Photobunt

Danas nam je takav dan

Jedan od onih.
Previše informacija,
promena, rečenica,
posećenih mesta,
svašta urađeno, mnogo zaboravljeno…
zvoni, pišti, sve stiže.

A onda dođem kući,
grlimo se Šnalica i ja,
smejemo (ne znam ni ja čemu).

Plešemo
i pevamo “Krokodila Genu”
na znanim i neznanim jezicima…

By Yuffie. Hvala

By Milos Radovic, Serbia, 1997.

Evo, oporavio sam se

I grew up with COSMOS series; I loved Carl Sagan, with his calm voice and eloquent but simple way of expressing the truths of science and the power of genuine curiosity about the world. His work has had a profound influence on me. What for some was the bible, or Snowwhite fairytale, for me was the Cosmos book. I still can vividly remember the day when I got it as present from my grandmother: she took me to the book store and bought the book for me, knowing how much I liked the series. I was around 10 years old.

It is rather astonishing today, with all the scientific advances and evidence amassed since the release of Cosmos series, that the creationists, religious leaders and charlatans seem to gain overhand against scientific approach and logical view of the world. It is frightening how many Americans, for example, are ready to dismiss evolution and require that creationism be taught in schools, alongside, or instead of, scientifically proofed theories. Is the science today reaching its zenith but in the same time loosing battle against simple and comforting explanations offered first-hand by pseudo-scientists? How can it be that even some college educated friends I have are not able to distinguish the difference between faith and science, and are seriously discussing about putting equation sign between the two?! It can not be just lack of knowledge, although it certainly can play a part in it; it seems to me that there is a serious flaw in the education systems around the world. The scientific method, based on endless and arduous “experiment-theory-proofs” cycles is not properly taught. The most exciting voyage of Homo Sapiens, the adventurous quest for truth based on reason and observation of the world as it really is and not as we would want it to be, the long way of how we came to the knowledge of today and how much more there lies ahead to be discovered, is per default not taught in schools at all. What we learn in school are only the names of the scientists and their laws, rules and results, endless equations and discovery dates, but nothing more. More often than not we are taught not to reason, but to adopt. Not to ask questions, but to believe in answers. Not to experiment, but to accept. Who was trained in this way may naturally have difficulties in distinguishing science from faith.

For most people science is becoming similar to shamanism, something that “common” people can not understand, due to its supposed complexity and distance from life. Math is literally THE Horror for almost each pupil and his parents; many will even question its necessity for everyday life. Some of the most significant scientific theories of today, theories of Evolution and Relativism, for example, are considered “just another theories”, although firmly confirmed by strong evidence. Many people are afraid of science, because of its potentials to destroy our world, forgetting how much it already improved our lives and longevity. It seems that science is becoming a monster who has to be tamed and put away, the frightening oracle who is unrelentlessly revealing the astonishing complexity of life and the world around us. The simple answers and “truths” of religion, the rules of superstition, the astrology revelations and transcendental swindling seem much more attractive in respect.

But science is no monster. It is one of the most beautiful achievements of free human spirit and persistence. Its basic principles can be understood by everybody, its methods we unconsciously apply to our surroundings every day, and its countless results we wear, use and live with, without ever thinking about it. When properly taught, math, physics, astronomy, linguistics, history and philosophy, to name just some faces of science, can be deeply thought provoking and influential. It is our duty as intelligent beings to use our most powerful evolutionary tool to examine and understand the world around us. It is in our nature to ask questions, to be curious, to look for interconnections in the reality we live in. Everyone of us can be a scientist. The only requirement is to have the courage to wide open the eyes and see the world as it is, and not as we would like it to be.

It makes me sad to see that the tidal wave of faith is raising, seriously threatening to drown the remarkable achievements of human curiosity for knowledge. Furthermore, it is deeply disturbing that the people who despise science, its methods and its results, may come in the possession of its powers; by this I am not only thinking of Middle East dictators thirsty of nuclear power, but also about leaders of westerns democracies who consult fortune-tellers before making decisions, or whose most important book is the bible. If the majority in one society dismisses reasoning in favour of faith, the basic principle of democracy will bring the most eloquent faith-based populists in power. The change they would be able to enforce, using democratic means, could have had immense consequences not only for us but also for generations to come.

I want to believe that such scenario is not really possible. Against all previous challenges in history, some of which had thrown us back for hundreds of years, human curiosity, courage, and the quest for logical explanations brought us here today, to the best of all previous worlds, and it is highly unlikely that we will all choose another way now. Although there is still unbearably much suffering in our contemporary world it can not be argued that human beings in general never enjoyed the better quality of life than now. Using science and our compassion to improve the life of all people on this planet will not only save lives but also disseminate the power of reason. But we have a lot to work on it, and we have to teach scientific approach, encourage discussion, ask questions, exchange knowledge, and firmly defend our convictions in every situation. And we must never stop discovering the beauties of the universe around us revealed through science.

When I was in India last year I really enjoyed Indian cuisine. It is mainly vegetarian, but they also make delicious meat based meals, all of them consisting of small chops of meat cooked and served in diverse thick sauces, sometimes very spicey. You can eat it with rice or with Indian bread, a crêpe-like pastry. The meals offered were mainly of chicken meat, but also of goat, fish, and pig. No cows, of course.

During one lunch I praised to my hosts the meal I was eating. Content to hear it they hurried to explain me that I will not find cow meat in Indian menus: “We Hindu do not eat cows, you know. The cow is our holy animal.” I knew it - who doesn’t? - but I just nodded politely. Then it occurred to me that Muslims do not eat pigs: “And your neighbours, Muslims…? Isn’t it so that they do not eat pigs?” - “Right”, my host nodded in approval, “in their religion the pig is holly animal!”

Now that was not the way I knew about it! In Islam the pig is supposed to be a dirty animal, and therefore prohibited. I have never heard of the claim that it is a holy animal. Nevertheless I was not in the mood of correcting my kind host in theological matters, so I just said what was obvious: “So it means that you are eating their Holy Animal, and they are eating yours, right?” - “Well, yes…” he answered reluctantly, with an unsure expression: “now when you put it that way, yes… we eat holy animals of one another.”

For the rest of the lunch no more words were spoken.

Video by John Boswell: www.symphonyofschience.com.

(Carl Sagan’s lyrics written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter)

[David Attenborough]
All life is related
And it enables us to construct with confidence
The complex tree that represents the history of life

Our planet, the Earth, is as far as we know
Unique in the universe; it contains life
Here plants and animals proliferate in such numbers
That we still have not even named all the different species

Darwin’s great insight revolutionized the way in which we see the world
We now understand why there are so many different species

[Carl Sagan]
Every cell is a triumph of natural selection
And we’re made of trillions of cells (Within us is a little universe)
Those are some of the things that molecules do
Given four billions years of evolution (We are, each of us, a multitude)

Now how did the molecules of life arise?

[Attenborough]
It began in the sea
Some 3 thousand million years ago
Complex chemical molecules began to clump together

These were the “seeds”
From which the tree of life developed
They were able to split, replicating themselves
As bacteria do

[Sagan]
The secrets of evolution
Are time and death
There’s an unbroken thread that stretches
From those first cells to us

(refrain)

[Jane Goodall]
There isn’t a sharp line dividing humans
from the rest of the animal kingdom
It’s a very wuzzie line

It’s a very wuzzie line,
and it’s getting wuzzier
All the time

We find animals doing things that we,
In our arrogance,
Used to think was “just human”

(refrain)

[Attenborough]
Its continued survival now rests in our hands

The photos I posted on 20th December last year were all shot in the immediate vicinity of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Central Railway Station in Mumbai. Inside the station photographing was prohibited, as my guide cautiously indicated to me, so we went inside through a dirty understreet passage and just strolled around. It was Sunday morning and I was on a day trip to Mumbai down-town. My guide was a kind young doctor, born and living in Mumbai, whose name I unfortunately can not remember anymore. The day was sunny and hot, and the humid air on the streets was sweet and heavy, polluted by exhaust gases; but inside the station I immediately sensed the smell of tracks and trains, the smell that I liked since my childhood and which for a brief moment filled me with joy. The station was pretty much empty, an unusual situation comparing to other days of the week. This was one of the busiest railway stations in India; on all other days it was always full of people. When Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan walked in the station on the evening of 26th November 2008 and opened fire from their kalashnikovs, the place was packed full. They fired at the crowd of unarmed people, threw grenades on police officers and killed and severely injured more than 150 persons. When they left the building the platform I was standing on was covered with dead and dying people.

After the attacks Mumbai police prohibited unauthorised photographing inside the station and increased the security measures. I noticed two police officers sitting at the table in one corner near the main gate and stepped closer, curious to see what they were doing. Maybe they will somehow allow me to take photos anyway? As I neared them I saw that they were inspecting their automatic rifles. One weapon lay on the table, and the officer was checking the leather belt. They seemed not to be paying any attention to me. I stood there watching them for some time, until I realized that the muzzle of the weapon was pointed directly to my belly. I stepped aside.

As I was looking around it occurred to me that I was unconsciously looking for blood stains on the floor. I was standing in the middle of a broad platform surrounded by several people waiting for their trains. In front of me there were old trains with bars on the windows and special wagons reserved only for women (always the first ones - was it the sign of respect in one apparently segregating act?). Few fishermen from the suburbs passed by carrying fresh fish in bowls above their heads, children were chasing each other, sun rays were streaking through the ceiling windows high above. In my conciousness I noticed all this, but in the same time I knew that it was not what I was looking for, the present was like a curtain that I tried whole time to pull away, to see behind it. I was actually looking for blood and dead bodies, searching for bullet holes in the walls, imagining the moment when shootings started, trying to hear the explosions and screams of the victims. I was standing in a slaughter field amidst tens of dead bodies. I felt a tension in my belly, right there where the muzzle of that police officer’s rifle was pointed to just a few moments ago. All of a sudden my desire to make photos seemed deeply inappropriate. I desperately wanted to come back to reality, to forget the horror that happened here one year ago, but it was impossible. My guide asked me if I want him to try to get a permission to make some photos, but I refused. I had enough.

As we were hurrying towards one of the exits on the other end I was thinking that there actually must be many places on the face of the Earth where people died violently. Millions of years of evolution of genus Homo are immensely long time. Thousands and thousands of places were soaked in blood and covered with dead human bodies. So many of our predecessors lived and died without a trace, decayed and forever disappeared everywhere on this planet. Had I believed in ghosts I would have to accept that they were “living” with us now everywhere, in every corner of the only world we know, inhabiting every house and every home in hundreds. But I do not believe in ghosts, and neither in God. I do not think that one continues to live after death in some other form, and that a life has a purpose not revealed to us. I am convinced that we all have only this one life, and that life itself is the highest value. And when I stand in the place where I KNOW that many people lost their lives in a violent way, killed in the name of “higher” purpose, I feel frightened. Murdering a human being is like destroying a world. Our duty is to preserve life and minimise suffering. Nothing else. We are all brothers and sisters, and we do not need any religion to see it, if we just bother to think.

There was an old-fashioned scale short before the exit from the station. It bore the text “EASTERN SCALES” on it, a platform to stand on, and an opening for inserting coins. My guide urged me with a smile to step on it and measure my weight. I complied absently. After a short while the machine spat out a small yellowish card. On one side it read “HEALTH CARD - KILOGRAMS 92 - KEEP FIT - EASTERN SCALES - 49434″. It was wrong. My weight was 82. I turned the other side and read the personal message under the title “BUY YOUR OWN TICKET”: “You will emerge triumphant from your most serious reverses. A happy and comfortable old age”. As we emerged from the station to the sunny street I wandered how many nameless victims of Kasab and Khan got that very same message on the day they were murdered.