Please post your diaries as comments to this post! I'm so sorry Patrizia that your group seems to be so small, it really is a shame as you don't get the full impact of Soliya, but let's hope that next week somebody else appears. I will write to Soliya and talk to them about it.
You should all be finalising your videos this week, ready to discuss together on Monday and with your groups next week! Enjoy :-)
Francesca
The meeting of this week was a little bit difficult. Our facilitator Juliet had a lot of tech problems and also other people in the group sometimes had to refresh because of the connection. Because of this the discussion was slower than the last section, but we managed to talk about some interesting topics anyway. We started talking about our favorite place in the world, all of us have more than one. The second activity was called ‘role reversal’: we had to think which nationality we would like to be. The important thing was that we have to choose a place with a different culture and so if we were 'western' we had to choose an eastern nationality. We choose Italian, Egyptian, Libyan, Indian, Tunisian and Chinese. Based on our new nationality we had to think the reason for the tension between Western countries and predominately Muslim countries and what is necessary to do to improve the relation between these countries. Sumyia, our facilitator, said this activity would help us to get deeper inside others minds. I think it was hard to think like I was of another nationality and my thoughts were influenced by my real position about the issue, is very difficult to put yourself in others shoes and think like them, but we tried and we were agreed to say that education is the most important thing to improve the relation because only if we know others cultures we can built a good relation, and exchange program can help in this. At the end we talked about some events that have determined the way we understand the relationship between Western societies and predominantly Muslim societies.
RispondiEliminaNovember 16th – the fifth session
RispondiEliminaAfter the last week’s discussion, we all expected to have a good one also this week. In fact, it was a session full of shares and very constructive exchanges.
At the beginning, Leila explained us the significance of the Shari’a in the daily life of a Muslim and the connection between Shari’a and government. For us, and when I say “us” I mean the students from Europe and America, is not easy to understand the role that Shari’a can have. And even after that, I can not say that now I understand it…
Afterwards, Jo showed us a picture and asked us to look for a while, then to explain what we see. The photo represented an iceberg, almost like in the Freund’s model of personality structure. At the top, that is the visible part, were placed the positions and the conclusions, while the underside, the part under water, contained beliefs, needs, wounds, assumptions, perceptions, intentions and values… Most of us have interpreted the image like this: the top part can be related to many of human interactions, while the part under the water can represent the things that really form us and are the foundations of our conclusions. The purpose of showing the iceberg was to make us understand that all the people have deeper reasons for acting/speaking in a way or other, and that we need to consider it during our conversations. Therefore Jeannine wanted to mention to keep in mind that when we hear positions or conclusions.
Speaking of the articles that we had to read for this week, we stopped on a very interesting topic: the women and the Hajib - the veil - in Arab cultures. Since in our group there are three girls wearing the veil, it was an opportunity to hear their views, but also to share our (non-Arab people) opinions with them. For Haneen, Razan and Leila Islam is a religion of freedom, and wearing the hajib is a form of worship and a personal choice, not an obligation. I think that in Europe wearing the veil is seen as a sign of proselytism, and that because we don’t know the real meaning of hajib. Since Hasan is the only Arab in our group, I started a private discussion with him because I was curious to find out his opinion. But in the end we shared our ideas with all. Hasan made a connection between the veil in Islam and the veil that the Christian nuns are wearing. In Islam there are only “men of God” and for the Muslim women wearing the veil is a sign of religiosity, he said. Obviously, in all religions, including Islam, we can find extremism, countries that are forcing women to wear the hijab. According to Hasan, some people think that being religious means covering up more, but this is a mistake. “The veil don’t protect from violence, I wear it to respect my religion and the women who wear it”, said Razan. At this point I remembered an episode that I lived last year in the Holy Land. I asked our guide: why we (European tourists) can go around dressed like we want to and Arabs who are coming to Europe cannot do it? The answer he gave me was: “perhaps because you are mentally closed…” While they try to make us comfortable, we look at them as if they were a threat… What a pity! (Excuse me if I’m allowed to “divide” the world between “we” and “they”.)
Speaking about the role/position of women in the society, we were all agree that they are equal to men, but also that is not easy to be wife, mother and to have a career.
What can I say, it was a very nice session and I appreciated the sincerity and the opening of all the students in my group. Life is beautiful!
Iulian
This time I arrived a little earlier at the session, and luckily I found Leila. Even after some research I found myself a little confused by the difference between secularist and Islamists – which was the theme of our video project – and was really looking forward asking to Leila some more explanations, as she’s Egyptian. Basically, we can consider the majority of the population as secularist, while the Islamists are just a minority viewed as extremists.
RispondiEliminaWhen the rest of the group reached us, the facilitators showed us a picture. It was a sort of iceberg, divided in two part. The upper part was smaller, and contained only two words: positions and conclusions. Above there was a bigger part, containing words such as: perceptions, intentions, needs, wounds. We were asked to express an opinion. Mine was that the parts should have been placed on horizontal, as often conclusion may change as needs and intentions do. Iulian came out with an interesting view, which was that more than two different part, they were more the reciprocal reflection. Anyway, the picture was another way of expressing reminding us the need to pay respect to other’s opinion, because we may not know what’s underneath the surface.
After we skip to the readings discussion. I was particularly interested in the USA Today article, describing the connection between religion and education in Western countries. However, we moved to the hijab article, and now I am so happy we did – I think I wouldn’t get deeper on this issue on my own, and I got the chance to have great explanations by girls who wear the veil themselves.
While we all agreed that the hijab is a symbol that helps express yourself and your religion, in fact it’s a personal choice whether to wear it or not. For example, Leila wore it for the first time when she was 15 and her parents disagreed as they thought she was too young. We also all agree that we the burqa can be considered a little more radical, as hiding all the body, including face and hands, might have also negative aspects. Hasan, also made an interesting parallel between nuns’ veil and the hijab, giving me a new viewpoint. I never thought about associating the two things, but actually under certain perspective we can compare them I think.
I think that all of us were very lucky, as we had the freedom to choose how to wear, but maybe in some countries the burqa can be used as a form of oppression, hiding domestic violence too. Self immolation is not unusual in countries like Afghanistan.
Then we were asked to compare the role of the women in our society. All of us – both from Western and Middle East countries – agreed that nowadays women has much more free to have their own career and express their opinion. However, I think that the condition of women in Western society is still tough, in a more subtle way. Yes, we’re free to chose our lifestyle and so on, but I realized that beside that women must still chose between family and career, and we are still paying a great price for our freedom.
This session left me with a great feeling that we share our opinion and that we finally managed to get through cultural issues in a constructive way. I feel like I learnt a lot, and I am looking forward to seeing the video projects next time.
We begin our day talking about our favorite places in the world, which most of the people choose somewhere near their family or in a beach or some place comfortable.
RispondiEliminaAfter, we entered in the first activity, Role Reversal, in this activity we should choose a different nationality. The idea was to choose some nationality different from our background, if you are from west world, you should choose from oriental or Muslim worlds. I chose Tunisia because, first, I can say I chose Tunisia because since I meet Wafa (the girl in the group that is from Tunisia), I began to try to read more about Tunisia, and it seems to be a beautiful and cultural rich place to live, and second that some time ago I read a book, a novel, that is passed in Tunisia, and since that I would like to visit this beautiful country.
Continuing in the same game, we should answer why there is so much conflict between the western cultures and Arabic ones, but we should answer it from the perspective from the country we chose first. As people were giving there answers, and most were very accurate about their chosen country perspectives, I have tech problems.
It was the first time I have tech problems like that. They couldn't hear me, and the tech support recommend me to refresh the page, but every time I refreshed the page some problem happened, and I have to refresh again. When I came back I have lost most of the discussion and it make me feel very out of the conversation.
The facilitator ask us what do we think that can improve the relationship between our world, and we all agree that education about other cultures is the key to a better relationship, and it can be achieved by several programs, like exchange programs and programs like the Soliya one.
For the last part of our conversation, the facilitators asked us to think some event in our lives that has changed the way we see the relationship between the west and Muslim world, some stories that has changed our political view.
Most of the girls talk about 9/11 events, and it created an interesting discussion between the girls from Egypt and Tunisia and the girl from USA. But, they all agree that understanding and open dialogs can help eliminate some prejudice from both sides.
After them, I talked by my experience in Italy, and when I was discriminated. The facilitator, open that question to the other, if they have feel discriminated sometime. And interesting, all of the group has feel discriminated some moment of their lives, mostly when they were traveling abroad.
As we finish our session, I became aware that how close we are, even if we live very far away from each other.
Hi,
RispondiEliminaMonday was the day!
Finally we got it!
I had my Session number five on Monday, an extremely interesting session, amazing. I was five minutes late because of a little technical problem. I was scared about it because the perspective was to spend a lot of time trying to fix it, but fortunately it was not the case.
Once filtered in the meeting room, I found that the number of people participating had increased from last time, and there was no connection problem in sight.
Karrie started with the first activity, we had to think three different questions about Religion, Role of Women and Men in a Society and Taboos with the chance to be anonymous or to ask questions in person.
I chose to ask in person because I think that if the point was to understand in deep our different cultures we can’t act ( at least in this program ) like an “Anonymous” actor.
Aimaha and Basema had some difficulties to understand the meaning of “Taboo”. Rod explained the correspondent term in Arabic, “Haram!” (always written with an exclamation point). Once understood the meaning of this word they seemed really embarrassed by the idea of addressing issues potentially “forbidden”.
By the way, Aimaha was the first one to start. The question was, “What is considered as a norm in your cultures?”. She explained us the meaning of this question, she said that for example, in Doha, girls are expected (13-14) to wear hijab, and she wanted to know if there are correspondents in our cultures or not.
Stephanie from Switzerland explained to us that in her culture a person is expected to follow different defined steps during his lifetime (school, live with family, then live friends, then live as a couple). Kelly from USA said that students in United States don’t leave home until College, and once finished their studies they come back home if they have not found a job. I said that the “schedule” lifetime explained by Stephanie was the same in Italy, and probably with some differences all over Europe.
Stephanie made the second question “What do you think about evolution vs. creationism?” At that point I started to wonder if the people attending the activity had really understood the purpose or not. When Karrie talked about taboos, I understood that we had to ask something really controversial not just asking if we are in favor of Darwin’ theory or not. My two questions were…stronger…”Do you agree with punishment for adultery?” and “ Homosexuality and Religion”.
I asked Karrie in private chat if my questions were appropriate or offensive, Karrie told me that they were perfect.
So I started with a little introduction saying that I wouldn’t offend anyone, since I was sure that if we really want go beyond the stereotypes we have to face ourselves with the reality.
I chose my second question: “Homosexuality and Religion” “how can you reconcile, in your culture, homosexuality and religion?” and again “can you be homosexual and muslim?”…
I must admit that no one spoke for a while. After this long pause Kelly tried to answer, saying that in USA it depends of a country, Kentucky and New York are two States dealing with this matter in very different ways.
RispondiEliminaBasema answered me saying that what I asked is HARAM! ( forbidden ) X 3. At this point Stephanie asked a very intelligent question. If in our country is it possible to be punished for being gay.
Basema answered that she has no contact with the Gay Community in Egypt, and that she knows anything about that. I tried to be more and more provocative, saying that she had to be aware of the fact that a certain behavior could be punished or not. Almaha’s intervention in this regard has been extremely transparent, she explained us that in Qatar if a conduct it’s forbidden there is also a punishment, making us understand that there is also a punishment for being gay.
At the end of the debate, I thank all for debate on an issue that I knew being difficult. It was interesting to observe the reactions to a so-called ‘’taboo’’question.
Almaha was the one involved with more interest. At first she looked embarrassed but she wanted to address the issue with an open mind approach,
I appreciated the participation and the willingness to answer trying to go beyond our cultural conception.
Rod sent me a message in private chat, telling me that I led the discussion very well, and I definitely caught the objective of the activity.
Then rod introduced another activity. We had to think about the three major events of our life that influenced our view of the Muslim world.
I reported these three events. 9/11, my first approach to the Muslim world , when Al-Qaeda destroyed the ancient statues of Buddha in Afghanistan and Obama’s speech in Cairo.
I explained that the first two events shocked me, because I saw that there was no respect at all, I had the sensation that the World was eating itself. The third event gave me a lot of hope. I had the feeling that Obama would inaugurate a new era of dialogue, after all the disasters of Bush’s Presidency.
But I was disappointed. He did not have the strength to improve a new type of Relations between east and west.
Then, Basema reported her three events.
The bad treatment of Muslims, everyone think they are terrorists. People strip off the headscarf of girls.
When America entered in Iraq. And what happened in Abu Ghraib.
As she was speaking, it was possible to see the anger of a wounded pride. And I felt really sympathetic towards her, but at the same time I tried to give a full vision of the facts.
I tried to explain that this is not completely true. I said that many Europeans opposed the invasions. I also explained that the headscarf ban is a part of the French secular system. I explained that there are many westerners who fight everyday against discriminations and trying to integrate Muslims into European societies, and I gave the example of my daily experiences. Perhaps due to my passionate speech, I saw a new and different consciousness in her response, and a sort of relief.
Basema asked me why every time we talk about 9/11, we talk about Muslim terrorists, and not just terrorists.
Once again, I understood her thought, that’s true. We created a sort of combination between being musIim and being terrorist. But once again I wanted to go more in deep into the analysis.
I replied that they had acted on the basis of a fundamentalist view of Islam,. I made an example of what happened this summer in Norway, a fundamentalist Catholic killed 100 boys and girls of the Norwegian Labor Party. He wanted to maintain the purity of race and religion and he thought that the Party represented a threat to this purity. He used religion to sow terror.
RispondiEliminaI also said that education was the only way to understand the beauty of the Muslim religion, tradition and history. Only in the role of education I see an answer to her worries.
So, we ended the session. We were all impressed by the relevance of the different issues.
I think we all felt to have made a step forward towards the other. It was a wonderful session, at that moment I understood the enormity of work that needs to be done to bring our Worlds, but also that there is a lot of hope.
That evening I decided to send an email to all, I attach the text.
Hi,
I just want to thank you all for the session today. It was very interesting. Rod and Karrie always do a great job with us. I realize that I was really provocative today, but I strongly believe that we must have the capacity (with respect) to investigate issues that are the basis of the tough communication between Western Countries and the Arab world. There are many things that I thought after the end of the session today. I thought mainly to the fact that there is still a lot of work to do to win this challenge, especially within ourselves. We all have much to learn, we all moved by those stereotypes described by Rod few weeks ago. In this program we test our evaluation criteria, the structures that allow us to understand the world around us, our beliefs. It is a great opportunity...
The 15th November 2011: my fifth session.
RispondiEliminaWhat can I say, it has been a great session!! We were all present and we have had an increasingly and interesting conversation on the Palestine and its relation with Israel. At the beginning, we tried to summarize what we already knew about that country talking about its history and from where we draw information about it usually.
However, before that, we shared our homework very well: we had to tell the others about a news we heard in the past week. We all found specific news also if the Iranian nuclear bomb was the most drawn. It is for that I reserved a second one to share. My article was about a girl who expressed her fear about how Egypt is becoming an Islamic State. To protest against it, she posted a photo of herself naked. It was interesting to see the opposite reactions that have created. In the one hand, there were those who thought she has been very courageous and she was defending her liberty, thus that photo was symbolising a face of the revolution. In the other hand, many criticism have manifested. It came from either "the Islamic ones" and the secularist. The arguments from the Islamic side are a little obvious, rather than the secularist which said this act could be associated to the revolution in a wrong way. It gives a bad idea of what the people really want from the revolution. They underline how this photo could increase the reaction against a civil state, turning into an Islamic state even who was uncertain. It is because of their worry to see their societies turning like the Western one: too much freedom to women foe instance. I focused myself in this article because it was linked to the video project concerning the future Egyptian State. I thought it would be interesting to speak about this to the group in the view of our video work.
Manar shared with us an event happened in the checkpoint with Israeli soldiers...She described a scene and she explained to us it can be very frequently to see. The meaning is quite the same for different acts: to be harsh to the Palestinian people. I want to quote that example: "a man was travelling from one place to another carrying 9 cans of olive oil. Came to Israeli checkpoint, soldiers gave him three options: Go to jail, get killed, pour out oil. While doing that, he thought about the hard work he had to spend to get that oil and how it was his family's livelihood. Things like that happen a lot."...
Then, we entered in the topic of our conversation. We had to "profit":) of the presence of Manar, indeed we went depth in the Palestinian conflict and its relations with the external world.
First of all, we tried to remember what have happened in the history of this region. Some of us observed that, in Europe, we do not seem concerned about what it is happening there. We "European Westerners", in general, are not involved and focus more in other topics (like the China problem). After having clarify this kind of distance there could be in our perception, we started to share what we think in specific about this conflict. We were all agree by saying that it started like a political conflict but then, it turned into a religious one. It is a big example of how the religion can be exploited and manipulated to figure out an excuse to conflict. Certainly, people in the conflict perceive this distinction differently from who is outside. It was good to hear from Manar her feelings about it. From the rest of the group, there was curiosity and at the same time I felt there was either a kind of surprise. You never really expect such facts...Therefore how could you not be surprise hearing Manar speaking about the Jews. She expressed her angry but at the same time her desire is absolutely not to continue the war. What they want is to stop the conflict and start a new life...She gave me this impression very strongly.
Personally, I really find their are turning this geographical and political conflict into a religious one! I have felt this very strongly after I watched "This is my land, Hebron"! I know from this film that in Hebron there have been created Jewish settlements (since 1967). They justify themselves by saying it is their land, they are the population who has been chosen from God; there are already many Arab countries, so the Palestinians should move there...
RispondiEliminaI would like to write down some images who are still impregnated in my mind and I want to share these with my diary:
• I saw "fish net" hanged up all long streets where Palestinian markets take place, to protect themselves from garbage throw to them. Metal net are built around houses to let the Palestinians protect themselves from stones. I saw entirely family who cannot enter their own home when they want. They need to wait the good moment to go back home to not get too hurt. Finally, the Israeli people find a way to hurt them anyway: smaller stones and dirty water to across the net.
•I saw military people who doesn't react in front of this violence.
•I saw many areas were closed to Palestinians. Areas where they used to have their shops and houses. All this is to create corridors for the passage of Jews.
•I saw they have created curfews and raids without limits only for Palestinians.
•I saw graffiti on walls like "Arabs to gas camera"...
•If they left their home for a while they live in the risk to find it occupied.
•I saw how they teach children to hate without an explanation.
• I saw "God [considered like a] a property agent".
• The main and only excuse for all is: "we are fighting the Islamic terrorism so we are right!"
• For 400 person moving inside, around 250 000 had to leave...
It seemed to me that they are putting inside the city the more extremist Jews they can find. It is done deliberately to constrain the Palestinian to give up and to leave the city... It seems that outside this area nobody knows what it is happening. In my opinion it reminds me very much what had happened to the same Jews population in Europe, especially in Germany, during the second world war...It is incredible they are doing the same to the Palestinians. It is like a revenge for their sort. Certainly it has been a terrible sort, however you cannot justify yourself unfair behaviour because of the past! It is true that I watched this video and I should watch another one, from the opposite point of view, to be more unbiased...Unluckily, I believe that even if only one of these things could happen, I don't care who is right or not, it is unfair and people should be informed! I have to confess I have felt ashamed watching it...How could I didn't know the way is going through there?!...
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RispondiEliminaAfterward my group commented the statement: " Palestine was an empty land when the Jewish Settlers started moving in." There were different answers: some more emotional and others more rational. In any case we agreed to say it was not an empty state! However there was no a government able to contain the invasion or, at least, to contrast it. Nevertheless, Manar supported the idea that it was a strong locally reacting. Furthermore, until now, when the Palestinians react, they are associated to the wrong side.They become in any occasion the harmful ones.
RispondiEliminaAfter analysing what the problem was, we wanted to say what could be solutions for this. Being consciously unpretentious, we tried. Manar was of course the more concerned. She suggested to create an Islamic country with all Arab countries. It would unify them and make them more strong to face anything together and the Palestine would have more support. In this way, they would not be distracted from their duties. It sounded strange to me, because I think that Arab countries are already tied and I didn't understand in which way it would change... Anyway she said a very right thing: they should not look back in the past but see what they have to do now: to move on. Another solution should be the negotiations. Moreover, we were asking ourselves if interventions from other countries should increase. Maybe yes, or at least it would be right to not abandon them. Westerners could not just interfere when it is suitable and no more when we have made some mess around.
Furthermore, it is interesting to underline that Manar spoke about "Israel as the virus that is slowly destroying the Arab world". She surely feels this way because of where she is living. Nevertheless a doubt came up to us all: how could this two population be able to negotiate truly?...
It seemed to be hard to find a solution and to reach a permanent peace...What could be the result? One country with both? Two separated countries with fixed border? The last one surely would be the best answer but it is not so easy to apply.
At the end, we didn't have the time to speak from the other point of view: the Israeli one. What can we say about the Palestinian terrorism that Israel is complaining about? They also support their acts by saying they are the people choose by God. It would be interesting to meet someone pro-Israel to understand this point of view and see the real argumentation the people feel and not what we are already listening: prebuilt political rhetoric...