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Je loopt niet maar wat te wandelen
in het landschap dat internet heet
waar je stappen worden bijgehouden
opgekocht in databundels

wat voor iemand je bent
wordt langzaam duidelijk
online

wat doe je daar op Facebook?

er is daar ruimte
in andermans ogen
waar het bospad, je lunch
je status
worden geliked

je bent niet alleen
zie je wel?

Mijn burcht

Van mijn dagen

bouw ik een kasteel

mijn burcht in het bestaan

met vleugels

zomaar een adres

met dunne muren

maar goed geïsoleerd

door lappen ervaring

genoeg kamers om in te lachen

wat vertrekken om eea uit te vogelen

torens voor rust

een oefenzaal voor mijn eigengereidheid

een grote kelder die al mijn onvervulde verlangens

kan bevatten

overal mozaïeken

verrassende wandkleden

muziekstukken

en buiten

één grote bloemenzee

Het onbegrijpelijke

Ik heb de uitleg niet

is ook niet beschikbaar

beheers je ongeduld nu

er zijn geen redenen

dat is het juist

er valt niet bij te komen

het zien van het fenomeen is voldoende

er zomaar in rondlopen kan ook

zolang de feiten maar niet verplaatst worden

en je ook niet probeert te calculeren

of er een deksel op zet

en de vlam eronder

totdat het zacht wordt

en verteerbaar tot iets

dat ons innerlijk kan opnemen in de bloedbaan

zoals suiker

die rechtstreeks onze hersenen

en ons denken binnenstroomt

het is niet te bevatten

Passanten

Ze komen voorbij

meestal in de greep

van automatismen en afspraken

stuk voor stuk

druk

dan een eerste mens

die toch even gaat zitten

wat in zijn tas rommelt

veel rustiger ademd
dan de voorbijgangers die zich
een pad blijven banen

soms fotografisch mooi
turend

hun boodschappen zie je aan ze hangen

in plastic tassen

niet het moeizame en glinsterende binnenste

van hun dwaling

doorlopend

totdat

ze bij het buffet komen waar

alles klaarstaat

op ze te wachten

om gewoon

te worden opgegeten

Griffin

Sébastien Lebras

30 ans, charpentier

vivant à Nice

au 7^ème étage d’un immeuble

se dispute avec sa compagne

crise de jalousie

il voulait le téléphone de sa compagne

pour voir ses échanges

avec peut-être un autre garçon

en lui disant ceci :

« Donne-moi ton portable sinon je crame ton chat »

il a attrapé le chat

il l’a aspergé d’alcool

il a pris un briquet

il l’a allumé

comme une torche vivante

devenu fou

le chat s’est réfugié sous le canapé

qui risquait de prendre feu

à son tour

qu’à cela ne tienne

Sébastien Lebras

a trouvé une solution

très efficace

très vite

jeune homme agile

il a été capable d’attraper

une nouvelle fois le chat

et il l’a

- oui -

jeté par la fenêtre

du 7^ème étage

quand on m’a dit ça

j’ai pensé d’abord

« au moins il n’a pas souffert longtemps »

sauf qu’un chat

est capable d’amortir sa chute

même du 7^ème étage

il s’est donc bien écrasé

mais vivant

pour continuer de souffrir

du feu qui le brûlait

et de ses os brisés

de partout

les miaulements ont duré une heure et demie

car la police ne pouvait pas l’euthanasier

car il faut l’autorisation du propriétaire

qui lui

bref

Griffin a fini ses jours

aux urgences vétérinaires

où des voisins ont fini par l’amener

Sebastien Lebras
a été condamné à 2 ans
mais il a fait appel

Griffin était juste un chat

mais de là où il est

il fait appel aussi

à tous ceux qui peuvent l’entendre

pour que Sébastien Lebras

soit reconnu officiellement

comme un très mauvais exemple

de la part

de tous les chats du monde

----------------------------------------------

http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/nice-deux-ans-ferme-pour-l-homme-qui-a-mis-le-feu-au-chat-de-sa-compagne-01-02-2016-5505707.php#xtref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.fr%2F

http://www.rtl.fr/actu/societe-faits-divers/condamne-a-2-ans-de-prison-pour-avoir-brule-et-defenestre-un-chat-7781668394

http://planeteanimaux.com/sujet/2016/02/02/chat-brule-2-ans-prison/005991

UNESCO’s Documentary Heritage List: unknown territory

Few people know that it’s possible for a private person like you and I to have a document inscribed on UNESCO’s Documentary Heritage List (see this link). You only need two things for this: a document that is “unique, irreplaceable and of world significance”, and secondly the luck that a small number of UNESCO experts (20 in total) agree with you that the document is indeed that important. That’s all.

This would not be possible at all for UNESCO’s other heritage list: the World Heritage List. Because only governments can propose items for the list, not private persons like you and I. For example only the Egyptian government was allowed to nominate the pyramids for World Heritage Status. But for UNESCO’s Documentary Heritage List on the other hand – officially called the “Memory of the World Register” – the nominating party can be you or me, or the library and the university of your town. Anybody, as long as they have a very, very significant document. 

Documentary heritage: interesting!

Why is it that so few people know this “little sister” of UNESCO’s World Heritage List? Some say it’s because the items on the documentary list are less interesting. But I doubt that. Do you really think that Anne Frank’s diaries are “not that interesting”? And do you really consider the first films ever shown – made by the French Lumière brothers – not to be important enough to keep them as a family treasure that we, humanity, own together? I’m pretty sure you do. You get goosebumps when you read or watch them. I did.

The limits of our knowledge

Last week I attended an interesting debate on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme with two experts: Gérald Grunberg (Chair of the French Memory of the World Committee) and Adolf Knoll (Czech National Library and UNESCO expert). The objective of this debate was to raise awareness about UNESCO’s surprisingly unknown Documentary Heritage List. I would like to try to raise that awareness a little further through you, dear reader.

The debate between Gérald Grunberg (left) and Adolf Knoll (right) was moderated by David Fajolles, Secretary-General of the French National UNESCO Commission, 

The first thing that struck me is how difficult it is for experts to agree on which documents to inscribe and which not. Knoll told us about a heated discussion about the nomination of Copernicus’ world famous book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. This landmark book was fiercely criticized in the 16^th century for placing the Sun rather than the Earth in the center of the Universe. Many UNESCO experts considered this document to be of absolute world significance as it fundamentally changed the way we understand our position in the universe. But an Arab expert argued that Arab scholars had written this before. The book was finally inscribed on the list, but it took time for experts to agree.

Even when experts agree to inscribe a document, Knoll continued, “there’s still a space between the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’; a space that depends on the knowledge that experts happen to have of the topics involved”. That is why UNESCO’s work fascinates me: it is about the choices we have to make about important things for humanity despite the limits of our knowledge. It is about the impossibility to be absolutely right because we are ‘hindered’ by the fact that we have a certain background, a certain knowledge and a certain perspective on the world. UNESCO’s Documentary Heritage List is about us, the sum of all imperfect and biased human beings on the planet trying to build and protect their collective memory together.

Unknown territory

The second thing that struck me is that France, a big “UNESCO Founding Father” country, has about the same number of inscriptions on the Documentary Heritage List as my little country the Netherlands! On the World Heritage List the situation is very different: France has four times as many world heritage sites as the Netherlands. This difference is due to the fact that the World Heritage List has more prestige than the much less known Documentary Heritage List. This probably also explains why for the moment even you and I can still nominate documents: the Documentary Heritage List is not yet “hot” enough to make governments want to interfere. It’s still unknown territory, believe it or not.

The future of Memory of the World

For how long will the world’s Memory of the World remain unknown territory? In other words: when will UNESCO’s Documentary Heritage List become so popular before countries almost start fighting for their heritage to be inscribed on it? If this happens, Memory of the World could become a list like UNESCO’s prestigious World Heritage List where not experts but governments make the final decision to inscribe or not (with experts only advising). It would be managed on the basis of a Convention between governments as decision-makers rather than by a committee of experts. Is this a desirable future for the world’s documentary memory?

Views on this are quite diverging. Knoll feared the governments’ involvement as it would focus the attention on bureaucracy rather than on the programme’s job: improve the preservation of documentary heritage. Grunberg argued on the contrary that a heritage list owned – and cherished – by governments would have much more outreach and a much stronger influence on documentary heritage preservation in countries than a relatively unknown documentary heritage list. UNESCO itself, I mean the Secretariat that represents UNESCO Member States, agrees with Grunberg. On its website it even mentions its “intent of creating a sound framework for the future maturing of Memory of the World into the status of a UNESCO Recommendation and ultimately a UNESCO Convention”. And time goes faster than UNESCO’s website: the Recommendation for documentary heritage already exists!

Whatever the future of our Documentary Heritage List may be, I think it is urgent that governments and citizens get to know it. It’s our best chance to create a global effort to save the great achievements of our ancestors which are being eaten up in poorly preserved humid places all over the world. The sound of slowly decaying archives might not be as spectacular and horrifying as the explosion of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas (see link), but the resulting loss for our civilization will be no less devastating and painful.

Twitter: @Oosterenvan

Read also: http://www.ifla.org/files/assets/rare-books-and-manuscripts/Capetown-2015-presentations/rbsc_preconference_paper_jan_bos.pdf?platform=hootsuite

What does UNESCO do to protect cultural diversity?

Most people know UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention (1972) that created the famous World Heritage Sites. But few know about UNESCO’s cultural convention from 2005 that protects and promotes the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Nevertheless UNESCO’s 2005 Convention directly influences the diversity of our daily cultural environment: music, architecture, media and so on. At least that is what the 2005 Convention is supposed to do: it was ratified by 140 UNESCO Member States to prevent our cultural environment from being dominated by a limited number of cultural conglomerates. Star wars is very nice but we should also be able to see other movies that have smaller marketing budgets and that come from our own countries.

How does the 2005 Convention protect the diversity of our cultural environment? It does this by stimulating the international community to design policies that give cultural services and products an equal chance to be enjoyed by all citizens. It promotes the exchange of best practices which are contained in this monitoring report: here's the link, and here’s the summary. The report presents the concrete results and findings after 10 years of implementing the Convention. It presents four aspects of promoting cultural diversity, which are described below.

1/ Make cultural policies that favor diversity

• Two innovations have fundamentally changed the functioning of the cultural production and distribution chain: technology (mobile connectivity, smartphones, iPods, evolving digital environment) and the media who use this technology (Netflix, Facebook, e-commerce). The good thing is that they open up channels for new voices and talent. This need to be encouraged.
• On the other hand the increasing number of media outlets and greater choices doesn’t mean that these outlets are necessarily ‘freer’ nor that they are a guarantee of diversity of content and expressions. Therefore governments need to analyze how leveled and inclusive the cultural and creative sector is. They need to keep an eye both on the big and small players but also on freedom-of-information laws, internet governance and e-commerce. Do they still favor cultural diversity? The report suggests that these items be included in the scope of the Convention.
• The report also reminds us that it’s not only up to governments to ensure cultural diversity: civil society has a role too as producer of cultural products and as ‘cultural watchdog’. The report suggests that more partnerships are needed between governments and civil society, namely to ensure a diverse offer of cultural products and also to help assess the impact and effectiveness of cultural policies.

2/ Balance the flows of cultural goods and services

• Flows of cultural services such as audiovisual media are very unbalanced. They are still largely dominated by developed countries. In 2012 for example the US covered more than half of the global exports of cultural services (52,4%). The developing countries’ share was only 1,6% versus 98% (!) for developed countries.

• Trade agreements can correct this by balancing the flow of cultural goods and services on the basis of principles laid down in UNESCO’s 2005 Convention. This already started happening: the report observes an increase in the number of ‘cultural exemption’ methods to exclude some cultural goods and services from trade agreements. But it remains rare. And although the number of references made to the 2005 Convention in trade agreements has increased, the impact of this needs to be assessed.

• To preserve a heterogeneous world of ideas, values and worldviews the mobility of artists and their free access to international markets is crucial. Currently artists are still unable to travel freely in some parts of the world.

• The growth of e-commerce is a booster of development but also a risk for small and medium-sized players given the advance of the big platforms.

3/ Recognize culture as factor of sustainable development

• Development always takes place in a cultural context. Taking this cultural context into account provides economic benefits like the jobs generated by the creative and cultural industry. It also provides social outcomes like the raising of community awareness and participation. Artistic activity provides social cohesion by breaking down social barriers, reducing tensions and promoting intercultural dialogue. Artists can also be powerful ways to build national identity and reputation, also for developing countries. Lastly, the cultural sector can provide environmental outcomes via the adoption of green design principles and the use of the arts as a vehicle for environmental education.

• Sustainable development means inclusive development, and cultural policies are powerful tools to ensure participation of all groups in this development. An example is Slovenia, which has introduced cultural policy measures to enable recognition of the rights of the Roma people.

4/ Recognize culture as an aspect of human rights

• Women are strongly represented in the creative sector in most of the world. However they remain poorly represented in a number of cultural professions and decision-making positions in the cultural sector. For example only 3% of top classical music conductors is female. The report stresses the need for better access to the creative potential of the female half of the artistic community.

• Artistic freedom of expression is an issue. The NGO Freemuse registered 237 attacks on artistic freedom in 2014 which is only the tip of the iceberg. As UN Rapporteur for Cultural Rights Karima Bennoune said: “We still live in a world where poets are sentenced to death”. To protect artistic freedom it needs better reporting.

Conclusion

We had to wait 10 years for this first monitoring report for the 2005 Convention but the next one is now planned in 2017. This is encouraging news. Because monitoring reports like this enable conventions to do what they are supposed to do: they give countries an overview of what is happening in the field and the opportunity to inspire and learn from each other. But this overview – and this is the report’s main message – needs more and better information from countries about their cultural policies and their impact in the field. Because a clear picture of cultural diversity policies requires reporting and therefore indicators, (sex-disaggregated) data, evaluation frameworks and impact assessments. Let this message be heard because however tedious and boring data collection may be, it is the hand that takes the blindfold off our eyes so that we can properly see and control the way our cultural environment evolves.

Twitter: @Oosterenvan