Elif Shafak: the art of transcending cultural ghettos

 Elif Shafak, one of my most favorite storytellers of the Middle East shares in her TEDGlobal 2010 talk, The politics of fiction that "our hearts might dwindle," and that "our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons."  Shafak addresses in her talk the importance of telling and listening to stories and how stories bring people together, bridge the gap between them and connect all humanity.  Her work, in particular her recent TED talk has ignited in me a strong interest in organizing an intercultural & intergenerational community oral storytelling festival in Seattle.  Being together with friends, neighbors and strangers sharing stories is priceless.  Shafak's talk brought magical memories from childhood years in Syria and Palestine. I feel fortunate growing up in a culture rich of social gatherings where the old and young gather and share stories so frequently. 

TED talks are only 18 minutes long, so hope you'd watch this video.  Hope the following excerpts from the talk's transcript would entice you to watch the video. 

• "Now one other thing women like my grandma do in Turkey is to cover mirrors with velvet or to hang them on the walls with their backs facing out. It's an old Eastern tradition based on the knowledge that it's not healthy for a human being to spend too much time staring at his own reflection. Ironically, [living in] communities of the like-minded is one of the greatest dangers of today's globalized world. And it's happening everywhere, among liberals and conservatives, agnostics and believers, the rich and the poor, East and West alike. We tend to form clusters based on similarity, and then we produce stereotypes about other clusters of people. In my opinion, one way of transcending these cultural ghettos is through the art of storytelling. Stories cannot demolish frontiers, but they can punch holes in our mental walls. And through those holes, we can get a glimpse of the other, and sometimes even like what we see."

• "From her, I learned, among many other things, one very precious lesson. That if you want to destroy something in this life, be it an acne, a blemish or the human soul, all you need to do is to surround it with thick walls. It will dry up inside. Now we all live in some kind of a social and cultural circle. We all do. We're born into a certain family, nation, class. But if we have no connection whatsoever with the worlds beyond the one we take for granted, then we too run the risk of drying up inside. Our imagination might shrink. Our hearts might dwindle. And our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons. Our friends, neighbors, colleagues, family -- if all the people in our inner circle resemble us, it means we are surrounded with our mirror image."

• "In the end, stories move like whirling dervishes, drawing circles beyond circles. They connect all humanity, regardless of identity politics. And that is the good news. And I would like to finish with an old Sufi poem. "Come, let us be friends for once; let us make life easy on us; let us be lovers and loved ones; the earth shall be left to no one."

 Amineh