Hi everyone
We're now coming close to the end of Soliya - this is your second last week so please send your reflections in response to this post, and try to think of what you really want to gain from your last weeks in Soliya - are there any burning questions you haven't yet had the courage to ask, any things you'd like to know, opinions or doubts you'd like to share with the others before the project ends. It may take courage to ask, but I'm sure everybody in your group will appreciate your sincerity as by now you should have created an atmosphere of trust within your groups.
Also think about what you'd like to discuss on Monday - we're going to meet some Muslim students who live in Padova at 10.30 in the meeting room in Studi Internazionali. We'll also try to discuss some future events for the Soliya 'alumni'
Francesca
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The main topic of my second last week was human rights.
RispondiEliminaAnyway we started talking about taboos, we divided in two groups and we had talked about it in them. My group didn’t say so much, we were two westerns and we said our societies are pretty open so we don’t have many taboos, but was really interesting listened what Wafa, the Tunisian girl, had to say. Tunisia is a very closed country, they have a lot of taboos like about drugs, alcohol and sex. Overall impressed me what she said about sex: they cannot have sex before marriage, but a lot of young people she know, have sex not telling anyone. But the taboo is not only about having sex, it regards everything about sexuality, for example she told us that she found out alone what the period is when she had it the first time, because she cannot talk about this kind of things neither with her mother. For me and Emilie, the American girl, this was terrible and far from our way of deal with this such of things. After she explained us all Tunisian taboos she asked us if we would like to live in a place like that and both of us exclaimed no!
Then we discussed about human rights. First of all we tried to give a definition, but I think it’s a very complex concept and give a definition is not easy, Wafa instead thought the opposite because for her when you are treated in a way that appear unfair and you thought you should have a right that protect you in that matter so it mean this is a human right. We said that human rights are all the basic rights people have only because they are human beings. Furthermore we said there are not religion or culture rights because you cannot divide between different people otherwise discrimination start but human rights are universal, they can be interpreted by countries in different ways and some state might not respect them but they are the same all over the world and there are Conventions that contain the rights and their explanation. At the question if human rights play a role in the current relation between the west and the Arab world, I said for me the problem is that western countries think that Muslim countries don’t respect human rights and this cause tension between the two societies, then Natalia added that she thought that women in Middle East are oppressed and that there are some violation of human rights towards them. So we started to talk about women and their rights: we western girls thought that women in Muslim countries are oppressed, for example because they are forced to wear the headscarf or because they cannot do what they want but they have to follow the men, while Muslim girls thought that Islam gave women their rights because before Islam they have no rights. They said there are no punishment in law but the veil is a religious thing, women can wear it or not, as they want, Merna said also that after the Egypt revolution things have changed because now women can know their rights and be like men. Emilie underlined that women don’t want to be like men but they want to be their equal. Finally we talked about how we can improve women rights around the world, someone said trough the education, I added that it’s a good way but the problem I think is that men are in the position of power, power is run by men in most of the countries and most of the time they are not interested in educate people to women rights so the change has to grow in women, women have to realize that they are equal to men, they have the same rights of men, they have to be conscious of what is happening to them and react, after this maybe things will change because they can do a revolution!
Goodmorning,
RispondiEliminaI had my session number seven on Monday 28,
I love this group actually. If I think that next week it will be the last one I fell myself really disappointed.
We started our session talking about our videos. They were really different, it was hard to believe, taking into account that our “making rules” were extremely strict, and our footage material was not so long.
First of all we explained which were our intentions about our “Making of” . I said that I wanted to show the contradictions in the Egyptian current revolution. I wanted to express the opinion that it is impossible to separate completely religion and politics. My greatest difficulty was to choose. The decision to include or not include is completely subjective. It made me realize completely how the role of the media is subjective in presenting items. I saw that those considerations were common to all in the group, in addiction of the difficulty of having to stay within the length limits.
Karrie asked us how we found the experience of watching the interviews and/ or watching other students’ videos. I answered that I found the conclusions of Basema’s video extremely intriguing. She decided to put at the end of her video her voice accompanied with some music. In conclusion Basema tried to make a summary of events by entering her personal considerations. She said that her intention was to simulate an international media breaking news. She definitely got it. I said that it is even more interesting because she is really involved in the situation. For her maybe this is an opportunity to show a full perspective of what is going on in Egypt right now.
More in general, I agree with other interventions about the interviews:
There were just two women, I preferred more female interviews and some questions about female condition in Egypt. If they think or not that this revolution could create an improvement of this condition or not. The role of women is a fundamental social structure for a country that want to progress in the field of democratization, and the relevance of a revolution should be analyzed also by the introduction or not of equal opportunities politics in that democratic system.
After this first “round” we passed to talk about subjectivity or objectivity in our videos and we all convey that we tried to be objective but when we make a choice we lose our objectivity. This process is extremely interesting because it gave us the opportunity to show different perspective about the same issue.
In particular from Basema’s video I saw passion, which is what impressed me so much.
Karrie asked me to make a question and to act as a Facilitator. So, I decided to make a provocative question as usual. I asked what the eastern think about polygamy, and I was really shocked by the answers, shocked in a positive way.
Basema and Almaha were strongly against this practice. They explain us that it is true, it exists but just in theory, it is almost impossible to find someone that really practice polygamy, maybe in the most remote and rural countryside, but it is impossible to think about it in Cairo for example.
I was really impressed by the passion of their considerations, I found a similar passion just into the feminist speeches during the 70’s.
I asked if they consider their positions as a sort of cultural evolution which marks a difference for example with their grandmothers thoughts about that issue. I paste entirely Basema’s reaction because it is fantastic.
RispondiEliminaBasema’s answer:
“This way of thinking doesn't work now. Some years ago I think that a woman could accept that her husband would marry another woman or more. But today if a husband marries another woman, his wife would "kill" him, to be honest, and make him in little pieces in black bags. This is the way it works now. Many years ago, women were so peaceful, she wouldn't have had any problem if he (husband) would marry another one, she just would want to "get along” “.
So, I finished my experience as a Facilitator in a really good way asking to be voted as the best Facilitator ever, just to recreate an atmosphere of relax.
We talked a bit about the future of eastern/western relations, we all agree about the role of education to fight the ignorance in all our countries. Our consciousness about the role of education has even grown after our participation to this Program.
This session ended, as usual, with a lot of different emotions. I think that we all appreciate the role of dialogue and that we all understand that we just have to talk and to create a common dialogue background to go beyond our fears and incomprehension.
Unfortunately, it was the last one session for Stephanie, it will be soon the conclusion of this amazing and intense experience.
November 30th – the seventh session
RispondiEliminaThe last Wednesday of the month. As usual, the facilitators asked us how was our week. The two Americans from my group have celebrated Thanksgiving. The others students had a normally week of study, preparing for exams.
After that, Jeannine did an observation. Last week I asked a question, because I was curious to know how many things do we know about Christianity. In my group there are four Muslims and four Christians. Since most of the time we talked about how Muslims are seen and the video project was about Egypt, a Muslim country, I felt normal to open a little bit the horizons of the discussions. Obviously the knowledge of Christianity was limited for most of the Muslim students. The point of my question was to make aware of the fact that both Christians and Muslims know little about each other, and maybe only things that media show us. However, working to the video project helped me to learn many new things on the Muslim world.
At the question “How is Christianity seen in your country?”, the students from Egypt and Jordan were all agree that Christians are part of their countries and even if in terms of social norms they are a minority, are seen as peace loving people. Hasan said that “Christians are us, and we are them.. that’s how close we are...” In the Western societies is normal to be a Christian, but lately there are few who are practicing. In the end we discovered that are people, both Christians and Muslims, just in name, and John called them hypocrites.
At this point of our session Jo came out with a good question: “What role does religion play in your government? What role do you think that religion should play in government?” The opinions were divided, but all had something in common: THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE. I liked Sarah’s answer, who argued that religion should not be part of the government because, when we impose religion, we take away people's right to choose, and we were all agree that people are influenced by religion, but the government as a whole should not, especially when people who lobby for policies use religion.
I wanted to stimulate a bit the discussion so I’ve asked: if you could go back in time, what religion would you choose? While almost all members of the group would choose their own religion, Hasan said that he would choose Buddhism because it has something that he likes. PEACE, Love and JUSTICE are the main values that we all seek in our religion...
Iulian
This session was exceptional in my opinion, we feel very comfortable talking about our opinions, and people that in the beginning wasn't much participative, now was expressing theirs opinions very clearly.
RispondiEliminaIn the last session, I have suggested the facilitators that we should talk about taboos. I have this suggestion because Paulo, from our Padoa group, have said they have it and it was very interesting. So, we started this session with the taboo activist. The facilitators separated us in two groups, and send us for other chat rooms.
They suggest us to talk about things like sex, drugs, alcohol and others. So my group was me, Merna from Egypt and Mahmut from Turkey. As Merna was having technical problems, me and Marmut started our discussion. We were discussing about sex, and after I questioned him about the homosexuality in Turkey. He was explaining to me that it was very common, depending on the city, it was normal to see gay couples together, but in other places they are usually inside bars or clubs.
As he was explaining the behavior of gays in the Turkey community, Merna returns, so I explained to her what were talking about and ask her the same question. But she didn't understand the question, and ask us to explain the question to her. As I was explaining, I notice that she continued to not understand. And, she finally ask, What homosexuality or Gay means? It was a question that took all of us by surprise. We tried to explain to her, but it was clear that she was very uncomfortable about this question. So the facilitators suggest us to change the topic.
We started to talk about other questions, like sex, abortion, relationship, alcohol and drugs. It was very interesting, but I have to tell that the fact of someone do not understand what means homosexuality stuck on my mind.
After that we turned back to the main room, we started the discussion about Human Rights. The ask us what we understand about “Human Rights” and, after, the universality of the human rights. We were discussing definition and interpretations of the human rights, and I ask Juliet if I could bring the conversation to woman’s rights, so I tried to talk of some aspects of the Muslim societies that doesn’t respect the woman’s rights.
It was amazing. The girls talked a lot, everyone showed theirs opinions, and everyone was engaged in the discussion, and the time pass by. I loved this session, we have heard different opinions and we could understand very well each other, even if we didn't agree with the opinions presented. It was the first session that everyone was really engaged and it was great !
This session was clever! I found it more various than normally. There where a relaxed mood between us. All kind of shameless have disappeared gradually all time long. I was happy about it...Of course we were all a little disappointed because we all started with an idea of what sessions would look like and to be only three people from Europe wasn't really the aim...All the same we started to be comfortable even through a web camera and we started talking about our future little journey in Switzerland, France or Italy.
RispondiEliminaThe Christmas time was the topic we discussed in the first place, so it was funny to tell each other how much we felt that Santa Claus was near to come. Surely, I have shocked someone saying Santa Claus was wearing green before and suddenly he has became red in accordance with the Coca-cola!! I felt upset too when I learned it. Then we wanted to share the Christmas atmosphere from where we live, talking about cookies and beautiful decorations...Naturally, I had to say my own opinion about it. As far I was concerned , I have been thinking that Christmas has became a business and no more an important occasion to share with your family. It has started to seem that the only important thing was to buy yours gifts otherwise people* would notice you didn't... The question "what is Christmas nowadays?" has followed. Unfortunately Manar wasn't here. It would have been a great occasion to ask her about some big festivity in her country. Finally also Marie and Tino have both joined us and then we started the real session.
(* I said people and no friends or my loved ones because of a reason).
First of all, Tino shared with us his video because last time he didn't make it. We all saw it and consequently we returned to the issue of our videos. He did a good job because he divided the parts with titles...What a the chance to know how to put them.:) His idea was that a country has to be more flexible because it has to respond to issues fast, so it must adapt himself quickly. As a consequence a strict religious state would be complicated. Surely no one of us were disagree with this affirmation, but to realise his video he didn't put anything about Shari'ah and how Egyptian people was feeling about it. For the majority Shari'ah was a good part to join the goal of democracy. Tino just cut it off strictly! This was to separate politic from religion. It may be asserted, however that it should difficult to apply it to a country like Egypt (or maybe to any other Muslim country).
Afterwards we returned talking about the power of making a video. It could push mind in so many different directions. However we didn't say anything new from last time excepting that our facilitators Martin made us a little game: he told us to look around us and focus on objects that were red and then to close our eyes. After that he asked if there were blue objects in the room. We all noticed it was hard to remember and we all pointed out there were more blue objects that we though initially. That was! The bias perception through focused colour. With all our work considered and our sessions, it should be recognized that a video (talking about media in general) has always had a great power and an enormous unbiased potential influence . All this went to prove that our video project was a good homework to do! Everyone should do something like this at least once a year!
RispondiEliminaThis has brought us to see videos ours facilitators researched for us.
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE •http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1ZNEjEarw
(I put them here in the case someone else would like to see them).
The first was localised in the USA and the interviewer was asking about general knowledge to people in the street. In the meantime, this video was hilarious and very sad. People confused the "Australia" with Iran in a world map and so on. A country who has been so involved in the Middle East and its people didn't know such a thing?...what a sadness. I didn't want to say that I could be a champion in geography but at least I was sure where the Middle East is in the whole world!! I didn't know where were these interviewed people from and their life story but they should know better about one of the bigger issue of their politic!
The second video was a mixture of different little scene of Hollywood films which showed the
role played by Muslim people. They have had always the role of terrorist or of very stupid and violent people. Thus a stereotype was easily born through the cinema.
Moreover we have spoken about how we see this stereotype from our country. Tino affirmed that even if Switzerland is strongly conservative, they haven't had the same kind of stereotype because there it has been more a question of "balance of power" . They have been afraid of a loss of control and an increasing one from a different religion. Consequently, it was not against the Muslim one, but against "an another religion than ours". From Italy and France, I think stereotypes have been less Hollywood styled than Americans, but they still survived in other forms.
Next, we overcame to a similar idea bringing little reflection from all of us. To sum up this idea I would write this: Western people have had never really care about what it was happening. The main idea has always been that "we are from the good side and that is enough". On the other hand, the Middle East people have been more involved and they have had a better acknowledge about world issues. Besides they have had more direct contact with he Western culture ( for instance due to the colonization). What I would like to point out is that there could be two different way to live with the others from both side. In one hand , we have had Westerns which wanted to lavish their mentality without knowing well the situation outside their country, and on the other hand, the Middle East people who wanted to stay by themselves. Speaking personally, I found that often Muslim people didn't want to start behaving like Westerns, because they thought our way of life essentially was wrong. Thus, it was like they want to protect their country, their culture and religion more than we did.
RispondiEliminaAnother important idea we focused on, was the mutual knowledge: basically we all realised that we were afraid about what we didn't know. It could be true for unknown people and it could be even more for strangers from a different background. So, if people started to know more about the others (especially about the country their government were invading), they should better react to their politicians decisions. As I said " More knowledge is always better and the more people know they more the can react, the less people know the more they can be influenced". Concluding this topic, we could say that stereotypes could shape the foreign policy of a country because politicians have always exploited the mass mood to make decision.
In a break moment facilitators told us it was difficult to find something about French, Swiss and Italian...I could not believe that!:)
Lastly, Billal raised an interesting question: he asked us to imagine we had Arab students in this group and he asked us to reflect how would we have approach them and which kind of argument we would have face with them. No one was very sure that we would have treat them totally equally. We couldn't know but we surely would have try to. Anyway I would have concentrated "my survey":) on the daily life (most of all for Muslim women) and political topics. On the other side Tino was more interested in energetic topic to compare with them. I believe there could have been several questions. Anyway, it has been funny to imagine this virtual friend: Billal had a nice idea.