Refugee Week 2020 – Calendar of Events
Dear friends, we would like to invite you to our next exhibition.
Euro Mediterranean Resources Network, in collaboration with No Hate Speech UK Network, will launch a virtual exhibition on Sunday 17th May on the Facebook page of EuroMernet.
The exhibition, entitled “Chinese Verbal Medicine” is an homage to the Chinese language through history. The exhibition will display the portraits and biographies of Chinese linguists, philosophers, writers and poets. There will also be a select list of Chinese proverbs, folk sayings, poems and tongue twisters. Curator of the exhibition is our coordinator, Umit Ozturk. You can find the exhibition launch statment by the curator at the end of this page.
We thought we can launch this exhibition also in support of and in solidarity with the Chinese community in the UK and all Chinese diasporas around the world. We hope that this exhibition can also serve as a counter narrative against the stereotyping and racist, xenophobic and intolerant narratives and hate crimes that started to target the Chinese community and the individuals with “Chinese looks” after the COVID-19 outbreak.
Please not that this is an impartial exhibition about the Chinese linguistic and literary heritage and in support of the Chinese diasporas. It does NOT aim to support any past or present Chinese empires, states, or governments in history. The exhibition is independently curated and it was not influenced, sponsored or supported by any governments, corporations or individuals.
We look forward to “e-seeing” you at the exhibition.
#Love, #peace and #solidarity
#EuroMernet and #NoHateSpeechUK volunteers
#Chinese #diaspora #books #storytelling # poetry #calligraphy #proverbs #cultural #heritage
#NoHateSpeechUK #NoHate
Greetings from the curator….
Dear friends, we have the pleasure of welcoming you to our first exhibition after the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also our first online exhibition due to the lockdown. We look forward to safer days so that we can continue installing and displaying our exhibitions regularly again at the Jubilee Library in Brighton, in collaboration with our dear partners, Brighton & Hove City Libraries.
As the “corona days” has now become a popular catch phrase in recent times e.g. “love in corona days”, we thought we could look at the impact of the pandemic and lockdown on our beautifully diverse communities — from Brighton and Hove to the whole of the UK to the Euro-Mediterranean regions to the entirety of our beautiful planet. This has focused our attention and intensified our work on community safety and wellbeing. And, against the backdrop of the news on verbal and physical attacks targeting the minorities, migrants and BAME communities, we decided to prioritise the community safety issues in our exhibitions and in our Film Club screenings, Poetry Club performances and Cultural Heritage Club activities.
Revisiting the old analogy, where people used to refer to funny misinformation arriving at the other end of the line of players as a “Chinese whisper” game, now the “life in corona days” shows us that the preachers of hate who incite people for stereotyping, xenophobia, racism, hate speech and hate crimes quite often whisper the word “Chinese” in their “find-a-scapegoat” games. As a result of this, we continue to hear the news on verbal and physical attacks against the members of the UK Chinese community, with the ridiculous allegation that they have all been infected with COVID-19 and they are infecting everybody along their path. In some cases individuals who “looked like Chinese” were attacked although they have been born and raised in the UK and have never been to China. The latest shocking news showed the US President Donald Trump snubbing at the CBS reporter Weijia Jiang, by saying that she asked “a nasty question” and she should “ask China, not me”, although she and her family moved from China to the USA when she was 2 years old and she has nothing to do with China—maybe except for “looking so very Chinese.”
Unless some enlightening information and counter & alternative narratives are made available, the uninformed, clueless minds will continue to be lured by the preachers of hate through simple tools such as what we call as the “cultural superstitions” and conspiracy theories. This exhibition therefore aims to help eradicate some of the stereotypes surrounding the true wealth and depth of the Chinese cultural heritage, with a particular focus on linguistic, literary and philosophical examples.
Similar to the popularly perceived effects of the Chinese herbal medicine, we hope that this exhibition can help you “prescribe” the contents of this exhibition as a “Chinese verbal medicine” to the others when you come across with individuals whose minds and hearts appear to have been subjected to false arrest, indoctrination, hatred and rejection of togetherness. Yesterday, 16th May, marked the International Day of Living Together in Peace; and today, 17th May, marks the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). With the inspirational and empowering messages through such awareness and action days, we will continue to spread the message more vocally and more passionately that we are “all different, all equal.”
I would like to express my gratitude to the volunteers of EuroMernet and No Hate Speech UK who tirelessly conducted research and compiled the content for this exhibition. Please forgive us for any shortcomings on this occasion as this is our first online exhibition and we are testing it on you! I leave you with EuroMernet’s motto: Love, peace and solidarity!
Ümit Öztürk
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