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Jacob Holdt:
My lectures
On saying
yes
....to integrate
with those we shun
An
entertaining and provocative
illustrated lecture about how
we integrate ourselves with
those we
do not like or
directly fear.
This PowerPoint
lecture is
today my
most popular and has beaten
"American Pictures" totally
off the field. It is based on
my own life in the years
after American Pictures
became a worldwide success
and shows my attempts
also to make it a success
for them
this was about,
the excluded, the poor,
the marginalized and so on.
Contents
The talk is about how
I by using nonviolent
communication first
integrated myself with
blacks in America's
ghettos, since
with violent
elements in the world's most
dangerous slums in
South Africa and Haiti,
the homeless, gays and lesbians, refugees,
Nazis and Ku
Klux Klan and even
mass murderers in the United
States.
Slowly
I turn the focus to
our domestic world (in
Europe) where I show
how I integrated
myself with both Muslims and
rightwing islamophobics -
humorously told with
images from the endless
ethnic weddings
I am invited to "and
all the money I save
by living from
Muslim Party food
continually" :-)
Throughout
the lecture, I show what we
personally get out of
integrating ourselves with
"the other" - both
financially and personally.
And how the American
model of two-way integration successfully
goes both ways when
(Muslim) immigrants, who feel
loved and included,
opens up to (our) American/Danish
national values.
The lecture,
which is equally popular
among Muslims and the
Danish rightwing, infects everyone with its
positive and inclusive
thinking and gives the
spectators "new zest
for life." Not least
by making us aware of how it
is the damage and
pain, we go through in life,
which causes us to
close ourselves for other people.
The most moving and surprising part is to hear the stories of incest and
abuse most of the Klan members I present were exposed to in childhood –
and the hidden goodness and love I find in them when I see them even
risk their own lives to save blacks.
Reviews:
A response from a rightwing Danish Front (semi Nazi) member:
"I just wanted to say thanks for a great
presentation. I can honestly admit that I never learned so much about
life during a single event. I was almost completely ecstatic afterwards,
and the things you told, I will undoubtedly spend the rest of my life
dealing with! I am full of admiration for your ability to believe in the
best in all people, and your approach to life I will try to adopt. You
are a tremendous inspiration, I have previously been a member of the
Danish Front, but it is thanks to your fine messages that I realized
that it simply was no solution to hate. On the contrary. You must know
that you have made a phenomenal difference to me and meant a lot for me
- I have learned a lot of you, and still have a lot to learn. Now I am
in the process of teacher training, and I know that many of the things
you said, I will use in my teaching. You have taught me more than I
could ever find in any book, and I will certainly follow your example,
and travel the world - maybe I even may be allowed to travel with you to
the USA ?
Thank you for having opened my mind. I am deeply grateful. "
From the mail of Simon (name withheld because he is now a
teacher)
A response
a Muslim Dane of
brown Pakistani background:
Dear
Jacob
I was totally blown
away by
your lecture last night.
I am so grateful to
get to know you, I
have no
words right now, but I
think I am going to write to
you later when the
mind falls into place.
I have always been very affected by
the racism,
I experience from white
people and the vision
colored / black people
are
instilling
in themselves
- the white
man's look (as
Fanon talked about).
I have always had a passion
for this area, but
has kept myself away
because I was afraid that
it would make me
bitter working against
this racism
and creating awareness
about it.
I am /
was afraid it
would make me bitter
against the white man.
However, your
lecture as well as my
own thoughts about love
lately has
shown me that it is
possible to talk about
this racism
without being bitter
or hard.
For
as you say, it's all about
getting to the human
core, which is love,
vulnerable and soft,
and talk to
it and from it.
I do not think so much that
it has to be about immigrants
learning Grundtvigian
values of
you. I think more that
you open people's eyes to
the love they already have in
themselves. And
I think that applies to all
the people you meet. You help
them to find love
in themselves, because
you meet people
with love and
you insist on it.
It is what makes
you so unique
and "legend"
-like. That's why
your lectures
hit me so deeply, for I have
throughout life myself tried
to live that out and insist
on that love - also
in the meeting with the
other.
Thanks for
your thoughts, your outlook,
your person
and your message. I
wish all the best for
you. I wish you
peace, tranquility, good health, joy and
spontaneous and
honest love.
Hugs Zehra
Naimi
Technical requirements
for the organizer
Since
for
environmental reasons I
always try to use
public transport to this
and my other
PowerPoint presentations
in the province, please about
half an hour before have a
video projector and a
screen set up. The
screen should be
hanging so high that everyone in the
room can
see the bottom of the image
over the heads of the
audience in front. If
there is more than 50
spectators there should also
be a microphone.
Unlike American
Pictures, recorded
on tape, I am myself
standing and talking
next to the screen.
Therefore, there must be a small
table for my computer
in front of me, and
a little weak
lamp, which does not light up
the screen. If people
are not able to see my "gleam
in the eye", they end
up believing everything
I say :-)
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