the state we're in
it’s monday again and i have discovered a fabulous new radio show. it is called ‘the state we’re in’ , comes from the netherlands and basically interviews people directly related to human right issues. it’s every week, monday at 1am and everytime i listen to it, i’m like OMG HAVE TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT THIS.
so the theme this week was called ‘don’t kill the messenger’ and the first person they interviewed was this guy named vikram gandhi (no relation to gandhi gandhi) who became a spiritual guru after losing faith in his own hindu spirituality. he said it all started when he was at this camping trip with the people from his temple and they were making s'mores and vikram realized that the gelatin was made from animal hooves. and when he told that to the priest, the priest was like, ‘yeah we know shhhh keep it on the downlow’ and vikram was like wtf you’re supposed to be this spiritual figure everyone admires and looks to for guidance and you’re misleading them.
so he grew up in…arizona? and then moved to…los angeles? i don’t remember the specifics but it was in the states. he opened up a yoga/spiritual center and called himself ‘kumare’ and claimed he was from a fictitious place in the himilayas. he became this really respected guru, got followers who would come to his classes, really believed vikram was kumare. oh and the most interesting part was that when vikram acted as kumare, he completely changed his voice into this deep indian accent. it was crazy listening to his interview and hearing him switch back and forth. he said that he created this persona to show people that they didn’t need to rely on spiritual gurus, that there was no such thing as a prophet/guru, and that he himself was a false prophet, that everyone had a guru inside themselves. in fact, he would end every class by telling them, “you don’t need me, just look inside yourselves”.
so in the last class, he finally decided to come clean to his followers and he ws like ‘spirituality/guru is an illusion and we have to unveil our true selves. and my true self is vikram gandhi’.
so he made a movie about being kumare and made a website about it:
Kumaré is an enlightened guru from the East who builds a following of disciples in the West. But Kumaré is not real. He is an American filmmaker named Vikram Gandhi, who has transformed himself into Kumaré as the centerpiece of a social experiment designed to explore and test one of the world's most sacred taboos.
he looks sketch here but during the interview, he was SO INTERESTING. and his american voice was kind of hot tbh.
oKAY. the 2nd segment was related to christmas and how in the netherlands (i think more specifically amsterdam), santa claus is called sinterklaas and has these helpers called zwarte piet.
the zwarte piet are basically white people in blackface (slaves? servants?) who get that way because they have to come through the chimney and therefore get dirt on their bodies. so they’re not considered ‘black’ as skin colour, but just dirty. and no one in the netherlands consider it to be racism (maybe because they’ve all believed in the sinterklaas story since they were young?). but the zwarte piet have typical african features like nappy hair and big lips. the guy who was reporting about sinterklaas actually lived in amsterdam and is black and told a story about when he was grocery shopping once, a little girl came up to him and pointed to him and called him zwarte piet.
there are some people who have started revolting and protesting against blackface in zwarte piets but the general response is "why are you ruining christmas!"
and the last segment, (i was so tired, i was fading in and out) was about a man in afghanistan named wazir gul-anis who uses persian poetry to deal with the war and the soviet invasion, the taliban and even when his own son got kidnapped. he didn’t know how to speak english, so they had a translator but wazir even brought the recordings of the kidnapper’s phone calls to him, to the show so we could hear. there was one phone call in which wazir wanted to make sure his son was alive and the kidnappers put his son on the phone and he was crying. ugh, my heart.
last weeks show was called "still here" and i wrote my friend an email about discovering the show for the first time (i'll just c/p it here):
omg, i was trying to sleep last night and you know the radio stn cbc one? so i listen to that and they usually play jazz/news whatever. but on sunday nights, they have this program at 1am called ‘the state we’re in’ and they interview interesting people that are directly related to human rights issues. this week’s show had this group of people called the ‘bengazi 6’ who were nurses that were tortured and kept hidden in dog kennels because they were accused of allegedly infecteding 400 infants with aids. after like 7 years of being tortured (and no one knew), they realized that they weren’t being kept because of the aids thing, but because the libyan government had reasons to believe that they were behind some airplane bombing over the netherlands..or something. idk, it was really late, i can’t remember. but they ovbiously were innocent. anyway, so the host was interviewing the guy who had been taken first and he was just some resident intern nurse and they shocked him with electricty and hit him with open electric cables and raped his sister in front of him and the other begazi 6 were female nurses who got the same horrible treatment. it was because the libyan government needed a scapegoat for the airplane bombing, that they were randomly picked to be tortured. i tuned in like halfway through the radio show but omg, kath, the guy was like crying and he had a really strong arabic accent, and the nurses couldn’t even speak english, they had an arabic translator. it was just sad and horrible and we are so lucky to be living in canada. idk girl, it really put things in perspective. it was crazy. i love this show, it’s so terrifying that shit like this happens in real life.
THESE STORIES ARE SO FACINATING. i can’t believe i JUST discovered this radio show but i love it. and the radio host, jonathan
groubert is so good and he forms such insightful questions, i want to email him and fangirl all over his show.
so the theme this week was called ‘don’t kill the messenger’ and the first person they interviewed was this guy named vikram gandhi (no relation to gandhi gandhi) who became a spiritual guru after losing faith in his own hindu spirituality. he said it all started when he was at this camping trip with the people from his temple and they were making s'mores and vikram realized that the gelatin was made from animal hooves. and when he told that to the priest, the priest was like, ‘yeah we know shhhh keep it on the downlow’ and vikram was like wtf you’re supposed to be this spiritual figure everyone admires and looks to for guidance and you’re misleading them.
so he grew up in…arizona? and then moved to…los angeles? i don’t remember the specifics but it was in the states. he opened up a yoga/spiritual center and called himself ‘kumare’ and claimed he was from a fictitious place in the himilayas. he became this really respected guru, got followers who would come to his classes, really believed vikram was kumare. oh and the most interesting part was that when vikram acted as kumare, he completely changed his voice into this deep indian accent. it was crazy listening to his interview and hearing him switch back and forth. he said that he created this persona to show people that they didn’t need to rely on spiritual gurus, that there was no such thing as a prophet/guru, and that he himself was a false prophet, that everyone had a guru inside themselves. in fact, he would end every class by telling them, “you don’t need me, just look inside yourselves”.
so in the last class, he finally decided to come clean to his followers and he ws like ‘spirituality/guru is an illusion and we have to unveil our true selves. and my true self is vikram gandhi’.
so he made a movie about being kumare and made a website about it:
Kumaré is an enlightened guru from the East who builds a following of disciples in the West. But Kumaré is not real. He is an American filmmaker named Vikram Gandhi, who has transformed himself into Kumaré as the centerpiece of a social experiment designed to explore and test one of the world's most sacred taboos.
he looks sketch here but during the interview, he was SO INTERESTING. and his american voice was kind of hot tbh.
oKAY. the 2nd segment was related to christmas and how in the netherlands (i think more specifically amsterdam), santa claus is called sinterklaas and has these helpers called zwarte piet.
the zwarte piet are basically white people in blackface (slaves? servants?) who get that way because they have to come through the chimney and therefore get dirt on their bodies. so they’re not considered ‘black’ as skin colour, but just dirty. and no one in the netherlands consider it to be racism (maybe because they’ve all believed in the sinterklaas story since they were young?). but the zwarte piet have typical african features like nappy hair and big lips. the guy who was reporting about sinterklaas actually lived in amsterdam and is black and told a story about when he was grocery shopping once, a little girl came up to him and pointed to him and called him zwarte piet.
there are some people who have started revolting and protesting against blackface in zwarte piets but the general response is "why are you ruining christmas!"
and the last segment, (i was so tired, i was fading in and out) was about a man in afghanistan named wazir gul-anis who uses persian poetry to deal with the war and the soviet invasion, the taliban and even when his own son got kidnapped. he didn’t know how to speak english, so they had a translator but wazir even brought the recordings of the kidnapper’s phone calls to him, to the show so we could hear. there was one phone call in which wazir wanted to make sure his son was alive and the kidnappers put his son on the phone and he was crying. ugh, my heart.
last weeks show was called "still here" and i wrote my friend an email about discovering the show for the first time (i'll just c/p it here):
omg, i was trying to sleep last night and you know the radio stn cbc one? so i listen to that and they usually play jazz/news whatever. but on sunday nights, they have this program at 1am called ‘the state we’re in’ and they interview interesting people that are directly related to human rights issues. this week’s show had this group of people called the ‘bengazi 6’ who were nurses that were tortured and kept hidden in dog kennels because they were accused of allegedly infecteding 400 infants with aids. after like 7 years of being tortured (and no one knew), they realized that they weren’t being kept because of the aids thing, but because the libyan government had reasons to believe that they were behind some airplane bombing over the netherlands..or something. idk, it was really late, i can’t remember. but they ovbiously were innocent. anyway, so the host was interviewing the guy who had been taken first and he was just some resident intern nurse and they shocked him with electricty and hit him with open electric cables and raped his sister in front of him and the other begazi 6 were female nurses who got the same horrible treatment. it was because the libyan government needed a scapegoat for the airplane bombing, that they were randomly picked to be tortured. i tuned in like halfway through the radio show but omg, kath, the guy was like crying and he had a really strong arabic accent, and the nurses couldn’t even speak english, they had an arabic translator. it was just sad and horrible and we are so lucky to be living in canada. idk girl, it really put things in perspective. it was crazy. i love this show, it’s so terrifying that shit like this happens in real life.
THESE STORIES ARE SO FACINATING. i can’t believe i JUST discovered this radio show but i love it. and the radio host, jonathan
groubert is so good and he forms such insightful questions, i want to email him and fangirl all over his show.