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nothorses · 4 years ago

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i've been thinking about this for a few days and trying to finally kind of put this into words. sorry if this turns out to be really long. ^^;

growing up queer in romania (which is..not the most accepting place, to put it mildly), english speaking online spaces were where i first found some kind of acceptance. i've been active on the internet since i was around 12 or 13, aka when i first started questioning, and the more i found out about myself, the more i distanced myself from my country and culture out of fear and shame, to the point where i almost exclusively think in english and have even had a few dreams partially or exclusively in english. i've only now started to realise how deep this disconnect actually goes and i'm kinda having an existential crisis over not feeling like i belong anywhere.

being a queer person here is no walk in the park. religion is a huge part of most romanian people's lives (i'm pretty sure around 90% of romanian citizens are orthodox christians), so the vast, vast majority of the population is agressively conservative. when it comes to social justice causes progress is very stagnant, younger generations which are still raised by conservative parents refuse change and i've seen and gotten much more homophobia and transphobia from people close to my age (late teens/early 20s) than from others. i know of next to no trans people who were able to live normal, happy lives here. and sadly i think this will only get worse seeing the measures that neighbouring countries like hungary and poland are taking.

even before i realised i was trans, i couldn't relate to cis people and have always felt somewhat disconnected from my country. then, as i finally felt like i found a place for myself in (mostly american-centric) english speaking queer spaces, the disconnect only worsened. i felt like a foreigner in the country where i was born and where i still live. however there is only so much that i can learn about other places in the world without actually living there, and in a lot of cases a lot of stuff that applies there doesn't apply here at all. i have no language to express myself authentically, words like "gay", "lesbian", "trans" etc have been transformed into insults. there are barely any lgbt resources here, and even those are vastly targeted towards cis people. but i can't turn to a completley foreign community from mine for help either because they are mostly or almost exclusively by and for americans.

all of this leaves me completley confused. i plan on emigrating later in my life, but no matter what i will do the country and culture that i was born in will still be a part of me, no matter what i do to reject it. i don't know whether to push it away even further or embrace it. it's kind of a weird situation and i haven't seen this discussion anywhere else yet, which is why i wanted to put it in words. not sure if you can even relate to this at all, but thank you for listening anyway. love your blog!

I also really haven’t seen folks talk about this elsewhere, and I really appreciate you speaking up about it. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

I don’t think this is a weird experience; queer people exist everywhere, no matter what, and we always have. I can say with certainty that you aren’t the only trans person in that situation; you just don’t have contact with the others. Hell, until recent years, this was the most common experience for queer people worldwide!

Even the U.S. hasn’t always been as safe for queer people as it is today, and certain areas here are definitely more dangerous than others. You may find some historical accounts of queer experiences, even in the U.S., resonate with you more; like Stone Butch Blues, which talks quite a bit about what it was like trying to find community while trans in the 1950′s & onward.

I don’t personally have experience with this, and can’t offer much advice that I’m not sure you know already; there is likely some more underground community there, there are others like you, and hopefully you can build at least a few connections. Something is better than nothing, wherever and however you can get it.

Maybe others have more to add- and if not, maybe this will, at the very least, resonate with others & help someone feel less alone.

#queer #lgbtq #lgbt #trans #transgender #romania #romanian #best of luck anon 💙 you're doing a lot of good just talking about this #Anon #Ask

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aimmyarrowshigh · 4 years ago

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Hi, V! I wanted to ask what your opinion on the Israel-Palestine dispute is? Sorry, it's just not something I'm super familiar with, but would like to hear from Jewish perspective like yourself? Thank you, have a good day! :)

Because you asked nicely, and politely, and not in a demanding way, I will answer this rather than just deleting the message (as I normally do) and messaging someone to yell incoherently in annoyance about being asked this at all on a random Friday. So here is my answer:

My perspective, as a Jewish person, is that there is no reason to ask me this question when I have never talked about my POV on this issue on my blog, and that in itself is me saying “I do not want to talk about Israel-Palestine with strangers and/or non-Jews/non-Palestinians.” My perspective, as a Jewish person, is that being asked this question, even politely, is a signal that I have strayed somewhere that I am not fully welcome or safe, because my safety or allowance of existence within that space depends more on my being a Good Jew(TM) than just being a human being.

If you are Palestinian, Jewish, or Israeli, then message me off anon and I will probably talk to you about it privately, but given that I talk about most political issues publicly EXCEPT this one BECAUSE any answer that I give endangers me as a Jewish person existing in public space... if you are not Palestinian, not Jewish, and not Israeli, then assume I do not have any interest in discussing I/P with you. My overarching interest in Israel-Palestine as a public discussion is using it as a way to gauge my own personal safety in whatever arena in which it is being publicly discussed.

I do not live in Israel, I do not hold Israeli citizenship, and I have never visited Israel.

I am an American Ashkenazi Jew whose only connection to Israel is through family, and that means that I shouldn’t have to publicly address my thoughts on Israel any more than I should have to address my thoughts on Romania or Transylvania or Poland, which are other countries to which I’ve never been, don’t hold citizenship, and am only connected to through family.

I think that a very, very large number of non-Palestinian, non-Israeli, non-Jewish leftists use the question of “what are your thoughts on Israel-Palestine” as a way to decide whether Jewish leftists, and Jewish people in general, deserve their protection as a member of a marginalized, vulnerable group, and that they don’t require the same interrogation of members of any other marginalized, vulnerable group. If you aren’t messaging American-Russian Tumblr users to ask for their thoughts on Chechnya, or American-Chinese Tumblr users to ask for their thoughts on Uyghurs, or American-Myanma Tumblr users to ask for their thoughts on the Rohingya, then I think you should question whether you have an implicit bias against Jews that makes you view your right to judge or validate/invalidate Jewish-Americans Tumblr users’ thoughts on Israel-Palestine.

I’m not a politician. I’m not a cultural figure. I’m not someone with any ability or authority to have an impact on Israel or Palestine in any way, whatsoever, in even a tiny way. The fact that you expect me to have an opinion or feeling about Israel more than I do any other foreign country that I’m not from and don’t live in is, in itself, an assumption about my politics/lifestyle/background/loyalties as a Jewish-American.

My answer is that I’m not Israeli, I’m not Palestinian, and I have no say in any of the politics or culture of Israel any more than the average American -- Jewish or not -- has any say in the politics or culture of a foreign country (AKA American-centric cultural colonialism and hegemony is very real and very detrimental to all countries). Beyond that, without knowing why you’re asking and what your vested interest is in my answer, and without knowing what level of threat you hold to my continued safety as a Jewish woman existing in a public online space, I am not interested in answering and there is NO reason beyond antisemitism to think that you are owed that discussion from me.

#asks #judaism #**jew

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borisbubbles · 6 years ago

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12. DENMARK

Rasmussen - “Higher ground” 9th place

youtube

Ok, so somehow, in a contest with a nautical theme, the one song which *literally* started with the line “Ships in the making, bound for a distant shore” never got to open any of the live shows??? ¿¿Que??

So, Denmark. Quite possible the opposite of my previous entry, yet its greatness is just as challenging to put into words? As much as “Taboo” was a inaccessible conglomeration of every possible fucking staging trick, so simple was “Higher Ground” It is a great song, but I find it hard to explain why. It is just so much fun?

It’s like a chapter of the Edda Saga come to life, with its Old Norse chanting, banner-swaying and feigned-drunken slrrrrring uv wrrrrds creating a truly immersive atmosphere. (I love all things Norse, so I was never NOT going to stan this) I love how one of the backings looks like precisely like Conchita Wurst’s long-lost sister. I dunno, Higher Ground just shines on its own, without the need of convoluted gimmicks (tho still bless Malta’s souls for burying “Taboo” under them for no other reason than it (barely) fitting within their ad-funded budget <3).

So it’s of no surprise that this ended up the Michał of the year, yes?

As you are well aware of, Eurovision is in a continuous process of ‘reinventing itself’, which is code for ‘rejecting its Euroschlager roots in favour of increasedly pallid Ultratop50 knock-offs’, like guuuuurls you can do better than that. Think of an entry in this year that was actually *original*. I come up with... “O Jardim”, “Mercy” and maybe “Hvala, ne!”? Congratz 3/43. This shocking display of self-loathing creates a power vacuum for the few -for some godforsaken reason- critically panned Euroschlager anthems which *do* make it into Eurovision proper. As the only entry in this year (out of 43) which can be described as “classic eurovision schlager”, “Higher Ground was always going to attract a lot of attention. Add in a few clear-as-crystal references to Game of Thrones (Rasmussen is literally Tormund + guyliner and a weave), a ubiquitous Viking tone and just general dramatic badassery, you’ve found yourself an audience’s fave and the bane for any jury chairperson’s existence.

This is the long explanation why “Higher ground” is actually a great entry. It is the only entrant, in a year so widely praised as the “first serious contest in years”, that actually feels traditionally Eurovision. For a brief moment, we are hooked up on pure Classic Eurovision, the term often used to describe the time when “Eurovision Songs Were Still Good”.

And yes, it is highly ironic (and tragic) that the one entry that reminds many of that very murkily defined time period venerated by the critics, is also one that was critically panned by crappy self-important jurors. Would it that jurors had any self-awareness (I’m pretty shocked the EBU were able to find 43 rooms big enough to house the jurors and their egos), but oh well.

I suppose this is where I address the Melofestivalen shit, yes?

So, the jist of it is this: Two Swedes write “Higher Ground” for Melodifestivalen and get brutally rejected by Christer for reasons I can only guess, as HG was far better than anything in Melfest this year.. (Christer = Melfest’s Jeff Probst).

Considering that Denmark has a herstory of recycling past Swedish trends- omg reminder that the 1986 Danish entry was a frame-by-frame carbon copy of the 1985 Swedish entry 😂, please enjoy the pictorial evidence I have provided in support of this statement

ps: I love that the Danish entry was called “You are full of lies” so unselfaware, so meta, so Denmark <3

but I digress. Anyway,

Considering that Denmark has a herstory of recycling past Swedish trends, they of course picked up the "Higher ground”, put it in DMGP, substituted the Swedish singer with a Danish one and voila! The melfest reject wins DMGP with his fingers up the nose, cementing his place amongst the canon as an audience darling, and YES scoring significantly better than Ingrosso in the televote 😍The discrepancy shown by televote wasn’t as hilar as “Colour of your life” rising from last to sixth with one sudden stroke (given that Sweden had a higher combined score than Denmark somehow 🙄) but whatever, the ending was perfect because much like the Edda, this Viking Saga also ended with the evil trickster getting swallowed by the World’s Serpent. Sorry, Christer, should’ve taken the LEEP LAKYU WERBWND; FRR HIYRRRR GRWWWWWWND!!!!!

RANKING SO FAR:

12. Denmark (Rasmussen - “Higher ground”)

13. Malta (Christabelle - “Taboo”)

14. Cyprus (Eleni Foureira - “Fuego”)

15. United Kingdom (SuRie - “Storm”)

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES

1. I couldn’t really fit it into the narrative, but the actual reason why Rasmussen is only 12th and not higher is because I found the act kind of visually underwhelming. (the snow at the end is particularly sad) Like I said, the song is great and I often have it on loop, but the act is a bit too small for a stage that big.

2. That said, “Higher Ground” is by far the song I’ve listened to the most often this season, which bodes well for any future positive morphs when I rewatch this year in the distant future.

3. Rasmussen bombing with the jury probably has more to do with the lack of gimmicks than the genre of the song. Like I said, the song pretty much carries itself, so if you stop to ponder and list all the things great about it, it all boils down to “the song is catchy and fun”, which is not what juries look at (juries love intricate acts, layered complexity and technical finesse, none of which are particular strengths of this entry)

4. Yes, I think it’s MASSIVELY hypocritical to glom onto songs such as “A Matter of time” under the pretence of “It’s a good song” when yeah it was, but everything else was shit and then subsequently ignore “Higher Ground” for being “only a good song”. wtf.

5. While I do enjoy trashing the juries on a regular basis, be aware that during the actual Jury Era of this show, none of the juries were professional. In fact, when I rewatched 1978 and 1985, both times the hosts were ADAMANT to remind the audience that the juries were in fact NOT professionals, but 10 randomly selected civilians (Celeb and non-Celeb) with no direct ties to the music industry whatsoever. This is precisely why entries such as Riva, Bucks Fizz and Toto Cotugno managed to win a ’jury vote’ with a comfortable lead lmfao imagine that happening now. Anyway, the bottom line is that today’s “five professionals” jury system fucking sucks and has to be swallowed by Jörmundgandr also.

6. ’Eurovision used to be good before’ is such a weird statement, yet I hear it all the time in relation to the contest (by people of my age group????) Like... what exact years are you refering to, cuz like... the 2000s were trash and I can’t honestly think of a decade as consistently good as the 2010s lol? We haven’t had a weak year since 2012!! (but of course, most of the people I’ve talked about this in person have, by their own admission, not seen a year since 2010 so how would they know lol)

7. If we assume that 'Eurovision used to be good before’ refers to the time when Eurovision was song-centric, that doesn’t make a lick of sense either? If you’re old enough to remember the late 1960s your taste is probably irreconcilable with mine anyway. And yes, while it took until #London1977 before we finally got a ‘gimmicky’ year, this also made for one of the most watchable, consistently fun contests ever, -even to this day- while “song-centric” years like 74; 75 and 78 are grueling to sit through nowadays unless you have the taste of the average Söngvakeppnin voter. Gimmicks were a part of ESC even during the Chanson Era, as the language barrier was a massive hurdle for any song not sung in French. And true, the “gimmicks” then weren’t more than “performing barefoot” or “having a key change”, but good lord it’s the sixties, flat, boring French Chansons dominated and only because everyone fucking understood French, SO GRASPING AT STRAWS HERE.

8. The funny thing is that Denmark didn’t copy Kikki Danielsson’s evergreen once, but twice. 😂 “Hallo Hallo” (DK1990) was just a repackaged “Du er fuld af løgn“ (DK1986), which as I said, was itself just a slightly different “Bra Vibrationer” (SW1985). It’s seriously some Bra Vibraception shit.

9. I will never stop shitting on Melfest 2018. It was pure Tropical House Torture and yes, Rasmussen > literally everything in that, including the entries I actually like (which were... Jessica Anderson, Ida Redig and... um... Edvard Blom? Rolandz? Margaret? Samir and Viktor???? *gunshot*) 😂/🙄@ rescinding their roots for 2014′s musical fade. Pray that Christer never discovers reggaeton - though who am I kidding, it will dominate ESC selections in 2020, bank on it.

10. Now that I’ve mentioned them, one of “Higher Grounds” songwriters (Niklas Arn) actually was the bass player for Rolandz (who were my second faves in the finale by fucking default). Robbed twice, both in Melfest and outside of it, smfh.

11. Oh and I think “Higher Ground” in the hands of Sweden, absolutely would’ve been guaranteed top five (watch how most of these “professional” jurors suddenly would *like* it because, you know, Melfest Winner) and that’s all the humiliation I need. That said, I doubt “Higher Ground” ever would have actually won Melfest (it has the Heartbreak Hotel “dominates televote, gets screwed over by juries” label stamped all over it) but oh well, that’s just because Melfest SUCKS and the “International Juries” are a fucking farce. So it worked out for the better that “Higher Ground” was in fact not in Melfest, I think.

12. Rasmussen is actually the first Danish ESC contestant since Emmelie de Forest that I’ve liked. Gratz?

#Eurovision 2018 #Eurovision Song Contest #Denmark #Rasmussen #Higher Ground

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wordacrosstime · 7 years ago

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London Book Fair 2018 - Day Three

[The photographs below roughly match items in this article in sequence]

It’s not simply the last day of the London Book Fair (LBF). It’s the last ever London Book Fair before Britain and the European Union sever the knot. Yes, next London Book Fair will be entirely British, and Blighty has quietly been making plans.

Railway Stations for example. There’s Imperial Wharf two stops down from the LBF, just to remind foreigners about the Empire, a theme that is carried on in its venue Olympia, with the Empire and National Halls. Waterloo, of course, and to put the French further in their place there’s Trafalgar Square, Imperial College, and Petty France. That’s where the Blue Passports were issued. For generations the British have deceived the French that it’s derived from their word petit/e, while in fact it’s pronounced and used in its solidified English form, meaning trivial.

Croissants, baguettes, Gitanes, berets, striped t-shirts will all become illegal, but life in Britain would be unthinkable without France. So although the Oxford University Press can be relied on to defend British language standards against the Académie française, Camenbert and Brie may lead to a secret tunnel.

Then there’s Latvia, Kazakhstan, Georgia (proper Georgia, that is) - home to wonderful Katy & Acho and their brilliant cookery YouTubes and books - the Czech Republic and many others. We’ll be looking to Eurospan to keep the cultural bridge open. There’ll be plenty of work for those attending the Literary Translation Centre and their lively gatherings.

It’s well known [at least it was to Sigmund Freud who made the phrase based on the work of Ernest Crawley] that in circumstances of separation The Narcissism of Small Difference (der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen) readily comes into play. Essentially: the smaller the area of disagreement, the bigger the row. Or the narrower the division can become.

We can turn then with gratitude to the Nothern Fiction Alliance. This spunky organisation defends - if necessary with their lives - Northern Fiction, providing along the way a useful guide (see image) to everyday map terms for those of us who live, have lived, come from, or might aspire to The North of England. Battle sites and dates, aviaries and Blue Flag Beaches, Hill Forts, Mines are daily obstacles Up North for accountants, solicitors, retail workers and musicians striding up Newcastle’s Northumberland Street from Pret to work. Neither is it easy to avoid Roman Remains. And least of all Lighthouses.

But where actually is The North? This is where Northern Fiction Alliance’s map with flags of their members is so important. Contrary to what people who live in Berwick, Carlisle, Sunderland, Alnwick, Wooler, Chillingham (even cows have Northern loyalty) might think it’s actually in Liverpool and around Manchester. True, there is a flag in Newcastle, but just the one.

The explanation for this Manchester-centric North is probably simple. The Guardian was originally The Manchester Guardian. As journalists at The Guardian are taught a generic Northern accent at drama school, most likely The Midlands have become The North because of geographic uncertainty. And perhaps because they’re nearer to Islingon.

Don’t worry, Durham, Newcastle, and above. We share your grief. And looking on the bright side: if The North is that far south, the next Jarrow March will only take a day.

At an event like the London Book Fair it is always helpful to have expert medical help on hand, and as this photograph of The American Psychiatric Association shows, the Psychiatrist is In. Unfortunately the corresponding photo of The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge SPCK shows that God is entirely Out, but then, He can’t be everywhere (oh, sorry, He can). Regardless, the Publishers Association maintains decorum, and failing that, publishers, agents, booksellers can find refuge in the Artisan Bakery where, with luck, Guardian Readers might find some labouring Northerners (tip: flat caps).

An important strand of current politics is featured by Sage ‘post-truth, fake news, evidence, who do you trust?’ Possibly not a publisher uncertain about who and whom (but see The Narcissism of Small Difference above, and don’t mention the Publishers Association’s lost apostrophe). For those looking to avoid America’s nuclear war, Marco Polo Travel Publishing could be handy. The war may start at home if Senator McCarthy comes back from the dead and finds Marxism A Graphic Guide twinned with Queer A Graphic History, published together by the brilliant Icon Books.

A quiet mood of academia is fostered by The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. Others look for relaxation (and wine) at the Wales stand, or a lecture at The Faculty, followed by more drinks, and possibly a Mobile Massage - but not of the kind being experienced in the poster for Deep Books.

Highlight for writers today is a set of useful lectures at Author HQ, including the final Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) seminar hosted by KDP UK Manager Darren Hardy, with the panel of writers Joseph Alexander, Mark Dawson, LJ (Louise) Ross. An Introduction to Kindle Direct Publishing: Tools and Best Practice 10:45-11:30. It sounds grim but the content is sharp, very detailed advice on how these - very successful - writers go about the process of writing, editing and onwards, and what aids they find useful. The 4 people involved give very generously of their time to writers one-to-one during the day, answering questions and giving direct practical advice.

Stand of the Day is unhesitatingly Grub Street Publishing Ltd at Stand 6C104 for publishing (for many years) the greatest book on jams, preserves and chutneys ever written. Disarmingly it’s called Basic Basics: Jams, Preserves and Chutneys Handbook, by Marguerite Patten. To anyone who has never attempted strawberry jam, or crashed and burned in the battle, this wonderful book, prized among jam experimenters and unknowingly by eaters of jam, marmalade, black cherry conserve and anything that goes with anything includings scones - and of course marmalade - is the book of books.

Here’s how Grub Street Publishing describes itself:

Award-winning independent publisher of hardback and paperback illustrated non-fiction in the areas of cookery and military history. We have an active backlist of almost 200 titles, many of which are now also available as ebooks. Recent foreign rights sales to France, Czech Republic, Spain, Poland, Brazil India, China, Russia, USA and Turkey.

Anne B Dolamore and John B Davies are at Grub Street Publishing‘s stand. Anne B Dolamore was publisher and friend with Marguerite Patten (1915-2015) and knew her well for many years up to her death shortly before her 100th birthday. She speaks with affection of this great teacher and practitioner in food - who described herself as a home economist. Marguerite Patten’s admirers include Nigel Slater, Gary Rhodes and many among their generation of chefs. Anne BD: ‘She ran the Ministry of Food in World War Two’: with her BBC Radio programme The Kitchen Front, Marguerite Patten taught the British how to make good food using her inventive recipes tailored to rationing. Thanks to Grub Street Publishing for continuing to publish one of her most brilliant books.

[from the top: Imperial Wharf Overground Station and helpful direction pre-Brexit / France / Oxford University Press / Latvia / Kazakhstan / Katy & Acho, Georgia / Czech Republic / Eurospan / Literary Translation Centre / and people there / Northern Fiction Alliance / a helpful guide to Northern map legends / where the Alliance has located The North / The American Psychiatric Association / The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge SPCK / the Publishers Association / Artisan Bakery / Sage post-truth, fake news, evidence, who do you trust? / Marco Polo Travel Publishing / Marxism A Graphic Guide twinned with Queer A Graphic History / Icon Books / The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers / People at the Wales stand / Lecture at The Faculty / Drinks / Mobile Massage / Deep Books / Grub Street Publishing / who publish Basic Basics: Jams, Preserves and Chutneys Handbook by Marguerite Patten]

John Park

wordsacrosstime.com

Thursday 12 April 2018

#LBF #London Book Fair #wordsacrosstime #Words Across Time #April 2018

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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How Gymnastics Is Trying To Take Over Parkour And Make It An Olympic Sport

In the last several months, proponents of parkour, the obstacle course discipline of French origin, have been involved in a fight both with external foes and within their own community that might well shape the future of the sport.

But this fight isn't merely about parkour. It's about who controls the new youth-centric sports that are the Olympics' future. It's about whether legacy sports federations, amidst declining participation rates and popularity, can muscle their way to governing these new sports, even if the people who actually play them don't want that.

Parkour's fight, like many turf wars, is less an honest dispute than an invasion. In this case, it's between people who actually practice the discipline and the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), which has enlisted the help of two of parkour's founders to help them take over the sport.

If FIG's involvement sounds odd to you, you're not alone. Parkour is not gymnastics. The two sports have completely different histories, cultures, and purposes. Any overlap is superficial. Yet, this hasn't stopped FIG from going full speed ahead on subsuming parkour for its own gain.

Leading the fight against this takeover is Eugene Minogue, president of Parkour UK, which is recognized by UK Sport as the the National Governing Body for Parkour the UK. Minogue has issued several open letters to FIG and officially petitioned the IOC in an effort to have FIG cease and desist what he calls its "encroachment and misappropriation" of parkour.

"You lose all of that culture, that heritage, the authenticity, the very fabric that makes the sport and the community what it is and what makes it so different to other traditional sports," Minogue said in an interview.

Many other parkour organizations from around the world have signed letters supporting Parkour UK and calling for FIG to back off, including organizations from France, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Poland, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Sweden, Denmark, Argentina, and Italy. In a recent Inside The Games poll, 75 percent of respondents voted against the FIG's attempt to take over the sport.

Parkour's fight essentially began with Agenda 2020, the IOC's long-term roadmap for the future of the Olympics. Published in 2014, it called for the IOC to be more youth-centric: "We want to engage with them [the youth] wherever they are," wrote IOC president Thomas Bach. But, incorporating youth-centric action sports into the Olympic program presents a culture clash the IOC is still navigating today. There's a distinctive Manifest Destiny-like tone to Agenda 2020, an implicit assumption that action sports are for the Olympics' taking.

Fundamentally, parkour's fight is not about whether they want to be an Olympic sport, but about who gets to decide. There is a tremendous amount at stake for parkour. The future of the sport will be determined by who governs it. And if recent history is any guide, the outlook for parkour isn't good.

The IOC first required all Olympic sports to be governed by a recognized international body in 1920. Since then, existing federations have had tremendous control over organized sport. Whenever a new, popular sport came along, it was much easier and quicker for an existing federation to claim ownership rather than letting a new federation organically form.

Generally, this transition is done under the guise of helping the new sport's development, creating an elite level, which in turn promises to grow the grassroots. But sports historian David Goldblatt, author of The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, says, "the argument is always the elite layer somehow nurtures, encourages, and develops a broader grassroots. And it's not true. it's just not true."

When the aim of the burgeoning sport is expressly to become an Olympic sport, this acquisition process is more or less fine, like a startup getting bought out by a major corporation. The problem is when the new sport's culture and aims may not align with the IOC's, who nevertheless sees dollar signs in absorbing it. This is precisely the case with many action sports.

The IOC, a highly bureaucratic organization, has little in common with youth-centric, non-hierarchical action sports that prize experimentation while minimizing rules and boundaries. In many ways, the "Olympic Movement" and action sports practitioners could hardly be more different. Yet, IOC has pegged its future to these action sports.

Snowboarding, one of the first action sports eyed by the IOC, became an Olympic sport at cost. Photo by Andrew P. Scott-USA TODAY Sports.

The best way to explain what's at stake for parkour is to look at the history of action sports getting absorbed into Olympic programs. Perhaps the first prominent instance of this clash came in the early 1990s with snowboarding, about a decade after snowboarding competitions were first held. In 1998, the IOC included snowboarding for the first time in the Winter Olympics, but under the International Ski Federation's (FIS) umbrella, rather than ushering in the burgeoning International Snowboard Federation (ISF). In effect, snowboarding became a sub-discipline of skiing.

This went down with snowboarders about as well as you'd expect. Terje Haakonsen, one of the most influential snowboarders ever and the best in the world at the time, boycotted the Olympics in protest. "The thing is you have guys directing the sport who don't actually do the sport—people who are just in it for the commercial interest," Haakonsen told Snowboard Magazine in 2013. "You don't have the athletes involved who actually know about the sport that can make better progress in the sport, that can experiment with the sport, and make their snowboarding life a lot better. It's all about sports politics and commercial interest."

Haakonsen accused organized skiing of using its leverage to prevent the ISF from getting lucrative television contracts. This stunted the ISF's growth, according to Haakonsen, which made it easier for FIS to absorb snowboarding. The ISF shut down in 2002. Haakonsen described the whole process as "like stealing candy away from a kid."

From a cultural perspective, snowboarding has suffered ever since. Olympization of snowboarding fractured the community as some competitors perfected their skillsets for Olympic-style competition, while others like Haakonsen adhered to previous ideals of creativity and expression. In Haakonsen's opinion, this made the sport worse, and many view the standardization of competitions as detrimental to its founding values of riding whatever the terrain provides.

But the lessons extend far beyond snowboarding's experience. Damien Puddle, a PhD student at the University of Waikato who is writing his thesis on parkour, wrote a blog post outlining what has happened to other action sports. His post serves as a warning for parkour that there are few good outcomes—and mostly bad ones.

Take the three action sports debuting at Tokyo in 2020, the year Agenda 2020 is to be put into practice: BMX, skateboarding, and sport climbing. In BMX's case, the Union Cycliste Internationale—the same federation that governs all other Olympic cycling events—absorbed BMX because, well, they also use bicycles, despite their "independent cultural heritage," as Puddle put it. Now, BMX practitioners have little sway in what funding they receive from their national governing bodies because they're small fish in a big pond.

As for skateboarding, many skaters don't want to be in the Olympics at all. But that didn't stop the IOC from politely asking the International Roller Sports Federation (FIRS) to see about governing skateboarding so it could be included in the Olympics, despite the existence of the International Skate Federation (ISF, and I'm sorry about all the acronyms). FIRS and the ISF eventually agreed to jointly run the Tokyo 2020 Skateboarding Commission, a short-term Band-Aid to what promises to be a protracted legal fight over who owns skateboarding.

Sport climbing probably has it best of the three, since the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) gained official recognition and governs the sport at the Olympic level. But even the IFSC doesn't have total control, as evidenced by the actual sport climbing program. In Tokyo 2020, the sport climbing event will be a "vertical triathlon," which combines bouldering, lead climbing, and sport climbing into an aggregated score and a single medal. From a sporting perspective, this makes little sense, as the three events are very different and few practice all three. It also means climbers who ply their trade mostly on outdoor rock without pre-defined paths will have to practice indoors on standardized routes. But, for various reasons due to the IOC's bureaucracy and requirements, it was one of the few options available.

Nevertheless, the decision was made without IFSC consultation, which will have a trickle-down effect on how the sport is practiced. Fifteen high-profile climbers surveyed by Climbing.com unanimously disapproved of the format, with one climber likening it to middle-distance runners being told to compete in sprinting. Another simply called it "bogus."

Aside from the 2020 sports, Standup Paddleboarding (SUP) has had to postpone its Olympic inclusion while the International Surfing Association and International Canoe Federation battle over who owns it, despite Canoeing having essentially no legitimate claim to SUP. But, Canoeing has been involved in the Olympics since 1924, so the IOC won't tell them to back off.

With all of this precedent, Puddle wonders what possibly could be beneficial for parkour with FIG's attempted takeover. "If this is the experience of all action sports before us, why would anyone do anything but work with their own community?"

Here, Puddle may be indirectly referring to David Belle and Charles Pierreire, two recognized parkour co-founders (nine people have been credited with starting parkour) who are working with FIG and lending their takeover a minimal degree of legitimacy. Belle and Pierreire will chair the "FIG Parkour Committee" and provide some oversight on the sport's future. But, it's unclear how much power or influence they will have.

Belle, Pierreire, and seven others founded parkour in France in the 1980s and played key roles in parkour going mainstream in the 1990s and early 2000s. In its two decades of mainstream existence, parkour has established itself as one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

Although parkour is growing, it has barely had time to organize itself on a national level, much less an international one. This year, Parkour UK was formally recognized by UK Sport, the first such parkour organization to gain national recognition.

But many don't trust the founders now that they've partnered with outsiders. Holly Thorpe, an associate professor at the University of Waikato who studies action sports, told VICE Sports "many in the parkour community feel betrayed" by Belle and Pierreire and others who have aligned with FIG.

When asked for comment regarding their efforts in Parkour, a FIG spokesman sent VICE Sports links to previously published press releases and otherwise declined to comment.

But the debate is just starting. There are obvious reasons for FIG to move as quickly as possible to incorporate parkour. The faster it happens, the less time parkour will have to organize its own international body and challenge for ownership. But, perhaps even more importantly, Paris is all but certain to be hosting one of the next two Summer Olympics, most likely in 2024. Surely, the IOC and FIG would love to capitalize on the Summer Olympics being held in parkour's home country.

These are the types of considerations—hosting televised competitions, Olympic participation, and commercial viability—that parkour enthusiasts generally eschew, which goes back to something Minogue said during our interview. To him, this is about parkour's right to self-determination. Although FIG claims to respect parkour's traditions and understand the philosophy, its own actions belie that message. In trying to absorb parkour, FIG is violating one of parkour's central virtues. No matter what the environment, each person determines their own path.

How Gymnastics Is Trying To Take Over Parkour And Make It An Olympic Sport published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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