Hi everyone
We're coming towards the end of the Connect program, I hope this is proving a valuable experience for you. I can see from some of your diary comments that most of your groups are developing and some of you are becoming more pro-active in encouraging dialogue within your groups. This is really important to help the group dynamics. Try to take on a more active role, engage with other participants and try to learn more about them.
THis week you should be discussing your video projects with your group. Please make sure you make time to watch them before your meetings so you have some comments to make or questions to ask. Compare and contrast the ways you have chosen to frame the issue, the narratives you pursued in both audio and video and the ways in which personal perspectives or 'bias' may have affected the final news piece. Do you notice any patterns within different group members?
This should lead to a conversation on the role of the media in the relationship between Western and predominantly Muslim societies and also other related topics such as the control and influence of the media, buas and objectivity, freedom of expression vs respect for religion and the impact of real-world events similar to the fictitious event on the tensions between your societies.
I haven't had time to watch your videos yet, but perhaps we could meet next week on Wednesday at 14.30 to watch and discuss them.
Final point - attendance. Some of you have missed one or more online sessions and also our meetings. Please if you miss more than 2 Soliya sessions you will not get credit for your participation, but please try not to miss any as it does impact the group dynamics!
Have a good week!
Francesca
week6
RispondiEliminaAfter this weeks' session one sentence persists in my head: „I can't answer that questions because I might end up in prison“ from my egyptian group member. We were talking about the media in our countries, private and state-owned, influenced by the left or the right, biased and non, ….. and which influence the governmennt has on media. So while the conversation went on, my thoughts were (still are) dominated by the fact that one of my group members felt unsave stating what influence his government has on the local media....
I'm just reflecting on what I said in the 2 hours and on the inputs of the others, how we shared our opinions, criticism, concerns ecc and how we just expressed them freely, but how then one of us felt it would be better for him if he wouldn't. You hear about imprisonments and even torture of people because they „said something against the regime“ in various contries here and then in the news. I'm not that naive and I know that this keeps happening under certain regimes. But looking somebody in the face and hearing his voice saying he might end up in prison for expressing his opinion is just different. It just gets 1000% more real. It gets „into your living room“ and isn't something you just read on a piece of paper.
This week my diary is shorter then the usual because I'm still hung up on this issue; to just shortly summarize the rest of the session: talking about our videos, concepts ecc was really good however I was really disappointed that only 5 of us put online there videos and that we were only 4 for 45 min, then finally 6 but people kept going online/offline all the time.
So this weeks session was kind of weird, as 5 of us made the effort to finish our assignments on time and the others didn't. I'm sure they'll have good reasons for it like uni or work, but also we others have a lot to do and managed to finish our videos anyway. Also we had good arguments talking about the role of media but the flow was definitely missing as many of us were missing and we didn't had that GROUP feeling.
So while the last sessions really inspired me, this one left me
-disappointed of some people not showing up (again) and not doing their assignments and
-reflecting on the different places (societies, countries, regimes, cultures,..) we(my group) live in.
Carmen
Week 6:
RispondiEliminaThis week was probably the most exciting one. Our discussion started talking about our video project, but as I was the only one who watched them all, we decided to move the conversation to another aspect of the project: the story line we had decided to tell. After almost everyone shared theirs, we discussed about the meaning of freedom of speech and if there should be any limit about it. Me and another American guy agreed that there's shouldn't be any limit to this type of freedom because the definition of freedom is that there's no limit, but I added that people should always be polite while expressing their opinions, otherwise I think they lose their right to speak and express.
Afterwords, we started a new activity. We had to choose 3 positive and 3 negative aspects about our culture, but we didn't manage to discuss it because we had another activity to do before time was up. We were split in 2 groups, boys and girls, to discuss about gender roles in our societies. We will discuss this matter next week as well as we still had many questions to ask each other. Personally, I was very interested in leaning the other girls' feelings, as they all come from Egypt, but I'm also interested in leaning the boys' opinions, as they are all American.
Fortunately this time no-one had technical problems and no-one arrived late or left early, so we did manage to have a good conversation without interruptions. Furthermore, almost everyone now is less shy and everyone talks freely.
Next week will be the 7th, only two meetings left, but I really hope I'll keep in touch with the other students.
Francesca Fontana
Week 6
RispondiEliminaMy session was on Wednesday, we were just in three during the first hour and one more girl joint us in the second part of the session. Three of us were sick (one of them it was me) but we were interesting to participate. We started to talk about the video project answering some questions about the proccess to face the assignment. I saw 4 videos of us, we are in six participants excluding facilitators. We explained each other how we chose the footage or sound bites and which one was the hardest decision. For me the hardest decision was to take in consideration the muslim militarism or jihad nominated in some videos of the footage, at the end for me this is one of the real points I am disappointed: Religion is not equal violence. Anyway, before the session I reflected about the video of the members in my group to have my own opinion of their message and also because I supposed we should to do it. In some point in our session we started to talk ONLY about religion. The facilitator in a private message pushed me to lead the conversation and I tried to connect what they said with the concept of respect in general and my idea was from one of the muslim girls declaration that insult their religion is a lack of respect and my question to reflect with them was their opinion about burn a national flag like a lack of respect too. It was difficult to move them away from religion and I tried to add the idea of people that doesn’t have a religion faith and only in this moment I realized that for the Egypt girl it was incomprehensible and out of her life scheme. I was impressed and I started to ask myself how to undertand and know better the way they thought because at this point of the program I am pretty curious about them probably because the way the think is so far away from mine. But as I wrote every week my group is amazing, very respectful and open-mind and those values help us to share comfortable our opinions. I hope next week all the members of the group are going to be online we are going to discuss two interesting topics.
WEEK 6
RispondiEliminaThe sixth session was really good! I really enjoy it! It was a bit different from the others, there wasn’t a real discussion, or a debate, the structure of the session was different.
We started with an activity which we had planned to do and this activity was so long and interesting that it took us the whole two hours, so we didn’t have time to do other things, as for example the discussion about the video project. Actually we hadn’t enough time even to finish the activity, so we’re going to continue with it during the next session and then we’re going to start the debate regarding the videos.
The activity’s name was: “life stories”, and we had prepared for it. During the week we were supposed to think about the three main events which are most important in our life, the events which made us the person we are today.
Steve and Erin, our facilitators explained us how an objective of Soliya is to help us better understand people who have different backgrounds and different perspectives from our own. So we focused on this during the session. We had to select at least one event that informed our political thoughts or perspectives regarding Western or predominantly Muslim societies. The other two events could be anything else that is important in making we the person you are today. They asked us to share these Life Stories in class. Important was also to think about what these events were as well as how and why they affected us so deeply. Everyone shared his three stories and it was very interesting because of course we come from different countries, different cultures and our events were fast all different and original. Someone shared the event of 9/11, the attack to America, especially some Muslim boys, as the political event. They said they started to think more about relations between Western and Muslim societies after this tragic event. Someone share a tragic event like a fire in his house, which made him reflect about the life, someone spoke about an escape from a country at war, someone about the start of University because it changed his life.
My three events were: when I start to study languages and all the travels I did, so when I started to discover new cultures and countries, when I started the High School because I met some people from different religion and culture, and I could see all the problems and the difficulties these students had to integrate in our community. This was the “political” event because I started to learn more about relations with other countries and other religion, especially Islam. The last event was my first experience as a volunteer, when I spent a week with children a children-entertainer, after this event I continued to work as volunteer in some organizations and one of my dream, after the University studies, is to spend 6 months or a year in a poor country, as Africa, or Sud America, to work and help people who need, that’s why I choose this event as one of the most important do describe the person who I am now.
The activity was very interesting because I could discover something more about the students in my group and I could know them better. Despite this, it was not so easy to find three main events, it took me some time to find these three events, we had to think about our whole life and there were lots of thing which we could speak about. As I said at the beginning the session was different from the others, there wasn’t a real discussion, we simply told the others our stories and sometimes someone had questions or something to note, something to say to comment the stories, but not much more.
RispondiEliminaTwo girls didn’t have time to share their stories, so they’re going to do it next week and in the next session we’re going to discuss about the video project as well.
In fact the facilitators asked us to watch all our mates videos, so that we’re prepared for the discussion, and I think it will be very interesting and passionate because our videos are all different, there are many perspectives and everyone made it in a different way. Next session will be the seventh, so we’re fast to the end of the project. I’m sure these last sessions will be the greatest because we’re getting more friendly and we share lots of things. Unfortunately some students will miss next session, but I’m sure the discussion will be fantastic as well.
MARTA PELLIZZARO
Week 6
RispondiEliminaThis session we finished the activity we started the last time. I and another girl had to finish to talk about the three events that affected us so deeply in our life. I was the first to speak, and one of the three events was very strong: it was about the death of a childhood friend of mine (female) and it was about a murder.
It was a good choice to not hesitate to tell them this event because all of them told me comfortable words, they tried to make me understand that they were close to me and the girl who spoke after me, told about a similar experience. She was waiting for the bus after school, and a woman suddenly died next to her.
She was terrified and still now it is difficult for her to forget that event.
Then we had a discussion about the video we made for Soliya and about the process of making it. It was quite easy to make it for us. But we agreed that it is right to have freedom of speech but it doesn’t mean you can harm the others.
Then we spoke about media, of their subjective point of view in showing news and the importance of it in connection with its influence in our daily life.
Then some girls had to leave Soliya, so at the end I had to do free conversation with another girl from Tunisia.
We spoke about social networks, about the system of education and another personal issues.
I hope that in the next session there’ll be more people in my group like in the last session.
Cristina Leonte
This session was surprisingly uneventful.
RispondiEliminaWe did discuss our video projects, but they were not that much of a revelation: muslim girls wanted to stress the fact that not all of the protests were rageous, western students focused on the importance of freedom of speech and non-violent demonstrations. I on the other hand wanted to shake the importance they'd given to the video and underlined the fact that it was one person's foolish act.
The rest of the conversation was a bit boring for me because it seems that people think the Western world is only embodied by the United States, so when we moved on to talking about freedom of speech in general and how much one nation can interefere in another's internal politics, it was all about how the U.S. do this or that and why. All questions and topics revolved around North America, so I felt a bit excluded, being the only European...
I hope next time will be better :)
Margherita
*rageous=ravageous
EliminaDuring this session with Soliya we’ve talked about our video projects. We started by looking at a picture of an iceberg, which was the symbol of the way we interact with strangers. The tip of the iceberg is what we see when we first meet other people: their believes and their aspect. Then there is the deeper level, which is made of cultural background, personal experience and so on. Our facilitators asked us to take this into consideration during our sessions with Soliya. After this, we moved to our videos. We shared some opinions about Yara’s video, which was really meaningful because, as a Muslim girl, she decided to be unbiased, to show all the different points of view, and yet she strongly took position against the violence of the protests.
RispondiEliminaI felt really close to her, as I do believe that freedom of speech should always include freedom of using the brain. Insulting a religion or a profound belief of a person has no sense. Of course I’m not forgiving Muslims’ violent reactions, but I noticed that there’s a common tendency of the media to emphasize Muslims’ faults instead of the US ones.
Almost all the member of my group agreed that the media should be unbiased. Still, this video project gave us the idea of how difficult it is to show all the different points of view just in 3-4minutes. The risk of giving too much room to a single opinion is high. In addition, we all agreed that nowadays the media are actually biased, they adjust themselves according to the audience.
After these considerations, we moved on to another activity, which was about events that have shaped our lives and our political view. It was a really touching moment, especially when Yara said that her parents were rich when they used to live in Palestine; then, when they were forced to move away they lost everything.
The sessions with Soliya have changed my mind so far, they have made me feel close to people living away from my reality and my culture. I can’t wait for my 7th meeting to come!
Dear Diary,
RispondiEliminaat the very beginning we expressed our opinion about the video that the facilitators Ibrahim and Heidi asked us to watch then debating on what is partisan perception, political system in Pakistan, how much the medias influence our opinion.
I'm a bit disappointed about this session because I tried to speak much more but many others didn't seem interested in speaking. They seemed bored. I'm also very disappointed with myself because I was completely into darkness when they asked me hoe the Arab Spring is received in Italy. I didn't know anything about that topic because I usually don't watch news.
Just two meetings miss. Sincerely I'm not very satisfied with the results. I mean, I think in my group there isn't true compatibility. Unfortunately it seems that people are not interested in knowing about Italy.
I hope it'll be better next week :)
Bye
Clarissa
Also the week 5 has gone!
RispondiEliminaFor some reasons, this time went better than the other, but for other reasons it was still unsatisfactory.
This week we were supposed to talk about our videos and the role of media, but something ruined the meeting.
It was Thanksgiving day on Thursday, so 2 out of 3 American students were absent. Also the Turkish girl was unexpectedly absent. Of those remaining two hadn't seen any videos, and one of those 2 hadn't even made his own video! So, how could we have a satisfactory and interactive conversation with all these problems? And what's more, I had to leave 1 hours earlier due to a medical examination!
Anyway, I tried to talk and involve the others as much as possible, and we had a chance to talk about the role of media in our countries. We also had time to give our opinion about freedom of speech, it was hard, but at the end almost all agreed on the fact that everyone has the right to say whatever he/she wants, but he/she has to pay attention to not offend anyone and that the world is not prepared to a "limitless free speech" yet. Of course we agreed on the fact that is not all that easy to understand what is offensive, since it's something very personal.
As I expected, the American guy completely supported the idea of "limitless free speech", the middle East students were against this idea, and I was "in the middle".
Despite the initial difficulties, the discussion was really interesting, and I was very sorry to abandon the meeting so early.
I'm looking forward to the next meeting!
Francesca B.