is a door to nowhere - please figure it out - dear reader. But please remember also: Chen Zhen said: “Newspapers are snapshots of time .. Ashes the eternity of newspapers.” Further, with relevance to the climate change Vienna rally - what about Chen Zhen asking: “How far are we going to go with our material desires in the presence of so many ecological problems?” And Chen Zhen stating flatl |