Hi everyone
Was glad to read your diaries, most of you at least, and happy to hear that you have had fewer tech issues in general and started discussing issues and delving into identities, as well as making plans for your projects.
I'd like to have a meeting this week, it's difficult to find a time that suits everyone particularly since you are involved in Soliya most afternoons.
Here is a doodle - please complete it as soon as possible as we have to meet on Thursday or Friday!
Francesca
In the meantime, please post your week 3 diaries here.
Was glad to read your diaries, most of you at least, and happy to hear that you have had fewer tech issues in general and started discussing issues and delving into identities, as well as making plans for your projects.
I'd like to have a meeting this week, it's difficult to find a time that suits everyone particularly since you are involved in Soliya most afternoons.
Here is a doodle - please complete it as soon as possible as we have to meet on Thursday or Friday!
Francesca
In the meantime, please post your week 3 diaries here.
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaThird meeting already gone. It is going really quick and I like the project more and more. We still have some technical problems, it is improving but it is still difficult to understand what is being said from some of us (not that much of a problem in the normal conversation, but it is a bit worse in one-on-one conversation).
We started today telling the worst and the best aspects of our societies. It is intresting to hear from people who are part of those societies how they see themselves, it gives you a direct insight. A girl from Pakistan briefly mentioned corruption in her society, telling us many people take bribes. One of the two guys from the US told us that his society makes him feel free to make his own choices but that there is also a lot of competition. The good thing of such activities is that you can actually go beyond the stereotypes on other societies and take a closer look.
Then: a video on youtube, taken from a commercial. It was pretty funny, because it was about a basketball match and you are told to count how many passages one of the two teams makes. And I was so focused on counting that I did not even notice a man, wearing a bear costume, who passed in the middle of the match. That was the aim of the video, to make you notice how many things you actually miss when you are focused on something else. Casper the ghost (it is still funny to think of the facilitator as the ghost, I know it is stupid) asked us why we thought he showed us the video and it seems everyone saw that I burst into laughing because I really didn't notice the bear-man (while everyone else did notice it, I must admit). It was interesting, anyway. You realize how easy is to miss important things and how easy is to manipulate people, driving their attention to certain things (or maybe it is just me, which is not so good).
We paired for a one-on-one conversation, to discuss our final projects. I did not expect that, but we all chose to write the paper. I had already chatted in private chat with Zantasha (Pakistan), Timmy and Hunter (US) so I was a bit unsure, but I paired with Zantasha, as I thought it would be better to speak with someone from a completely different culture. We talked about the different educational systems and our hopes for the future. We shared some thoughts on how people think humanistic subjects are easier than scientific subjects and how difficult is to get the job we are studying for in our countries. She was the one who told us of the corruption in Pakistan, and she reiterated that. The most interesting thing is that after graduating she is going to marry, which is a sort of social rule: you can't live alone. We always think about how different life in other countries is, but to hear it loud and clear... I can't wait to hear other things from other people.
The discussion moved on the topic of power dynamics: what does it mean, if we could make an example, power imbalance in a negative but also positive way. It was a bit difficult to define the concept and also to try to make examples that show how power dynamics affect us directly. Abit challenging, but I liked it.
For the next meeting, Casper the ghost asked for volunteers to prepare some questions for the group on the role of religion (I think related to the readings, but I still have to check). I volunteered (I am sure it was a surprise for everyone). I am really sorry for my group, they have to listen to me speaking too much everytime. Oh, concerning the group, there is a negative fact: we were six, today, not counting Casper. Two girls had to change their time and other people were supposed to join us, which did not happen. And there are also people who tend to keep quiet. It is a pity, because I am enjoying talking and chatting with the others.
I love private chats: we just keep sending random comments and it gives me the opportunity to know the others better and to share some interests or thoughts unrelated to the topic being discussed.
Looking forward to the next sessions!
Hi everybody
RispondiEliminaAlso the third meeting is gone!!! It was better than the last week and we started to be more dynamic and familiar with the project.
Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding with the change of the hour and I went later loosing the first part about power dynamics.
The meeting was based on the final project and I discovered that I'm the only one who have choose the video. I'm curios to understand how a video is made and I must to start thinking about my final project because I have no idea about creating a video ;)
The final project will be on the topic of freedom of speech and the respect of religion. I like this topic and I think that we can discuss a lot about it. Yesterday I spent some time in the breaking room with the Tunisian girl speaking on what we think the freedom of speech is and if it is unlimited. Even in the entire group we have the opinion that the freedom of speech is a right but it finds some limits in the respect of the other. In my opinion this is particularly true in case of journalist or other people who can have a huge audience. Moreover facebook or other social network have positive impact in sharing own idea or opinion; however they can be used also to spread discriminatory and racist messages.
The very interesting think was the report by the Egyptian girl; she told us that nowadays in Egypt there is a very poor freedom of speech since is very dangerous saying something against the government. On contrary good news come from Tunisia, where according the report of the Tunisian girl, the situation has improved after the revolution.
I would exploit these report in my final video.
I really enjoyed the meeting yesterday and we are becoming a group. Probably working in smaller groups for the final project will help to create a more familiar atmosphere ;)
I'm looking for the next week and the discussion about religion;) I think it will be very interesting :)
Micaela
Marta Perrone
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Yesterday I had my third Soliya meeting at 12.30 pm due to the time change. Because of opening technical problems, I connected a few minutes late and in the meantime Robdeti called me to ensure that everything was ok. My facilitators are so helpful and careful, I really like them. The two Tunisian guys were still missing (I don’t know why), instead Marioma had difficulties to let her voice be heard so she left the session at a certain point. We started with a dialogue activity, in particular with the different ways of saying “cool” or “what’s up” in our native language or region’s dialect; then we said “thank you” and “welcome” in other languages besides English as French, Spanish, Arabic (shukran, marhaba) (Marioma wrote to me these words in Arabic alphabetic character..So nice! ) and Chinese (Christie studies it). Then we established ground rules for the next conversations that will be about some sensitive or complex topics (for example “religion and freedom of speech”). For the first time I really felt part of a group, because we talked to each other in an honest and direct way, expressing our fears and expectations. Our common worry is to be misunderstood because someone could seem too liberal, someone else too conservative and vice versa. So we agreed with these basic rules: be respectful to one another, be tolerant of one's accent, speak openly and sincerely, respect differences in religious beliefs, don't react right away as offended, let's wait for the speaker to complete the thought. We moved on to another fascinating argument: the role of women in society and their political rights. Dylan spoke of Hillary Clinton; then he made a reflection about women in the workforce. I highlighted that despite the fact that now women have more freedoms than in the past, we’re still fighting to get more rights (for example the freedom of choice of their body). Related to this, Marioma mentioned organizations that help with the gender gap in Egypt. It is very interesting to know how women live here and how many efforts are making to improve their condition. Women still have difficulties accessing political power and the governments are not prone to help them in their fights and claims. So we found commonalities in closing the gender gap in different part of the world like US, Europe and Jordan. We totally agreed that women should be respected by men regardless their revealing or non-revealing clothing. This debate about clothes led me to spoke of a prickly topic: is the veil a symbol of women’s oppression? It isn’t if women wear it voluntarily, I said. I look forward to talk more about this in the coming week. Our last discussion was about the final project. So I went to another chat room with Dylan in order to share with him my thoughts and ideas on the main topic of the paper: young people and their expectations, their role in our societies and families, the importance of education, gender and employment. I focused my attention on the opportunities that a university town like Padua can give to us in contrast to my small hometown that isn’t actually a stimulating environment. Then we compared the different cost between American and Italian universities. Young people have to face many challenges and our papers’ aim is to bring them to light.
At the end, Dylan and Christie proposed themselves for asking questions based on the new readings next Tuesday.
Thumbs up for this session (and for private chats with Marioma and Julieth) and thanks again to my awesome group.
Marta
29/10/2014
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
In my last session we talked a lot about many subjects. The first topic that the facilitators asked us, it was to share us something that we are proud of ourselves. I said that I'm proud of my graduation that I obtained last year. Others for example Nathalien said that she is proud of her house and Aminat is proud of the gift which his friend give him for his birthday and Salah is proud of his Karate prize.
The second topic was about informal ground rules. We had some guidelines to follow such as expression of opinions, keep opinions to self, show respect, speaking facts rather than opinions and listen to others. First of all I said that I feel more Romanian than Italian, and I think that in our society it is better to keep for us the opinions if we don't know the matters. Moreover I think that it is better tho show respect towards different cultures and maybe to listen them to understand their uses and costumes.
After this work we quickly talked about the identity power dynamics and we gave to our group some examples, but during this conversation Salah with his example, he brought us into an other topic: the situation in Afghanistan. He explain us the role of the religion in the Country and the difficulties that there are there.
In the second part of the session we explained the role of the religion in our life. In my opinion I don't agree if someone is punished if he believes a different religion. People in the group asked me what I think about the Vatican's opinion of the war in Middle East. I said that Vatican condemns the war, killings and Pope Francis tries to spread peace all around the world towards his speeches.
Another topic was sexual harassment in the world. Someone told that sometimes men make some jokes or they tell something to women, but at the same time they go beyond the respect of the female sex.
After this I went to the private room because I had to talk with my friend Aminat. We had to talk about the video project and then We arranged to meet at next week in the main room of Soliya.
Stefania Nicoleta
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaour third meeting is gone with all connection problems and honestly I’m so glad for it!
I’ve just finished and I want to write down as soon as possible all the impressions that I’ve collected since they are a lot!
First of all I’m very happy to take part to this project, but I don’t want to call it just a project because for me this is an exciting experience. When someone calls it project I immediately think about something that is practical, cold and not emotional, while an experience is something that involved you, body and soul. This is the reason why Soliya is for mr an experience without any doubts.
I was one of the first to log in, therefor I had long time to talk about my weekend with Salem (one of the two Egyptian guys) and Lisanne. I love these informal moments in which you have the possibility to know better and deeper people of your group. After ten minutes all the other participants joined us and so we started our activities.
During the first one our facilitator said us to take a sheet and a pencil in order to draw something, then she wanted us to guess which animal she was thinking about: she gave us three tips, at the end we showed our sketch to each other (even if I was really ashamed for the quality of my drawi I have to say that I’m not a great artist! ) and…. SURPRISE! Only two of us guessed the right animal that was an anteater! Personally I tough about an elephant ( and as me also the rest of the group!)
Maybe now you’re wondering: Why did only two people guess the right animal? Listen taking care of the details, and don’t get stuck at first impression: this is the key in order to give the correct answer!
After a belly laugh on our horrible sketches, Lisanne (facilitator) guided us towards another topic. She asked us who of us knew the meaning of the term “Power Dynamics”. The answers were many and various! At the end we all agreed saying that we get in touch with a Power dynamics in every moment of our daily life, where we find a kind of hierarchical structure (formal or informal) in which some people have more influence,control and power than others we have an expression of power dynamic, so in any situation involving two or more people we have it. We tried also to find some exemples in our personal life and we also talked about family, school and social, economical and political power dynamics.
After that Mari, the American girl ,gave the start for a great debate about gender equality and IMbalance of power dynamics inside different cultures. Thanks to this input we shared our opinions on female role in society, not without some crashes between our divergent ideas. Salem started telling us about women’s role in Egypt. He said us that their main task is staying at home taking care of the children, while Hassan the other Egyptian guy stopped him saying that only 25% of women are obliged to stay at home and don’t have access to educational systems and that is caused by traditional customs such as forced marriage etc.. I know that these practices are really widespread in eastern countries but this is a theme that hurts me very hard every time; there’s nothing to do I’m an hopeless idealist girl, especially in matter of women rights so I said that even if a man can’t be pregnant there’s no reason why he don’t have to contribute to the growth and the education of his child assisting his partner in every difficult. I know it could be like the classical opinion of an european woman who don’t have to face these kinds of problems and predicate freedom and equality for all, but all the other girls, also the two muslims girls from Morocco, agreed with me and the discussion was very passionate. I realized that I had create a power dynamic among men and women in my group but in a while the situation calmed down. I really love all these guys, I mean, they express theirs opinions freely but if something hurts other sensibility they immediately try to understand why and moderate the conversation. I have noticed, that maybe I’m the most talkative person and sometimes I’m also impulsive and indiscreet so they asked frequently my opinion. It’s nice because I feel to be completely part of this experience.
RispondiEliminaAt last we splitted us in three little groups in order to talk about the themes of our final project. I chose “Freedom of speech and respect for the religious diversity” and I’m in the group with Salmandir from Morocco and Salem from Egypt. At first we tried to give our personal definition of freedom sharing also how freedom is guaranteed in our countries, I love listening the experience of Salem during the Egyptian revolution in 2011: he said us that a real freedom in his country was experimented only after these strikes. Then we reflected on how freedom of expression shall hurts religious sentiments and what might be the consequences. The conclusion was that we have to to determine the boundaries and limits of each of these rights to prevent a clash, but a question still remains: Is freedom something you can limit? Isn’t it a paradox? How can you give freedom a boundary?
We hadn’t enough time to face also this theme cause time flies when you’re doing something that you like.
I love my group, I love be what I am without any reserve, I love getting in contact with cultural universes completely different from mine.
I’m looking forward to our next meeting.
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RispondiEliminaThe weekly session just ended and I’m already thinking about a new debate and a way to develop my ideas around this big matter we’re dealing with, that is relations between westerners and Muslim countries. We’re so close and so far in the same time! There’s a thick fog around the world, and although we’ve got several media, and lots of information, we can’t see the reality of men and woman living at the distance of a two-hours flight from us.
RispondiEliminaSoliya program is a powerful tool: it makes us see the face of true people living in a different political system and in a different way of thinking about the rule of religion and law.
This evening we introduced many issues: I tried to explain and support my statement about the economic root of many conflicts around the world.
Some weeks ago I had the occasion to talk with a friend of mine, a priest just returned from Cameroun, and we spoke about the bloody raids of Boko Haram against Christian communities in the central Africa countries; he told me sincerely that the religion is a pretext and the fight is not between local Muslims and Christians. The real, powerful source of tension is the control of the territory because of the oil, the large reserve of petroleum in the African subsoil.
This is only a confirmation of that I always thought: the different religion or/and the culture are a trouble only when someone try to demonstrate that the other’s one is worse, and this is normally an excuse to invade the other’s one territory and to take his resouces.
Indeed these differences aren’t always relevant: what have we to think about the silent, long-time, solid alliance between USA and Saudi Arabia? Isn’t it strange? Isn’t it a “petroleum brotherhood”? Why the evident differences between these two countries don’t make them clash?
Not all the members of the group agreed, obviously, and it’s interesting that all Muslim guys are inclined to relate tensions and conflicts to the religious matter, whereas Europeans don’t consider the religion so relevant in the world order; but, at the same time we’re also all open-minded towards a new pattern of political relations and towards a new way of life in each country.
At the broadest level, people living in western and Muslim countries have to manage with the same problems in their daily life, as my partner Safouane said me in the breakout room: he was angry for the corruption in Morocco and for the difficulty to find a good job after the degree without a recommendation. I had only to remembered him that I’m from Italy, that is the motherland of corruption, to say that we’re in the same situation.
At the end we spoke a little about the final project. Safouane said me that the deadline for him to choose is the last week, while I already decided to join the video project.
My choose is a gamble because I know nothing about making videos, but, if not now, when?
NATASCIA PIASENTINI
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Yesterday I had my third session. I feel more at ease in the group because we know each other better and better. When I met my group the first time, I was shy, but now I like it and I try always to speak even if for me, sometimes, it’s not easy to analyse some specific topics.
Anyway, when I entered the Soliya platform, there were only 4 of us. The other people were late and four people missed the appointment. At the beginning on the session, there were an American boy, two facilitators and I on the platform. So I asked Matt, the American boy, something about the United States. I was curious about the Prom because in every TV series or in American movies there is the Prom. I wanted to know if the Prom was only in movies or it was a typical American event. So he explained the Prom is at the end of high school and college. Every girl has a date…I thought that I would like it in Italy too. It would be amazing, wouldn’t it?
After 30 minutes, three other people entered Soliya and our facilitators have fixed a rule: to be on time. I was agree with them because it's not a compulsory project but it's a choice.
Finally, we started the session.
Each person presented the difference between men and women in our society. When it was my turn, I said my opinion about the situation in Italy. I believe that, in general, man and woman have the same rights but not in specific cases. I think it's easier for a man to have both a family and a good career; but, a woman has sometimes to choose between the two. Nowadays, a woman works all day like a man (for me it’s right) but at the same time it's the woman who usually cooks or takes care of children or does the shopping or ironing etc. I think it's a problem of mentality. It’s not the fault of the man but I think the woman is used to doing these activities. That's all! So we (women) have to change!
Nicole, the American girl, was curious to see how long it will take for women to have the same equality as men. She offered an example. She works in a hardware store and she said that every time a man goes towards her, he doesn't expect her to know about computers. Matt added that there are some jobs that men can do and women can't do and vice versa.
The Moroccan guy, Abdul, explained a particular situation in his country. In the mosque of his city, men are the ones who pray with other people; women can't, because this activity is only for men. Women are not allowed to pray with people. He said that he feels a part of a new generation where he doesn't judge the Woman as a female, he judges her mind.
In conclusion, in all the countries of my solyia’s group (United States, Morocco and Italy), woman and man have, in general, the same rights. There are sometimes jobs for men and jobs for women but I think the most important thing is that in these countries women and men have the same opportunities. Both can study and work and both can choose their life.
After that, we talked about the final project. I decided to do the Video Project. Other three people are going to do paper work. So these people went to a private room and facilitators and I stayed in the main room and I explained why I chose the video project. I think it's an interesting and creative project.
See you next week!
Natascia Piasentini
Week 3
RispondiEliminaMarina Molinari
Hi everyone!
On tuesday there was the 3rd meeting of Soliya Project. I arrived late, because i completely forgot that this week the meeting started one hour before.
I apologized a lot with everyone. At the beginning it was pretty funny because I didn’t understand that I was late.
When I arrived in the meeting room my collegues were talking about the climate changes and the possible solutions.
Erin asked me if I think that there is a change in climate. I answered affirmatively of course and I made an example of something strange: the last summer here in the north of Italy there was a lot of rain and it was very cold.
I also told to everyone that it isn’t normal walking on the street, at the end of october, only with a t-shirt… Than we talked about the idea of climate changes for our parents, that are part of an older generation. We all agreed that the older generations can see the climate changes more than us, because they had a longer life span and these changes take time to be realized.
Then we started working on the final project. I went in a private room with Farah, the girl who has to do the final project with me.
Farah (or I, we didn’t understand) had some technical problems and i couldn’t hear anything.
So we couldn’t speak clearly, but we wrote a bit to each other in the chat box.
We started talking about freedom of speech and its limitations, especially in our Countries.
I felt bad when Farah told me that she has problems communicating her ideas, in particular with strangers. I asked her if religion is correlated with this and she told me: “we respect all”. I think that she interpreted my question as a critic of Islam.
I told her that in our country the freedom of speech is guaranteed also as a constitutional right, but this isn’t always true because of the political situation. I told her also that I think the situation in other countries is very dramatic and it cannot be compared with the Italian one.
It’s clear that there are different contexts that are very difficult to compare.
I’m very sorry that technical problems made our discussion difficult. I couldn’t understand Farah and her ideas because she wrote little in the chat box too.
We talked about our ideas for the final project and than we came back to the main room with our collegues. Erin explained us what we have to do for the next meeting and something else about the final project.
Erin told me several times that there weren’t problems but i felt just a little bit ashamed for my delay.
I promised everyone that the next week I won’t be late :)
I feel that the meetings are getting every time more interesting, because there are more hot topics and the conversations are more dynamic.
Waiting for the next meeting...
Marina
Part 1
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
On last Wednesday I had my third session. As soon as I logged in, I was worried that I would have found the same situation I had criticized last week: no Arabs yet! We were just four people: Taghreed, Monica, Clay and me. Laura had connecting problems and joined us just an hour and a half later. Also, Monica told us that she would go out on a limb (expression that I never heard before) about Rebecca since she hadn’t texted her back yet, so she guessed Rebecca wouldn’t have joined us and, as a matter of fact, she didn’t!
Anyway, yesterday was the day of Eman, a 20 years-old girl from Egypt who captured our attention! She joined us a bit late, but we were pleased to finally see someone new! Actually we were waiting for a Tunisian girl because Monica was wrong when she said to us by mail that she was from Tunisia: that’s why I was looking forward to meeting her and speaking about Tunisian elections held on last weekend. In fact, I followed with a big interest the development of the political situation during the last days, watching documentaries and reading newspapers. But the fact that she is from Egypt didn’t diminish my happiness (of course!) in meeting a new member of our group who is Egyptian. I also have to say that we weren’t able to see and hear her, so she could just type in the box and hear us.
We introduced ourselves and asked her something about where she is from. She told us she’s from a lovely city by the sea, Minya, that I suppose is a vibrant cultural center since she said it’s plenty of museums. After the introductions, we should have talked about Arab Spring, even if we didn’t, and I have not really understood the reason why. Indeed, I tried to engage in a private conversation with Clay, but he honestly said that he knew just a little about it. Actually, Monica and Taghreed posted some interesting videos on the topic in our facebook group (about which I’ve realized just now I haven’t talked before!) to prepare our conversations. Maybe, the fact that there were few Arabs caught us off guard as a group and didn’t let allow us to move forward on that issue.
Part 2
RispondiEliminaSo, we started to discuss another theme that Monica proposed through the mail sent the day before: “family and our favorite cultural traditions”. She also suggested many questions to encourage the debate.
Clay first introduced his family to whom he said he’s very close: they do everything together, like road trips and hunting, and they always do something fun! He considers Thanksgiving the most important celebration of his family; it’s a big deal for them and, to be ready, they usually go to sleep early for waking up at dawn: they spend all the time both with dad’s family and with mom’s family taking photos, watching family videos, playing typical games and finally having a huge dinner, also inviting other people who join them. I’m curious to ask him on next week of how he spent Halloween night!
Then it was my turn and I said that my family is a typical small one which I was very close to until I was of age whereas now I’ve been looking for my independence. Anyway I said I love them because my parents are very important for my life and because they were and still are very present in it. In my opinion, Christmas is the most important celebration for me and my “extended” family and I explained what we usually do on that day. The group asked me something about “Carnevale di Venezia” or other festivities, and I said they should come here and I’ll be glad to be their travel guide!
Finally Eman started to talk about her family; she said that her parents are teachers and she’s the oldest of her sisters. She spends a lot of time with her father: they enjoy themselves reading or visiting lots of new places. She also explained us that their most important celebration is Eid El-Fitr (which I’ve learnt means eating and no fasting!), the Ramadan End Feast.
Suddenly, at that time I felt sick. I already felt sick before starting the video-conference and even if tried (facilitators appreciated my dedication) I was not able to get to the and of the session. I asked Taghreed if she could send me an e-mail with a summary about the last minutes of conversation, but she has not done it so far.
It was very sad what happened to me because I consider that moment the best one of our group: finally everyone could hear clearly the others and we were heavily and sincerely involved in the discussion. That’s why I’m looking forward to the next session because I noticed that even though we are a few, there begins to be much more confidence among us!
Gabriele Chiarello
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaHere what happen during the third meeting of the Soliya Project: unfortunately, this time we were only three people, me, the Egyptian girl and the Pakistani guy. Although, this give us the chance to know each other better, and we were all more confident in talking and sharing our thoughts.
As usual, we start with a light conversation about our weekends, our hometown etc., then we started to discuss about the reading that we had for the last week, on the tensions between the west and the east world, and we had the chance to talk a little bit on the relationship between the Christian and Muslim communities in Egypt, which was very interesting. We also discussed how we should define the different regions of the world, and even if in the end we have chosen the “west/east” definition, especially the boy from Pakistan underline the importance of the role of religion, theme that we will discuss next week in deep.
Then our facilitator, Lisa, has submitted us a poll in which we had to choose the elements that, in our point of view, has the main role in developing tensions between the western countries and the eastern ones: we all point out different aspects, and they were all surprised of the importance I gave to the element of “media”, so I had to answered many questions on how the Muslim people and the middle-east are pictured by the Italian media.
Since both me and girl from Egypt have chosen to developed the same project, the second one, on youth people and their future perspective, we started to work on that. I found interesting that, regardless our geographical provenience, we all mentioned the possibility to go abroad to study or to work, at least for a period, in order to have more opportunities than in our home countries. We also all underlined the importance of education in our lives, and Muhammad, from Pakistan, explained us a little bit the critical situation in his country, especially in the territories occupied by the Taliban, to have access to schools.
Overall, it was a very interesting discussion, and in general very smooth, without any relevant technical problems! We all hope to have more people joining us the next week, but we are positive!
Liliana Demartini
WEEK 3
RispondiEliminaLast Wednesday I should have had my third Soliya session, but unfortunately I had serious problems of connection. As a matter of fact I spent about an hour and a half on Skype with Soliya’s technical assistance because I couldn’t access their webpage. That didn’t allow me to join the session until the very end, so I don’t have much to tell.
Anyway I can say that Soliya’s assistants are very kind and competent, or at least so is Hany, the guy who helped me fix the problem (it turned out to be a trouble with my modem).
When I succeeded in joining the session the facilitators summed up the previous discussions for me, so that I could participate at least in the last part of the conversation. Then they asked me to contribute with details on my life, so I talked to the group about my family and about how we celebrate festivities. I even shared some personal details which lead the others to do the same thing.
What was positive about this session is that there finally was a new girl who’s Egyptian, although she couldn’t speak because of mic issues and she just typed into the chat. Obviously I didn’t get the chance to talk to her because I haven’t had the time, but I hope that she’ll be present on next sessions and that she’ll be able to discuss with us.
Anyway, as I could understand, nobody talked about politic issues, such as Arab spring, like we agreed to do. I don’t know why they didn’t, but I suggested that we could talk about Tunisian elections next time.
In conclusion I really regret having missed the most of the discussion, indeed all the other participants seemed very satisfied of the development of the conversation, and I’m really looking forward to the next session (I just hope I don’t have connection issues anymore). Still, I’m very grateful to Soliya’s staff and I really appreciated their courtesy in dealing with my problems.
Laura D’Onghia
(Part 1)
RispondiEliminaDear Diary,
This Week I had my Third Soliya meeting. As she had promised Rangineh gave us the link to the Facebook's page she has created for our discussion group and every member has finally joined it.
Waiting for every person to join the session Rangineh asked the group what would we do if we could be president of the world for a whole day. Every one of us took a minute to think about it in order to answer. After a while Elena said that she'd steal the money from rich politicians to give it to people -aka ROBIN HOOD-. Ian answered that he'd travel in order to visit major soccer stadiums throughout the world and eat a lot of different kind of foods such as the Italian one. So Rangineh asked me and Elena -both Italians- what kind of food we'd suggest Ian, and eventually we chose to recommend him to eat pasta in Italy. After that Danil joined us and said he'd visit the International Space Station. What about me? Finally I answered the question in a silly way, I said that whether I could be president of the world for a whole day I'd travel a lot with the private jet I'd surely have.
After six or seven guys joined the group Rangineh gave us a new issue: what do we want to be when we grow up. Elena bravely opened the discussion time, she'd like to work for an international institution (e.g. UN) with a focus on environment, then nominated Nihel to continue. She wants to be a political writer or investigative journalist traveling all around the world, after that she nominated me to continue. I don't have such a clear plan of what I want to be when I'll grow up but I didn't say this thing to the group, I told them that I'd like to be a history of the international relations researcher then I passed the ball to Mahira. She'd like to be a public relation officer for a international organizations or one that represents women so nominated Mazen as next. He said that has interest in flying electronics and called for Danil who pointed out he'd like to be a fighter plane pilot on aircraft carrier. Last Ian said he'd like to be a soccer player or a criminal detective.
(Part 2)
RispondiEliminaAfter that Rangineh introduced the group the topic of the “power dynamics”. We defined it as the situation where there are many actors and some actors have more power than the others in changing the status quo. Finally we agreed to apply this definition also to the situation where some people have more power than others. So Rangineh spurred us to take a few minutes to think about a personal example or current event that demonstrates an imbalance of power dynamics. Danil made the case where husbands force their wives to do housework rather than studying or having a career, relating to an imbalance of power dynamics. Mazen caught the point I think Rangineh wanted us to get to in order to open a broad debate. He underlined how the average country spends 80% of its income for Defence issues and therefore the economy rules the militray. Mazen observed that people who have the most influential economic power are in the US, and they are those who control the military. Luke objected that basically super rich people and not all the US people control everything because many of them don't really have a lot of money. At that point Rangineh spurred Mazen to give a concrete example of who is in a power imbalance with the US and he put the case of the US aiding Israel because Jews control their economy, having US founds going to Israel regardless of the international recession and the domestic needs of the American people. Mazen added that many crises in Middle East are generated by the imbalance of power created Israel highly superior military strength compared to that of any of its Arab neighbors. Rangineh asked if there was historical cases where the money didn't lead to dreadful results and many, including me, gave the examples of the European Reconstruction Plan after the Second World War.
As you know, last Thursday we voted the topic “How we see other Countries”. Rangineh has suggested us to bring a question about the topic to class this session and to be ready to discuss it. I asked the class whether it's possible to learn about other cultures, specifically, if they think it's possible to learn about them without actually going to very different countries and using the Internet and communication technology. They more or less deem imperative for a person to travel to a country seeing the historical and cultural places in order to really know it, in this way avoiding propaganda made by governments. Mahira asked the group how we see status of women in Pakistan. I suppose because Malala's story is very popular in our countries, everyone thinks women in Pakistan don't have access to education not because of politics but more so because of culture. Mahira replied that it's true yet the things are rapidity changing to a more positive outcome.
Lastly Rangineh reminded us of the articles we have to read for the next session and finally chose two volunteers who'll come up with a couple of questions about the reading on "The role of religion". They will be Elena and Mazen.
According to all the group members this session has been very interesting and we are looking forward the next meeting.
Nicola Berto
Dear Diary,
RispondiEliminaafter this third meeting I have the feeling we are becoming a real team, because now we discuss without any problem all topics, even hard ones. Lisanne, the facilitator, does not have to ask each of us what do we think about everything: we express our opinion of our free will, and so there are very interesting debates.
The third session started with a game in which we had to draw an animal, described by Lisanne. We all thought it was an elephant at first. At a certain point, I noticed that there were some anomalous characteristics, and then I drew something horrible, a sort of big mouse with long claws. When we found out that the animal was actually an anteater, it became evident that we all failed the objective. It was also funny because a couple of us had never seen an anteater before (and I still have the feeling that Yasmine thinks it does not exist truly). However, we realized the aim: we did not wait for Lisanne to finish the description, and so we misunderstood all. This game made us aware of the power of words, and, consequently, of media. I personally think that we can be partly forgiven, because in our globalized world we are accustomed (maybe forced) to get a lot of infos in very short lapses of time.
I liked very much that the main topic of the week was "power dynamics". I almost forgot that we have to deal with such power relationships in our dailylife too: they are present in family structures, in schools, in city organizations. Parents are more powerful than sons, for example, but we agreed that this is one of the cases in which an imbalance can be good. In fact, a society without it would be a mess.
But what can we say about it on a international level? I do not want a world in which some countries use their power to control other ones. The girls think that is a matter of arming, basically. In my opinion, an hegemony has also something to do with culture, so I mentioned movies, books and mentality too, and I referred to the relationship between USA and Europe.
Lisanne asked if we feel that someone of us has more power than somebody else in our group, but we immediately answered that we do not. Maybe that is because we fear no judgement, as we feel safe in our chat room and we already love each other. However, I made them notice that if there was a boy in our group, then he would be more powerful than us girls. What is interesting is that everyone, from American girls to Arabic ones, totally agreed with me, with no trace of hesitation. On the other hand, I am convinced of something: if there was for real, a boy would deny having such power. When I talk with my Italian male friends, they use to make light of the gender gap, although it does exist even here. It hurts me bad because without a serious attention, there is no basis for a resolution. The first step to overcome a problem is to recognize it. I hope it is different abroad, though.
I was a bit disappointed because we are only two, both European (Coline and I), in choosing the video for the final project. Luckily, the Pakistani girl volunteed to join us in the private chat to be the "Middle-East voice" in our discussion. She has been very kind and we talked a lot. They were curious about the Italian situation and I told them of our difficulties in putting into practice the freedom of speech and religion, formally guaranteed. I said to Coline that I admire the famous french tolerance. I think that first of all is a matter of mentality, and here in Italy, catholic country, some people are not so helpful towards other religions or cultures.
The best moment was when we returned to the main room and the other girls were laughing about something: they made fun of us as they pretended to have some secrets! We started to squabble like little sisters! Lisanne told us she feels like we caught the spirit of Soliya project, and its aim of dialogue between each other, because she thinks we are a great group.
Haya said that she would like to travel in each of our countries to see us: I wish I could do it too!
Carolina Olivi
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaI have just completed my third session of Soliya project.
Unfortunately, I arrived 40 minutes later because of work, I realized that they were talking about the power dynamics. The Americans had found a definition: power was the ability to get what you want from someone. Then the conversation went on religion to provide an example of power. I said that religion is a power, because you order what you need to do to afterlife, but no one answered.
One of the Arab boys said that Western countries dominate the third world because they are rich. Amanda asked if it is right that the rich countries are also powerful. I had understood the question and I said that it seems obvious that the richest country is also the most powerful. The United States would not be so powerful if they were not the richest.
The young American said it was not right, and have added a series of platitudes that would have to be in solidarity with the third world countries. The three Arab boys on the other hand, they said that they can become rich if the Western continues to wage war on their countries. I intervened, explaining that the West is not only the United States, and that the problem of underdevelopment is their economic liberalism and the absurd power that religion has in some of their countries.
Muhammad changed the subject by saying that Americans have armed the Taliban against the USSR and then they started the war on terror own against the Taliban. I think he meant that Americans have identified Muslims as new enemies after September 11, but I do not know if I have interpreted it.
Near the end of the session Marielle said the two final projects in detail. After the explanation, the other facilitator, Amanda said we had to find a mate using the private chat.
I have arranged with Abdelmonom because both did not want to do the design of the video, because he did not want to make a video, because I am the subject of religion extremely tedious. In the private chat we agreed on exchanging knowledge on our respective universities and talk about what they are useful for young people to find work. We exchanged e-mails to get better in contact and we said goodbye and ended the session.
Alex Segat