I was glad to read your diaries, well done all of you for posting them on time!!
It's nice to see that it was a positive experience for all of you, though many of you said that you felt shy, and afraid about
technical problems and/or your English, but don't worry - that's normal!
As you have already seen, it gets easier and will continue to do so as the program progresses - believe me!! It's also
difficult to talk to people you don't know yet, but you'll see, with the
help of the facilitators you'll create a fantastic group and begin to
share your opinions, fears, beliefs .... all sorts of things - but
remember it is, in the end, up to all of you participants to make the
effort, to take risks by saying what you really think, and asking the
questions you might be afraid to ask. So come on, this week be brave!
Make an extra effort to ask someone a question, contribute to the
discussion, take an initiative and then ... tell us how it went!
Enjoy the week, and remember to save your chats :-))
Francesca
Certainly better than the last week!
RispondiEliminaHi everyone!
I’ve just done my Soliya session and I’m happy! We spoke more than the first time and I enjoyed the discussion.
First of all I was more prepared, I was alone on my bedroom, with my table, piece of paper and cold tea! In the chat room there were only 2 boys and the rest were girls. They are a bit shy but very funny and kind!
There were usually some technical problems, in particular 2 guys didn’t speak because of the microphone.
We started the meeting talking about our weekends and what we did of fun. Then we moved on the expectations from the program and I said that I’d like to know new things and be more prepared in important topics like Israel, the Muslim region.. Etc. We shared our ideas and mostly of us said that they’d like to know more of our life and country in general.
However, to start to discuss we needed some basic rules so we pointed out 4-5 points, as be patient, be respectful, do not get angry.. and so on.
The facilitator asked us about the stereotypes and there were different opinions. For example the Turkish guy said that sometimes they’re positive and sometimes not. In my opinion stereotypes are only generalizations so you can’t know if they are true or false.
After that we summarized the readings for today - the topic was “The coming clash of civilizations”. This has permitted us to debate on the meanings of West and Muslim society. These two words are very different because the first one means a geographical area and the second one is about the religion. Moreover we discussed about the relationship between the United States and the East area, all agreeing that religion is just an excuse to do political and economic interests.
In conclusion our facilitators explained us how to use the video web page and what to do. Sincerely I don’t understand very much about this part but I hope everything will be good reading the directions.
See you soon and take advantage from your Soliya’s session!
Monica
WEEK 3:
EliminaHi everyone!
Good third week of Soliya!
I’ve just closed my session and I’m a bit exhausted! We talked a lot of religion and now my ideas are a bit confused.
There were less guys in the main room and I don’t know why, although there was a new girl! She is from the East region. Ah.. the American girl was quite feared about the Sandy’s hurricane!
As we’ve done in the last sessions, we started telling what we did during the weekend. Both American and Turkish guys celebrated a religion ceremony, for example.
Moreover we did a funny joke! It was saying “good morning” in our mother tongue language! They tried to repeat “buon giorno” and it was amazing! I also said it in Chinese!
After that we started writing some questions about the religion. We replayed at these and we discussed. The issues were the role of the religion in the society, if there’s a best religion, aspects that we don’t like about our religion and if there are common points to all religions.
We went on with the American movie which describes the Prophet in a bad way, I don’t know the title. It instigated the angry of all Muslims and the American ambassador in Libya died. Everybody was agreeing that it’s important the freedom of speech but you have to respect the other and don’t be offensive. Then the two Chinese girls told us that they can’t log in in Facebook and they have no Google. It was interesting to listen what happens in China!
The key word was “trigger”. I’ve never heard before this word, so the facilitator explained me that it creates an emotional meaning in regards to a word.
We also talked about the practice of the religion in the universities and Padua is the only one without a chapel or church for students who want to prey.
I’m sure the next session will be more stimulating, because we are going to talk about social movements.
Have nice holidays!
Monica
The second session.
RispondiEliminaYesterday we had the second session of the project. The chat has started with a game, which was about to guess an animal drawing it following the facilitators' instructions. Surprisingly everybody drawn the same animal apart for one girl. Then the facilitators asked us to share with the group our fears, concerns and expectation about the connection program. After that we discussed about the reading we had to read, which was 'the clash of civilization' and we shared our ideas and feelings we had. Finally we chose the topic we'd like to deal with in the third session and with one accord we chose the gender issues.
This time the session has been more boring, because there wasn't the same partecipation of the first session by the group. Personally it has been more difficult to explain myself, to deal with the topic dealt with. But I'm sure that the next session will be very interesting because, as I've said before, we will deal with the gender issues.
This time I've learnt these words/expression:
-hide (backside)
-claws
-digging tools
That's all for this diary =) I hope next session will be more stimulating =)
Byeeeeeeeeee
Jessica
Hi there!
EliminaYesterday, as every Monday, I had my third session with Soliya. We were very few because of the hurricane in the USA and because holidays in the Middle East countries.
The first activity we did has been to go in the breakout room with one or two members of our group to know better each other telling to our friends something about our life, thoughts etc... It has been quite difficult because the pronunciation was very different! Then we returned, after an half a hour of conversation, to the main meeting room and we shared what we talked about in breakout room.
The conversation has carried on to the topic of love in general, talking about also arranged marriages. and the equality between men and women.
The conversation has been very deep and interesting.
Finally we chose the topic for the next session and the winner was stereotypes and taboos. I'm sure that it will be a very interesting discussion!
See you next week! bye bye
Jessica
hi everyone!
RispondiEliminaI'm sorry, I forgot to save the chat but I hope Luca who is in my group di it :)!
Today I get imbarassed because for the first 30 minutes I couldn't see and hear anything... I tryed to solve my problems with the tech support.. finally I could hear and see my fellows, but my webcam didn't work at all! my pic was only a black hole!
the session was going on.
I quickly read the chat box and tryed to follow the conversation that was on religion!! religion was the topic that scared everyone last time! Today everyone was less shy and we speak more and more freely...there were also more people partecipating, and new faces.
So we talked about religion and also about what religionn is for us personally. I discover that there is a religion called 'Wicca' spreading in America.
That was interesting! Then, we defined the terms 'Western' and 'Muslim', before starting to talk about the article and the video which were our homework to prepare for today.
Some people felt more sympathetic with the article, some other with the video.
I prefere to talk about the video and I said that I think, according to the video, that Western society cannot export democracy as a whatever product.
I'm not sure all the other fellows understood me and what I meant, because someone said that also Islam society is a democratic society.
I tryed to explain them I meant that is meaningless to export OUR type of democracy, because I think people have to do their way to their democracy, according to their shape of mind.
I think they didn't understand although the facilitators understood and helped me!
In the very last part of the session we decided to talk about gender issue next week... I'm very curious about next session!
while we were greeting each other my webcam decided to work...and then we have a little moment of laughing, it was funny!
I hope to have a great discussion next week and I wish nobody misunderstood me today...! It is difficult to communicate in a multicultural contest without the risk of misunderstanding..:(
October 24th 2012
RispondiEliminaToday took place my first session with my Soliya group.
We started talking about three things that describes our identity and he considered that it didn’t matter where we come from; the words we chose were all similar or close in meanings one to the other.
Soon after we changed topic and we talked about the article “Clash of Civilization”, that we defined as definitely too dramatic. We were more optimistic: we thought that the article was a good warning for the future. We are clever enough to be able to face the situation, understand the importance of diversities and find new solutions, no violent ones, to solve the problem.
What is important to reach this goal is getting to know each other, which can be done by exchanging students, contact programs, going abroad and travelling. Deborah shared her story with us: she went to South Africa and, even if she had read a lot about it, only once she was there she could understand the reality of apartheid. Being in the other’s shoes makes the difference, she said. We all agreed; and I have to add that having the possibility of travel, see pieces of history but most of all getting in contact and share the other’s feelings are the only, unique, best way which will lead to knowledge and understanding.
What we discussed next is the role of the media and the offensive video towards the prophet Mohammed that was available online. People from the West (me and Chris) agreed that it was the limits of freedom of expression, but we condemned the Muslim world reaction. The same did Abdellatif, from Tunisia. We also found out that the media are considered as a biased way source of information; what they are interested about is only entertaining people, with no or little regard to truth or sincerity.
Since it is not something we, as people, can control, we thought that a reasonable solution would be creating a world-spread net to get first hand information. This would ensure us more trustable information.
Today one was a really satisfying meeting. The most of us were deeply into the discussion, most of all Chris, Deborah, Sonia Abdellatif and me. I felt no shyness. It was nice to see that there are some really common points, such as the opinion about the media, among guys from the Western countries and from Arabs ones. I can’t wait for next meeting! There are a lot of things I’d like to get to know about all the member of my group and the part of world they live in.
Cla
Hi there!! Finally, my second session of Soliya program arrived :) I look forward it so much!! In the meantime, infact, I had the chance to chat a little bit with some of my group students during the week.. they're so interesting!!
RispondiEliminaThis week I also read the article we were supposed to prepare for today's discussion, and saw the video.
This evening was very challenging for me.. we begun asking if everybody was ok and adjusting little technical problems. Our moderator Sumiya asked us if this week we would have any celebration.. Ahmed and Ahmed (two egyptian guys) and other girls told us about an interesting festivity called Eid al-Ahda, in which they go to relatives and eat a lot. We all were so curious and they end up telling us the history behind this festivity and what they usually do this time of the year (sacrifice a sheep...or every animal with 4 legs :) ).
After this bit of egyptian moment we were asked to think about some question to ask someone specifically or everyone in general, concerning our culture. Louis, an American guy, asked everybody what role religion played in our everyday life. We took turn in responding. It was interesting because muslim guys and girls said that they were all very religious, and religion affected every aspect of their life.. but at the same time when they meet new people, their religious beliefs don't matter. For them the important is to be friend, even if you don't share the same religion. At this point I did something is completely unnatural for me.. I took the risk to say them that we (western countries) have the sterotype that Muslim people are less tollerant than we are. I just wanted to give them an insight of what many common people think about their religion...but I've been clear that I didn't agree with the stereotype. Immediately they said to me that it wasn't true, that they're very friendly with everybody.. what a relief!I was understood :)
Then we reflected on what's important in our culture, some one said religion, others family, others freedom. We continued talking about how the world see the western countries and the muslim ones. quite everybody agreed saying that the first are capitalistic and individualistic, and the second one very religious...so we asked ourselves why do we think this and end up saying that maybe what influences our opinions are media and governments.
It was a very profund thought.
When we finished discussing this topic it was 20.30 pm and we had to leave.. but in the end I think this session was amazing because I took risks!!
At the end
Hi everybody!!!
RispondiEliminaYesterday I had my second session in soliya's.
We started talking about our personal religion saying what we like of it and what we think it may share of positive with the world.
On this way I had the possibility to know from an American girl a religion I didn't know yet...the wiccanism!!! This religion tells about the strong link between humans and the Mother Heart and teach to love and help each other, to respect and preserve the environment and to be not afraid of hell because simply it doesn't exist.
This topic has animated the minds of our muslim fellows who explained to us the importance of values like respect, tollerance and love in their religion.
We went on with a personal comment on "The clash of civilisation" of Samuel Huntington. For someone he was right saying that the conflicts nowadays are linked just to cultural reasons excluding economic reasons. On the other hand others like me underlined that the true reasons must be still searched in economic interests which moves the government that uses religions as excuses to justifie their actions.
Finally we have closed with our personal and cultural conception of democracy and we said goodbye choosing the "Gender Issues" as topic for the next session!!! I'm sure that it will be a passionate debate!!!
Luca Haddad
Hi everyone!
RispondiEliminaI'm sorry for not having posted my diary last week, I don't kno why but I couldn't access to this blog from Prof. Helm's link (I admit I'm not such a genius in technology)
Anyway, Tuesday I had my second Soliya session and it has been amazing!
If the first one was a little bit boring because of the technical problems and because we spent almost all the two hours introducing ourselves and doing some icebreakings, this time it has been very interesing, we startedto get "into the topics" and everybody was less shy and more willing to participate.
First of all we established the rulesfor our futre sessions, how we want to define our cultural groups, what to avoid to say, how to behave ect. Than we tried to define oursefleves and to describe wester/predominantly muslim societies at this time I have to admit I had some difficulties to express clearly my ideas and my point of view, I'm always afraid to be misunderstood or to offend someone else of the members of my groups, it is a bit difficult for me to think and to express myself about this kind of topic that are quite delicate.
Finally we just discussed our impression about the outcome of the session and we decided next week's topic that probably will be US elections and the changement of US foreign politcs.
I'm really looking forward my next session and I have already started to watch the footages fot the video project... this will be very challenging!
Bye
Anna
Hello! I have just finished my second Soliya meeting and I am really happy with it! I have to say that it was even more interesting than the first meeting and I have finally started to understand my mates'points of view. I really enjoy how we can confront starting from our personal experiences.
RispondiEliminaUnfortunately today many of our group were absent because of some festivities and we were really few but we managed to talk and discuss. In this second meeting we started to talk about our fears and expectations regarding our program and we also learnt how to ask cultural questions to people coming and living in foreign countries. These questions immediately allowed us to break the ice and we started a really long and interesting conversation. In fact we taleked about religious tollerance and also of how westernized second generation immigrants are saw by the Arab world. So we analyzed how the Arab world considers the western culture and vice-versa. Moreover we also had to write the first three characteristics we think of when talking about Western culture and Arab world. Obviously we also discussed about the main cause of this clash between civilizations and we gave quite interesting and different answers. Some people blamed media, others economics, others politics and stereotypes. In the end we analyzed some of the reading for example "The clash of civilisations" but also some readings concerning the oil problem. How I said above it was a really interesting session and I can't wait to attend my third meeting.
Giada Zanella:
RispondiEliminaLast Thursday I had my second session at the Soliya Program, and it was definitely worth it.
While we were waiting for the others to join us, we talked about holidays and an Egyptian girl explained to us the meaning of the Eid day, a celebration that was going on that day; the story was fascinating, but what struck me most was that Muslims and Christians celebrate all together even if it’s an Islamic festivity! That’s not what I’m used to hear on the news about Egypt, so I’m very glad I found out a completely different point of view (by the way, the role of media in our lives came up during the whole session).
First, the facilitators asked us whether we’ve got any fear and expectation for this course, and most of us (me included) replied that our biggest fear is not to explain ourselves clearly, or to misrepresent us. I was relieved knowing that I’m not the only one struggling to make myself understood as well as possible, and not because of English.
As for my expectations, I said I would like to broaden my mind and know more about middle East culture, and I think this won’t be hard to do because the group members from Egypt and Tunisia are eager to let us know that there’s so much more to know about them besides wars.
Then we wrote the first three words that came up to our minds about Western and Islamic worlds, so we could discuss them later. The words written by people from the west were actually very similar, if not exactly the same, and we agreed it is due to the fact we’re bombarded with the news about wars, fundamentalists etc so that we make these automatic assumptions. There were also contradictory terms, like freedom and hypocrisy, and we focused on the western perspective about the Islamic world and the wars going on there. Honestly, while we were talking about the reasons our armies are fighting there and what people believe, I felt ashamed of my country and of the western world in general.
Finally, we brainstormed on the subjects we would like to talk about, and after voting we decided to talk about the Israel and Palestine conflict. I’m happy about this decision, because I really think I need to be more informed.
October 31st 2012
RispondiEliminaToday I had my third meeting with Soliya.
We had a great discussion! We talked first of all about how which culture we would say we belong to, and why, which are the characteristics that helps to determinate this. We said it is up to family, religion, taboos, values and so on. Most of us relate hos culture to religion, or to how they live religion. For example, Anisa, from the North of the US, said she is Christian, but her sense of religion is all a relationship among her and God.
Then, we discussed about stereotypes and whether they are the same in Arab and Western world. Surprisingly to me, we said that the predominant ideas about men and women are the same in all our countries- men are tough and women are the weak ones to be protected. We talked about differences among men and women, if they are socially treated in the same way and if (and where) are the differences. I had a good talk with the Egyptian boy, who thinks women are different from men because of how they think. I was really surprised in hearing this, so I asked him to explain better what he meant. In the end, with no arguing, we agreed that men and women ARE different, as all human beings are, because their way of thinking is different, but there’s not one better and one worse. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.
When kept us busy for the rest of the session were the topics of marriage, infidelity, monogamy, polygamy and divorce. Even if we all agreed that acts such as divorce are allowed and average accepted in all our societies, they tend to be more common in the western world. For the Arabs, from what they said, it seems that getting divorce is the real last opportunity for a family. I have to say that it appears as if family is a stronger value for them. And raised up the discussion about infidelity: being family such a strong value, what about having a relation outside marriage, whether it concerns a man or a woman? Here the opinions were really divided, and even among people of the same country (or let’s say, the so thought to be same culture) ideas were really different. We did not really achieved a common a point of agreement, but we had a good share of different opinions.
It may sounds like I am constantly confronting myself with Muslim people, but while I write down this diary I just recognize that what people from the US said is more likely to confirm what I already got to know from something less” for me to discover about them- and with this I don’t mean to say it’s less worthy to chat with them, too.
This was a really good meeting, we talked a lot and about topics that deeply interested us and concerned us genuinely. I hope next meeting will be as much intense as this was.
Cla
Hello everybody!
RispondiEliminaOn monday i had my third session with Soliya and i like it more, every week become better from the past, because we continue to know us better and our conversation are more self-confidente and honest.
This week we were less than usual, because of the storm in the Us and the time changing but we worked good.
At the beginning the facilitators shared us in groups of two or three person for having a 'private conversation' in separate rooms. It permitted us to talk about what we wanted and to know each other better. I was in a private room with an Egyptian girl, we talked about our lives and dreams. I asked her about her country, i had a degree in history and the egyptian history is one one my favorite. Unfortunately the time was short, and we came back in the main meeting room in 40 minutes. When we came back we spoke about our conversations, what we were speaking about, what we learn, and what we got from the activity.
I really appreciate the activity because it was an opportunity to go more deeply in a discussion and to know better a person from the group.
Then, the facilitators showed us a picture, representing a libra with a man and a woman. it was a provocation and we started to talk about gender issues. Even if we have so different culture, we were all agree about the equality of women and men, but the importance is to underlining the difference and see the particularities of each. I think that the fact that we were less than usual, prevented us to carry the conversation more heated and structured, but it was good.
The time passed and we arrived at the end of the session. It was really nice for me cause while i was doing the copy and paste of the chat box conversation and other guys went out of the room, the egyptian girl of the first activity stayed there with me and we continued to chat. We also shared our e-mails and i think i will write her soon. I really appreciate the fact, i do like to interact outside the session!
F.
Hello! I just completed my third meeting and I have to say that our conversations are becoming more and more interesting. However unfortunately I had to face many technical issues in this week's conference because at the beginning I had connection issues ( maybe because of the weather), then I could not hear others, as soon as I solved the audio problems my microphone was not woriking at all so unfortunately it was a stressful session for me. As I had all these tech issues it was really difficult to follow the conversation even because I was really busy with the tech support that was really trying to help me.Although all these inconveniences I was able to follow the main points of the discussion and I tryed to express my feelings and opinions writing in the chat box. In this session we really focused on the role of women in Muslim societies and we tried to compare it to the Western situation, I explained what the western world thinks of the typical Muslim family and of the role of women. Moreover I also had to talk about the role of women in the western world as some of my mates were interested in hearing how women live in this part of the world. Then our meeting went on talking about September 11 and how this terrible date affected the world and public opinion, we also analysed the words terrorist and terrorism and judged American reaction to September 11.
RispondiEliminaHi everyone!
RispondiEliminalast Tuesday I had my third session of my soliya group, actually it has been a bit different from the others, we were only 4 people, because some of the members of my group were on holiday and some others had technical problems, in fact I appreciated this because, we had more time and more opportunities to express ourselves and to talk together.
Our facilitators asked us to prepare some questions about what we really wanted to know about the others, I think our group really started to work during this session, because the role of the facilitators has started to become less fundamental, and we started to "take the initiative" asking and answering our questions, about gender roles in our countries, about religion, its importance in our cultures, in our education and in the structure of our families, we discussed about all this topics and we ended out realizing that there are many more things we have in common then I thought.
Finally one of us was particulary interested in US elections so we moved to that issue, thinking about what would change after next week's vote, if something actually would change or, instead, if the two candidates have not such a different view of US foreign policy.
I really appreciated this session, it has been a very good meeting and I think we really got to establish a good connetion among us, maybe because we were less and it was less confusing that the other times.
Looking forward for the next meeting
bye!
Anna