Open Windows -- March 5, 2009

An equalizer of wealth and position that I saw in the Philippines were the windows. Most of the buildings had windows that were constructed in order to allow air flow -- thus taking the place of artificial air conditioning. My friends told me that while air conditioning is not necessarily a threat to the environment, its use is an issue of consumption. Who can afford it? The well to do. By using natural breezes as a cooling mechanism, the ground is leveled. A drawback to air conditioning is that there are frequent brown outs on the islands and when one is without electricity the air conditioning doesn't work, and a person is stuck in a closed room or building with no way to ventilate.

Why is it that the West, and white people, have "conquered" the world? The Chinese, for instance, have a rich history of technology and Egypt, I believe, invented the first forms of writing. Why then Western civilization?

Christianity began in the Middle East, in the heart of the world. And yet with Constantine it became the Christian Empire of the West. Nazareth -- Bethlehem -- Galilee -- Jerusalem, became the margins and not the center. Rome acquired and required Christianity and Romanized her. The lens of the West became the normal perception -- the normative lens through which everything else was evaluated.

This perception spread with colonization. A white Jesus can be found in every culture in which I have been.

I find it fascinating that even as Christianity is diminishing now in the West it is growing in the very places that were colonized. Latin America, Africa and Asia -- and there is a growing movement to strip away white man's religion and make it indigenous. There is such a power struggle with the ancient institutionalized white church wanting to control and the new centers of Christianity growing/coming into their own.

I would say at this moment that religion and language are two major tools of colonization and oppression. Language becomes split in two -- the native language which is often forbidden and the colonizing language which is often the language of the elite -- and that of access.

Access to education -- which takes money. So those who use the native, marketplace language may not have access to that which would open doors and change lives.

The tools of oppression are also the tools for change. A double edged sword.