Hi everyone,
Forgive me if I'm a little late with this week's post.
You are now past the halfway mark with Soliya, and I was glad to read that for many of you the dialogue seems to be improving and even the participation of others in your groups, but it's not the case for all of you.
I noticed that religion is not a topic which thrills many of you, I understand and can certainly empathise - though I think the main 'take home' from these sessions as far as I can see from your reflections is perhaps a greater understanding of what a significant role religion actively plays in the lives, hearts and minds of many Muslims and how important it is to them - this of course is not to say that you have to agree!
You'll be glad to know that the curriculum now moves on to other topics and activities, so you'll be doing Life Stories, looking at the media and then defining what topics you want to discuss as a group. As I said in the meeting we had a few weeks ago - where the dialogue goes is up to you, the members of the group, so take a pro-active role. Address people directly with questions you might have for them, try to dig deeper, and also listen, and 'listen to yourselves listen' - are you only hearing what you expect to hear? Is there something perhaps underneath what people are saying? Are multiple interpretations possible? Ask good questions in order to identify what people really mean, ask for examples, ask how they feel about certain things...
Enjoy the week!
Francesca
Forgive me if I'm a little late with this week's post.
You are now past the halfway mark with Soliya, and I was glad to read that for many of you the dialogue seems to be improving and even the participation of others in your groups, but it's not the case for all of you.
I noticed that religion is not a topic which thrills many of you, I understand and can certainly empathise - though I think the main 'take home' from these sessions as far as I can see from your reflections is perhaps a greater understanding of what a significant role religion actively plays in the lives, hearts and minds of many Muslims and how important it is to them - this of course is not to say that you have to agree!
You'll be glad to know that the curriculum now moves on to other topics and activities, so you'll be doing Life Stories, looking at the media and then defining what topics you want to discuss as a group. As I said in the meeting we had a few weeks ago - where the dialogue goes is up to you, the members of the group, so take a pro-active role. Address people directly with questions you might have for them, try to dig deeper, and also listen, and 'listen to yourselves listen' - are you only hearing what you expect to hear? Is there something perhaps underneath what people are saying? Are multiple interpretations possible? Ask good questions in order to identify what people really mean, ask for examples, ask how they feel about certain things...
Enjoy the week!
Francesca
These weeks are running away. Yesterday it was our fifth meeting. A little bit of techincal issues, I have to say, but it was my fault. I did not remember that Chrome did not work well with the Soliya platform and I had to log in and out a few times before speaking to the tech support, which was very efficient and polite.
RispondiEliminaI was early and, as always, I chatted a bit with Casper, and then with Hunter, while waiting for the others. I like to know more about the others' lives. Casper tried to push us to tell some news that had dominated our newspapers and I could say that we were not too chatty. It did not take too long before Zantasha, from Pakistan, connected and she introduced to us some hint of what the media in her country are discussing.
It was interesting because she told us of the debate that is happening on the different rules of blasphemy, which was broadly defined as offending another religion or offending at religion. I did not get perfectly what they were meaning, at the beginning, since I could not picture how this would take place in Italy. I might add that she sees the medias in a very positive way, because they allow them to know what is happening in the rest of the country.
Then my technical problems had the better on me and I had to log in and out a few times, before being able to fully follow the conversation. When I finally came back to the meeting room, Casper was telling them to choose three different experiences, readings, events, whatever we considered significant in our lives, that we felt had shaped us or that had led us to be who we are today. We had to tell these experiences to the others, to explain them and to tell how we think they changed us and not just to make a simple list. He also asked us to tell how these experiences influenced our perspective in a political dimension, especially with the relationship between the east and the west. It took a pretty long time to decide what to mention to the others. I was confused and a little unsure but I chose to tell the things I believe shaped me the most, even if they were personal.
I told them that, as they already knew (and they are probably tired of listening this same story every time) I have diabetes and I believe that this has deeply changed me, pushing me to be perfectionist and to the need of having full control over things. Then I told about my parents separating when I was six years old and then I just mentioned my university, specifically the first three years that I attended in Bologna. I think that these three years, with all the people that I have met there, have deeply changed me: they have made me more mature, more responsible and more sensitive. Then I tried to link these two things with who I am and with my political point of view. I believe that the three years of my bachelor have made me more careful about the different meanings that any event or a word can have, just in one single context, with the same culture. How more complex is it in different cultures. I told the others I learned that there isn't any right point of view or right perspective. One should always keep this in mind
After asking me one question, Zantasha was the second to tell the others her three experiences, including her brother studying far from home and also her admission to university and how she learned commitment and hard work are essential, in life. I think she is one of the most active in our conversations, always asking questions to the others. Plus, I really like to speak with her.
*to be continued*
Hunter, the guy from West Virginia, told us a few things about himself (I won't brag about me in the private chatbox persuading him to speak). We are getting to know each other better and the atmosphere is light, even if we often speak of complex issues. It was Hunter who mentioned 9/11 among the three experiences and the discussion focused then on that topic. It was very interesting to have different and maybe opposites point points of view from the United States and from Muslims. Something I had never thought of before is the perception of muslim people of the whole story: Zantasha criticized that the medias have distorted or biased reality, so it seems now that every Muslim is a terrorist. What we were told is that this stereotype created by the medias has had a bad effect on the everyday life of Muslim people. I asked her how did this impact their lives and she told me that many countries have put restrictions on the visa concerning the leave of entry of Muslim people. What made me angry is that it seems so easy to generalize and to use the religious factor to discriminate or to make easy and simple assumptions.
RispondiEliminaAs I wrote before, she sees positively medias in Pakistan, because they allow them to know what is happening in the rest of the country. Which was not shared by me, or by Hunter and Timmy: we highlighted how easy is in our country to have the control of politics over medias and vice versa.
Another interesting statement from both the two guys from the United States is that they both were pretty critical concerning the United States foreign-policy on being involved in so many areas of the word. I quoted the blowback theory, seeing terrorism as a result of the involvement of the United States so much.
I don't know why I expected them to agree with the foreign-policy carried out from their politicians but they did not and they were pretty critical, as I said. It was interesting to find common ground between Muslim and Westerners on a contradictory issue like 9/11.
I think, at least I hope, everyone was interested in this conversation and I am afraid that our time finished too early. I have to admit I thought we would have discussed our final project, which we did not. Never mind. It was a really, really interesting debate, even if I still don't have an outline for my paper. Keep calm for now: I will start working on it in the next week.
12/11/2014
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Our meetings are every time more beautiful and more interesting. The friendship between us are more strong. The blocks fall down and we accept the different opinions.
I'm feeling nostalgic, because I know that it miss few sessions and after all it will be finish.
The first part of this meeting is manage by one of us, by my project colleague Aminat. The topic of the day was music in culture. Aminat taught us a popular song called USA FOR AFRICA – WE ARE THE WORLD. This song is famous because a lot of international singers participated to the project for safe Africa. After my friends opinions about the strong message of the song, I said that I agreed with them about the idea that all of us could change the world. Then we talked about our favourite song. We watched the video of the songs and each of us try to express toward the music. We heard all kind of music and all of us liked the rhythm. I think that the music created a bridge between different cultures. Moreover the music has an international language.
During the second part of the session we talked about life story. It was an interesting topic, and all of us we liked to talk about this. Our heart open itself and our thoughts came out. We describe some free life experiences which have made us who we are today.
The Kim experience striked myself, indeed she talked about her unsucceeds and when she was child, she was in a school where there were just white people. I think that she felt as a loser but now she want to release herself, for example now she came back to school.
At the end I want to write my three stories. The first one was the dead of my grandmother, the second one was when I became director in a Romanian company and the third one was when I arrived in Italy and I had to get used to another world: Italy.
The other talked about their experiences and we concluded the session with a little reflexion about the story of every one.
For next time we have to think about another topic, and after we will have to discuss it. I'm looking forward to arrive next week.
Stefania Nicoleta
NATASCIA PIASENTINI
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Yesterday, this was my fifth session. Time flies, it looks like yesterday when I started taking part in the project!
Yesterday, like every time, I was the first one to connect to the session so I asked the facilitators what they did, if they studied or worked. I discovered that Amira worked in a non-government organisation, while, Abdul studied engineering. Then I asked the Egyptian facilitator if his name Abdul meant something because I noticed many Muslims were named like that. He told me that Abdul meant "servant of Allah". So I could understand the reason this name was so common among Muslims.
After this interlude, the session started with an activity. There were 4 of us. Each person had to introduce headline news to the group. Nicole, the American girl talked about the minimum wage brought up to 10$ an hour in Unites States. Matt introduced an even more interesting news than Nicole about the American elections. Last week, in the United States there were mid-term elections and the States didn’t give their support to Barack Obama. So Barack Obama will rule without support of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Matt said that in Massachusetts, where he lives, a new republican governor had been elected and he wasn’t happy about that because he was from the Democratic Party. I asked the difference between Democrat party and Republican Party. So Matt was a fan of Obama because Barack Obama was a democrat like him, while, Nicole was republican and she preferred George Bush. Matt was concerned about changes that republicans could bring to the State of Massachusetts.
Then, it was my turn to pick a piece of news about Europe. I shared with them an important historical moment: the fall of the wall of Berlin. Last Sunday, it was 25 years since the wall of Berlin fell down. To me, it was an important day: the end of the Cold war that divided into two the entire world. They didn’t have many questions to ask me and I thought that the reason was that they were too young. Except for the Moroccan guy, the Americans are just 20 years old. Abdul, the Moroccan guy, shared with us the bad weather in Morocco. He said there were flooding and it was a disaster in his town. In Italy, we also had problems because of the weather.
After this activity, the facilitators launched another one. We talked about life stories. Each one presented two or three important things in their life. Nicole talked about her various experiences in Asia. Following her trips around Asia, she understood that she was lucky to live in the United States. She could appreciate her country better than before her trips because she saw children who were simply happy to play with just a bottle, instead of a ball, in other words she saw poverty. About our life stories, all of us talked about trips and each of us would like to have an abroad experience. Nicole would like to go in Spain, Matt would like to go in Germany and I would like to go in Belgium.
In that session, the Moroccan guy had connection problem so he couldn’t participate to conversation a lot.
It was a good session but the previous ones were more interesting because the subject were more interesting.
See you next week!
Natascia piasentini
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaYesterday we had our fifth meeting with my group. This time we were all the four people that attended from the very first meeting, and we didn’t have any relevant technical problem, so it was a very smooth, pleasant conversation. Starting from the themes of the exchange we had last time, at first we continued to talk about the issue of marriage, the different traditions and cultural elements that are linked to this institution. I talked about the new trend in Italy of getting married later compared to the last decades, also for problems related to the economic instability and unemployment especially among young people, so it’s difficult for them to create a family on their own. The boy from Pakistan, Muhammad, has explained us that in his country there is the ethnical element that have an huge impact in the structure of the society, and also to the question of marriage: persons from different ethnic groups rarely get married, and when they do they may face a lot of problems. While Hager, from Egypt, has declared that in her country there is the tradition of the dowry, so that the family of the bride has to provide it to the family of the groom, that from that moment has the complete responsibility of the bride and her wellness. Muhammad at the end of this conversation has underlined the fact that the sentiment of love and the freedom to marry who you want should be assured to everyone, but we also added that cultural differences are real, and we should respect them in order to see them as an enrichment and not as obstacles. Starting from that, we shift to the topic of religion, taking into account also the articles we had to read for the last week: in one of them, it was mentioned Egypt as the most religious country in the world. I asked Hager if she felt that such statement actually represent her reality, and she confirmed that Egyptian people give great importance to their religion, that is at the basis of rules that regulate their lives. Then we work half an hour on our final projects, so I had a one-to-one conversation with Hager, and she described me a little bit her life, and the difficulties she has to face in her country in order to follow her aspiration, being a translator. She said to me that a lot of things are in fact forbidden to her as a women, or she may do it only with the consent of a male relatives: she accepts it, but at the same time sometimes she feels a little bit saddened by the possibilities that are not open to her. The final part of the meeting was together with the other two people of the group, and we shared some comments on an image that our facilitator, Lisa, showed us, of an iceberg in which, in the visible part, they were the words “position” and “conclusion”, while underneath the water elements such us needs, beliefs, values, etc. We also had the chance to talked about an article that I proposed to read, on an survey made by the “Ipsos Mori” institute, on the perception of the population of 14 countries on some key social issues, underling the fact that often there is a misperception, based on the media news, on phenomenons such us the unemployment or the rate of migration… and apparently Italian people performed that bad in the survey that our country won the first place in what has been called the “Index of ignorance”. Since the time we had was over, next time I think we will continue to focus our attention on the role of media and the theme of the perception of reality, and how can be manipulated.
Liliana Demartini
Marta Perrone
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Also the fifth session is gone. Besides Julieth and Robdeti, there was just Christie (Marioma arrived at the end and she had technical issues with microphone) and it was heavier than the last times because we talked for two hours continuously. I don’t know why the others were absent, but I actually enjoyed this little group enormously. I liked so much the flexibility of our dialogue. We seemed more spontaneous and able to drive the conversation. Talking about the recent news around the world, Christie let me know why the US data collections on China’s air pollution are blocked by the Chinese government (since air pollution is bad, China blocks any information available to internet users that will make it look bad). I already knew that she is a Chinese major and yesterday I also discovered that her sister and a lot of her friends are from China. That’s why she keeps always an eye on this country. After a short mention of China-US tense relations, we moved on the Italian-US relations and on our mutual consideration. I said that after the two world wars, Italians tend to consider the US as a savior and a model of economic development and democracy. So this leads Italy to be a little more submissive in its foreign policy; Christie confirmed that in terms of governance and force the US see Italy very weak (but very culturally strong… just as well). I clarified, however, that there is a consistent part of the Italian public opinion in contrast with many US government decisions supported by Italy (Afghanistan’s war for example). Other topic was: how the EU sees the US in terms of governmental and military status. That easy question! I pointed out the important economic relations between this two entities and the fact that the EU could look at American federal structure as a model, even though states are too attached to their sovereignty.
But the most interesting part of our dialogue was about the US as a model for democracy. In particular if is better for nations to create their democratic model or to adjust it to the American one and how we can interpret revolutions and social movements toward democracy. We discovered communalities in this field. Christie, like me, thought that it’s important for a nation to have its own democratic model because it has to respond to the specific characteristics of that nation. In the West, societies are based on the individual, but it’s not the same in the collectivist communities and the political system must to take this into account. Sure, democracy is seen as the only way to allow people to play a role in society and to exercise civil rights. But it could be dangerous for the identity of each community to just follow the western political regimes with no consideration for the local conditions. There are also cases in which democracy doesn’t serve the interests of the whole population; this is also because direct democracy doesn’t exist anymore and we are represented by politicians that sometimes don’t work for the good of the country. I actually appreciate that Christie said: “the US should take a step back and try to learn more about why countries are acting a certain way instead of intervening”. I was pleasantly surprised.
..to be continued
Marta Perrone
RispondiEliminaTalking about how we can affect our governments or promote certain values, I referred to our duty as young people to play an active role, to fight for what we believe in, to protest and stand up. We have to vote and to express our political opinion. We can’t abstain from do this. Politics and conflict go hand in hand and how I wrote in my thesis on Jacques Rancière, without conflict there isn’t politics, just police and consensus.
After these complex topics, we reflected upon marriage in order to share ideas for the reflection paper: civil or religious marriage, children or not, adoption, Egyptian wedding celebration. Different views but not so much. Graduation and career come before marriage. This is what also Marioma (a Muslim girl) said about marriage.
Then we picked some topics for next week: veil, Israel-Palestine and terrorist attacks.
To briefly summarize, yesterday was a great day. I really appreciate Christie that wakes up very early (5.30 a.m.) and I thank her for her participation.
Marta
Dear Diary,
RispondiEliminaAlso this fifth session is gone, it was quite interesting, less than the last one but I can say that I’m satisfied, inside the chat room the first fifteen minutes we were only in four (Me, Salima, Hassan and Saleh) so we talked about the movies we love, if we watch television or not if not why etc.. Salima suggested me some hindi movies like “Doom 2” that is an action thriller film, I really don’t like this kind of movies but I will try to watch it. I recommended her to see “Africa United” that is one of my favorite movie! Then in our next session we will share our impressions about it. After this little opportunity for a restrict interaction with the group in its entirety we started our activities.
The first topic touched was Stereotypes and it’s been introduced with a game, a role reversal game in which the arabs became americans and the americans became arabs, but I’m the only european of our group so what to do? I could chooses so just because the americans were a minority group I joined them and so I defended the arab cause in this debate focused on 9/11. The discussion was tensed, it’s very hard trying to defend something in which you don’t believe (and I tried it on my skin) but it was useful!, through this game we have unconsciousness express a stereotyped vision of what americans think about arabs and vice versa.
I can say in brief that in the american vision (showed by the arabs participants) this attack was lead by terrorists and all Islamic people are terrorist and these people have to pay for what they did. On the other side in the arab vision (showed by the americans participants) this attack was a consequence of all the wrongs politics in matter of oil and war that Bush leaded for years in the middle east. The the discussion shifted on the life cost of this aggression at the twin towers and this topic marked a great division among the two parts of our group. Even if this was a false debate and a role-playing game, ‘cause we didn’t expresses our real ideas but the ideas that we think the others have, it was very touching and someone said:”No, I can’t say anything more, I don’t want to talked about victimes” that’s because we have had victimes on the both side of this ideological, economical, political battle I think and this is wrong in every case.
After this discussion every one of us wrote down 5 stereotypes about three cultures: American, European and Arab, then we made a comparison between our choices.
Generally Americans are considered money and television addicted, very patriot and with the belief that they have to save the world from evil spreading democracy and freedom even if they don’t respect neither democracy neither freedom, an other stereotypical way to see Americans people is that they lie on the sofa all the day watching hollywood movie and eating hamburgers and chips.
RispondiEliminaArabs are considered not very openminded , religious extremists, without any kind of respect of the basic human rights and of the rights of women, not very predisposed to dialogue and also they think they have the real truth for everything.
Europeans are identified as selfish, very closed to american interests, superficial and spoiled.
But the reflection is: why we have all this stereotypes? We all agreed that a very important role is played by media. in fact sometimes media reinforce cultural stereotypes about race and ethnicity and also give wrong or exaggerated news. To enforce this idea Saleh said “I think many americans have wrong ideas about arabs, maybe the american media have an important role in creating this idea, but its wrong, because islam encourages all people to peace” and this assumption created a great debate between us not only on the role of the media but on the role of civil society in order to have a change. We talked also about american politics in the middle east, about the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan cause we all agree on the idea that American policy has been instrumental in coordinating the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and also in Pakistan. I have to say that many arab people don’t like at all the figure of the ex american president George W. Bush, and I completely agree with this ides but we all have also seen some changements in the american foreign policy with Obama at the government. However I believe that a lot of problems remain, America don’t have the force to lead peace-processes in many countries, due to many past wrong choices, she had lost his hegemony on the world and at the some time the middle east is really changed during the last years, I mean at political and economical level. Nowadays the world challenges concerning the relationship between east and west are many and hard to face and the biggest force we have to make things better is dialogue, and this dialogue is necessary also in order to abolish all the stereotypes that drive us apart instead of bring us together. In these years we have build a wall of stereotypes but now we need some bricks in this wall to change the actual situation.
At the end of our meeting we shared our impressions about all the themes touched and the comments were all positive.
I’m looking forward for our next debates.
Sara
ELENA MELOTTI
RispondiEliminaHello everyone!
I have just finished my fifth Soliya session. What a session! We talked about poverty and I discovered in Lebanon more than 60% people lives in poverty…even worst than Colombia! There are also lots of homeless children living in the streets, but the government try to disguise the situation.
I found out some information about Italy and I discovered that one family out of 5 is poor, and that there are 10 millions of “relative” poors and 6 million of “absolute” poors.
I wasn't aware of the proportion of this problem before, and also considering that some people manage to lie about their income, it’s more than I thought.
This conversation about poverty took us a lot of time: our french companion talked about homeless people sleeping in the tube stations in Paris, which I have seen too.
She talked about this as something shocking, and I have asked myself why I wasn’t shocked by this as she was.
When I was little I got used to see rom people asking for money out of the church or the supermarket. Then at the sea and in big turistic cities there were always these guys from Africa, without a home, selling things and living of nothing. The thing is that they are all part of “organisations” and this helps to control empathy. The first times I cried. Right now I’m just saying to myself: “What can I do? If I help them, I’m not really helping them, I’m just keeping in place a system which makes money out of misery and compassion, providing no real future for the people involved”. So I have learned to pass away these people asking for help. I had to learn not to feel frustrated by this, but I think I pushed this too further.
Even a friend of mine coming from Poland to Paris was shocked by homeless people in Paris (and Poland is not known for being a rich country). He was shocked also by the fact that I wasn’t shocked. So is it just in Italy that we are used to open forms of poverty? My opinion is that Paris has not so much problems of degradation being such a big city. It could be a lot worst.
Coming back to the group discussion, we discovered we all felt the need to volunteer in order to do something to defeat poverty. Our french companion talked about social entrepreneurship and helping young with low qualification to find some employment. I talked about the Fair Trade. Our friend from Lebanon is part of an association of women helping the refugees coming from other countries.
We had so much things to say today that it was impossible to say everything and we are all looking forward to the next session in which we will finally talk about religion and youth opportunities, in order to deal with our final projects.
I just hope we will have the time to talk about all the interesting ideas we came up today!
Carolina Olivi - 1st PART
RispondiEliminaDear Diary,
the girls and I have been keeping in touch for the whole week, thanks to the Facebook group we created online. We can share everything there, from private life to political or social issues. We are building a strong relationship and I am very happy of that.
Although some girls were missing, our fifth Soliya session was great. Lisanne, the facilitator, had asked us previously by mail which topic we would like to discuss, and we chose to talk about the role of women. What could be better in an only-girls group?
Obviously, during the discussion, my accounts and personal opinions were similar to ones belonging to the French girl. On the other side, the Egyptian, Jordanian and Pakistani girls were describing hard situations for women, but only the last one disagreed totally with the laws of her country.
I guess that France, in comparison with all our places of origin, is the country where you can find a greater gender equality. Coline told us something almost unheard: sometimes it is the man in a couple that stays at home to grow up children (like a housewife), while the woman keeps working. However, she thinks it is not a good thing for both sexes not to work: in her -and also mine- opinion, it makes you dependent on an economic and social level. She told us about her boyfriend's father, which is an example of these "househusbands": but when his wife died before her time, he was badly off because he had sons and he was too old to find a job.
The Jordanian girl has a totally different opinion. She does not want to find a job in the future, but she would like to be a mum and to stay at home to do her own things. I have to underline that her dream is not something imposed by her family, as someone could think, but a real one. As a matter of fact, her mother is a manager. However, I asked her if she is not afraid of asking money for everything to her future husband. As she explained to me, in her country the family man has to give her money without asking any question. On the contrary, she would be the one who would manage them for the family.
The Pakistani girl (that I call the "rebel" one), said that in her country most of men would rather be poor than let their wives work. During the session, she described us a hard situation for women there, which is changing too much slowly. But she is strong: she wants to work for Microsoft, she has an american-pakistani boyfriend she introduced to us, and she does not wear the veil in college, even if their parents think she does. She has an incredible awareness of women rights, shown by her criticism towards the system. I admire her.
When we started talking about birth control, I thought the Jordanian girl was going to die. She was getting restless and she even covered her mouth while saying words like "abortion" or"pill". But we could joke also about this reaction. I said that in Italian schools, even if they are not allowed in Christian religion too, we are encouraged to use condoms, because they also protect from diseases, and she put her hands in her hair as an act of playful desperation.
2nd PART
RispondiEliminaOn the other hand, it was hard to understand each other. We found out that in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan there are a lot of laws which punish women who have babies out of marriage. Here in Italy it is so common nowadays that I did not ever consider that as something deplorable. What was strange for me is that the Egyptian and the Jordanian girls think that these laws are right and blame women who do it, even if it is not their fault. I guess that they think WE are strange to allow that! Luckily, we know we are born in such different societies that it is obvious to have totally different minds.
However, the Pakistani girl said something that sounded right to me. She said that it is a question of human rights, and these countries violate them by restrict people in how they should behave and live their lives.
The facilitator told us that we did a great job because she did not have to intervene during all the session, we managed it by ourselves and everyone think it was a great discussion, in which we also shared our personal experiences. I am glad we can write to each other on Facebook because I miss them during the week.
Carolina Olivi
Dear diary
RispondiEliminaYesterday evening we had a great Soliya meeting. I don’t know why and how it happened, but I felt much more at ease than the previous time and this feeling made me dynamic and eager to speak and interact with my friends. We were only five, as usual, and in addition Amine, one of the Moroccans studying at the American Language Center of Marrakesh, was unable to speak because of a trouble with the microphone, so he only typed sometimes; but the whole group was more active, except for (perhaps) Florian, who seemed bored by some issues. It’s been a pity, because he’s a good thinker.
The discussion has been deeper and also countered; it hadn’t a clear direction and we went through many matters freely, as Matt, the facilitator, said us to do.
At the beginning we argued a little about the picture of the iceberg and its symbolic meanings, but after few minutes we took another way and Matt let us go.
Sometimes I tried to provoke a stronger discussion with high-sounding statements about the capitalism, the war or some other similar things and the facilitator wrote me via single chat that my arguments were imposing, so he tacitly encouraged me to go ahead.
We talked about capitalism and ideology, about media and politics, about politics and economy in the world power game, about petroleum business and the time ran away fast; we’re all on the same side of the barricade, that is we’re all for peace and for a friendly acceptance of different people living on the earth.
These are typical hopes of the youth and I agree with these dreams – although I’m no more young -, but I also know that governments and big financial and industrial groups have got a different vision of the world; in Soliya program we discuss about conflicts and we’re widely focused on religious and social matters, but I think that the economic theme is the one who leads rising and falling of powerful nations and the conflicts between them, while religion is often an excuse to cover this reality.
I’m happy for the improvement of my English, now I can say that I’m really a member of the group; probably – better, surely - I still do many mistakes when I speak, but I can explain quite complex concepts and, expecially, I’m able to understand almost all statements of my mates.
Half of sessions are gone now and I begin to think that I’ll miss this meetings; like the dreams of youth.
Dear Diary,
RispondiEliminaMy 5th meeting with the Soliya group has gone as well. I'm very proud of my group-mates, especially when I read that members of other groups often don't show up and a few never even bothered. This time as well we were six, we were missing Mazen from El Cairo, Luke from NY State, Danil from Moscow and Anis from Tunisia whom to tell the truth didn't log in very much.
After going over the group guide lines once again Rangineh broke the ice asking us what would be the three things we would do with $1.000.000. Everybody (myself included) said that they would have loved to travel and discover new places. I was pleasantly surprised when Mahira said that she would devolve some of the money to her country university, University of Pakistan.
Later on Rangineh showed us the picture of an iceberg, she then said that we had to compare it to our lives, considering that the floating part of the iceberg is what anyone can see, and we had to tell the group three things about us that are “beneath the surface”. Rangineh also strongly advised that we didn't mention anything the others would say to anyone else. She also told us to share two things that particularly shaped our personality and the one thing that made up our opinion on the Western world and the Middle East relations. Everyone of us gave his answer but I'm not going to share it here because as I said I want to keep the trust of the group.
After everybody had his turn we had to bid farewell because time was up. I really enjoyed this meeting and I think that the others did the same. I can't wait to see them again and and I know that when the meetings will be over I will miss them quite a bit!
Nicola Berto
Questo commento è stato eliminato dall'autore.
RispondiEliminaQuesto commento è stato eliminato dall'autore.
RispondiEliminaPart one
RispondiEliminaI am waiting for my fifth Soliya meeting. I'm worried because on the last session I could not fully participate in the meeting. Casper this week sent me an email to tell me what was said in my absence but it is not the same as to participate at the dialogue.
And so, the meeting finally begins. Here they are my fellow travelers! Every Wednesday we are all here, so far no one has never missed. We all participate and we color dialogue with our ideas. This event has now entered into my life and, almost without I notice this, I learned to organize my work and family commitments.
We always start with funny speeches, Casper is very good at doing this because it can dissolve the ice, starting to talk about the holidays that will arrive in our countries the next days is very nice. Here, we are already in full Christmas spirit and you know that Christmas holiday are rich of feelings: the gifts under the tree, Santa Claus who comes in with his magic in the home of every child.
Then we started to talk about the central topic of the meeting: Casper asked us to think about 2 or 3 events in our life that have affected the way we understand the relationship between the "west" and the "east". He told us also to think about why these events are so important for us , and how they have affected our way we see the relationship.
Kadie began. She spoke about the collapse of the twin towers and the effects they have caused into her life. She comes from a military family, her father was deployed shortly after the attack. She was very young when it happened. the Members of her family went to war. Kadie's father has left his family for about 5 years, when he came back, he had a negative view of the middle East. Her father cannot talk about what he saw, he had to deal with terrorist and he had a negative view, and this contributed to Kadie’s negative point of view. Then Kadie told us about a a book she read "the kite runner". This book helped her to understand that there are people like her in Afghanistan. It is the story of a young kid, living in Afghanistan, the country where terrorism and Talibans arrived, so people had to leave their homes. This helped her to understand that the suffering is everywhere there is the war. Kadie has lost her father 5 long years; people of Afghanistan lost their homes. Gerel said "No one is a winner in war". It is true. I also read the book "The Kite Runner", I liked it a lot because it is a story based on friendship, loyalty and deep feelings. It also tells about a country where reigns the pain, where feelings are struggling to win in a country inundated by hatred and violence, and where even the simple act of seeing flying kites gives a moment of happiness.
By this time our talks have become more serious and I have to admit that I'm learning a lot from this group.
Chiraz told us her experience: she has a friend in France, whose name is Jenifer. They became friends, they met on Skype. Chiraz never thought to have friends from other west countries, but after this meeting with Jenifer, she knows that this is possible, Jenifer changed her perspective. When she thought of us in the West, she thought that most did not have a good view of the Muslim people and she thought that she would not meet Western people. Jenifer showed her not all people think of them as a terrorist.
Then Chiraz told us about Angelina Jolie and why Angelina is a model for her. During the revolution in Tunisia, Chiraz and his people had problems with military forces, at that time, Angelina Jolie spoke with military forces and tried to help Tunisian. Chiraz loves the idea that all peoples of the world should help each other, maybe that's why I like Chiraz.
Part two
RispondiEliminaI also brought my experience. About the book that I have read I spoke before. Then I told them that I was very impressed by the choice made by the Mayor of Padua in not receiving the Ambassador of Morocco because he didn’t want to talk about Mosques. I explained that this does not help the dialogue and does not show respect for other religions of the East. Then I told the story of a Tunisian man who often comes at my office. He is poor, fails to provide a decent life to their children, who are almost always ill. He cannot pay the rent, his family lives in fact in the house of the municipality, but, for religious reasons, he does not allow his young wife to go to work. I told my group that I respect this man but I do not understand him.
As I expected, Shiraz e Wafa are stepped in to explain that is not an Islamic feature not to allow to women to work, in Islam the woman works since the prophet existed; but in Tunisia there are traditional men, who don’t want that their women go to work even if Islam allows them to work.
It was then the turn of Gerell, he didn't has contacts with the West, he told us one episode which. One soldier behaved as racist with other soldiers, he lives in a military world and he thinks that military need more education, because soldiers see the worst, and when they come back they have seen so much violence and pain, that it is hard for them to adapt their thought. Gerell told us that superiors teach them that everyone could be an enemy.
Also Jeanne was impressed by the collapse of the twin towers, she remembers this fact very well, she came out of school, she remembers that she was watching TV but she didn’t understand. She was explained by parents, it was the first time she heard about this conflict and became aware the world wasn't too good. She is very impressed by what happened by the Arab spring, by the revolutions. Jeanne doesn't have Arab or Algerians friends and she doesn't know how they feel being in France. She hasn’t changed her way of understanding the Arab world, she doesn’t have any prejudices, but the collapse of the twin towers experience made her realize the Arabic world is stronger than western countries.
Wafa then said that there is a major event that could change the vision of Jeanne compared to the strength of the East: the Abu Ghraib prison.
Part three
RispondiEliminaWhile Casper explained us that the US army has mistreated prisoners, has tortured them, that it was really cruel, I was impressed and I tried to understand what they were talking about. I had already heard of this prison, but at that moment I could think of nothing.
Wafa, Casper, Chiraz and Gerell were very interested about this problem, someone of them said "I didn’t understand the politics and the war, but when I saw the tortures I knew something was wrong", some other "so many war crimes are committed in military prisons" and again "What happened in Abu Ghraib, was humiliating for all Arabs. I know many people were killed, and when you see the pictures of soldiers humiliating Arabs you feel really bad. For Kadie it is hard to look at this fact as well as for so many Americans who want to have peace, it hurts to her that people representing her country are doing things like this to Arabs.
I listened to them while they were talking, I realized that there was something tragic in what they were saying.
After this dialogue Zakaria, Wafa and Chiraz expressed their sadness in knowing that many people of the West see all Muslims as terrorists. For me it is not so, I thought it was important to say this to my friends in the group.
Casper asked us to express our emotions after this dialogue, we all said that it has made us grow, opened our minds, the discussion in this session has made us to feel closer, it seemed that we were all together in the same room with no barriers of time or space and without a monitor who divides us. It was a very nice experience that further joined our group.
I waited for Casper to finish the meeting and then I did a search on the Abu Ghraib prison, I've seen pictures of what the guys talked about, I read the story and what happened inside the prison. I understood that it is not the ethnicity or the religious beliefs to make men cruel, but a wrong way to live their ideals and a distorted or perhaps nonexistent consciousness.
I'm sorry for the hate that divides the west from the east but I am happy that this program is building a small step towards reconciliation and understanding between peoples.
Francesca Aufiero
Part 1
RispondiEliminaHi everyone!
Last tuesday there was the 5th Soliya meeting. For the first time I’ve really enjoyed it.
We started talking about our best friends. Erin asked us: Who is your closest friend(s)?, How long have you known them? What makes them such a good friend?
We talked about this for a few minutes to “break the ice”.
Then Erin had some questions to renew our conversation on religion from last week.
She starded asking why do we think that the full face veil was banned in France and if we agree or disagree.
Kayla answered that in her opinion the veil is hindering on the women's rights, so they're trying to ban it to make woman free.
I answered that often people from the Western society think that the veil is a form of discrimination of women, but i think that women and everybody can do and wear what they want in their life.
In a democratic society if you want to wear a veil, you can do it (we are speaking about the headscarf, not about burka veil).
I told a story about a girl here in Padova who, after some people insulted her because of her veil, saying that it was discriminatory, sayd that with a veil on she feels like a princess with a crown.
I tried to explain the big debate in France about this and I noticed it was difficult to speak about complex topics like laws, institution as ECHR and the principle of laicity in France.
Then I told that the some women in Italy used to wear the veil until 50’s (more or less), too. I tried to explain there were different reason to wear the veil, but both for christian women and muslims women is something related with religion.
Whabi was surprise to discover this and asked me something related to it, because He misunderstood and thought that we wear veil nowadays.I explained that only the old woman and only in particular situations wear the vail in our times, because it’s an old tradition. (I put some photos in the chat box, showing christian women in a church or during a funeral).
I also told him that I think women have the right to choose if they want to wear veil or not: the problem starts when they can't choose anymore.
Whabi told that wearing the veil is like a tradition and he had respect for this tradition.
Then I spoke about the veil of the wedding dress; We shared some photo and I wanted to demonstrate that the tradition of veil isn’t something only related to muslims, and I tried to explain that maybe the origins of this traditions are the same, even if nobody think about it.
Than we speaked about typical clothes in our countries and about wedding traditions.
Farah told us that they haven’t traditional clothes and they have t-shirt and jeans: after hearing that I thought She didn’t understand the concept of traditional clothes, and, in fact, she corrected herself very quickly.
Part 2
RispondiEliminaSomeone asked to me and Kyla why we don’t use the veil. We answered that here is not required to wear a veil, while Farah replied that she wear veil because it's a requirment of her religion.
I asked Farah if she have friends that don't wear the veil or the headscarf. She answered that some of their friends are christian, and some others just don’t wear it. She confirmed that us that she is convinced of wear veil and that if she decided to not wear it her family certainly would not accept it.
So Farah said that in Jordan it's not required to wear a headscarf but that she believes it's required in Islam and it is important to her to wear a headscarf for that reason.
I told something about my experience with veil, in Morocco. In some situations I wore it, as a form of respect for the other people.
Heni, Wahbi and Houssem asked me if I was confortable when I wore the veil.
I told them that I wasn’t, both physically and emotionally.
Whabi told us something about the situation in Tunisia: they have the right to wear what they want. It depends on her identity, on her faith.
Houssem told that the most important thing is not to wear the veil but to believe in God, especially to make the basic things in Islam.
Than Whabi and Houssem discuss about the concept and the meaning of faith in Islam: it was very interesting.
Finally they told that all the people are all free to believe in god or not but the most important thing is that if somebody believes in God, he has have to wear the headscarf.
I thing that discussion was amazing, because speaking about these topics is stimulating and interesting. I had a lot of questions for my arab collegues and it was pretty cool to see the ractions of everybody on some issues.
At the end we talked about the session and our feelings in the session. We discussed about the topics we would like to discuss in the next sessions.
I’m glad of the improvement and progresses of our group during the sessions. I think that the next will be super!
Marina Molinari
Part 1
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
this session hasn’t been exciting as the last one, but it surely was a nice moment of discussion on various topics with people who are getting more and more familiar to me. We were just four this time, Laura, the two facilitators and me; we’ve given up on the other ones by now.
In the first part of the meeting, we were invited to watch two videos against the violence on women. We also recalled the video we watched last week that was at least questionable. So, from these sources, we initiated a conversation on the reasons behind the sexual harassments and rapes, of which many women are victims, in the different societies. They asked us about our first reactions. I said that I preferred the second video that showed four Indian girls who were wearing makeup and dressing as men and in the end a sentence appeared: “is this the only way left to protect our women?”; I was affected by that message because I realized that I had never thought or talked before with the proper care on this dramatic issue. So initially I found a bit hard to let my thoughts emerge. And even if I know that Laura is well prepared to deal with these issues, I saw that she didn’t know how to treat the topic in that context as well. So they helped us asking if in our opinion the get-up is something that can influence harassments. We explained the situation in Italy and in Europe; in particular I said that even if it could be dangerous the way a woman looks, it’s not an excuse to harass. Anyway I could never accept to totally cover a woman as the only way to protect her from violence. But Taghreed said to us that this is the reason why women in the Middle East are covered, despite the fact that in Egypt and Tunisia there are the highest rates of rapes.
Then we had a really good discussion about immigration and integration in Europe, America and Egypt. Laura and I explained the situation in Europe where some Europeans like us are welcoming to newcomers, even if we understand the issues related to migration policies. Unfortunately there are also many people that feel hostility or fear of immigration, sustaining that immigrants steal jobs, do not learn the language or culture in the host country, break the law, etc. We highlighted that the hostility towards migrants is especially directed to the people coming from Middle East and North Africa.
We also treated this topic from a political perspective, discussing on how in many European countries far right and immigrant hostile political parties are on the rise. As an example, we were glad to explain to them the situation in Padova at present, where the discriminatory decisions and policies are preferred to the integration ones. From my point of view, it was very suggestive to present the urban context of the place I live in to an international audience (even if just two people), playing the role of the representative of this little city of the World, but that probably has common issues of other parts of the World. In fact racism is not just in Europe, but also it exists in Egypt, against Chinese people, as well as in US, against Hispanics and Afro-Americans, as our interlocutors explained. I realized just in that moment that Monica is a migrant from Norway as well: she lives on her skin the condition of a migrant in a country of migration, as US is, but, as she said, the fact that she is white leaves her more freedom (and if I have to be honest it could be the reason why I had never given a good measure of the fact that she’s actually a migrant; I mean that I usually see her as an American woman, not as a migrant one); for example, she’s never been stopped by the police, as it usually happens with other migrants with other skin’s colors. This was a very interesting point!
Part 2
RispondiEliminaThese last arguments let two recently news to be discussed next week emerge: the oldest one is the massacre of Oslo that took place the 22nd of July 2010; the other one is related to the racial tensions exploded in Fergusson (Missouri) several weeks ago. I’m looking forward to talking with Monica about these important topics which concern her the most.
I really appreciated this last part of the session because the topics emerged put myself in a stream of thoughts where I found other ideas of discussions for next week, like the role of Justice and Police, the conditions of jails, the death penalty, the life imprisonment. I am really curious about what they think of these topics that are so important for me. I would like to know something more about the Norwegian public debate on the penalty for the terrorist Anders Breivik, something about policemen in US, something about the position of people who live in countries, as Egypt and US, where the death penalty is still allowed.
The reason why I said at the beginning I didn’t find this session so exciting is that it made me understand that we’ve been unlucky not having a large confrontation with more people, so that it often happens to think the same way in the group and to have discussions which could seem pointless. Undoubtedly, though, it is good to see how a small group of people who have grown to familiarity can talk about their territories, their stories and their points of view.
In conclusion, I’m used by now to this state of things, so I’m going to continue this experience, in which more and less I’m involved in with my little group, with the same commitment.
Gabriele Chiarello
WEEK 5
RispondiEliminaOn last session of Soliya we were just four: the two facilitators, the other Italian guy who’s a friend of mine and me, so the discussion was a bit limited.
At first the facilitators made us watch two videos about sexual harassment in different parts of the world, and even though they were interesting and I’m very sensitive to these topics we hadn’t got too many comments to do; as a matter of fact they were more of informative videos with rates and numbers, so I think there simply wasn’t any controversy in them. By that I mean that none of us four could possibly disagree with the message they communicated (also three of us being women).
Then the conversation shifted to immigration in our three different realities (which are Europe, America and Egypt). This was interesting, since all of us were eager to talk about it and share our experiences. Plus we have a Norwegian facilitator who emigrated to USA eighteen years ago, so she gave us a clue about living in the US not being American. Her opinion, though, was that the only ones considered immigrants are the Mexicans in particular and people with different skin colours in general, who are always stopped and asked for their IDs by the police. We also discovered from our Egyptian facilitator that there is some (and not appreciated by everyone) Chinese immigration in Egypt. We also discussed integration policies and the existence of parties that are hostile towards immigrants, most of all in Europe and particularly in Italy. Being all convinced about the benefits of integration we talked about our ideas to get over the differences and reach a more integrated society, such as primary education in schools and an increase of information to defeat ignorance.
During the last part of the session we talked about the final project for the first time: obviously we won’t get to have one-on-one conversations, but the facilitators encouraged us to write the papers about the topics we discussed during this last sessions, like immigration and women rights, since we seem to have strong ideas on those issues.
We also mentioned the massacre of Oslo and the more recent tensions in Fergusson, Missouri, due to racial issues, topics we will examine better on next session.
When the time was up I didn’t feel as satisfied as last time, because we didn’t get to have a real discussion, we shared our thoughts on some issues, which is nice and I definitely was interested in hearing about other realities; I just wish we could hear other point of views, since this is the aim of the project. Obviously it’s not Soliya’s fault, I know we’ve just been unlucky. Still, on the other hand we have two great facilitators who always manage to lead and take part in the conversation despite the limitations we have as a very small group. I’m also glad I decided to take part in the project because it really helped me not only improving my English but also my skills of talking in public, especially on a videoconference.
Laura D’Onghia
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaI just finished my fifth session, for the first time we had all!
Unfortunately, the connection was poorer than usual, perhaps because of bad weather.
In this session, the subject was only one: we need take five minutes to think about and write down three events or influences in your life which have been most important in making we the persons that we are today. For one of the three events, we had to think of something that has affected our political perspective and the way we understand the relationship between “Western societies” & “predominantly Muslim societies”. The other 2 can be anything we feel is important in making you who we are today. Do not only tell the facts, but share how we felt about it and how it affected we..
I have spoken to first. I said that in Italy the policy is the same for 20 years and then my political views have not changed that much. More and more ideologically extreme but always oriented to the left. About the relationship between “Western societies” & “predominantly Muslim societies”, I said that in my opinion the end of the Soviet Union was the event that changed the relationship. Because the enemies of the West have become the muslim terrorists and and are no longer the Soviet Communists. But living in Italy do not resent these tensions significantly. A personal matter that has changed my life was the death of my friend. he died of a drug overdose at 18 and since then I have stopped attending the wrong companies. I started studying, I got a degree and now I'm finishing university.
After he spoke Carter, he said that when he met a muslim person in airplane, he has realized that they can be nice people, and many other Westerners were rude. He understood that skin color does not mean anything. He added that a scholarship to allow him to have confidence in himself. Last thinking was the change of political ideas after he made a few lessons at the university and understand how the US government.
Sure that if you have to see with their own eyes a person of a different ethnicity to understand that we are the same... I was perplexed.
Nathan said to the eleven year old was in Ghana and travel to the US has changed, and that for him, the family and religion were important, but did not say more.
Farah said the uncle's death, she approached to his god, but nothing happened that did change her political views.
Agamawy said that the insistence of his father, led him to subscribe to engineering and the father has made it clear to him how important it was study.
Muhammad said that his family has migrated from a war zone and now they are living in Lahore. His political idealogy has changed due to this fact. He was a staunch supporter of liberal thoughts. Now he is more inclined towards the left.
Lilah told that no political event has changed. However, growing up with only the mother, It has given her an appreciation of working women. In addition, it helped her to be independent.
The Last, Abdelmonom said that the sharing of ideas Isis by his friend convinced him of the importance of respect for all ideas. He said that Islam is something else and the media tell much lies.
I tried to put the speech in the media, but one of the moderators blocked me saying it would be the subject of another conversation.
I believe that the moderators would like to bring up the subject on September 11 American (in the sense that I suffer a lot more for the Chilean, but the world remembers only one), but we are all too young to have seen certain trends.
The session ended with Amanda listing the next few issues to deal with, I think they are poverty and climate change. We'll see what happens next time!
Alex Segat