Today December 21, 2004

'Slamming' 'tude
She's a maverick who shocks, inspires and cares deeply
Surekha A Yadavsurekha@newstoday.com.sg

SHORTLY after the earth-shaking events of 911, Singaporean Greta Georges and her mother sent out more than 200 letters to prominent groups and individuals all over world – from rock band U2 to United States President George W Bush.

This led up to the planet's first World Harmony Day, which mother and daughter organised on Feb 2, 2002 at 20.02 pm, at Suntec City.

The event included a two-minute vigil in honour of all who have lost their lives in war.

"We didn't have, and still don't have, a message. For us, it is just about making it known that we are for peace," says Greta.

Pulling the whole thing together single-handedly was "very tough" and "quite the emotional ride." But the effort paid off. Support flooded in, and today, World Harmony Day is an annual event supported by international organisations including the United Nations.

As a maverick poet-film-maker-activist, Greta tends to both shock Singaporeans and inspire the world in turn.

She spouts poetry off the cuff and sings, shouts and dances — doing what is called "slamming", a poetic form of rap battling. Only, this performance isn't limited to salon recitals. "One morning, I had to give up my seat to a pregnant lady on the train. So that afternoon, I decided to get a seat for myself by dressing up as pregnant lady — but I still could not get a seat, so I "slammed" to show my displeasure," says Greta, adding that apart from looking startled, the passengers showed no reaction. It is this kind of apathy here that Greta doesn't understand.

"I was brought up to think, pay attention to my world, have an opinion and share it. That is what I'm going to do," she says.

She has always beaten her own path. By 16, Greta had travelled across America alone. By the time she was 20, she had been across the globe.

Emblazoned on her tattered, once-white backpack are the words, "Universal Peace Forum, Barcelona".

"I was there for a month for the Condition of Peace dialogue and I shot my second movie there," she says. At 23, she looks more like a bouncy teenager than world-weary traveller and cynical, Michael Moore-type documentary-maker.

The movie she refers to, Weapons Of Mass Deception, is "a parody of everything (US President) Bush said", says Greta. With one cameraman and a microphone, she ran around at the forum trying to pull together the movie without a script.

"Everything was impromptu. I would attend a forum and accost the speakers afterwards for sound-bites. I was a madwoman," she said with a laugh. What intrigues her is how views differed from nationality to nationality on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.

"It is very interesting, this difference. A professor could tell me with great confidence which countries carried the weapons, while a man from the Congo told me the "weapons" were the repressed people in his village."

She intends to submit the movie in local film-making competitions.

Her upbringing is as unusual as her choice of path in life. At 2, she left her birth town in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, when her mum ran away from an unpleasant marriage. "So drama right? But I think it's because of who my mother is, that I am what I am," she said. Her standard joke about her father, whom she has not seen in years, is: "He is not a terrorist."

But her mum, an events planner, has become her partner in her battles for the things she believes in — such as peace. Right now, Greta is hard at work on her next film project. "I don't want to say what it is just yet, except I'm going to film in the Middle East," she says with an elusive smile.


i know her fr dragonboat......she's flamboyant i wld describe......i never knew she was doing so much.....i admire her....i'm jealous o her even.......