by Anita Mendiratta | Jun 25, 2016
Just the thought of such a desire is staggering.
A nation, part of the world’s greatest union of nations representing one of our generation’s greatest achievements in international cooperation for shared economic, social and security benefit, choosing to break away and stand alone. Impossible. The wish, the perceived advantages of walking away, seem unfathomable.
And yet it has happened.
BREXIT – the United Kingdom has chosen to leave the European Union.
And now a wildly moving wave of ‘how did this happen?’ is reaching across the UK, and across the world. The pain and unnerving realisation of reality of those in the UK who voted ‘IN’ are palpable. The cocktail of sadness, shock and shame heartbreaking. The quiet of those voting ‘OUT’ deafening. There is no going back, no face to save. OUT it will be, and if the EU has its wish fulfilled, it will be a rapid process, well within the 2 year ticking clock period allowed. No one wants to be unwanted, unappreciated, unloved. If the UK has chosen to go, then UK must go.
Reading the overflowing amounts of analysis the morning after the voting day before, there is a clear sense of ‘what just happened?‘ So many are still so taken aback that this is where the UK chapter of the story of the EU is to end. How did this happen? How did we get here? It is still all so unclear…
What is clear with the BREXIT vote yielding an ‘OUT’ outcome is that confidence in the UK is plunging. Markets across the globe are feeling the far reaching tremors as one of the world’s most beloved currency drops to its lowest level in over 30 years. Questions are now being posed, loudly, around trade relations, tourism movements, and capitals of commerce. The cachet of London, and the UK, has been severely tarnished.
But even beyond that, beyond the statistics, the schedules of exit, the scenarios of what life will now be as an independent island economy, is the human impact. So easily overlooked, this is where the scars are appearing most deeply.
However the legal exit formalities may unfold, relations are tarnished, sadly irreparably. ‘Divorce’ has become one of the most popular, and possibly meaningful, analogies when BREXIT is explained. Indeed, it is a parting of long-committed partners who, over 40 years ago, thought that their vows were for several lifetimes. But then the hurt began, individual wishes and needs being eclipsed, a feeling of “this is not working for me” emerging. It was not a surprise – the UK / EU relationship had had troubles areas for many years. But when one partner finally says to another “Do you think we should get a divorce“, the DNA of the relationship cannot but change. Feelings of betrayal, bitterness, rejection and rage are natural. There is no erasing the question once asked. On paper the marriage may still be intact, but in the hearts of those involved, a fracture of bond has occurred.
This is what the entire BREXIT question, campaigning and outcome has felt like. The fact that the UK even held a referendum was a huge slight to the people of the EU. Again, posing the question of divorce is damage enough. The offense is felt. The hurt is real. And the reaction is raw. It is no surprise, therefore, that the EU is asking for rapid imposing of Article 50, and appointment of a successor to the Prime Minister of the UK. The decision is made. It’s time to move on.
While back in the ‘what the hell just happened?’ UK #regrexit trends and discussion around a second referendum gains momentum, deep down, the damage is done. Credibility is lost. Commitment is violated.
One can only now hope that, where counseling was unable to break through conflict, this breakup of a 40+ year relationship will encourage all involved to pause, and think deeply about, what each can do better next time. For the UK the ‘next time’ sadly is not an option. But for the EU, the opportunity exists for Brussels to dig deep and address the issues that made one of its strongest members so irate with the relationship that breaking one of history’s strongest bonds was the only option.
The impact of BREXIT goes far, far beyond geopolitics, economics, IN/OUT. The impact is personal, deeply personal. Because whatever the paperwork, our global community is about human bonds. We test and break these at our peril.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | May 30, 2016
A mosquito.
A tiny, seemingly inconsequential flying creature, commonplace across the globe. Simply a prick of a pain in most parts, barring those where Malaria is a very real risk to lives of locals and visitors alike. But otherwise, just a nuisance, normally.
But for countries across the globe, especially in the Americas, this little pest has had a paralysing effect. Travel and tourism: cautioned. Family planning: delayed. Olympic dreams: debated.
Zika. It has become a globally known name of a virus up until now ‘out there‘ but seen as far from risk to the ‘here & now‘. Its pesky, prickly carrier? Those once tiny, troublesome little mosquitoes are now the source of terrifying prognosis for hopeful parents, and heartbreaking probability for hopeful athletes. The competitors at the moment, fighting out the debate re. Games go/no-go? WHO, CDC, IOC, and so many other entities.
But the Zika virus is not the only pestering problem. Brasil, host country to the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, is bruised on many sides at present. Health & safely. Economy. Politics. The list only grows.
Sadly, while the reasons for woes may differ, the pre-Games distraction does not. And with that, the complete disregard for what the Games mean for the thousands of athletes from across the world who have put in hundreds of thousands of hours of training, hoping, dreaming, crying, trying and trying again and again, to get to the Games.
How is it that the athletes, the heroes of the Games, are repeatedly forgotten? How has it become possible that their blood, sweat and tears dreams are so easily set aside to give space to the drama?
Whether London, Sochi, Athens, or elsewhere, and now Rio, challenges to LOCs re. infrastructure readiness, citizen support. Now, in the case of Rio, government and economic collapse, not to mention the threat of the Zika virus, push away the dreams of athletes to allow for pre-Games debates on Games viability. These are the debates that directly, disappointingly, devastatingly take the oxygen out of the hope and inspiration that Games can and do so naturally generate.
And yet, once again, it is the athletes that are the losers in the pre-Games game playing.
Their training will continue, their dreaming will continue, most likely until the last possible minute until which the verdict can be delivered. They, the athletes of the 2016 Games, are not prepared to quit, even if the rest of the world is ready to quit on them.
Sadly, even now, there are so many emotions pushing back on their dreams. The natural momentum of skepticism, pessimism, negativity, are increasing the level of debate, and levels of concern, the list of reasons why the Games should be postponed or relocated.
And through it all, the athletes, and their dreams, are left as silent, innocent bystanders.
What will the final result be? Who will win – the athletes, or the antagonists? The dream, or the debate?
2016 is no different to 2012, or 2008, or any other Summer Games….or Winter Games, for that matter. Somehow we need to find a way to protect the dreams of these Olympic hopefuls, honouring their endless efforts to get to their version of gold, honouring their dreams.
“Citius, Altius, Fortius“. These are the words, in Latin, that define the essence and dictate the slogan, of the Olympic Games.
“Faster, Higher, Stronger.”
These words apply not only to the athletes, but to a world of onlookers who, like the athletes themselves, should be working daily to win in the race of hope & glory over debate & disappointment.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Apr 24, 2016
Why the tears?
Why the worldwide wave of shock, and the enduring mourning? Why the news cycle take-over? Why such unedited expressions and unfiltered images of sadness from celebrities and civilians alike? Why so many tears?
There’s something about the passing of a musician that stirs the spirit of the world. It’s like the passing of no other type of celebrity. Something that, for some reason, hits the hearts of millions, and unites strangers in memorial songs of celebration of a life once artistically lived, and now all too soon lost.
It is happening right now, at this moment. Across the world icons have been turned purple, music downloads are pouring through the internet, doves are crying.
Prince, just days after his last concert, just days after simple flu stopped his footsteps and sent him for medical care. Just 57 years of age.And David Bowie, and Maurice White, and Glenn Frey, and so, so, so many others. And this is in the first four months of 2016 alone. Some are defined as ‘legends‘, some less known.
We never really knew them, who they really were, the person behind the personality. Their personal lives were theirs. Granted, many were far from discreet. Still, while we may have seen through the news, read through the tabloids, what they were up to, the world never really knew them, not in way that warranted such profound outpourings of grief.
So why the tears? Why such a feeling of loss?
Because while their lives were mysteries, they, in their musically penetrating way, were an open-book part of ours. We might have been too young to understand the lyrics, but still, they spoke to us – to our emotions, our fears, often finding a voice when words were otherwise impossible to find. Lyrics linked to personal moments of life, of death. First love, first heartache, last moments, last memories, everlasting memories…
To hear music of now lost legends is to hear times of our past now gone. All it takes is a few notes, and a song can take us right back, stirring up memories of people, places, passions, pains. Musical links, deeply embedded in our lives, creating a personal soundtrack.
And so, the day the music dies, we cry. Not only for a musician’s life now lost, but a part of our lives remembered with tears – some sweet, some bitter, some long gone, some just an arms-length away – and what that musician brought to those times, without knowing it.
Today the tears are purple, tomorrow the colour will differ depending on whose shoulder the hand of fate next rests.
Whatever colour the tears, in our hearts they are a release of loving appreciation of what one person, one stranger, brought to our lives.
They are a tribute, a moment of pause to think of who they were, who we were back then, when we lived with their music filling our ever-shaping lives. And who we are today.
They are a quiet moment alone to say a prayer of thanks.
They are the physical representation of the sound that can be heard when doves cry.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Mar 25, 2016
Numbing. The feeling was simply numbing. And it was becoming all too familiar.
First a high. A high that would carve a line in the history books of the 21st Century. And be a defining moment for millions looking on. Never did they, we, never did we all think the day would come.
As global media looked on, the sounds of pure, personal excitement in their voices were unmistakable. Real, raw. Almost relief. This was a moment they official voices of global networks would be forgiven for getting emotional. They never thought they would see the day. Air Force One’s wheels touched the runway of Havana’s José Martí International Airport airport with a profound feeling of exhale, the strength of the Boeing 747’s brakes feeling almost as though a metaphor of the strength of the brakes being put on a long, heated history of distrust, disrespect, deprivation, and for millions, imposed distance of peoples. AIR FORCE ONE LANDS HAVANA – MARCH 20, 2016
As President Obama and his family descended the staircase and walked onto Cuban soil, the first visit of a US President in almost 90 years, the promise of possibility was released. As the following hours of protocol, appearances and press conferences unfolded, history was being rewritten second by second. But no moment more powerful that when the hands of President Obama and President Castro reached out. With one simple handshake and a look into one another’s eyes, the words of the US President made clear that nothing was ever going to be the same again, saying with the sound of hope in his words,: “We have half a century of work to catch up on.”
It was, and will remain, a moment where just a for a moment, the world seemed to be looking forward as one. Hope comes alive in a handshake. Higher and higher eyes looked up, hearts soared.
And then it came – the low that would send the world’s hearts crashing down.
Half a world away from Havana, the people of Brussels would wake to look horror in the eye. First an airport bombing, and then within the hour, a metro station. 60 minutes, 30 lives taken, 230 lives escaping end with only injury, yet still shattered.
Within a period of 24 hrs the world saw, felt, shed tears, as the highs of possibility of peace and partnership, people coming together despite the history and the odds, turned into the depths of horror as terror pushed people into dark, desperate corners, grief of the day beyond comprehension.
With it, worldwide, acknowledgement of the exhausting continuation of what has become a merciless means of uniting the people of the world in terror – a terror that tries over and over to divide with its modus operandi of death and destruction. All shamefully and unjustly in the name of religion.
Now. just a matter of days on, as the experts and analysis dig deeper into what happened, why, and because of whom, the only certainty that the global community can around what lies ahead comes from one human truth: we need one another.
Across the globe, people are turning to keyboards to express their confusion, their compassion, their hurt & heartache, and their undying hope that this horror can stop. Theories around how to protect ourselves are emerging on all sides. So too are expressions of care and camaraderie for those suffering. One month it is Tunis, the next Lebanon and Paris, the next Istanbul, now Brussels….and soon, who knows. In so many ways it feels that nowhere is safe, no one is safe.
But putting up barriers, physical and psychological, will not keep us safe. Quite the contrary – this is where the danger breeds. Through judging others, damning others, and seeking to be apart from others, we lock ourselves into dangerous bubbles of ignorance, intolerance, inhumanity. We fuel the fire.
How will our world find a way to stop this tragic story of terror from writing future chapters? How can the roots of extremism be pulled from the ground, deprived of oxygen? How can the meaning of one of the world’s great religions be brought back to its true meaning as it is meant to be lived, celebrated, no longer linked to the selfish, barbaric motives of those using faith as a shield to hide behind, falsely fighting for its protection and preservation, pushing separation over diversity within unification?
There is no one solution, no one focus that will yield triumph over those resorting to such horrific means to make us stand apart from one another, in fear, inflamed by intolerance.
But there is one truth that cannot be overlooked: Ours is a world to be shared.
Time and again, history has shown us that separation only causes our decay as societies, and as economies. We need to keep working at understanding our differences, being able to be secure in our celebration of others, recognising that while externally so much may seem to differ, our hearts are the same. We love, we laugh, we dream….we cry, we grieve, we bleed.
While completely unconnected, the events taking place this week in Havana and Brussels do, in fact, share a vital connection. Events unfolding, shaking the course of history, changing the lives of millions. One – Cuba – showed how, at a time when so many forces are pushing us apart, rewriting history based on fear and fundamentalist thinking as witnessed in Brussels, there are those working to shape a future as one. This same spirit, this same determination to extinguish fear and find a peaceful way forward, is needed to face this latest challenge.
How can this happen? How can a movement of understanding occur, defusing fear in differences and setting alight appreciation of diversity of thinking and living, take off? It already has – through tourism. At its essence, tourism is about going to places unknown, exploring and understanding others’ lives, lifestyles, loves, getting to the heart of what makes them who they are, and in so many ways, discovering how similar that is to oneself when it comes to core beliefs and values. Here too, hope comes alive in a handshake.
Today two of the most previously ‘locked out’ nations across the globe – Cuba and Myanmar – now represent two of the most sought after destinations for not just travellers, but also investors in the travel & tourism sector. At the heart of opportunity for the Cuban people is the tourism industry. Not only will it bring much needed jobs, investment, earnings, essential skills, infrastructure and taxation to and for the people of Cuba, it will bring invaluable respect and appreciation for the Cuban identity. And it will bring a change to the nation that will allow it to blossom as a member of the global community.
Underlying the reengineering that needs to take place around Cuban policy, economy and industry is the very human component that will form the foundations for the future of the Cuban people. A foundation that will make the real difference when it comes to ensuring longterm change. For as was optimistically said by President Obama while standing alongside President Castro, just days ago in Havana,:
“I have faith in people. If you meet Cubans here, and Cubans meet Americans and they’re meeting and talking and interacting and doing business together, and going to school together, and learning from each other, then they’ll recognize that people are people, and in that context, I believe that change will occur.”
With a hope, a prayer, and a passport…
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Feb 19, 2016
This past week Africa lost one of its magnificent lionesses.
A force of nature, a woman of great strength, courage, grace and class, this young and vibrant lioness spent her last years fighting. Her fight, sadly, recently ended, the great lioness shutting her eyes far, far to early for a creature so ‘alive’. Shock immediately swept through the land. How could a life so full, free, fiery and fanciful suddenly be no more?
To people in shock across South Africa and the world, the passing of Sindiswa Nhlumayo has been a stark reminder of just how bold the assumption of tomorrow can be. And how such boldness can leave one speechless, literally and figuratively.
Yet the tendency to defer action for another time occurs so frequently, so naturally, and so understandably. Because the reality is this: each and every morning, everywhere, a new day welcomes a new list of things to be done, places to go, people to meet, priorities to be held central to our day’s events. Busyness eclipses being still, both in body and mind. The sense of ‘always there‘ makes it possible to push off the message of an inner voice until later. Surely there will always be more time.
This past week, as the lioness quietly left our lives, a whispered message followed her sultry steps. This message, channelled through euology written simply too early in life to honour a now-celebrated life passed on, still lingers since its first moments of composition: do it now.
If you think of someone, call them now.
If you love someone, tell them now.
If you feel someone needs help, reach out now.
If you are with those you love, hug them now.
If you have a dream, live it now!
Tomorrow, the next day, next year, is a bold assumption.
A last message shared in last moments.
One so gratefully received. x
In loving memory of a life that brought such love, laughter, and a whole lot of style! Rest well, dear lioness.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
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