Happy Earth 🌏Day Reader!
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Did you spend some time in nature today? I spontaneously parked my scooter and walked down the stairs to the river in my neighborhood, it was a nice break from sitting behind my laptop. And I’ve been thinking a lot last week about laptop time and about the amount of energy social media asked from us. Quite a lot of people I know struggle with that, some of them leave their accounts for shorter or longer periods of time, to take a break from the constant need to react to something. From the perspective of my Vipassana meditation it makes total sense: we should train our minds to act instead of react. And it implies finding a calmness within ourselves to do that, a change of behavior.
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Maybe you’re wondering where I’m going with this, well, this theory of acting instead of reacting is intrinsically linked to the topic of inclusion. If we want change in the long term, systemic change, we need to follow our own strategy (act) and not react to what other people are doing.

Thanks to all of you who shared (pieces of) last weeks newsletter on your social media accounts. And if you like what you read, please forward it to your colleagues, friends or family members. This helps me a lot!

"We haven't grasped yet how destructive the US can be"

I listened to an interview with Dutch investigative journalist Bette Dam about the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan. They will leave the country this year on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. Bette explains how we in The West (The Netherlands, Europe and also NATO) often uncritically follow the narrative of North America, a storyline based on emotion and drenched in a PR strategy. The conversation between her and two journalists of a Dutch radio program is so interesting that I decided to translate it for an English audience. You can read the full article here and one more quote to give you an idea of Bette’s line of thinking:

“The essence of democracy is that there should be self-critical reasoning and an ability to correct yourself, which should have emerged after a few years where a theory about the Afghanistan case turns out to be different than what we knew earlier. How can we strategically pause for a moment to adjust our future approach in these kinds of situations?”

This quote exactly links to what I’m talking about when I mention Inclusive Journalism: we need to put our gaze inward, look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves hard questions.
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Systemic change is long term work, it’s about behavior change and about repeating the same message over and over again. And about daring to act from your own experience instead of reacting to someone else’s.
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And this approach can be implemented for everything in life, also in our social media behavior. I personally struggle with acting vs reacting as well. Finding my calmness is a daily practice. And asking myself the hard questions, too. I noticed for example, how often I also still follow the narrative of the US. A lot of the content I consume still comes from North American journalists, writers, celebrities, etc. Decolonizing my mind asks for continuous attention in finding other sources outside of the US (and even outside of the Global North) to learn from. I hope I can inspire you to do the same through this newsletter.
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- Sanne

Blogs: White privilege and empathy

The writers group in Ubud (Bali) organizes an Open Mic Night once every two months and last week I shared one of my blogs. It was exciting to me to share my work out loud instead of just through typing in a document. The response was beautiful and we held a short discussion about the role of white people in antiracism. Some people feel it’s useless to try and convince overt racists. And maybe it is. On the other hand, it’s also too easy for white people to join the Black people in the protests. The hard, uncomfortable work is done when white people dare to start the difficult conversations about what it means to be white. The blog I read was “Not watching Derek Chauvin’s trial is the same as white silence during the Black Lives Matter protests”. Love to hear your response! (Just hit the reply to this email).
Adam also attended the open mic, he is Javanese but lived in Bali for most of his life. We talked about white privilege on the island, a topic that’s been written about last week by Voice of America Indonesia. I translated the article in English: “The white privilege behavior of foreigners in Bali is counterproductive and disrespectful”.
And my dearest subscriber Mandy, who is 80 years old and brings a ton of life experience in the conversations I have with her, responded to the newsletter of last week where I wrote about how empathy and inclusion go hand in hand.
She’s concerned that the implication of my presentation is that empathy will lead to inclusion. Which in her experience is not the case. We wrote each other three more emails and I think we agreed on the fact that empathizing with someone isn’t the same as agreeing. Because of Mandy’s email I did some more thinking and wrote: “Why it’s important (and uncomfortable!) that I as a white woman am able to empathize with racists”.

Journal prompt

Are you aware of the moments when you either act or react? Are you often reacting to a situation in your life - personal or professional - or can you find the calmth to act from your own experience?

What am I reading or watching?

• "Two Distant Strangers" is a short film on Netflix about the experience of racism by a Black man in the US. It really touched me. And then I came across Tayo Bero's article in The Guardian where she writes: "Who are today’s ‘Black’ films and TV shows really for?" and I realized she has a point too. I would still recommend you to watch the film. And then after read Tayo's piece.
• Bette Dam did a TED Talk in November 2019 with the title "Why Western media promotes war" and it's an absolute must-watch.
• And I can resonate with the article of British rapper, journalist, author, activist and poet Akala about "The seriousness of small joys".

Question of the day

What can you do?

• Decolonize your social media: how many people do you follow from outside of the West? If you have any suggestions, please let me know (just reply to this email!).
• The situation in Myanmar isn't improving. When I visited the country two years ago I spoke to Sonny Swe, publisher of Frontier Myanmar. He shared his life story with me, of spending twelve years of his life in detention under military rule. I might share it one day, with his permission. He was interviewed by The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hongkong this week and said: "We are trying our best to stay alive at this point”. You can become a member of Frontier Myanmar and support their independent journalism.
• Find your calmness! Nature helps. 🌳

Have a great week, see you next Thursday!