A cool song: The chariot

A cool song, I really enjoyed listening to today...
The chariot from The Cat Empire ("where hip hop meets raggae...")
click here to download the song, and here to check out their site

Lyrics
This is a song that came upon me One night
When the news it had been telling me
About one more war and one more fight
And 'aeh' I sighed but then I thought about my friends
Then I wrote this declaration
Just in case the world end

Our guns
We shot them in the things we said
Ah we didn't need no bullets
Cos we rely on some words instead
Kill someone in argument
Outwit them with our brains
And we'd kill ourselves laughing
At the funny things we'd say

And bombs
We had them saved for special times
When the crew would call a shakedown
...

Our weapons were our instruments
Made from timber and steel
We never yielded to conformity
But stood like kings
In a chariot that's riding on a
Record wheel
...

This be a declaration
Written about my friends
It's engraved into this song
So they know I'm not forgetting them
See maybe if the world contained
More people like these

Then the news would not be telling me
About all that warfare endlessly and
Our weapons were our instruments
Made from timber and steel
We never yielded to conformity
But stood like kings
In a chariot that's riding on A record wheel

Visit in Brussel

Ola and Mo,

Even though I am living so close to Belgium and always did, I never got to visit and get to know the country nor Brussel. Now I finally had my first little touristic stay over, visiting Ola in Brussel, who is having an AIESEC traineeship at Electrolux.

While walking through the sunny city, last weekend we had a chat about cultural differences in Belgium and after some time talking about the country and the people Ola presented me her enlightning theory about WHY Belgium exists: In the time of tensions between the Netherlands and France, Belgium was created to serve as a Pufferzone (!) between the two countries and so it happened to be that some part spoke French and some spoke Dutch. I had a good laughter hearing this theory : ) I even looked up Belgiums history, to see how it was in real and after all Ola was not so far away with the above.

By the way, did you know...

* The first king of Jerusalem was the Belgian Codefried de Buillon? (though I had troubles
finding more about him, I wonder why ;)
* Belgium is the country of origin for cartoons?
* Belgian´s only colony, the Congo free state was made private property by King Leopold II, (who ruled Belgium until 1909) and was probably one of cruelest "goverened" colonies in that time. When walking through Brussel, one can see many monumental architecture that were built under King Leopolds II time and with the money that came out of the colony. (see pic below)

leopolds building,
originally uploaded by monokita.

Rotterdam after all...

Nieuwe Binnenweg
Originally uploaded by monokita.

...is not as bad as I originally thought it was! After spending the last 11 months at this place just very recently I feel like finally discovering all the goodies, like Club Waas, which last fridays turned out to be the long searched for place - a chilled Club playing great and dancable music (Nu Jazz, Funk, Afro Beats, Break Beats...) or the street Nieuwe Binnenweg, which has everything one needs at the weekend, cool music, cafes and coffeeshops, art galleries, an awesome bakery ;)...

Besides finding lately the right places to go and enjoy spending time, Rotterdam is also having cool cultural events, like the currently ongoing International Jazzfestival .

One promising upcoming event is the Supernatural Funky Musique Festival in closebyUtrecht, the 30th of July, for all friends in the Netherlands or otherwise stoping by that time, get tickets in advance ;)

moko.nomadlife.org

white flag
Originally uploaded by monokita.

What is nomadlife about? From the endless discussions with Diggidy (AIESEC Alumni from the US) on "Online platforms", which in fact started in 2003 at a conference in El Salvador, (when he was keen to convince me and the network why aieseconline is way cooler) to recent discussions on why nomadlife.org is the blogging platform to be on, I give up my remaining resistence. I am sure nomadlife will give me endless benefits and I will not withdraw from this network any longer!

Side Notes from the conference in London

Different environments cause different needs and aspirations

In the western or westernized, industrialized world we seek for more meaning around us, self -actualization, spirituality and individual, organisational and environmental change.

In the developing world or countries which are less developed however, there are different needs, in many cases very basic needs on how to feed the family or survive the next day. I was talking lately much about colonization and its effects on the countries, in this case I got some insights on the affects in Africa.

While I was in London and at the BTC conference, hearing a lot about personal transformation, listening to individuals how they want to change their lifes and their environments (usually in their countries), I was thinking about the stories of countries in Africa I just happened to talk about the previous day and wondered how far away many of those individuals at this continent must be from thinking about such topics. How much did they loose their traditions and their inherited sprituality throughout the last decades? And how much are we really aware of their stories and our own related stories in the present and past that effect their underdevelopment and make them strive for basic need, like food and shelter in the present?

How much did we decrease the potential of their self actualization and developement by imposing them on the western culture, political forms and technology to live the “civilized way”?

Only 2 streets away from the "Be the Change" conference is the British Museum with a very promising exhibition about Africa, because 2005 is year of Africa. In fact 2005 is also the year that the UK government sets the agenda for international discussions at the G8 summit in July. The future of Africa will be one of the key subjects, and one of the key opportunities of the summit and Toni Blair is also the Chair of the Africa commission.

One thing that really stroke me - after talking to Femi about Nigeria and Africas past - was the next day, when I arrived in London and chatted to some people in my age, when I asked them what they learned in school about colonisation and British influence on the those colonised countries they answered that they didn´t learn anything about it.

Challenge your world view

Be the Change conference in London, 5 - 7 May, 2005

Those 3 days offered incredible speakers , such as Deepak Chopra (a renowned physician and philosopher), Richard Barrett (one of the leaders of the Whole System Change movement), Dadi Janki (one of the 10 keepers of wisdom, a group of world spiritual leaders to advise the UN), and a diverse constellation of individuals in the audience.

On the first sight, the agenda presented very different areas , such a Organisational Change, Leadership Development, the Environment and the planet, Psychology, Health, Philosophy, Spirituality and Evolutionary Biology. By listening to one great inspiring personality after the other and by having stimulating discussions with them, however the picture that was presented was rather complete and holistic than fragmented. The topics interrelated very highly and inspired many people in the audience, who by the end of the conference felt very empowered to "be the change" they would like to see in the future.

For me personally the most exciting was to listen to the theories, beliefs and philosophy of the people at the conference, to be inspired and to draw my own conclusion about how I see the human society evolving in the future.

Here some of my collected highlights of the speakers:

"The Domain of Existence - everything is one and interelated, it is the Symphony of Universe"
"There will be a quantum jump when human consciousness reaches a critical mass."
-"If we are all connected we don´t need to change but BE?"
(Deepak Chopra and last one was questioned by someone in the audience)

"Anything that is conceptualized has a limitation"

"Allow yourself not to know and let wisdom flow through you - Knowledge restricts you"
(Richard Barrett)

"A valid scientific model of reality must be a model of our experience through human consciousness."

"The Earth is a single, intelligent, gigantic cell, with evolving smaller cells."

(Elisabet Sahtouris, Evolutionary Biologist)