Hi everyone,
I've enjoyed reading your reflections on the first week - quite different experiences with some people having very small groups for the first session - due perhaps to festivities in some regions. Hopefully this week there will be fewer absentees! Also you will begin to feel more comfortable with the technology, with speaking into what to some of you seemed like a silent audience, to the awkwardness of the group, which will gradually change, don't worry.
This week you have your readings to do before the discussions, so please make sure you take the time to read them. If there's anything you don't understand about the texts please ask me.
I am sure that this week things will go more smoothly on a technical level too so you can get on with your discussions.
I will try and organise a meeting for us all next week (when I'm back from my visit to Soliya's Cairo offices on Friday and Saturday :-)), I will send a mail with more details about where and when.
If your reflections are too long for one comment, you can split them and send two separate comments, no problem! If you want to keep them anonymous on the blog, it is possible to change the settings so your name doesn't appear (you can then send me all your reflections at the end in a doc file with your name).
I look forward to hearing about how this week goes!
Enjoy :-)
Francesca
I've enjoyed reading your reflections on the first week - quite different experiences with some people having very small groups for the first session - due perhaps to festivities in some regions. Hopefully this week there will be fewer absentees! Also you will begin to feel more comfortable with the technology, with speaking into what to some of you seemed like a silent audience, to the awkwardness of the group, which will gradually change, don't worry.
This week you have your readings to do before the discussions, so please make sure you take the time to read them. If there's anything you don't understand about the texts please ask me.
I am sure that this week things will go more smoothly on a technical level too so you can get on with your discussions.
I will try and organise a meeting for us all next week (when I'm back from my visit to Soliya's Cairo offices on Friday and Saturday :-)), I will send a mail with more details about where and when.
If your reflections are too long for one comment, you can split them and send two separate comments, no problem! If you want to keep them anonymous on the blog, it is possible to change the settings so your name doesn't appear (you can then send me all your reflections at the end in a doc file with your name).
I look forward to hearing about how this week goes!
Enjoy :-)
Francesca
Today was our second session of the project. I felt a bit more comfortable (not that I felt too much pressure in the first meeting): I am starting to know better our technical equipment and, well, practice makes perfect, as they say. On the contrary, it does not seem so easy for the others: some of us had technical problems. Two girls (from Tunisia) tried to connect, but the tech support told our facilitator that they were not able to. A boy from West Virginia (another one) connected today for the first time. I would not have expected that, but it felt like he was a little an outsider, since he missed our first meeting. It seems we are already building a group.
RispondiEliminaWe ended up today being less than the first session. I think this has had a negative impact on the discussion: we talked a lot, but there were moments in which nobody spoke. And those moments were not so short. And I am sorry about this, I would have loved to hear different opinions, since we’ve been pretty involved in our debate. We started telling the others the importance we give to family, friends, personality, nationality and religion. Surprisingly (for me, at least) religion was the most important for the others. Not only for people from Pakistan and Jordan, but also one of the guys from West Virginia. We had to explain why we considered one thing the most important, and why we gave that order to our. It is interesting to find out how we have so different perspectives.
I was lucky that I had already read ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. The other reading was pretty interesting, too, as well as the video. We did not speak too much about the readings, we moved to a more general discussion: we all agreed on the tension between the West and the East. And we all agreed that it was peculiar to define some countries with a religious attribute (Muslim majority countries) and others with a geographical attribute (estern countries) and we agreed to change 'muslim majority countries' with 'east'. It was interesting to find out how the Easterners perceived us Westerners and how we all perceived the tension between the two sides. We related it to the pride of each side and to the perceived superiority of one’s own culture. I liked that exchange of perspectives.
I am also really happy that we are already becoming a group: there were some private messages between me and some others, it was fun but also interesting to share private details of our lives. And I had the chance to speak a little with the facilitator at the beginning of the session, since I was the first to arrive, talking about some random experiences abroad.
Plans for the next session: to carry on this debate. And I am sincerely looking forward to. And I am still afraid that I monopolize the discussion, but let us pretend it is okay!
I still have no idea on my final project: video or paper, this is the question…
Federica
Hi everybody,
RispondiEliminaWorking in progress with Soliya!!!! And we need to improve some things!!!!
Unfortunately yesterday was quite boring; too much dead-time and we didn't speak a lot.
For instance we spent 1 hour doing other exercises to know better each others, but I didn't enjoy them.We had to think about 7 elements, which characterized us. I didn't like this kind of games because I find difficult to think about these things or to explain why I choose those elements.
Probably the facilitators planned the games in order to help the discussion and to provide some starting point, but they failed. All of us answered with simple sentences and there wasn't a real debate even when we discussed about our cultures and the perception we have of the other countries.
Indeed we spoke about the reading, but we said only general things about the stereotypes or the role of the media in creating some images of western and Arab world. What surprised me was the fact that all of us were agree with the others and this impeded the creation of the debate.
Thus a lot of sentences were "I'm totally agree with...".
We meet to new girls but unfortunately some other people were missing for technical problems; I saw a new girl just for 2 minutes and then she disappeared because of problems with the mic.
I hope the next session will be better and I will do my best to improve the debate.
Meanwhile I have to think about the final project and I have no idea if choosing the video or the paper. I have never done a video and this could be a great opportunity to start. Thus probably I will choose the video ;)
Micaela
Marta Perrone
RispondiEliminaYesterday afternoon I had my second Soliya session. What can I say? It was a bit strange and fascinating too. This time the two guys from Tunisia were absent, but I knew Juhaina from Jordan and Dylan from US (he was quite odd). At the beginning, there were just the facilitators and Christi. While we waited for the others, in order to test our microphones, we talked about the jet lag between Italy and Kentucky. The dear Christi woke up early enough, because her meeting time was 6.30 a.m. I was so sorry for her; she had my totally comprehension! My time was 13.30 p.m., exactly after lunch…..not an appropriate hour! Anyway, we did it! Then we continued speaking about our favorite colors and subjects until Juhaina connected. She also had the usual technical problems and we were able to hear her just after some minutes. As soon as she talked I thought “I like her. She seems so strong!” . Soon after, Dylan arrived. He was absent last week and unexpectedly he had no interest to introduce himself to the group. I know that he is American, nothing else. When also Alaa was ready, we briefly explained how we had spent our weekend and then Rob and Jul proposed to do an identity activity. We had to take out a piece of paper, think about what identified us and in 5 minutes write 7 aspects of our identity that were important for us (i.e. related to nation, gender, religion, family, school, etc.). We crossed out from the list two elements that were least important to us and then other two. So the three elements remaining seemed to describe better our identity. I don’t deny that I had a hard time crossing certain things out, because it was like giving up a part of me. Anyway my three aspects were: family, education and the chance to make a free choice. Like I explained, I didn’t refer to my family, but to the concept of family and not necessarily like a union between a man and a woman. When I said that my aim was to provoke a reaction too, but I didn’t receive any response. Maybe during the program issues like this will be discussed.
Marta Perrone
RispondiEliminaIn general, we noticed that family was one of the most important elements in our lists although we are from individualistic and collectivist communities. Religion was important too: Juhaina and Alaa mentioned Islam and Christi Catholicism. I can’t wait for the next meeting when we’ll discuss about religion because I’m so curious to know how much they allow themselves to be influenced by that aspect. The debate carried on. We focused our attention first of all on the role played by acceptance in the formulation of ideas that are approved by others, then on our tendency to give up or to hold tighter a part of our identity that is threatened. We agreed that is hurtful when someone threatens our identity, but it also can give us an opportunity for learning. Now, I’m arrived to describe the best moment of the session: the discussion about the readings and the relationship between “Western Societies” and “Predominantly Muslim Societies”. Reading “Bridging cultural differences”, I found similar topics that I studied a month ago when I attended a seminar in Milan. They were about differences between the American low-context society and the Arab high-context society and I said that, in my opinion, Italians are in the middle, because we like a direct language, but the meaning of message and the context are important for us too. With regard to the image of the West and the East, the role of media emerged, in particular the different level of freedom of the Western and Arab/Middle Eastern media and how media are ideological oriented. Then Juhaina asked a good question: “What do you think about Arab and Muslim people?”. Yes, really a good question! Although our societies often have a negative perception of the Muslim people for many reasons (current conflict, the supposed view of women, etc.), I’m so glad to see that we want to get to a deeper understanding of Muslim community. If you know something, you can constructively discuss about it. There isn’t a superior culture and while the world is becoming more and more interconnected, I firmly believe that differences have to be appreciated and protected.
Thanks to my group for this interesting conversation! :)
Marta Perrone
22/10/2014
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Yesterday I was very happy to restart the Soliya project and because I began to know the people of the group better than last time. I like so much to speak with people of other countries. Indeed I can understand a lot of things about their life, their place and their religion.
In the first part of our discussion, the facilitators asked us to describe the place where we live.
The next exercise consisted in finding seven elements of our personality and then we had to explain it. After that we had to choose three more characteristic elements between the seven that we said. For example my seven elements were tenacity, determined, friendly, cordial, mother, happy and sometimes serious. Other said Muslim, crazy, Christian, advocate and so on. I think that this game it was important for us, because we learned better our mates in the group and I think also that these aspects will be necessary when we will talk about some issues between Eastern part and Western part of the world.
Later we did another exercise and personally it was so interesting because we had to talk about our religion identity and the differences between them. In my group there are some people who are Muslims, other are Christians as me, but unfortunately I didn't understand the religion of my American friends.
The first question linked with this topic was if our religion identified us in our society. Most of the people said yes, because the religion reflects who we are. In my opinion, my religion didn't affected my life.
Secondly we talked about the stereotypes in our regions or our life. For all members of the group stereotypes aren't a good thing because they could twist the real life; indeed the citizens of one country could believe something strange about an ethnic group or about other people, just because they heard some news from media without knowing them. The same it happened to me when I arrived here in Italy. Some Italians people thought, and also now they think, that all Romanians are thieves, criminals and not serious people, but this is only a stereotype. The same things happened with Kim and Amina when she went in America to live there. For Salah, people all around the world think bad about Maroccans.
At the end our facilitators asked us if next week we wanted to talk about something that we like, and then everyone close own connection.
See you next week
Stefania Nicoleta
NATASCIA PIASENTINI
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Yesterday I had my second session with Soliya project. At the beginning, I was a little worried because last week I couldn't hear very well because of connection problems. On the contrary, yesterday, my session started well and I could hear people while were speaking.
Our facilitators are very kind. They help us to make conversation with some activities and if there is a moment wherein nobody speaks, they introduce another topic/activity. It is a pity they don't take part of the discussion.
When we were all in the Soliya's platform (except two boys who were absent to the appointment), the facilitators introduced our session with an activity. They wrote in the chat box five words in random: religion, family/friends, homeland, nationality and personality. We had to put in order from the most important according each of us. Thanks to this activity we could notice some differences between two major cultures (on the one hand the western culture, on the other hand the eastern culture). The result of this activity was that people from western countries put on the top, family and friends, while people from eastern countries put first, the religion.
Then, we discussed about three articles that we have read some days before the session. Articles were about “Bridging Cultural Differences”, “Crash of civilisation” and a video between “What are the sources of conflict between Islam and the Western World”.
Some people in the group shared experiences about their travels in different part of the world where they met different people and different cultures. For example an American girl said that when she was in Southeast Asia, she was not allowed to enter the mosques or temples without being fully covered. I said it's normal because it's a sacred place and also in Italy there is the rule that people can't enter in a church in shorts or t-shirt. It's a form of respect. I have to say the truth... I was surprised of this consideration . In this case I felt closer to Islam culture that to American culture about entering in a sacred place covered. A boy from Virginia said "even if is it hot you cannot enter in the church uncovered?” this question was incredible for me. I answered that every time you enter in a sacred place (church or mosque is indifferent), you should be respectful. I think it was interesting this conversation.
At the end of the session, we told about the final project. I chose the video project because I believe the topic is more interesting. The topic of Video project is “Freedom of speech and respect for religion”.
In conclusion, during the session I spoke more than last week, so I am proud of me!
Natascia Piasentini
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaAlso the second Soliya meeting has been done, and some interesting elements came out. First of all, we were fewer than the last week: only four of us were present, and I think this will be our final group… luckily we are all from different parts of the world - from USA to Pakistan to Egypt - and the conversation can still be very stimulating and interesting.
Another remark I have to make is that, unfortunately, also this time we had connection problems, but eventually the technicians helped us refreshing the chat page, in order to avoid the problem of the lag, that - I must say it - was quite annoying.
We started the conversation with a light theme: favorite foods and cooking traditions of our countries, and, as I expected, pizza is able to mediate with all the cultures, at all the latitudes of the world!
Then we engaged ourselves in an activity to describe our own identities, listing seven elements that we judged fundamental to describe ourselves: the results were quite interesting, since we were able to observes both several common elements and differences among the group.
For example, we all mentioned the importance of our families and friends, but also the role of the books we had read, movies we have seen, travels we have made throughout our lives in building our personalities and personal tastes. What we have weighted in a different way were in particular two things: the role of religion in our lives and how important for us was our nationality.
For what it regards the first element, especially the Egyptian girl has underline that, for her, it was a fundamental part of her identity. It surprised me that she mentioned the fact that her religion “control” (she used this verb) her life regarding food, way of dressing and to behave in public as a positive element, not as a stifling situation, showing that we can have completely different perception on the borders between personal and public spheres.
On the issue of nationality, it was very interesting to know more about in particular the situation of Pakistan: Muhammad has explained us that inside his country the most important characteristic is the ethnicity of a person (in his case, Pashtun), while when he goes abroad, he define himself as a Pakistani person.
Hannah, from USA, has underlined the fact that sometimes, when a person goes to another country, the element of nationality may recall some stereotypes: for example, american people are often perceived as rude or ignorant.
Since the conversation started to touch this kind of issues, we decided that we will focus part of our next meeting on the theme or stereotypes and the perception of “the others” in the different cultures. We will also discuss about the articles we had to read for this session, since not all of us had the chance to read them.
As a conclusion, we talked about the possibilities for the final project: I think I will do the reflection paper on “Youth opportunities, challenges, and the everyday”, and I hope to have some stimulating ideas from my group in the next session in order to do my work!
Liliana
Elena Melotti 23/10/2014
RispondiEliminaHello!
I have just finished my second Soliya session.
For a moment I feared I was goint to loose it, cause I got lost with my mother in the plans around Rovigo, where it seems that road signals are an optional (especially the ones pointing the SS434) and gps is not working. In the end I managed to connect “just” 30 minutes later than the fixed time.
This session was a lot better than the first one cause we managed to break the ice in my small group and all the akwardness of technology and the strange sensation of talking to nobody has gone. Yes, small it’s an important word…we are still 3 plus the facilitator.
At first I was a bit disappointed, because I wished other people to join us in order to enrich the debate, but it’s better like this, considering the interest this people is showing.
Thanks to the small number and to the fact that we are all women, today we create a certain “intimity” and each of us had the possibility to speak more than it would have happened in a larger group.
Our facilitator asked us to share the aspects which are determining ourselves as we are and I tried to comply with the task at the best of my possibilities, so I was emotionate: it doesn’t happen everyday to analyse analyse myself and share this analysis.
A girl in my group told that a basic element in her being is the indipendence and maturity which she was forced to achieve when her father died: this was hitting hard on me.
We also had occasion to share some words about topics such as sensitiveness and over-thinking. It was a good experience and I discovered I share lots of feelings with the other girls.
We talked about the fact that nobody between the three of us was identifying herself with nationality or religion: we didn’t even mentioned these aspects.
About the gender issue, there was a difference: we agreed that it has an influence, but not that decisive, even if we recognized that being women is still requiring some more struggles…and there were no men there to contradict us or expose some kind of constructive criticism.
When we came to talk about the “clash of civilization” and the relationship between predominantly muslim countries and the West, we reached the conclusion that put all of this in a frame is beyond our possibilities, but we agreed also that, in relation to our purposes, it’s ok to just refer in general to East/West relationship.
Right now I’m looking forward to the next session and I’m having lots of ideas about possible topics to share in the group, cause it was really a “fertile” discussion and I think it’s possible to progress even further.
Sara Fortini
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
I have to say that my second meeting of Soliya project was really interesting. If on the one hand during the first meeting many people were missing and we had also to face a lot of technical problems, on the other hand the second one was more fluent and funnier! We started with a breaking-ice activity in which we introduced ourselves talking also about our hobbies and interests. Another activity planned for the beginning was called "two truths and a lie": aim of the game was to guess the lie. It was nice and honestly sometimes very hard! After that Lisanne (our facilitator) asked us to choose seven words in order to describe our social and cultural identity. We shared, having a round, our three most important values: for example I have said respect, freedom and coherence. Making this unusual exercise I have noticed that people from America made very similar statements while all Arabic participants chose values like religion, family and respect toward their cultural identity. The thing that really surprised me was that the two Americans said both health like one of their first values and I had immediately about problems connected with health insurance. The last activity was focused on the readings "the clash of civilization", "bridging cultural difference" and the video interview of "Jocelyne Cesari". The discussion became very animated especially when we approached the religious theme linked to every form of extremism. As conclusion we gave our preferences for the final project. I am very satisfied with this experience since it was very open minding. Hearing about the opinions of Muslim people on the relationship between religion and politic gave me a new and different view on this topic. Infact even if we live so far one from each other we don't have a distant opinion on what to do to change some wrong dynamics between faith and politic. We all agree on the power of communication to fill the gap between West and East, anyone of us don't have the truth in his hands and I have the perception that we are here in order to create a constructive comparison between different cultures and values to understand the importance of dialogue. I just can't wait for our next session!
Sara
Marina Molinari Part 1
RispondiEliminaHi everybody.
Here we are: the second week of Soliya Program.
The meeting this week was more exiting than the first one. At the beginning of our meeting Erin, our facilitator, experienced a lot of technical problems. She had to switch off and on computers and we start a bit late. We started talking about our weekend only to discover that everybody of us spent the entire week-end studying… Unbelievable!
To open the activity Erin asked us to discuss three unique things about us or three things that not many people know about us.
Kayla, the american girl, said that her favourite colour is yellow even though she usually says that it's blue. She told us that it's easier to say that she likes blue instead of explaining why she likes yellow; that just seemed to strange to me: I don’t really understand why she consider more difficult to talk about that particular colour.
Than she told us that she loved read romance novels, like Nicholas Sparks’s books. I was really disappointed in discovering that someone could love this author, so I had a strange reaction: I immediately opened my eyes wide and I think that she didn’t appreciate. She told us about her slight obsession with Superman, too.
Then it was my turn and I told that I love to travel and explained where I have travelled during my life; I’ve also said that I love discuss with people, too, and Erin told me that Soliya seems like a good place for me.
I told that I am a person who think too much, and obviously they asked me why. It was pretty cool try to explain my daily life: I shared with them some links related to the things I normally do, to my work or my hobbies.
Farah, the jordan girl, told us that she hate reading because in her opinion reading is a waste of time and that she isn’t a talkative person, because she likes speak only when is really necessary. Even if I respect all opinions, I don’t think this is the right attitude to partecipate to Soliya program, though.
Heni, the tunisian boy, told us that he loves computers and robotics and finally Houssem told that he loved videogames and action movies.
After this first part of the meeting Erin asked us to speak about article we had to read at home, called "The clash of civilizations" by Samuel Huntington. Eris asked us if in our opinion really exists a clash between civilizations and why: in particular, she asked us if we agree that there is an unbridgeable gap between “Western societies” and “predominantly Muslim societies”.
Whabi tooks an example known to everybody: the clash between the Palestinians and the Israelis. However, he did not explained very well why he wanted to discuss about this topic. Erin asked him some questions to understand better, but Whabi wasn’t very clear in expressing his opinions.
Essentially he told that the clash between Israelis and Palestinians reflects a broader clash between Western societies and Muslim-driven societies in the world.
Than Erin asked us if we are agree in used the terms "Western society" and "predominantly Muslim society" to indicate the two big areas of the world.
I didn’t agree completely, because I think the religion is only a part of the complex mosaic that constitutes a culture.
Marina Molinari Part 2
RispondiEliminaIf we call them "Western society" and "predominantly Muslim society" we automatically identify a part of the world with a religion, and I strongly believe that’s a discrimination, because it implies the reduction of the person to a small part of its believes.
I proposed to talk about "Eastern society" and "Western society”, or in general use any terms that not reflect something that can appear like a discrimination.
We talked just a little bit about our idea of culture, what it means for us and which concepts this word refers to.
In my opinion “culture” means something like a mix of knowledge, history, language, and religion. Many things help determine the culture of a country, including religion, but religion isn’t the only one: the culture of people come mainly from history and the development of the community.
Everybody agreed with me and than we started talking about the role of the media in our societies.
For Houssem media are a problem because they usually contribute in building a bad idea about the Eastern and Arabic people, automatically referring to them as terrorists who want to make war.
Farah agreed totally with this opinion, while I told that there are different media and often they don't show what’s happening in “Eastern World” really, because they show us only the war and they don’t speak about the fault and responsability of our society.
Subsequently we started talking about the role of the media and how the conflict between Israel and Palesatine is portrayed in our countries.
The american girl told us that she don't watch the media all that much, so it would have been hard for her to say something about this topic.
She told that this is actually the first time that she had heard anything about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinian, even I think this is impossible.
Someone asked me how the recent conflict between Israel and Palestine is portrayed in Italian media. I answered that in Italy, to be correctly informed, you have to read or watch the right media. Frequently you can’t understand really well what's happening, but there are a lot of media and the internet that can help you to better understand.
Whabi told us that in his opinion in the world there are two types of media: the ones submitted to the power (of the country, for example) that follow instructions and orders, and the others who works honestly ad tell people only the truth.
This discussion could be great, but we were out of time and we had to speak about the final project.
During this session we had the first discussion about something interesting and fascinating but I had the impression that the level of discussions is very low. Perhaps it’s because it was only the second meeting and we all were still nervous: I hope so, even if sometimes I have the impression that my colleagues are not as motivated as me. But I hope I’m wrong. Waiting for the nex week...
Dear Diary,
RispondiEliminaOn Thursday I had my second Soliya session. This time I logged into the meeting room fifteen minutes earlier than the time we had scheduled last week in order to ask the facilitator about a problem I was having. It was about the final project: I had chosen to make the video yet as I filled up the compulsory survey regarding it, I did not receive the passkey nor the ID to log in the video editing site. Rangineh kindly promised me to talk about my issue with the tech assistance through email cc'd to me. Unfortunately she hasn't been able to fix it yet.
After a while seven people joined the session and the facilitator asked us to tell the others if we could have a super power what would it be and why. At first many said that to fly would be great power yet finally every group member convened that teleporting would be even better. Rangineh eventually declared that TELEPORTING would be the group power for the semester.
The group first activity was about identity. We tried to define the term and the different means which it can assume. I wrote on the chat box that we could define identity as the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is. Then following Rangineh guide lines every group's member wrote down seven aspects of his identity, without typing them on the chat box. Then we'd have to cross out the Four least important hence saving only the Three important ones which determine who we are. When we'd found them we'd have to write them on the chat box so that the others could read them. When I read the things the guys wrote I noticed the differences between the countries we're from, Western rather than Arab, yet I found funny and unbelievable similarities too. I'm going to explain them. I wrote that music is an important aspect of my life, so Ian and Luke -students from New York- asked me what kind of music I like. When I told them my favorite rock band is The Arcade Fire, they said that they love this band too and Nihel -a girl from Tunisi- agreed as well. After this funny issue the similarities stopped. Us western students didn't mention within our three important features religion, whereas Middle Eastern students consider being Muslim as an important aspect which shapes their life.
New and deep stereotypes are growing:
1) Nihel said that sometimes when she was chatting with her virtual friends they asked her about the things which as a Muslim she couldn't do, particularly they wanted to know wether those prohibitions aren't too strict for her, since for the Western culture they would be considered as such.
2) Mazen – a student from Egypt- said that when he tells people he's from Egypt they think he goes to school on camel or horseback, which he finds very unpleasant. I think both, Nihel and Mazen witness the stereotypical view rooted in Western societies that are aslo fueled by the media.
I believe that the only way to overcome this cultural impasse is being open to dialog. For this week, Soliya Staff had given every group two articles and an interview (provided us through a link) about the relations between Western and Arab cultures:
1) “Bridging Cultural Differences: American Public Relations Practices & Arab Communication Patterns” by R.S. Zaharna, Ed.D.;
2) “The Coming Clash of Civilizations Or, the West Against the Rest” by Samuel P. Huntington;
3) “What are the sources of conflict between Islam and the Western World” interview.
The articles and the video show very well how misunderstandings could burst clash of civilizations.
Lastly, after I read on the Soliya blog that a group facilitator created a facebook page where the guys of his discussion group can chat with each other, I proposed Rangineh to do the same thing for our group too. Rangineh and all the members seem to be enthusiastic about this idea and we decided to create a facebook page as well.
Finally the group voted the topic to discuss next time: “How we see other Countries”.
I'm really looking forward to the next time!
Nicola Berto
Part 1
RispondiEliminaDear Diary, last Wednesday I had the second meeting of Soliya's program. This time I didn't want to lose no dialogue, so I asked my son to find a program to record the dialogues, I want to listen what I tell to my fellow travelers and understand their ideas.
This second meeting was very interesting and challenging.
Casper early asked us to order five categories: family, friends, religion, nationality, personality. We had to put the first on the top and nonessential in the last place. I confess that I haven't understood the delivery so I ordered it this way: personality, friends, family, religion and nationality.
When Casper asked us to justify our choices I have realized to have wrong, the true sense was our today family, not family's name (as Agnelli, Berlusconi). So I told Casper that I wanted to change and put my family in the first place together my friends. I love my husband and my children, they are the most important thing in my life.
Almost the whole group has put the nationality at the last place and I was agreement with what said Kadie: “The nationality doesn't define how you are”.
I was very impressed by Chiraz's responses, she put religion in first place, she was very valiant and said: "I believe in God, when I'm depressed I turn to Allah and this helps me". This statement has open a nice discussion, many members of our group are atheists but they understood and respected Chiraz.
During our discussion Zakaria and Wafa could not speak because of technical problems, but they listened us and this allowed them to write their ideas and communicate with all of us.
Casper asked us to add other categories which would describe ours personality, I proposed hobbies and I discovered to have the same passion for photography that has Chiraz.
Then conversation became more serious, Casper asked us if we wanted to talk about the articles which we had to read, and we all said yes. He introduced discussion asking if we agreed with the items above all the part about the tension between countries of different religion. When we began to speak, we said that tension was due to understanding's lack between different groups. For some of our group tension is engendered by religion. I explained that I didn't agree what Huntington was stated, he said that civilizations differs also with respect to the concept of the state, democracy, tolerance and the rule of law. I am sorry for this because I think that there is one God, one life, one freedom. For me conflict is caused by power and money, not by civilization. In this regard I have read several articles, not just those who were in the program. So I really could reason out different points of view.
Part 2
RispondiEliminaAt a certain point Jeanne said something important: " Various civilizations can together live well, it would be nice that we would be us part of a single civilization" and again "The world will change only if people change". Many of the group have made some considerations which I share, for instance it is true that the company focuses too much on culture rather than on individuals. Gerell said that soldiers teach many misconceptions about Islam, saying that every Muslim is a terrorist. This is really wrong!
Once again sweet Chiraz helped us saying that many people see Islam as a terrorist, but they forget radicalism presents in Christianity. I am agree with this, I think, for example, about the Inquisition and religious wars.
At the end I wrote my thought: "I believe in pluralism and that religion of each should be respected." Each of us has expressed his thoughts about this phrase, we all were agree.
Casper was very pleased with this meeting. Gerell Jeanne and I have shared the same opinion: in our countries the Islam-phobic sentiment is growing, then Wafa explained us that there is a difference between Muslims and terrorists, the latter give a wrong view of Islam. "The media also are wrong because they focus too much about Islam-fobia" said Casper.
Chiraz instead attributes many negligence in power strong (USA) who gives an misconception about all Muslims..
I'm not very good at English and, fortunately, I comprehend thanks to what Casper writes during every meeting, but i have one certainty: this program will make me change many beliefs and it will help me destroy the stereotypes that someone continuously and tirelessly pass as absolute truth.
Francesca Aufiero
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaI decided to wait a little bit more than last time to write after my second session of Soliya because if I had written immediately, I would have definitely said that I was not satisfied. That happened because of a series of problems that raised during the session that I’m about to expose.
First of all, the most important, we were still the same five people, two of which are facilitators. At least we could see Taghreed unlike last meeting, even if she had a lot of technical problems (point that links to the second problem we have come across during the whole session and that I’d like to deal with afterwards). However, the point is that just her is from an Eastern Country, Egypt. So you can understand that if the objective of discussion should be a confrontation between Eastern and Western cultures, it appears hard to be reached without Arabs. “Where are the other people?”, we asked. Unfortunately no one of us could have a likely answer this time. We all hope they’re going to join next meetings or our conversations risk to become boring.
Technical problems are the second element of disturb of the session: at the beginning we wasted at least half an hour waiting that everyone of us could see and hear each other. Despite the fact that we must take a lot of diagnostic tests before login, technical problems are continually disturbing the conversations: it’s still hard hearing well the most of the time and in two hours it’s frequent that someone gets in or gets out or, worse, can’t totally hear or see. in this context, it’s difficult keeping the concentration all the time and pursue a dialogue consistent and clear.
After this polemic starting, I would try to evaluate in its complex the whole session, referring in particular to the content of discussion. By the way I totally forgot to talk about a new member who joined us: Rebecca, an American girl of 24 years old from West Virginia. Actually there is a reason why I forgot she had participated: she joined us late, stayed with us for just few minutes before disconnecting and never returning. Anyway she informed Monica, our American facilitator, that her connection was off. It was a pity because it was interesting finally seeing someone new in our group.
Part two
RispondiEliminaAnyway, as I said last time, the main topic in the first part of the session was “Identity”. The facilitators suggested an activity that consisted in writing seven words that best represented us. I usually don’t find these kind of questions easy, because it’s difficult analyzing yourself and decide so fast which aspects best represent your identity. Then we had to select three of them, and it was easier for me. I chose “Human”, “Territorial Identity” and “Political Identity”. My colleagues chose other kind of words, like the position in the family, society, friendship, or some words that regard age, sex, feelings. I was a bit confused because in an international conversation I supposed we had to talk about national identity, cultural identity, political identity; so when Monica asked us what we noticed in our descriptions, I was not afraid of making others notice the difference of my point of view on the concept of identity in contrast with theirs. I did it because I wanted to animate a discussion on an argument which I am attached to. Instead we started to talk in no particular order of different issues such as ISIS, role of the media, the clash between civilizations, as the Huntington’s reading suggested. Without a theme, it was not easy trying to explain our opinions, that’s why for example Clay almost never talked. Anyway, I tried to talk and elaborate my thoughts on those topics.
Finally, concerning the last thoughts, I can’t say that I am totally unsatisfied just because without Soliya I couldn’t have the luck of speaking and improving English so much with stranger people so far away from me. So it’s too soon for giving a definitive evaluation. I’m waiting the next session, hoping that will be much more interesting unlike the last one. The next topics of discussion will be: “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” and “Arab Spring”, which sound such interesting! But if the Arabs will not join us, it won’t be very exciting. In that case, we have already decided to discuss about “Differences and similarities between American and European people”. I am confident that things are going to change!
Gabriele Chiarello
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaI have just completed my second session of Soliya project. During the first session many people were missing and we have had much connecting problems, but this time we were almost all.
Luca began the session by asking each of us where we are and how we go to school. Almost all went on foot, except Nathan who uses public transport.
After Marielle has dictated terms 5 (Family, Land, Nationality, Personal Activity, Religion) and asked us to put them in order of importance. I did not understand what they meant with “land” and asked explanation to Amanda who told me that I could interpret it to my liking... I decided to interpret the “land” like Belluno. My scale was almost same to that of Muhammad: religion, nationality, personal activities, land and family. Muhammad reversed the last two, for him the land was the most important thing; but also the others arab guys said that the religion is the least important each other choices proposed. The american guys instead have assigned much importance to nationality and to religion. I thought that the arabs were most linked at the religion than americans!
After that the facilitators have ask the differences between three couples of definitions. For example: unconfortable/insecure, but the answers of the americans were much different respect my idea and those of the arabs. Maybe the difference was semantic not conceptual. In the last part of session Amanda has asked again which rules are important for a good and safe discussion. In the general silence, I said who the three rules obtained in the previous session were more than sufficient.
Then we discussed the essay "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel Huntington. Immediately Nathan e Carter said that Huntington wrote an analysis that sees two main society (“Western society" and "predominantly Muslim society”) culturally far apart from each other and often in conflict. Both argued that Western civilization is superior because it is a freer society. Lilah said that he agreed because there is democracy in the West.
I was in disagreement, as there are many types of democracies, and rule a few million people in the countries of northern Europe is different and easier than in democracies such as Italy or France. In addition, the United States is so democratic that have two parties that alternate in power for 200 years. The difference between the Western society and predominantly Muslim society, in my opinion, is in the advent of the Enlightenment that has divided political authority from the religious. In Muslim societies has not occurred. Democracy can not be imposed all the West has understood this concept. In addition, the whole world has realized that the US fight wars only for economics aims and they are hiding behind the export of freedom and democracy or struggle against terrorism.
Unfortunately, only Arabic boy has intervened , Muhammad, but the difficulties of connection was not possible to fully understand his words. The moderator asked him to write in the chat but the result was not satisfactory. I understand that talked about how the USA has subsidized the Taliban to fight the USSR.
Probably is not the best way to have a conversation, both it isn’t easy to articulate a discourse of a certain standard in a foreign language and because the connection is not optimal for all. Perhaps it is my fault that I take too seriously some topics, but I find it a bit poor level of discussions. But I'm sure as early as next session everything will be better!
Alex Segat
Carolina Olivi - 1st part
RispondiEliminaDear Diary,
in this second meeting I was really happy to see the girls again, and to finally meet the ones from USA, who are two kind girls. I think that they felt comfortable with us because we did our best to welcome them. Lisanne, the facilitator, asked us to list some rules in order to create a safe room to talk: but we think we already established them implicitly. In fact, since the first meeting, we have created a good atmosphere, and each of us feels free to say everything. As we said to Lisanne: “do not invite boys to this conversation, and we will be safe!”, because we remembered how much we laughed about it the past week!
Then we continued to know each other better, through the game of the seven elements that could define ourselves. Thanks to it, I could think over some aspects that I noticed. For example, all the Middle-East girls mentioned the Islamic religion and their belonging to the Arabic world as the main characteristics of their personality. But pay attention, it is not the same thing! We often use the words “muslim” and “Arabic” as synonymous, even if it is a mistaken idea. As they explained later, when we were discussing about the required readings and the category of “Arabic-muslim world”, being Arabic does not mean necessarily that you are muslim. There are also a lot of Christians in their countries: Yasmine told us there are officially eighteen religions in Lebanon! However, I like the fact that they are attached to their nations, but they also feel like they are part of a bigger world, which includes all Arabic countries.
I feel something similar with reference to Europe. That is the reason why I was so glad to hear that Coline, the french girl, has my same opinion about that. We are the only two girls from Europe. For both of us, nationality is more a matter of Europe than of our countries, France and Italy. I said to the group that I do not think that all Italians feel like that, but I personally like European culture, and so I was happy to notice that an European culture does exist apparently, even if we are not a Nation. Coline agreed with me. Actually, our conception may come from the mixed nationalities of our families: half of mine is Spanish, and her too. We joked about the fact that maybe we are relatives somehow!
I expected that religion was something very important for muslim girls. It was a bit unusual for me to hear them saying “I put religion in the first place because I love my God, I love my prophet, I am proud of being muslim and I ask God for help”, since I never hear my friends or family talking like this. The girls seem very strong and passionate while describing their faith. Coline and I did not mention the element of religion in our list, but the girls from USA did! So it is not something important only in the Middle-East area. I studied that in USA religion, even if there are different professions of faith, is something important in everyday life and also politically speaking. The group which is still predominant on a cultural level is the one descending from the first protestant migrations. For example, there has never been a President in USA which was atheist. We are usually defined together as the same “Western world”, but USA are far away from the lay Europe in some aspects.
A funny moment was when Takwa described herself as: muslim, Arab, girl, single, hopeful, fat and short! I laughed a lot and then I told her she forgot the most important element, which was “funny”, not fat!
Carolina Olivi - 2nd part
RispondiEliminaIn the second part of the meeting we had to talk about the required readings of the week. We started with the article written by Huntington. Some of the girls did not have to opportunity to read it, so I explained to them the topic, because I studied his book for an exam. We do not feel personally the conflict between two societies, the Western and the Muslim ones. We are all tolerant, we like other cultures and we have no prejudice, so we found the article too pessimistic. We wish that everyone could understand each other’s differences as we do in our chat room: if the whole world was like us, there would be for sure no conflict! I know that we are only a little group, and furthermore all young and literate, so maybe more open-minded than other sectors of population. However, we think that media portray it worse than the reality is, although it is true that there are some tensions and misunderstandings. In addition to this, media are often covering some political and economic reasons in emphasizing such tension.
Coline wanted to talk about the second article then. She was interested in the differences between the Arabic and the English languages, but I do not think the Arab girls got the idea, which was a bit complex, and the time was running out.
Lisanne asked us what option we prefer for our Soliya final project: I am afraid I am the only one who wants to make the video! I hope I will find someone else to work with.
WEEK 2
RispondiEliminaLast Wednesday we had our second Soliya session, I’m sorry I’m writing this late but it’s been a crazy week at University. Luckily I’ve taken a few notes right after the session, which I remember just fine anyway.
Firstly I must say that, even if I was still really scared at the beginning, it got better and better as time passed, I felt more confident in speaking and I calmed down a little. However I still have some problems in speaking fluently, due to my anxiety of talking amongst a group of people.
In addition we had a few issues during the meeting, most of which concerning technology: as a matter of fact we have faced again problems of connection and of communication tools (such as headsets not working properly). It wasn’t easy following the discussion and understanding other people as they were speaking, and it became harder as the discussion got deeper. Anyway I think a part of the problem could be that we all speak with very different accents, so it might take a little longer to get used to them and understand each other.
The other big issue is that nobody new from our group joined our session, and we were (just like the first time) only three people with two facilitators. We haven’t known anyone from Middle East or Maghreb yet, so the discussion tends to be quite limited. Luckily one of our facilitators is from Egypt, so she can be our “voice from Middle East” (as the other facilitator called her). Another girl from USA connected at some point, but she just stayed a while then her connection dropped (or at least that’s what I could understand). However, our facilitator wrote to us today, and she announced that a new student is joining us on next session: it seems that he or she is Tunisian, so I’m looking forward to asking him/her about the elections held in Tunisia last weekend and a lot of other things.
Coming back to the second session, the discussion was divided in two parts, the first one still focused on us and aimed to getting to know each other and the second one focused on more specific topics, such as international politics.
During the first part the facilitators asked us to write seven words to describe our point of view about the concept of identity, which already brought out some differences amongst us.
During the second part we started talking about the two required readings (which I found very interesting). At this point the conversation became really hard to follow, and even if I had some ideas to share there was a lack of comprehension due to technical tools, as I said earlier. We mainly discussed which could be the causes of international conflicts between Western and Eastern countries, the desire of hegemony from the first ones and the envy felt from the second ones towards the Western countries. Actually that’s a concept expressed by our Egyptian facilitator which I didn’t get at first, so I asked her about it. She explained that those feelings of envy concern the lack of democracy and freedom suffered from people in some Eastern countries, and Western ones are seen as countries where such problems have been defeated. I have to say I was very surprised at first, probably because that’s a point of view I never considered before.
In conclusion I can’t evaluate this discussion too satisfying because we weren’t able to develop it enough, but I’m very confident about next weeks, and I really hope there will be Eastern students too, otherwise I fear I could overwhelm our Egyptian facilitator with too many questions, since I’m very curious about these topics.
Laura D’Onghia