Hi everyone,
I hope you had a good weekend.
We are now running into week 3 of the project, time flies! I hope you have begun to get into serious but also informative and enjoyable discussions with your peers.
I have received very few diaries and text chats from you so I can't tell how you are progressing.
If you want to receive credit for your participation remember that as well as being present and punctual :-) you are expected to write a weekly diary and send me the text chats from your group. As I said in a mail to you all, if you don't want to post your diaries to the blog no problem, but please send them to me by mail. You canNOT write your diaries at the end of the project - you have to write them reflecting on the project and your activities and send them to me as the project develops.
Punctuality
Please can you be on time for the sessions as it is disturbing for the facilitators and the group to have people arriving late as it slows things down..
Video project
Have you started watching the clips and working on your video projects?
Meeting
I'd like to have a meeting with you all on Monday 25th or Tuesday 26th March at 11.30, but I haven't found a room yet. Can you let me know if that time is ok.
Francesca
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This time the meeting with the other students started in a bit confused way because of a technical problem.
RispondiEliminaAnyway we went in detail of the discussion about the clash of civilization. I underlined negatively when Huntington says <>. This because, first of all, I disagree to use the term “civilization” in this context. In fact, despite the definition that Huntington give us, I find in it traces of disrespect of the culture own of each people. In this sense I would prefer to use the term “society”.
Moreover I consider unacceptable when Mr. Huntington says: <>. In my mind there is Kant (1795) with its essay “Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch” where he enumerates several step should be taken to get the so called perpetual peace. The most important one, for me, is when he says standing armies and weapons shall in time be totally abolished!
Next time we are going to discuss about moderate vs. extremist view in the muslim world with focus on the religion. It is a bit strange because I find this statistics invalid. I want to see the faces of my fellows when I will tell them!
Gianluca
There are a couple of parts missed when I cite Huntington: "Western civilization is modern" and
RispondiElimina"to get weapons is part of being modern"
Gianluca
Hi everybody! we already got into this exciting experience! This third day has been so challenging and out facilitators offered us the opportunity to make us to know each other better. They shared us in 5 groups. In everyone of the groups took part guys from the same region. I was assigned together with a boy and a girl from United States. Do you know? It has been wonderful for me! Even if we are all from the west, we undrestood that we have a main common point of view, but we have also different opinions, especially me, as European, I have different opinions from the guys from U.S.!
RispondiEliminaWhile dureing the region-meeting, we spoke about the differences between regions. I told about the differences between Northern Italy and Southern Italy. The guys from US, told me about differences between their own States. Then we spoke about topics that would be hard for us to talk about them together the other guys from other Countries. Homosexuality for example, is a topic offering us some different points of view, but it wouldn't so easy to approach this issue with the other guys!
The other regional groups spoke about the differences between muslim Countries.
My American mate, Jess, is living in Kuwait, and she told that only the 8% of population in Kuwait is originally from this Country. The American boy, Rami, said that in the United States, big cities represent a big opportunity to meet a wide variety of religions and ways of life. It's something a melting pot of worldwide civilization.
Then, another guy, from Turkey, my friend Mehmet took the right to talk and said that in Istanbul, things are not so different from the big cities of United States, there's a big variety of ethnic groups.
The final part of meeting, has been spent by talking about Immigration and Integration. It took to me to lead the discussion. I've prepared some questions to ask to my mates:
1) Do you think Religions and economic Systems are influencing immigrations around the world? How?
2) Is Immigration good for all citizens? Is it Helpful for Peace-keeping?Why?
3) What would you expect from the G8 (the most developed Countries in the world) Governments about Immigration?
My facilitators were so happy about my questions, because I offered an opportunity for new threads, and all my mates participated in answering.
So...I think for today everything has gone on the right way! see you next week!