Month: December 2021

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book

I

Unfortunately, the entire process of making the complaint is laid with privatizing the complaint. 

Compared with making criticism, during the procedure of making a complaint mostly have the I, or first person. 

So relevantly, the complaint itself involves – who struggles with making a complaint – I, the first person that is speaking.

This person is directly concerned as a complainer which is easily entailed to a label or document as Sara Ahmed said. 

And during the complaint work, I realized “Me and my complaint could not be separated.”

Internalizing the complaint naturally happens to I, but not to others. At the same time, I even experience that people equated me and my complaint.

“My complaint is not my whole, but still, this is affecting me” 

For approving the existing I, existing complaint, the first person has become a speaker again and again. 

Through enduring pain, their bodies [voice, face, tremble … ] represent testimony.

And It began to be a citation.

If bodies can end up in documents, and documents can end up in files, bodies can also be files or perhaps bodies can be filing cabinets, holders of multiple files. What is filed away by institutions can be stored in our bod- ies, experienced often as weight. The body of the complainer is a testimony to the work of complaint

Sara Ahmed “Complaints!” 2021

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book

The circle and hierarchy of power

The circle and hierarchy of power looms over universities and government departments.

In China, there are hundreds or thousands of people competing for every civil service or university lecturer position, and the barrier to entry is high.

When entering a university or government institution, people have access to resources and power that are not available outside, so many people are eager to enter these institutions. After such fierce competition, those who have already entered the university or government sector will value their positions extraordinarily. In order to protect their jobs, resources and power, internal staff will form their own circles and unite to protect their privileges from outsiders. Over time, the circle becomes ubiquitous, and everyone must fit into it or be isolated and driven away.

This situation is very common, which is why many of my Chinese friends choose to stay in the European workplace.

When you work in a university or a government department, your superiors directly determine whether or not your subordinates will be promoted. There is a clear hierarchy in these institutions. If someone doesn’t behave himself, his career will be ruined by his superiors. This is the Chinese officialdom, and only those who can adapt to such rules can climb higher.

The complainers will not survive long in this circle and hierarchy of power. In such a rule, people who ask questions are only seen as deviants and are wiped out.

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book thoughts

on words

One student said of her complaint, “It just gets shoved in the box.” Another student said, “I feel like my complaint has gone into the complaint graveyard”… Doing things in the proper way, doing what you are supposed to do, can lead, does lead, to a burial. If a burial should not happen but does happen, then burials might not appear to have happened; a burial can disappear along with what has been buried. 1

Growing up as a bookworm, I sense a subtle tinge of shame admitting that I have only read a handful of books during the past few years. In my defence, the past few years were anything but normal. They seem like a never-ending train of tragedies, always keeping you on edge, wondering if you should perish the moment because what is yet to come is going to be even worse. Years of therapy were undone in a matter of months, and my already dwindling attention span got absolutely annihilated.

Choosing to take part in a course where the main task is read the damn book does not seem like the wisest decision. But I wanted to push myself, and having been familiar with Ahmed’s work, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to immerse myself in the new book, finding different, personal, and artistic ways to approach it.

And I’m gonna be honest – I have become a slow reader. But to my surprise, Complaint has been a rather easy read. Now, it might be condescending to describe a book by a scholar who’s been a professor, an academic worker, and a diversity worker as an easy read. Nothing this woman has done in her life could be spoken of in the same breath as anything easy . And a book that deals with such sensitive, important topics such as discrimination and harassment, and all the ways you could fail if you seek justice – How could it be easy to read?

Yet part of what makes Ahmed such an important feminist scholar is her ability to write in a way which is both accessible and cautiously intimate. Her aim is not to write specifically for people with a similar background or knowledge, at least not in this specific book, and not in, say, Living a Feminist Life. What we have here is not a textbook, you don’t have to put a bunch of reference books next to you to get what is discussed, all you need is being willing to become a feminist ear, as Ahmed herself. 

Complaint?! Is thereby an accessible book in both the way that it is written and the way it is structured. Before reading the book I listened to a few of Ahmed’s talks about her research throughout the writing process and the experience of reading the result is very much like listening to her. Complaint?! is an unapologetically emotional book. Is a collection of testimonies, as Ahmed likes to call them, yet not a simple report. If there’s one thing I have learned from this book is that there are already enough reports on complaints in this world – somewhere in a cabinet probably. She plays with words carefully, not too much to be a distraction but just enough to make sure that she still has your attention, which makes the text – if I dare judge – poetic and very human.

If a complaint is made to create more time and more room, a complaint can take time and leave you with even less room. The less time you have, the less room you have, the more conscious you become of who is given time, who is given room. 2

 Using metaphors – sinister ones: doors, burials, bodies that have stopped functioning… -and repetitions, Ahmed makes sure that a common language, a common understanding is being shaped gradually between her and the readers – who may or may not have been in the situations described in the book, or may or may not have privileges that would make them unlikely to ever experience them. And may or may not have the attention span of a squirrel after having spent what seems like a lifetime in isolation and a constant state of fear. And it’s amazing how empowering this sense of having achieved a common language is. How relieved you could feel when you hear what you could have not expressed in someone else’s words. Even if the relief is followed by a vague sense of helplessness, it is still something. It’s like putting feelings in words makes them justified, gives them a face, their very own identity. And it might make them scarier at the beginning – “words can never hurt me” says a liar or a fool – but that’s a start.

I think.

How do you pull yourself together to share an experience if an experience is of breaking apart? 3

  1. Ahmed, S. (2021): Complaint! 2021
  2. ebd
  3. ebd

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book

Feint

Many people are good at hiding their true thoughts with different actions that make the complainant think their complaint is being listened to carefully. The head-up and head-down actions seem to tell the complainants that their complaint is not only accepted, but accepted well. But in fact, if the complainant leaves feeling that the other person has accepted her complaint and is not going to continue with it, the nod serves its purpose, which is to shut the complainant up. All this makes me shudder.

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book

“Warning”

I was reading the chapter “on being stop” when I came across this story: A junior female scholar of color was warned by a senior professor: “You are a young scholar, and if you do this now, you will be known as a complainer, so let it go.” She was advised to “let go” so as not to be known as a “grouchy person” or “someone with a grievance”. This is because people in academia believe that not complaining is a virtue, and that those who offend this virtue will be forever ostracized from the circle.

This kind of thing is very common in Chinese society, and even has been deeply rooted, my friend has also been in such a situation, She is an aspiring art teacher who has done a lot for her students, But when the students achieve something, there is often the so-called more senior people than her to take it all away. She chose to be silent because it was traditional education and she could only be endured in silence, alone. I once urged her to be brave and speak her mind, but she just chose to stay away from trouble, to do things alone in the future, to bear the burden alone. She asked me if she would become a misfit in the future, I couldn’t answer, I knew she wasn’t originally like this, it was society that turned her into this.

Institutional fatalism tends to be mentioned when things happen, and I couldn’t agree more with the author on this point. By system fatalism, I mean that the system refers to the environment in which people live, and it will always have some problems, and you shouldn’t try to change them, or you will have a miserable ending. Many people emphasize fatalism, which is very malicious. They want to use this theory to make the complainants feel afraid, because if the complainants feel afraid, then they are likely to stop complaining and end up with nothing.

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book

Fake Freedom

Many times we try to believe what we see with our eyes, but in fact the truth is not so. In China, as a student, I tried to find a course I really liked, or a direction I wanted to try, but because of the university system, I was not qualified to be in any class that was not related to my main major. This is not common in European art universities, but in China it is a hard rule, we don’t have a lot of space to communicate, our needs are ignored and we are buried in a lot of homework every day. Yet university is still regarded by many parents as a synonym for freedom. The university’s complaint channels are always open, appear to be very liberal, and are willing to listen to different voices. Everyone is allowed to complain. This gives a false impression, but in fact, the university will only stop you and tell you not to do so, so that it does not match the group, out of the group is a mistake. Complainers at the university are usually warned and there are consequences. That consequence is the cost of complaining.

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book

Complaints about Anti-Asian racism

After reading the chapter “Hearing complaint,” I was deeply felt by what Sara Ahmed was going to talk about. Through her own experiences and testimonies she has collected, she exposes the injustices that women, non-white people, gay people and other disadvantaged groups are subjected to in all aspects of society. And I, as an Asian, have a deep appreciation for such injustice. My name is Xinyue Yu and I am from China. After being treated unfairly, I and very few people will be brave to complain and appeal to the authorities. Because the traditional education in China is to hide the bad parts and show the healthy and good sides. If not, it is not good for the family and the society.

In China, I often heard the news about racial discrimination in the United States or European, but I didn’t have a deep understanding of it at that time. But when I came to Germany, this horrible thing really happened around me. A Chinese female student of mine was harassed on the street in Berlin and was called a Chinese pig. She went to the police, but the police were very perfunctory, saying they had no way to investigate without video evidence, and it was over.

Meanwhile, the clever powers-that-be have found a new way to silence complaints about racism by buying off the Asian elite and getting them to promote the legitimacy of racism. Recently, after the outbreak of the epidemic, the Trump administration blamed China for all of their country’s problems in preventing the epidemic, and Chinese Americans received discrimination and blame. So the Chinese people had to take to the streets in protest. However, a profit-oriented Chinese American politician, Andrew Yang, in order to get the support of the white American political party, publicly published this article in the Washington Post, saying that the accusation of Americans under the new crown epidemic made them feel ashamed of being Asian, and called on Asian Americans to show their loyalty to the United States as the Japanese Americans did in World War II, and prove that they love America so they won’t be seen as a “virus”.

The stereotype of Asian Americans in American society is that they should work hard and not complain too much, so Asians are not considered to be able to attack racism. In order for Asians to continue to silently accept this stereotype, the U.S. government has come up with the idea of having Asian elites take the lead in calling on Asians to accept this stereotype. If the leaders of the Asian community say so, then ordinary Asians will have no way to oppose it. Such a sinister approach is one of the ways that Americans are dealing with racial discrimination and maintaining a white supremacist society.It reminds me of what the Roman Empire did when it ruled Israel: corrupt the Jewish upper elite, make them puppets of the Romans, and then through them call on the entire Jewish people to submit to Rome and keep the Jews in servitude to others in their own land.Asian American complaints about racism have always existed. But under the guidance of the American government, the American media, this complaint cannot change the reality and has been ignored. Because of this, whenever we see an Asian on the political stage, it is inevitable to speculate that it is another white-directed American political show, in order to show the American racial integration and diversity that is only embodied in slogans. The Asians on the stage are just the puppets of the whites.

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book complaints example

Beschweren oder Ertragen Ⅱ

Wenn wir ungerecht behandelt werden, beschweren wir uns dann oder nehmen wir es hin? Dies ist eine Frage für Kinder, die vielleicht nicht zögern, sich zu beschweren. Aber wenn wir älter werden und mehr Erfahrung haben, sind wir oft hin- und hergerissen, ob wir uns beschweren sollen. Es ist möglich, dass man schon einmal eine gescheiterte Beschwerde erlebt hat. Oder das Verfahren zur Einreichung einer Beschwerde hat einen durch die Mangel gedreht. Oder wenn die Beschwerde am Ende erfolgreich war, hatten die Menschen in anderer Hinsicht eine Menge negativer Folgen. Diese Gründe mögen der Grund dafür sein, dass viele Erwachsene lieber schweigen, als sich zu beschweren. Ich glaube, dass niemand im Leben sein Leben kompliziert, voller Kämpfe und nicht so friedlich gestalten möchte. So viele Menschen entscheiden sich für das Aushalten, um dies zu vermeiden. Aushalten ist eigentlich eine notwendige Lebenskompetenz für Menschen, weil das reale Leben voll von Ungerechtigkeiten ist, die sich nur schwer vermeiden lassen. Aber ich möchte sagen, dass diejenigen, die es wagen, sich zu beschweren und zu wehren und bis zum Ende ausharren, wahre Krieger sind. Sie sind diejenigen, die man bewundern sollte. Wenn sie mit ihren Klagen erfolgreich sind, profitiert nicht nur eine Einzelperson, sondern eine Gruppe von Menschen – die Gruppe, die sich in einer ähnlichen Situation befindet, aber Angst hat, sich zu beschweren. Beschwerdeführer tun das, was die meisten Menschen gern tun würden, sich aber nicht trauen zu tun.

In diesem Sommer kam es in China zu einer einflussreichen Beschwerde. Die Klage war erfolgreich und hat zu einer weiteren Verbesserung des sozialen Status der Frauen in China geführt. Ich bewundere die mutige Frau, die die Beschwerde eingereicht hat. Ich möchte beschreiben, was passiert ist: Es gibt zwei Protagonisten. Einer ist WU Yifan, ein sehr berühmter Mann in China. Der andere ist DU Meizhu, eine Studentin im zweiten Studienjahr.

Am 8. Juli 2021 beschuldigte Frau Du Herrn Wu auf Weibo, einer chinesischen Medienplattform, des sexuellen Fehlverhaltens. In ihrer Anschuldigung gibt sie an, dass sie von Wu vergewaltigt worden sei, nachdem sie gezwungen wurde, Alkohol zu trinken. Sie sagte, zum Zeitpunkt des Übergriffs nur 17 Jahre alt gewesen zu sein, außerdem fügte sie Bilder und Screenshots von Nachrichten bei.

Nach dem Vorfall wurde Frau Du von Herr Wus Agentur mit Schweigegeld entschädigt, aber erst zwei Jahre später hatte sie den Mut, sich zu äußern. In einem weiteren Posting schrieb Frau Du, dass es weitere Fälle gab, in denen Herr Wu andere Frauen betrunken machte und sie dann vergewaltigte. Später sagte sie, dass sie weder das erste noch das letzte Opfer gewesen sei, nachdem sich weitere Frauen (darunter zwei Minderjährige) bei ihr gemeldet hatten, um ähnliche Erfahrungen mit Herr Wu zu teilen.

Auf seinem persönlichen Weibo-Account bestritt Herr Wu, Frau Du Alkohol zugeführt zu haben, wies auch die Anschuldigungen zurück, wonach er Mädchen vergewaltigt habe, während sie bewusstlos waren, und Sex mit Minderjährigen gehabt habe. Er kündigte außerdem an, dass sein Unternehmen rechtliche Schritte einleiten werde und bezeichnete die Anschuldigungen als böswillige Gerüchte.

Am 16. August 2021 wurde Herr Wu wegen des Vorwurfs der Vergewaltigung formell verhaftet.

Zum Glück ging es schließlich in die richtige Richtung, auch wenn es ein sehr schwieriger Prozess war. Frau Du hatte in der Anfangsphase nicht viele Unterstützer, da viele Leute dachten, dass sie nur versuchen würde, das Offensichtliche zu nutzen, um ihren Bekanntheitsgrad zu erhöhen. Auch das Team von Herrn WU versuchte zunächst, sie von einer Beschwerde abzuhalten und war bereit, dafür viel Geld auszugeben. Aber Frau Du war damit nicht einverstanden. Dann begann Herr WU mit Drohungen.

Herr Wu benutzte seine Fans, um online Gewalt gegen sie zu entfesseln, sie online zu verhöhnen, zu beschimpfen und sogar Morddrohungen auszusprechen. Und er benutzte seinen Anwalt, um Frau DU einen Anwaltsbrief zu schicken.

Wie im Buch “Complaint!” beschrieben:

“I noted in my discussion of warnings that if the complainer persists, a warning is turned into a threat or the threat that is already in the warning is made more explicit.” (S. 85)

Es ist schwer vorstellbar, unter welchem Druck Frau Du zu dieser Zeit stand. Und sie war so jung. Aber sie beharrte auf ihrer Beschwerde und teilte weiterhin wichtige Informationen online mit. Je weiter die Dinge voranschritten, desto mehr Unterstützung erhielt sie von anderen Menschen. Da Herr WU gegen das Gesetz verstoßen hatte, wurde schließlich die Polizei eingeschaltet und die Angelegenheit auf diese Weise geklärt. Der Erfolg dieser Klage hat dazu geführt, dass immer mehr Frauen in China es wagen, sich zu beschweren. Beschwerden über häusliche Gewalt, Beschwerden über geschlechtsspezifische Diskriminierungen, Beschwerden über sexuelle Belästigungen usw. Ich hoffe also immer noch, dass die Beschwerdeführer (Krieger) mehr Unterstützung erhalten.

Zwei Zitate aus dem Buch “Complaint!” lauten:

“And so we also learn that those who have the least need to complain tend to be those who can most afford to complain, and those who have the most need to complain tend to be those who can least afford to complain.” (S. 97)

“Some forms of violence, however hard they hit you, do not appear to others. If other people can’t see it, that it happened, you might ask your- self, Did it happen?” (S. 105)

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art basic book chapter

Neither the devouring nor the gaping, neither the invisible nor the unnoticed, neither the threatening nor the unclosable gap, but the gap that is recognized and acknowledged.

“Mind the Gap” is the motif of the first illustration in Sara Ahmed’s book “Complaint!”, page 30: In a view from above, the lettering “MIND THE GAP” is embedded in a floor mosaic on the edge of a train platform; the train tracks can still be seen at the upper edge of the picture. The caption is: “The gap between what is supposed to happen and what does happen.”

This sentence refers to Ahmed’s observation of complaint processes on the same page of the book: Here, something does not coincide, namely that which is supposed to happen by means of a complaint in accordance with the policies and procedures and that which actually happens. There is a gap between the two, the should and the is. This gap is “densely populated” (p. 30), says the continuous text above the illustration, it should be paid attention to: “To mind the gap is to listen and learn from those who are experiencing a process.” (ibid).

“Mind the Gap” is the safety notice that can be seen at London Underground stations and heard as an announcement, a warning to passengers not to fall into the gap between the platform and the threshold of the tube. “Mind the Gap” is also the slogan of the London Student Feminists at the University of London, but here with a call to value and promote gender difference. One phrase, two applications, two meanings: one to pay attention to the gap in order to overcome it, the other to pay attention to the gap in order to acknowledge it. Ahmed’s variant combines both the warning and the expression of respect: to take care of the gap means first to recognize it, then to acknowledge it. 

That this message is visualized with the black-and-white illustration of the London Underground at Victoria station, where subway stations meet at different levels of elevation and construction, indicates Ahmed’s interest in the operational level of her topic, “Complaint!” How do which (cultural, institutional, linguistic) techniques meet, how can they be connected or made connectable without leveling their differences? How can differences not be ignored, how can differences be recognized as differences without stigmatizing them into difference? How can closures (of gaps) take place without closing them, but keeping them unclosed? “Mind the Gap” means with Ahmed: notice and respect the gap.

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basic book chapter general

Weder die verschlingende noch die klaffende, weder die unsichtbare noch die unbeachtete, weder die drohende noch die unschließbare Lücke, sondern die Lücke, die erkannt und anerkannt wird.

„Mind the Gap“ ist das Bildmotiv der ersten Abbildung innerhalb von Sara Ahmeds Buch „Complaint!“, auf Seite 30: Zu sehen ist in einer Ansicht von oben der, in ein Bodenmosaik eingelassene Schriftzug „MIND THE GAP“ an einer Bahnsteigkante; am oberen Bildrand sind noch die Zuggleise zu sehen. Die Bildunterschrift lautet: „The gap between what is supposed to happen and what does happen.“ (Die Kluft zwischen dem, was geschehen soll, und dem, was tatsächlich geschieht.) 

Dieser Satz bezieht sich auf Ahmeds Beobachtung von Beschwerdevorgängen auf der gleichen Seite des Buches: Hier fällt etwas nicht in eins, und zwar dasjenige, was mittels einer Beschwerde in Übereinstimmung mit den Richtlinien und Verfahren geschehen soll, und dasjenige, was tatsächlich geschieht. Zwischen beidem, dem Soll und dem Ist, klafft eine Lücke. Diese Lücke sei „dicht bevölkert“ („densely populated“, S. 30), heisst es im Fließtext oberhalb der Abbildung, ihr solle Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt werden: „Sich um die Lücke zu kümmern, bedeutet, zuzuhören und von denjenigen zu lernen, die einen Prozess erleben.“ („to mind the gap is to listen and to learn from those who experience a process.“, ebd.)

„Achten Sie auf die Lücke“ lautet der Sicherheitshinweis, der an den Stationen der Londoner U-Bahn zu sehen und als Durchsage zu hören ist, ein Warnhinweis an die Passagiere, nicht in die Lücke zwischen Bahnsteig und Türschwelle der U-Bahn zu fallen. „Mind the Gap“ lautet auch der Slogan der London Student Feminists der Universität London, hier allerdings mit dem Aufruf, den Unterschied der Geschlechter zu wertschätzen und zu fördern. Ein Satz, zwei Anwendungen, zwei Bedeutungen: die eine, auf die Lücke zu achten, um sie zu überwinden, die anderen, die Lücke zu achten, um sie anzuerkennen. Ahmeds Variante kombiniert sowohl den Warnhinweis als auch die Respektbekundung miteinander: Sich um die Lücke zu kümmern, bedeutet zunächst einmal, sie zu erkennen, um sie dann anzuerkennen. 

Dass diese Botschaft mit der Schwarz-Weiss-Abbildung der Londoner Underground im Bahnhof Victoria visualisiert ist, in dem U-Bahn-Stationen auf unterschiedlichen Höhenniveaus und in unterschiedlicher Bauweise aufeinander treffen, deutet auf Ahmeds Interesse für die operative Ebene ihres Themas „Complaint!“ hin: Wie treffen welche (Kultur-, Institutions-, Sprach-) Techniken aufeinander, wie können sie aneinander anschließen oder anschließbar gemacht werden, ohne ihre Differenzen zu nivellieren? Wie können Differenzen nicht ignoriert werden, wie können Differenzen als Differenzen anerkannt werden, ohne sie zur Differenz zu stigmatisieren? Wie können Verschließungen (von Lücken) stattfinden, ohne sie zu verschließen, sondern sie entverschlossen zu halten? „Mind the Gap“ heißt mit Ahmed: Beachte und achte die Lücke.