Despite only existing for 11 days, we've been busy at RS Matters. Four articles have been published, and our Twitter feed has been active, promoting internet and newspaper articles, radio programmes and TV programmes of interest as well as retweeting tweets written by interesting people, papers, groups and organisations.
We began with 50 Years of Bond and Cultural Stereotypes, which examined how the film series has made use of cultural stereotypes to set a scene. As the article notes, some stereotypes work better than others, whilst some have had distinctly racist overtones. Is this the fault of the filmmakers and scriptwriters, or is this something that audiences need to respond to a culture different to their own?
On Monday 23, we announced that RS Matters was now on Twitter (Follow RS Matters on Twitter!). We also published our aims for the site: RSMatters is a resource for secondary school students, encouraging pupils to study RS, Philosophy and associated topics, both at school and university level. Commenting on the article, religionandmore showed interest, but wondered who ‘we’ were. We responded: ‘We’ are students from the University of Edinburgh, aiming to pass on our enthusiasm for these subjects onto others.
On Friday 27, we remembered the tragic events of the Holocaust and encouraged our readers to acknowledge Holocaust Memorial Day (Always Remember, Never Forget). If you missed it, we encourage you to have a look at the Speak Up, Speak Out campaign. Please click here for more information.
Saturday 28 saw the publication of The Magic of Mountains, an examination into the role of mountains within religious belief. Looking at the examples of Kangchenjunga, the Niyamgiri Hills, Mount Sinai, Mount Ararat and Mount Hira, it was posited that maybe mountains make one feel closer to the divine and increased feelings of spirituality. This may go some way to explaining the frequent mentions of mountains within religious literature. We would welcome your comments and suggestions on this topic.
So, what’s coming up in February?
Well, hopefully more articles from students, either from students here at Edinburgh, or from other institutions. Articles in the pipeline are diverse, ranging from examining press ethics in the light of the Leveson Inquiry and the use of religion within professional wrestling – two examples proving how wide-ranging the fields of religious studies, philosophy and ethics are. We will continue informing schools about RSMatters, encouraging students to read the blog and to contribute their material. If you wish to contribute an article, please e-mail it to: rsmattersblog@gmail.com. We will strive to publish all articles that come in, provided they have not been written to intentionally cause offence. We welcome all points of view and articles about any aspect of religion and philosophy.
Have a great February and continue to enjoy RS Matters!
For those who had the pleasure of studying geography at school, the water cycle will hopefully be familiar ground. Key scientific words like ‘evaporation’ and ‘precipitation’ will be etched into your minds, as will diagrams full of arrows, labels and illustrations of clouds, rivers, seas and mountains. The rivers begin in the highlands, originating in waters coming from meltwater or rainwater coming from the clouds bursting as they manoeuvre over the mountain tops. From these mountainous regions, rivers are born and begin their journey down towards other rivers, lakes and seas.
Take the Himalayas as an example: the rainwater and meltwater from the gargantuan snow-capped mountains feed the great rivers of the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and the Indus. In turn, these rivers provide the means for civilisations to live, thrive and survive and, as a result, are accorded with religious status and devotion. The great Himalayan Mountains are also viewed with the same religious sentiment. Kangchenjunga, situated on the border between Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, stands at 8,586 metres above sea level. As such, it is the 3rd highest mountain in the world. It was first ‘conquered’ on May 25 1955 by British mountaineers Joe Brown and George Band. However, they did not reach the very top, instead stopping just short of the summit. Why? They were respecting the wishes and beliefs of the Sikkimese who deem the summit of Kangchenjunga to be sacred. In the local Limbu language, the mountain is called Sewalungma, meaning “Mountain that we offer greetings to”. One can begin to understand the strength and the power of the mountain when one sees photos of its beautiful yet sharp ridges. Watch this video by mountaineer Anselm Murphy and read the blog attached to see what happened to him when he and his team took on Kangchenjunga, demonstrating the beauty, the power and the dangerous side of the mountain.
During Geography A2 lessons some years ago, the subject under discussion was the people of the Kondha tribes in Orissa state, India. The mining company, Vedanta Resources, were aiming to extract large amounts of bauxite from the region to help in the creation of aluminium. However, the major supply of bauxite was to be found in the Niyamgiri Hills. The animist Dongria Kondh tribe regards the mountain to be the god Niyam Raja, and for Vedanta Resources to open a mine in the mountains is viewed by the local tribes to be an invasion against their religion. The issue has attracted much debate and controversy, leading to charities such as Survival International to intervene on behalf of the Dongria Kondh. Watch their take on the issue here:
For some, the idea that a mountain could be a god or have sacred properties seems strange. Our traditional understanding of God is of an omnipotent and omniscient figure, often imagined wearing white and sporting a white beard reminiscent of a Michelangelo painting. Yet mountains have a powerful quality – always there and dominating the landscape. Their streams and springs provide for the local inhabitants, flora and fauna, they often affect the climate and have been an integral and imposing part of that society’s imagination since that society began.
It is perhaps not coincidental that mountains appear to play a significant role in the monotheistic faiths. In Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, Moses receives the revelation from the Burning Bush and the 10 Commandments upon Mount Sinai. Besides Mount Sinai, Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat as the floodwaters diminished, Jesus gave a sermon on a Mount, he was crucified upon Calvary Hill and the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) received his first revelations from God in a cave high up on Mount Hira. The mountains and hills all play prominent roles within the histories of the various traditions, yet the reasons for this are obscure. It might be to do with elevation – the episodes occur on places that have geographical prominence. It might be even simpler than that – these mountains and hills might purely have been the only places around where one felt as if he or she was closer to Heaven and closer to divine. Regardless of the reason, mountains hold a sacred and historical bond with religions and their adherents, as the Dongria Kondh issues demonstrate, this bond still endures.
What makes mountains so special? I would be inclined to position myself on the side of those arguing that the solitude and elevation of the mountain, as well as its permanence in historical memory, give them a spiritual dimension that other natural features perhaps do not have to the same degree. For me, Alfred Wainwright, the famous author and illustrator of the Wainwright walking guides to the Lake District fells, provides one of the very best tributes to the emotive power and the attraction that mountains have had and continue to have upon the human consciousness:
“Why does a man climb mountains? Why has he forced his tired and sweating body up here when he might instead have been sitting at his ease in a deckchair at the seaside, looking at girls in bikinis, or fast asleep, or sucking ice cream, according to his fancy. On the face of it the thing doesn’t make sense.
“Yet more and more people are turning to the hills; they find something in these wild places that can be found nowhere else. It may be solace for some, satisfaction for others: the joy of exercising muscles that modern ways of living have cramped, perhaps; or a balm for jangled nerves in the solitude and silence of the peaks; or escape from the clamour and tumult of everyday existence. It may have something to do with a man’s subconscious search for beauty, growing keener as so much in the world grows uglier. It may be a need to readjust his sights, to get out of his own narrow groove and climb above it to see wider horizons and truer perspectives. In a few cases, it may even be a curiosity inspired by A. Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides. Or it may be, and for most walkers it will be, quite simply, a deep love of the hills, a love that has grown over the years, whatever motive first took them there: a feeling that these hills are friends, tried and trusted friends, always there when needed.
“It is a question every man must answer for himself”
AlfredWainwright
‘Soliloquy to Scafell Pike’ in The Southern Fells (1960)
A View of Castle Crag, High Spy and Maiden Moor
Taken by MB in June 2007
On January 27 1945, the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps from Nazi control. Estimates of the numbers of those that dies there are placed at around 1.1 million people, with victims including Jews, Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners-of-war.
The day and date has become one to remember, and one to provoke remembrance. International Holocaust Remembrance Day was declared in 2005 by the UN General Assembly with the aim of getting people across the world to remember those that died in such horrific circumstances and to teach and promote the important lessons of tolerance, courage and respect in order to ensure that such protracted episodes of violence and cruelty will never happen again.
History cannot be changed, but the future can be improved. This year, the Holocaust Memorial Day’s campaign urges all of us to Speak Up, Speak Out against discrimination and hatred. I would encourage everyone to visit their website and to take a moment to remember the victims of the Holocaust and all other subsequent genocides. They were and are victims of irrational hatred and ignorance, and these wrongs must never be allowed to take hold again. Please visit the Speak Up website (www.speakupnow.org.uk/) to learn more about the lessons we can learn from the tragedies of the past to ensure that they will not occur in the future.
On this day, there is an essential need for reflection and remembrance. I can think of no greater aide to remembrance that John Williams’ soundtrack to Schindler’s List and, in particular, the piece entitled ‘Remembrances’. The violin part, expertly performed by Itzhak Perlman, conveys the range of emotions we remember today: the despair and angst of those who left this world, the pain of those who lost loved ones, the mixture of joy and guilt of those that survived, and perhaps most importantly, the hope that their memories and experiences will stop such cruelty from ever happening again.
RS Matters is now on Twitter, providing links to RS Matters articles and to news articles in the media concerning religious studies, theology, philosophy, ethics and religious history. Follow us @RSMatters!
RS Matters aims to promote interest amongst children aged 14 upwards in religious studies, encouraging them to study the subject at GCSE, A-Level, Scottish Highers, and then at University. Articles will be written by present university students, aiming to pass on their enthusiasm for the many aspects of RS onto others. In the future, we will be encouraging secondary school students to submit articles, but that's a long way off yet.
One of my passions in life is James Bond. 2012 marks 50 years since the first Bond film Dr. No was released, and as a result, my flatmate and I have begun the process of watching all the films again in order. Having watched Sean Connery introduce 007 to the big screen with Bond’s introduction to his first onscreen love interest Sylvia Trench and to the world with those immortal words “My name’s Bond, James Bond”, Dr. No, as ever, was an enjoyable way to begin the process. But the fun really begins with From Russia With Love.
From Russia With Love (1963) is the second instalment in the franchise and is generally considered to be one of the best. Dark, energetic and full of Cold War imagery, it must rank as one of the best spy films ever made. The story was chosen to come second in the film franchise partly because of the novel’s popularity with President Kennedy, who died a month after the film premiered.
The film features extensive scenes shot in and around Istanbul, and the audience is treated to a brief scene overlooking that wonderful city in the shimmering sun with the noise of the call to prayer. This type of scene is a staple of films using the Middle East or the Arab world as a location. I can think of two Bond films that use this cinematic ‘technique’. In The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), a shot of Cairo is used with the sound of the muezzin’s call echoing across the city in the background. In Timothy Dalton’s first Bond film, The Living Daylights (1987), the same is done over Tangiers.
What does such a ‘technique’ add to a film? Is it a way to make the audience feel as if they were part of the adventure? Is it a way to experience the ‘exotic’? Or is it just a way of differentiating Muslim cities apart from Western cities? This last explanation might sound a little sinister as it implies that filmmakers want that distinction to be made, maybe to echo prejudices that (Western) audiences might already have. Instead, surely it can be seen as an attempt to get audiences to immediately identify a different culture through a stereotype. In the case of From Russia With Love, the call to prayer immediately brings the audience to the conclusion that Turkey is Islamic (even though Islam does not feature as a major plot point – albeit for a murder that takes place in a mosque).
Other Bond films make use of (stereotypical) cultural symbols to help the audience identify with a new location or plot point, often negatively. Roger Moore’s first 007 outing Live and Let Die (1973) delves into the world of voodoo and tarot reading. The credits sequence features devilish imagery of skulls on fire with Paul McCartney and Wings singing their famous song in the background. Before this, the audience sees a Mi6 agent being the victim of a ritual voodoo murder in which he is tied to a frame before being bitten by a snake wielded by a goat-clad priest. All these scenes do is to highlight something different – something dark and suspicious, a world apart from our own.
Octopussy (1983) is another example – littered with stereotypes aplenty that are designed to make us really believe that Bond is in India. Sword eaters, buildings called ‘Monsoon Palace’, villains with beards, sadhus lying on beds of spikes and walking on hot coals all feature, as well as appearances by a tiger and various Indian elephants. The Moore films all featured quips and tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted 'humour' such as this, but one can’t help feeling that the sight of Bond giving money to his Indian allies saying “This will keep you in curry for a few weeks” crosses the line. It’s probably the most culturally insensitive thing said in a Bond film since Dr. No, where Bond asks his faithful ally Quarrel, a black CIA operative, to “fetch my shoes”.
Stereotypes help us to identify cultures within the mass media. They should be used sparingly, maybe to set the scene. However, when you have an aging British agent telling his Indian colleagues that they should use the money to buy curry, one can’t help feel that the filmmakers were clinging to antiquated notions of imperialism with the master (the Brit) and the ruled (the Indians). It’s not just the Bond films that use stereotypes to ‘set the scene’. Many films do it but does that make it right?
It’s 2012: the year of the London Olympics, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and 50 years of James Bond on film. In November, the 23rd Bond film, Skyfall, will be released, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Helen McCrory, Ben Whishaw, Albert Finney, Rory Kinnear and Dame Judi Dench. As coincidence would have it, some of the film is to be shot in Istanbul. I wonder if there will be a short scene featuring a lovely shot over Istanbul’s majestic skyline complete with the sound of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer?
