Latest news with #culturalIdentity
CBC
4 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
'Like seeing an old friend:' Beloved totem pole restored and relocated in St. Catharines, Ont.
Social Sharing About six years after it was removed from a St. Catharines, Ont., park, a beloved totem pole is once again standing tall in the community. Commissioned in 1966 for Canada's 100th birthday, the Centennial Totem Pole was carved by the late Doug Cranmer, a Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw artist and hereditary chief of the ʼNa̱mǥis Nation. Close to 13 metres tall, the totem pole, featuring carvings of figures including a thunderbird, bear and cedar man, stood in Richard Pierpoint Park in the Queenston neighbourhood until 2019 when it was taken down for restoration. Over its 50 years in the park, the piece of art took on significance locally, Six Nations Wolf Clan member Phil Davis told CBC Hamilton. "It has become a part of our fabric and has come to represent a place of hope and faith for our people to gather over the years," he said. Davis works as a cultural resource coordinator for the Niagara Regional Native Centre (NRNC) and said such spaces are important for a community trying to find its identity in an urban setting. "When we have something as magnificent as a totem pole, we start understanding it at a deeper level," he said. "That is something that's much needed these days in the crazy world that we live in." Totem poles are not customary of the region Despite its local significance, carving totem poles is not a tradition among Indigenous people in Treaty 3 land. Totem poles come from the Pacific Northwest. At the time the totem pole was commissioned, "it wasn't uncommon for municipalities and governments to celebrate the colonization of Canada through purchasing Indigenous art pieces," said St. Catharines culture coordinator Olivia Hope. Those were often Western works that conformed to "the idea of what Indigenous was at the time," Hope said, adding the city likely viewed it as something to represent the Indigenous community in Niagara. Hope is Oneida, Haudenausaunee, from Six Nations of the Grand River and also has Québécois and Polish heritage. Around 2017, Hope said, the city, NRNC and local community members began discussing what to do with the totem pole, which was in "rough shape," according to Bruce Alfred, the artist who would eventually restore it. She said Cranmer's family was contacted and were in favour of the totem pole being restored. They also suggested Alfred be the one to lead the process. Alfred is also an artist from the Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw Nation, who lives in Alert Bay, B.C., and apprenticed with Cranmer. He agreed to restore it and the totem pole was reinstalled inside the Canada Games Park. 'He was such a character' Even though it might not have "the exact same connection" with community as it did before, Hope said the totem pole will still be accessible. "That way, generations upon generations could enjoy it," said Alfred. "Otherwise, in 10 years, it'll be right back to square one before we restored it." It took Alfred and two other Indigenous artists, Dominique Wells and Cole Speck, four weeks and long hours to restore the piece, he said. He said the piece needed "a lot of work" as, on top of the weather damage, the totem pole had been set on fire, which created a cavity inside it. Then someone filled it up with cement, which Alfred said was "a job and a half" to remove. "There ended up being a lot of concrete in there. We had to get a miniature jackhammer to break it apart," he said. It wasn't the first time Alfred was restoring a piece made by his mentor, but that didn't make it any less special or educational. "It's always a learning experience. You know, I just kept thinking, 'Okay, what would Doug do?'" he said. For Alfred, Cranmer was more than a teacher. "Doug was my chief, my uncle, my mentor, even a father figure to me, which meant a lot," he said. "He was such a character, gifted character." 'There's a lot of pride there' Hope said the restoration was a learning experience for the city and an opportunity for Indigenous people to share their knowledge. "I think also what has highlighted for the city and hopefully for other cities is the need for local Indigenous art to be made more public, to be created, to have a light shone on it," she said. Davis said his involvement in the restoration was made through his work, but "it expanded beyond that." He and Hope would have conversations about what the totem pole represents, he said, and even considered letting it "go back to nature." Alfred invited Davis to the totem pole's installation as a witness, which he said was "pretty amazing." "It was awesome to walk up and see it again, like seeing an old friend again," he said. Alfred said the totem pole was an art piece that "became ceremonial," because of how locals, Indigenous and not, embraced it. "There's a lot of pride there," he said.
Khaleej Times
5 days ago
- General
- Khaleej Times
UAE: Kanduras over suits? Students ask to wear traditional attire at graduation
Several parents have requested that their children be permitted to wear Emirati kanduras at graduation ceremonies, emphasising that the national dress reflects their cultural identity and embodies the country's traditions and heritage. They emphasised the importance of students attending these official events in Emirati attire, which reflects their personality and roots. They described the kandura as an elegant and civilised symbol befitting the graduation spirit of Emirati students. Graduation ceremonies are being held from this week, up until final exams begin. Students in grades that are moving from one educational stage to another are being celebrated. They are those in kindergarten, Grade 4, Grade 8, and Grade 12. Reem, an Emirati mother of an eighth-grade student at a public school, stated that the school organised a photoshoot for eighth-grade students and requested that parents have the students wear their school uniforms. "A number of parents objected to the attire and demanded that the students be allowed to wear the Emirati kandura." On the parents' request, the school complied and allowed the students to wear the Emirati kandura for the photoshoot and graduation ceremony. National identity Parents also called, through media outlets, for the wearing of Emirati attire, the kandura, to be promoted as a symbol of the UAE, representing its graduates who will represent the country in the future. This also aims to give non-citizens an idea of what Emirati students look like upon graduation, in an Emirati style that reflects Emirati culture. The photos they take will also be memories they share, bearing a traditional Emirati character. Kandura or a suit On the other hand, students expressed their desire to wear the Emirati kandura, believing it makes them look more beautiful. Humaid Adel, a twelfth-grade student at Zayed Complex, said, "We have the option at school to wear either the kandura or a formal suit." Most students chose to wear the kandura, with the exception of a few who chose to wear a formal suit. "Regardless of representing Emirati identity, the prices are exorbitant. Anyone who would wear the Emirati kandura would pay Dh600 for a graduation gown." He added, "If we want to wear the formal suit, we will have to pay an additional amount." Despite the high prices of formal suits, some students prefer wearing them because of the comfort it offers and how elegant they look. Abdullah Yousef, a twelfth-grade student at a private school in Dubai, said that because he attends a private school, the formal suit is required for graduation. Even though he is used to wearing a kandura, he prefers the formal suit for the event. He said, "I bought a suit for Dh800 and shoes for Dh200." He added that one can choose an expensive or an affordable option by deciding where they buy their garments from.
Jordan Times
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Jordan Times
A time for cultural awakening: Rethinking identity in a region of endless crises
For many years now the Middle East has been caught in a cycle of ongoing crises. Since October 7, this cycle has accelerated, moving rapidly from one front to another. If there's one phrase that captures what the region is living through today, it's this: the region of crises. It's not just a political description—it's a social and psychological condition that has shaped lives, mindsets, and institutions. What's most worrying isn't only the crises themselves, but the way they've affected how people think, feel, and act. Societies have become locked into a kind of mental waiting room—projects are frozen, ideas are stalled, and leadership often shifts to managing the crisis of the day instead of building the future. Over time, we've lost sight of long-term national goals and neglected the cultural and intellectual frameworks that give nations a sense of direction. In Jordan, as we mark 79 years of independence, it's important to recognize what has held this country together. The strength of state institutions has helped Jordan remain standing while much of the region has collapsed into sectarian violence and militia-fuelled chaos. We may rightly criticize the bureaucracy or call for reforms, we must also acknowledge its role as a stabilizing force. Still, stability is not enough. What we need now is a clear and forward-looking national project—one that connects the past with the future and brings cultural identity back to the heart of public life. For people to truly belong, they must feel proud of what they belong to. This means reintroducing Jordan's history, values, and cultural legacy in a way that resonates with younger generations and the outside world. Being Jordanian, today, should mean more than holding a passport. It should mean having a clear identity, especially at a time when the region is once again being reshaped. As sectarian and ethnic divisions deepen, and as new crises emerge, it's the idea of national identity that will remain the only real shield against chaos. That's why I believe we need a cultural awakening—a revival that helps us move past the errors of the past and builds a sense of shared purpose for what lies ahead. This isn't just about slogans. We need a real renaissance—a shift from abstract visions to practical steps. It begins with asking: Where do we want to be tomorrow? From there, we can begin to build policies based on cultural growth, public awareness, and a clearer role for the state—not just as a service provider, but as a guide in shaping identity and building a stronger society. Jordan has proven resilient, but resilience alone doesn't guarantee confidence. Over time, people's trust in state institutions can erode—quietly, gradually. That's why it's essential to re-engage with citizens through honest reflection and real change. When people feel seen and heard, when they see action—not just promises—they begin to believe again. This kind of national revival isn't a luxury. It's a necessity for surviving the future. And at the heart of it must be investment in people: culturally, intellectually, and socially. Even in times of limited resources, the seeds of such a project already exist. They just need to be nurtured. Perhaps the essence of this vision is best captured in the words of Jordanian poet Haidar Mahmoud: 'From the heart of stone, we shaped a man of pride and dignity. And we swore by the majesty of the river, to conquer the darkness with love.'
The National
16-05-2025
- General
- The National
'Lahja': The Arabic word for dialect speaks of tradition and pride
In April, the UAE set out plans to ensure only its citizens can speak in Emirati dialect and wear national dress when filming social media content. The decision was made to protect and preserve the country's identity. Abdulla Al Hamed, chairman of the UAE National Media Office, posted on X: 'The Emirati dialect is a rich vessel of vocabulary and meanings that store within its letters the memory of a nation.' Our Arabic word of the week is lahja, which means dialect. The plural for the word is lahjat. In the Middle East, every country has its own lahja, with deeper differences found from one city to another. A lahja is a vital part of an Arab person's identity. It is how others can recognise where a person is from. Some parts of the Arab world use an old and distinct lahja. For example, Al Shehhi and Al Hebsi tribes speak in a unique lahja, one that other Arabic speakers might not immediately understand. Even Arabic culture itself is inherited through different dialects. While most people can speak and understand a classical Arabic dialect, one that is used in official settings, different dialects that carry a people's tradition and customs. In the Gulf, each country's lahja differs in tone, cadence and vocabulary. Countries that border each other may see a lot of crossovers but the distinction remains. The UAE's lahja can be differentiated from emirate to emirate, but they all fall under the umbrella of the Emirati lahja. A lahja is also generational. As children grow up, they would learn to speak their family's lahja, but also adopt one that others in their age group would converse in. While a grandmother and a grandchild in the UAE could be speaking in an Emirati dialect, the circumstances of their surroundings and upbringing could make a difference in the way they speak. While people across the Arab world take pride in their shared Arabic language, there is even deeper pride in the dialects that differentiate them. So much so, that there is a common phrase in Arabic that says: 'to know a people is to speak in their dialect'.
New York Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Jewish Promised Land in … Texas? Rachel Cockerell Had to Know More.
One summer day 10 years ago, Rachel Cockerell gathered with dozens of family members for a cousin's 80th birthday party in the North London house where her father had grown up. Among the guests were relatives from Israel. Cockerell had always known that alongside her impeccably Anglo ancestors, she had descended from Russian Jews through her father's mother. But she never knew her Granny Fanny; she had never celebrated Jewish holidays. A perennial jar of borscht in the cupboard had been the extent of her Jewishness. 'It was so peripheral in my vision,' she said recently. Something about spending the afternoon with Hebrew-accented cousins in the overgrown backyard of 22 Mapesbury Road sparked her imagination. Cockerell, who is now 30, Googled this branch's paterfamilias, her great-grandfather David Jochelmann. Up came his New York Times obituary from 1941. It stated: 'His name was a household word in Jewish homes throughout Eastern Europe.' That one sentence turned out to determine how she would spend much of the next several years of her life. Prowling century-old newspaper articles and digitized memoirs, Cockerell put Jochelmann's story at the heart of what became her first book, 'Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land,' published last year in Britain and May 6 in the United States. 'This man, my great-grandfather, was never spoken about in my family, and if he was, he sounded deathly boring — a 'gray man,' as we say in London,' Cockerell, who grew up in Notting Hill, said over lunch in Brooklyn last week. But Jochelmann (spelled Jochelman in some sources) turned out to be the Zelig of early Zionism, which began as a political movement to address Jewish persecution roughly a half-century before Israel's founding in 1948. He worked closely with Israel Zangwill, the writer and activist who, in a 1908 play, coined 'the melting pot,' the trademark phrase of American assimilation. Jochelmann helped execute Zangwill's grandiose scheme that, beginning in 1907, relocated thousands of Russian Jews to Galveston, Texas, on the Gulf Coast. Decades later, in England, Jochelmann was personal assistant to Vladimir Jabotinsky, the intellectual godfather of the Zionist right. His three children lived fascinating lives of their own in the United States, Britain and Israel. 'Melting Point'(Farrar, Straus & Giroux) is not sui generis so much as multigenre: partly an immersive history of major events (early Zionism and the schism within its ranks); partly a nonfiction novel of ideas; partly a caper among fast-living bohemians; partly a family saga; and ultimately Cockerell's reclamation of her birthright. 'When I have been at Passover or in synagogues or at Hanukkah in Israel and America, I've seen what my family could have had, but didn't,' she said. 'This rich, ancient heritage of ritual, this culture that had been passed down however many years, ended with my grandmother or my dad — it definitely was not something that I inherited.' In fact, much of Jochelmann's story was new even to Cockerell's father, Michael, a prominent British political journalist who grew up with a portrait of his grandfather staring from the wall of 22 Mapesbury. 'It feels very odd to have a book written about my family without me really recognizing much of what I knew,' Michael said in a phone interview. He was particularly struck by the book's documentation of the antisemitic attacks that helped spur both Zionism and efforts such as what came to be called the Galveston Movement. 'There is a lot of my own ancestry,' he said, 'I hadn't realized was as awful as that.' Rachel Cockerell is less a presence than she might have been because of her book's unusual style. After composing half a draft in the manner of a typical nonfiction volume, she cut all her own prose. 'Melting Point' has a short preface, a brief afterword and some reproductions of faded photographs and paintings. It otherwise consists entirely of quotations: from newspaper articles, from speeches, from writings of obscure figures, from interviews Cockerell conducted with family members. Separated into blocks, they last anywhere from one sentence to a few paragraphs and are adorned with minimalist sourcing in the margins: 'Chicago Tribune, 24 August 1903,' 'Weymouth Gazette,' 'Israel Zangwill,' 'Mimi.' Cockerell found that attempts at paraphrasing just didn't work for her. Inspired by the George Saunders novel 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' which is organized as a kind of oral history, she strove to make the book personal through authorial curation. 'My favorite thing people have said to me after reading the book,' she said, 'is, 'It feels like it's written in your voice.'' The Guardian called the method 'deeply immersive and dramatic.' The New Yorker described how effectively sources were 'coaxed by Cockerell, who has a keen ear and fine sense of timing, into becoming some of recent literature's most compelling narrators.' Substantively as well, 'Melting Point' is not the book Cockerell set out to write after that birthday party in 2015. She was expecting to compose a Jewish family memoir along the lines of Edmund de Waal's 'The Hare With Amber Eyes.' But Cockerell, who studied art history as an undergraduate at the Courtauld Institute of Art and received a master's degree in journalism at City University, found her attention increasingly captured by the larger currents of Jewish history in which her great-grandfather played a first marginal, and then increasingly prominent, role. It would be necessary, she felt, to explore beyond the exclusive lens of her own family. And so the book's first half revolves around Zangwill and his notion of 'territorialism,' which diverged from Zionism's insistence on a Jewish territory in the Jews' ancient homeland. Prompted partly by an infamous 1903 pogrom in the Russian city of Kishinev, territorialists held as an intermediate goal a Jewish territory anywhere one could be gotten — 'Zionism without Zion,' as The Jewish Chronicle described it. Locales that were considered included East Africa ('Is it to be Jewganda?'), Australia, Mexico, Mesopotamia, Paraguay, Canada and Angola. A then-Ottoman part of modern-day Libya called Cyrenaica was ultimately rejected over a lack of water ('An Unpromising Land,' declared The Evening Standard). Galveston, a Gulf Coast port, was conceived not as a Jewish territory but as an entry point to the interior United States, as opposed to the East Coast cities — above all, New York — where Russian Jewish immigrants were already concentrated. Territorialism is a decidedly less-known aspect of Zionist history. In an interview, Adam L. Rovner, the director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, called Zangwill an 'amazing, imaginative man,' whose vision fell out of favor. 'His pragmatism,' Rovner added, 'blinded him to the pursuit of the dream that has had undeniable success.' Though not Cockerell's relation, it is Zangwill who above all leaps off the pages of her book. He was 'the homeliest man I ever saw,' according to one source; 'negligent of his apparel,' according to another; and 'with a face that suggests nothing so much as one of those sculptured gargoyles in a medieval cathedral,' in the words of The New York Herald. (The descriptions could veer into antisemitism.) Yet he was tremendously charismatic. And also pragmatic, not only as a territorialist but as a mentor and a friend. In 1913, he urged Jochelmann to leave Kyiv, not for one of Zangwill's hoped-for Jewish territories, but for London. 'They are destined to become English,' Zangwill insisted of Fanny, Cockerell's grandmother, and her sister, Sonia. Following Zangwill's story, the book shifts to 1920s Greenwich Village, where David's son Emanuel Jochelmann ended up a playwright under the name Em Jo Basshe. Though he worked in an experimental collective with John Dos Passos, he achieved less renown: One review remarked of the unfortunate hero of a Basshe play, 'He suffered almost as much as his audience.' To capture this branch of the family, Cockerell spoke with Basshe's daughter, who is now 95 and lives in Canada, nearly every week for two years. The book goes on to explore the middle-class lives of Jochelmann's two daughters and their children in postwar London and Israel. Capital-H history is glimpsed in passing: a London protest against Hitler in 1933; the 1946 bombing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel by a Jewish militia; an older woman's reminiscences of herself as a young girl spying telltale arm tattoos on Israeli bus passengers. A sub-current throughout 'Melting Point' speaks to present-day debates over what might be called the Palestinian question. 'The principal difficulty is that Palestine is already the homeland of another people,' one source observes; at the close of the 1940s another reports: 'The once all-Arab cities of Jaffa, Ramleh and Acre are now filling up with new Jewish immigrants.' The stories and quotations bump and jostle, leaving the reader to decide what might be the book's central tension: How does its first half — the history of Zionism and its failed alternative, territorialism — connect to the second half, which depicts a Jewish family's assimilation? As part of her reporting, Cockerell celebrated Passover and Hanukkah for the first time, in Israel. She ate fish tacos on the Galveston beach with a longtime local rabbi and his wife, a descendant of Jews who arrived there a century earlier as part of her great-grandfather's movement. 'My family has melted into the melting pot, and I can't be too sad about that,' Cockerell said. 'Because I am the textbook example of assimilation, I can't resent it.' Still, Cockerell seems glad that her family past includes moments of assimilation's opposite. 'I feel bad for the gentile side of my family,' she said. 'My uncles on my mom's side asking, 'When are you going to write about us?' It's like: Absolutely never. Sorry, guys.'
