UNESCO Courier articles from July 2001

UNESCO Courier archives from July 2001

Kuito, a child's map of war and infinity.(photographs and poetry regarding Angolan conflict)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Through something small, one can sometimes discover the great things of life; there is no need to explain, one simply has to look." Drawing on the wisdom of her countryman and fellow writer Ondjaki, the Angolan poet Ana Paula Tavares...

This park is no longer your land.(national parks on former native lands)
July 1, 2001... DIRECTOR OF THE UK-BASED FOREST PEOPLES PROGRAMME AND WINNER OF THE BRITISH ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE'S LUCY MAIR MEDAL FOR APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY For over a century, millions of indigenous people around the world were driven off their...

Tales of white elephants.(ecotourism in South Africa)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Foreign companies keep the lion's share of ecotourism profits but the Makuleke of South Africa are trailblazing a juicy commercial venture based on their firm control of ancestral land and resources Winning back land rights is one side of...

Indian textiles find their patron.
July 1, 2001... High quality crafts can't survive without skillful marketing, argues the author, who has woven close ties with Indian craftspeople to build up a business. When will aid agencies follow suit? As an art historian, I had long been fascinated...

A prince embroiderer without a kingdom.(Laotian artisan)
July 1, 2001... Tiao Somsanith is among the last of a dying breed skilled in gold-thread embroidering, an ancient tradition from the court of Luang Prabang in Laos. Today, he is trying to save this vanishing art, without resorting to commercialism The...

I AM NOT A HERO.(disabled people)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... The faculty at the University of Hawaii went on strike on April 5, 2001. I participated every day on the picket line and in a demonstration at the state Capitol Building. I sat with a sign on my legs, tied to my wheelchair, saying "UNPA...

The body jigsaw.(borrowing body decoration from other cultures)
July 1, 2001... Imagine the body as a canvas, a space to mix and match physical and cultural elements in defining who or what you want to be. Here lies the great paradox. The scarring and piercing of tribal aesthetics are all the rage in rich countries, while...

Advertising, my mirror.(influence on beauty ideal)(Brief Article)(Interview)
July 1, 2001... Christian Blachas, a seasoned observer of world advertising and publisher of the French magazine Culturepubmag, decodes the images of the body surrounding us Has the spread of globalization produced an increasingly standardized ideal of...

In and out of slavery.(slavery and colonialism in art)
July 1, 2001... PROFESSOR OF ART AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES AT THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT STONY BROOK, NEW YORK. HIS MANY PUBLICATIONS INCLUDE DIASPORA AND VISUAL CULTURE: REPRESENTING AFRICANS AND JEWS (ROUTLEDGE, 2000) Do artists uphold prejudice...

India's wings of desire.(AIDS, sexuality and religion)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... AWARD-WINNING INDIAN FILMMAKER WHO HAS PUBLISHED EXTENSIVELY ON THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS OF AIDS Hindu civilization glorified the sensual body and gave the world a famed treatise of physical love. While the advent of Aids was first...

The rise and fall of the South African "six-pack".(physical strength and ego amid apartheid)
July 1, 2001... Yesteryear's heroes are now villains in South Africa, where former guerrillas pushed to the fringes of society cling to the cult of the hard body I had just moved back to Kwamashu (near Durban, South Africa) when I went to meet the son of...

Minding the muscle tone.(affect of Argentina's recession on traditional breadwinners)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 1, 2001... POET AND JOURNALIST, AUTHOR OF PUNCTUM (LIBROS DE TIERRA FIRME, 1996) Argentine men used to earn their family's keep and rule the domestic roost. Severe recession has pushed some towards the bench press Rodolfo Fogwill, aged 59, is one...

China's timid coming out.(medical, political, and cultural implications of accepting homosexuality)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... FREELANCE JOURNALIST BASED IN BEIJING Psychiatrists no longer view homosexuality as a mental illness, while the media is broaching the topic. But authorities prefer to keep the Lid on a subject that could spiral into a human rights debate...

The passing of bodily seasons.(Islamic Morroccan women and girls challenge traditional sex roles)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... For Moroccan young women, sexual awakening rhymes with danger. In the countryside, girls are often married off at 14 and deemed old by 30. But in cities, the young are starting to hold their ground During recent fieldwork in Bni Meskine, in...

"Taking the dress".(women organize resistance to practice of female genital mutilation)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... ACTIVIST FOR THE PARIS-BASED WOMEN'S-GROUP FOR THE ABOLITION OF SEXUAL MUTILATION (GAMS) A Malian woman who underwent excision at the age of 12 recalls the experience which led her to combat this ritual practice That day will remain...

Illusions, scalpels and stereotypes.(race identity and plastic surgery's gift of invisibility)
July 1, 2001... By sculpting a chin or enlarging a breast, aesthetic surgeons appear to be operating on the body. But we know better: they are reshaping our fantasies of ourselves Must You live with the body you are born with or can you remake it? We have...

Under the sun, under the knife.(Venezuela's women seek surgery and a white American ideal body)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Venezuela may be in the economic doldrums, but cosmetic surgery is booming, highlighting the power of hidden racial discrimination and the ever-present North American concept of beauty A few statistics are sometimes more telling than...

Beauty and the blind.(blind author's perspective on beauty offered in her book, Sight Unseen)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... AMERICAN AUTHOR BASED IN NEW YORK WHOSE MOST RECENT BOOK IS A COLLECTION OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS TITLED, SIGHT UNSEEN (YALE UP, 1999) A blind writer offers a piercing Look at our penchant for staring at "beautiful people" and wonders...

The organ of last resort.(harvesting and sale of organs practiced worldwide)
July 1, 2001... MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Modern medicine has given rise to a booming trade between poor and rich countries--the trade in human organs. But what of the bodies that are being plundered? During the...

The knot in the brain.(brain scan evidence and the mind/body connection)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... READER IN PHILOSOPHY, BIRKBECK COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Philosophers since Descartes have striven to understand the connections between the material world, the body and the mind. Have brain scans brought us to the verge OF an answer?...

A release from life.(Dutch policy on euthanasia and suicide for the terminal or weary elderly)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... JOURNALIST FOR THE DUTCH NEWSPAPER TROUW Strides in medicine may allow people to live longer, but the result is not always a happy one. In the Netherlands, euthanasia is now legally available--but just how far should we go? Is a human...

A lunchbox for longevity.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Thirsting for the fountain of youth? There is no shortage of tactics to Live longer, or perhaps forever. Step number one: starve yourself... Eating "One must eat to live, and not live to eat," wrote Moliere, and the world of...

Teflon under my skin.(body reconstruction)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Meet an aspiring cyborg who's already started experimenting on his own body, in the wake of the cyberpunk movement. He claims it's allowed him to turn the page on drugs and literally, rebuild himself We'll just call him Z.L. He'S about 30...

Goodbye biology, hello software.(conscious machines)
July 1, 2001... Do we really need our flesh and blood? Ray Kurzweil, guru of Artificial Intelligence, believes that the conscious machine is only decades away--so get ready to download How close is Artificial Intelligence to creating something that...

Partnership or purse-strings: NGOs in the South speak up.(non-governmental organizations)
July 1, 2001... Riding on their new-found influence, NGOs in the developing world are increasingly critical of the stringent conditions imposed on them by richer counterparts. Partnership, they argue, has to become more than a buzz-word Over the last...

Vive a trilingual Quebec!(language policy in Quebec)
July 1, 2001... The laws that forced French into the schools and workplace of Quebec have worked far better than anyone imagined. Trilingualism is gaining ground in the province, much to the chagrin of hard-line nationalists With her rugged natural beauty...

Mexico's mercenary legacy.(press and government)
July 1, 2001... For decades the Mexican media was paid to do the government's bidding. But what future lies in store for the press after last year's defeat of the all-powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party (the PRI) and the electoral victory of President...

Rise of a new watchdog in Latin America.(power of the press)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2001... Buoyed by the spread of democracy, Latin America's press is fast gaining in influence, boldness and credibility, says journalism professor Mario Diament [1]. The technology revolution stands to make the process irreversible Latin America...

The hostage of purity.(Basque philosopher Fernando Savater interviewed)(Interview)
July 1, 2001... UNESCO COURIER JOURNALIST Differences aren't necessarily a good thing, says Basque philosopher Fernando Savater. Threatened with death for his opposition to armed struggle, he practises his own brand of "active pessimism," fighting weapons...

The sirens of Tokyo.(young women and prostitution in Japan)
July 1, 2001... The outrageously eccentric young women of Tokyo's trendy neighbourhoods use their bodies as a provocation, simply to attain the illusion of being loved It all started in 1996 with Amuro Namie, a superb, 17-year-old siren and graduate of...