So I was driving down S - Street the other day. The day was hot like it’s been since we found out about global warming and our collective imaginations raised the mercury up a notch just worrying about what would happen 2012. The sun was just being the massive explosion it is, and the whole island was burning up like a parched desert iguana. You could almost hear your thoughts crackling like the skin of a suckling pig. Stuck in one of those ouroboric gridlocks, where traffic coils back into itself and then realises there is only so much it can eat of itself before physics takes over, and this doughnut can’t wind itself much tighter without serious underage chinese contortionism. Then it happened.
*clink*
The smallest fender bender. Two cars ahead made friends, became acquainted, cosmic communion, slid horizontally into each other. Whatever. The door of the shiny SUV in the front swings open, and a wild-eyed woman in flapping sequinned top and too much eye makeup, jumps out, arms waving, as goggle-eyed kids in the back seat crowd the rear windscreen to watch the urban safari unfold. The pickup at the back of this union shudders slightly as a wiry man in a worn-out ubiquitous polo-neck shirt, denims less tucked than fallen into gaping open, black worksite boots, exits his vehicle sunglasses in hand.
“You can’t see where you’re going, is it!”
“Eh, what? You roll back, lah.”
“Who says? My car got good brakes! Just service, I stop already, cannot roll back... You using your handphone, ah? Drive forward, never check!”
“Auntie, only touch lah, never dent...”
“Look! This part, gone in already!”
“No, lah, small scratch only... Maybe...”
“You have to pay, my car still new, ten more years!...”
The tuition-bound children of the SUV slide out from the back seat of the car, its high fidelity acoustic treatment was dampening the drama outside. Not to mention the conversation was peppered with words their mother-tongue training seemed to have missed. Sounds like chinese, but only by distant hill-tribe relative. From deep within, they sense murky spectres of a genetic past rising, emerging from dark recesses of a primitive brain, the heat of mongolian warrior blood coursing through throbbing veins, blood-streaked visions of wild horses charging down hillsides, pennants streaming, screaming, always screaming... This could be a learning experience! Around the little scene of the gesticulating and sweating (mostly the Auntie) pair, other cars try to sneak past, minding their own business in a way only cramped city-life knows how to.
Mediation. What is it good for?
It is too easy to find each other disagreeable, but the question is how we choose to deal with such inconveniences. Failing to see the other side’s point of view, we voluntarily give in to a ‘higher’ justice that we hope (plead, bribe, pressure, blackmail) to agree with us (it was his/her fault, not mine!).
To be wrong is the worst thing ever. The whole world falls apart if we were to retract our words, swallow our pride, let down our guard... One chokes back the urge to shout, ‘Daddy!’ and run back to the safety of the homestead, slippers frantically slapping against polished marble floors, silver spoon falling from one’s shaking hands...
There has been some talk about the uses of mediation in recent ruminations over censorship of the arts. Where artists or art groups, and members of audience or the community, disagree over issues or content of artworks, what do we do? A work of art that was meant to get out into the community suddenly becomes the apparent jurisdiction of authorities and institutions, that then find themselves caught in a not so happy three-way.
Mediation addresses the difficult position institutions and authorities are in when individuals within the society disagree on social, cultural and/or religious issues in art. Using mediation creates the possibility for content creators to not have to submit works to bureaucratic administration prior to production. With such a model institutions and authorities will not need to 'vet' and second guess what may be ‘problematic’ issues even before they occur.
In mediation, artists and arts groups are able to connect with their audience and community in an open discussion, with the view to arrive at an engaged outcome, where the concern is resolved with both sides gaining in the discussion something from the experience, and see or understand each other's perspectives, even if they do not finally agree with each other’s position.
Mediation is conversation and discussion. The willingness to take responsibility, not merely for one’s self, but for the other as well. It requires an engaged interaction within the community. Such a process demands that both artists and audiences are open and honest about the issue on hand, and importantly acknowledge that both have a stake in cultural production and consumption.
Who says we can’t get along?
