Well, we're nearly half way through the project, and after speaking to most of you last week I am pleased that it seems to be going well for most of you - though some are having issues of absences and unbalanced groups. Whatever happens though - the 'least' this project will be for you is an opportunity to use and improve your English, so even if it is just a small group of 'westerners', use this opportunity! I hope though that the project will be more than this - and for this to happen it's up to you to start pushing the dialogue, taking the initiative, asking people direct questions (not just to the group in general, but you can also nominate individuals you want to ask!), and also questions that take the discussion further - such as asking people to define what they mean when they say something, and also why people say or believe things, how they feel about particular issues ...
Make sure you read the materials before your session this week on Religion, and also start working on your projects - particularly the video projects which you should not leave until the last minute!!
Make sure you read the materials before your session this week on Religion, and also start working on your projects - particularly the video projects which you should not leave until the last minute!!
A view of Cairo from the Soliya office
Meeting in Soliya office in Cairo
I cannot believe we are already at the fourth week of the project. It seems yesterday that we were merely introducing ourselves… okay, Federica, stop.
RispondiEliminaWe started with a little discussion on which values are important in our society and what they represent to us: family and friendship have been the ones we talked about. I asked how morality is valued in their cultures and we briefly discussed about that too.
Then we started with the main topic. It was Casper who started the discussion with two questions about the role of religion in our lives. I have to say I ended up with a bit of a headache after the two hours. Our meeting has been focused for the entire time on the role of religion, even if we didn’t even mention the readings we were assigned. Okay, who cares? The discussion has been very interesting! For the first hour it was just three of us, plus Casper. Who has decided to take a step back and let us talk. A lot. It was exhausting. I volunteered, last week, together with a girl from Pakistan, to ask some questions and try to take the place of the facilitator. But I was alone, at least in that first hour, and we didn’t even mention the readings, so I felt a bit of pressure. Okay, I am dramatizing, and I also have to say that I enjoyed it, a lot: at first it was difficult to try to carry on the conversation. So I tried to tell my point of view on some religion-related topics. One way or another, I managed to keep the conversation alive and we started asking each other questions. It was really interesting because we did not just talk about how religion is important in our society, but also how it is for us, how is our relationship with God. We spoke of faith, of being born with it, or rather being born IN it. I am so pleased with how every one of us tried to explain his point of view to the others, even a girl who usually does not speak too much! We had three different perspectives: a girl from Egypt, me, and a boy from the US. We were different but we shared our thoughts with each other, always being respectful. It has been very fascinating to me, especially because I am not a very religious person, while the others in our group have a strong faith. The point of the project is making you able to look at things with other perspectives: it is always stimulating to discuss with them because they point out things I would never think about or highlights things that I would not consider important.
Due to technical problems and to the time changing, two others joined us more than an hour later. It was good to be in a more ‘crowded’ group: they joined the discussion and we kept talking about how religion influences us, how we find religious institutions… I was surprised that Sara, who is Muslim, told she does not go to the Mosque and she prays by herself. She said she likes the relationship she has with God, and I found it so… positive, so good… I hope the next time I will have the chance to ask her about her veil, how she sees it and what does that mean to her.
We did not have a second time in a one to one conversation. I admit I am glad about it, last time it was a bit difficult to hear what was being said without Casper typing it, so I am afraid to loose half of the discussion. But I will have to do it in the next session, so…
Time to go. Did I already mention that I really like this project?
Federica
Here we are! Half of Soliya is already gone! It' time to middle-term considerations and yesterday we evaluated the project until now. Soliya passed the exam with very positive marks :) It's a very good context in which we feel free to speak to each other without fear to be judged. If I must to find a negative aspect in our group process probably I will choose the silence after a question made by the facilitator. Sometimes we spent some minutes waiting for the answer of the other and without taking the mic. I perfectly understand that we need time to think to the answer and that we are afraid to make mistake speaking in English. I'm the first with this fear, but these periods of silence risk to slow down the conversation and to made the meeting quite boring. We spoke about this and we will try to be more dynamic.
RispondiEliminaFor instance yesterday I came early and when the american guys arrived too I tried to broke the ice asking for the middle-term elections in the US. I really enjoyed that time because they tell me how they "live" the election and what is the situation in their cities.
Then when the other arrived we followed the program, speaking about the role of religion in our personal life and in the society in which we live. I'm the only person who is not religious and it was very interesting in seeing how religion is perceived in different contexts. For instance all the Muslim girls are convinced that religion should play an important role in politics, while the american guys (and I'm totally agree with them), even if they are religious, they think that religion is a private matter and it should not be included in government actions.
Furthermore I really enjoyed the private conversation with the american girl. Indeed in order to discuss about the final project the facilitators split the entire group in smaller ones (in general a couple). The last week I spoke with the Tunisian girl and yesterday with the american one. Since she has decided to write the paper she asked me some information about Italy. I think that the private conversation help us to speak more and to straighten the relation. For instance I added the girl on facebook and probably we will speak with Skype. I hope to maintain the contacts with these people even after Soliya!!!! ;)
Concerning with my final video I chose the video and in this week I want to start my project watching the video clips we have on the web. I really like the idea to made a video like a journalist ;)
Unfortunately the next week I cannot take part to the meeting and I waiting with impatience to the other ;)
Micaela
Marta Perrone
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Time passes very quickly and yesterday I had my fourth Soliya meeting. I was so excited for this session because I was curious to know what people in my group thought about religion. However, at the beginning it fell far short of my expectations. The two Tunisian guys were still missing, as always there were tech issues and we spent a lot of time trying to test microphones. I know that we connect from different parts of the world and that is common to have problems like these, but they have a negative impact on the evolution of the dialogue.
Any way, we started talking about Halloween and rituals or traditions in our countries that pay respect to the dead. We found similarities between the American and the Italian Catholic community regarding the soul day’s celebration. Juhaina shared with us an interesting tradition: Jordan people pay respect to the dead in a specific day (named House of Consolation) and after Ramadan too.
Then we moved on the main topic of the week. The facilitators pushed us into asking each other a lot of questions in order to really drive the conversation. Since that moment the debate became actually exciting. But I noticed that Alaa, maybe because she is shy, didn’t fully participate. We discussed the link between life’s improvement and the need of God. We also referred to other reasons that could explain why people now are less religious than in the past (science, economic development, people’s wish to feel free to make decisions within their own moral framework). We also exposed our personal experiences. While Christie, Alaa and Juhaina attributed a great value to their religion for their lives, I said that although I’m formally catholic, now I don’t believe in God. As Italian, I explained how much and in how many different ways the Vatican and the Pope influence our lives. In particular I expressed my concern related to issues (gay marriage, stem cell, euthanasia) that seem to be unsolvable because of the power exercised by the Holy See. What I tried to share with my group was that I’m not sure that a State (that defines itself as secular) may establish laws according to some religious prescriptions. Because religion has to do with mind, soul and spirituality, it could be dangerous if it affects political affairs and civil rights too. In my opinion, the Catholic Church isn’t able to respond to the new claims, although I’m noticing some progresses thanks to the new Pope (the first who used the word “homosexual” and who talked about the value of homosexual people for the Catholic community). So we spoke of freedom and its limits and in which cases they are legitimate. I know that many of my ideas on this topic could appear too liberal, but my group turned out to be understanding and able to show sympathy towards other’s feelings and views. It was a pleasure for me to share my thoughts with them. Also when we moved the speech on suicide, of course an emotional topic, I found a confortable atmosphere.
In the last 15 minutes, I had a one-one conversation with Dylan for our final project. We discussed the problem of young unemployment, what we’ll do after graduation, opportunities in Italy for students like me, our desire to go to another country. This time it was easier to understand his accent (he is from Kentucky)! Actually I’m noticing improvements in my English! What satisfaction!
So thanks again to my group! Every time is a great experience.
Marta
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaLast session it was more interesting than others because I think we started to have confidence between us and now there is a friendly atmosphere in the group.
First of all I entered in the group ten minutes before, and while I was waiting my colleagues I talked with facilitators about my private life. For example I said them which academic path I'm doing, the topic of my future thesis and so on.
When people arrived the first topic of the group was: the celebrations. We started with this topic because Salah, the Moroccan boy, told us that yesterday it started a new Muslim year. We were very curious, so we asked him to explain us the meaning of their celebration. After we talked about the English/American celebration called Halloween. The American boys in the group explained us the meaning of Halloween and at the same time they explained us what they do on 31st October. They told us that they wear terrible masks, they do a lot of tricks and so on.
Moreover yesterday some people asked to come back on the sexual harassment topic. I don't know why they wanted to discuss again about this, any way I said something about our political condition and I explain what our Italian law says. I had some doubts when Salah said that in Morocco is difficult for women to show this big problem in the Country because especially there is a predomination of male society. However in the Moroccan Parliament, politicians are trying to find a solution with a specific law, but it is not easy.
The last topic of the day was the role of the religion and how it can to influence us in our life. Some people of the group said that it important to have a religion. Salah had a different point of view, because he said that while most of people think that religion is just a spirituality, for him the religion must be practice.
The facilitators told us that we mustn't be shy, but we have to do questions, to explain our opinions. I agree with them, and my idea was that everyone have to be freedom to express own opinion.
Stefania NIcoleta
Soliya 4
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
I have just completed my fourth session of Soliya project. This session was all my bad luck to focus on religion! Sniff sniff.. After an hour I wanted to disappear! But that's okay, I'm by now convinced that the Americans guys want at all costs to believe that their problems with the Arab world derives from different religion and muslims guys continue to worry about how we Westerners consider Islam. Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that the wars go on. Amen.
Amanda initially asked us what we had done the weekend, but I said it just me, I told him that I work in a restaurant over the weekend. Marielle said that she washed dishes to pay for studies. Soon after Muhammad said to work as a journalist in a local newspaper, Farah instead presented a program in English for a radio station.
Then began a dialogue with the subject once again the role of religion in society; Agamawy asked if anyone believed that religion was unfair, I answer that it was dangerous because it tells people how to act and how to think and I hate every kind of authority. Lilah began to talk about morality and that religion teaches. Farah added that it’s impossible live without rules. I was disconcerted by so much ignorance, I explained that we are men, not animals, we all know what is basically right and what is basically wrong without any religious authority we teach him how to do it with the kids. I wanted to point out that it is useless to talk about morality as it can be different for each of us and that depend on the society, but I let it go.
Inevitably, the conversation went on the relationship between religion and state, I have already spoken of what he think many times so I just listen.
The others have repeated in different ways, which should be divided, but often are not.
Muhammad said even as the United States wants to rule over the Arab world by force, but this time spoke of Empire, this term has finally wake-up Nathan that requested clarification. Usually the history of the USSR, Taliban etc .. Amanda asked if he had personal examples and he said that his brother is dead due to the war on terror. It is so explained his obsession (justified) for that topic.
I said that I think we need to talk to American hegemony rather than Empire. I tried to explain what I meant by citing Gramsci and I was doing practical examples, but maybe because I mean bad, more likely because no one had ever heard of one of the world's leading philosophers of the '900, they did not understand.
I then posted the link to wikipedia in English on Gramsci's hegemony, once you read the links were all more or less agree.
The discussion then moved on the fundamental values of our society ... I did not have the strength to be redundant.
The moderators asked how it had seemed the session and everyone was happy to have had different points of view, I said that it was a good session, but for my being agnostic, I have found it a bit boring.
In the end we had to talk in private chat rooms of the final project with our partners, but unfortunately my missing and then my session ended.
I hope that in the coming sessions we change the subject because it is a pity to waste time with discussions (I think these discussion are simplistic and low-level.) on religion when there is a chance to meet a lot of other issues.
Alex Segat
Dear diary,
RispondiEliminaWe are exactly at the middle of the program, and for now I can tell that I’m satisfy by the whole experience and how it is going now. We started our conversation talking about the photos that our facilitator asked us to post in our blog in the Soliya web site, on our cities, daily life and other things we wanted to share with our group. View that last weekend I was in my hometown, which is very far from Padua, we had the chance to talk about our habits regarding university: for example, I explained that in Italy it is very common for students far from home to share an apartment with friends or colleagues, and that the reality of the campus is not present at all. On the other hand, the american girl in our group talked about her college, even if she travel everyday by car to go to classes, considering that her hometown is not far. The girl from Egypt instead has to travel everyday by train, 2 hours and an half, to go to university: the parents prefer her to stay at home. they are afraid that something may happen to her. Then Lisa, our facilitator, asked us to share with the group a quote, poem, slogan or motto, a prayer, a part of a song verse or a quote from a movie or speech that we liked, loved or lived by: it was a way to now each other a little bit more, and also to discover our tastes regarding movies, books, etc.! Hager, the Egyptian girl, made reference to an Arab saying “Do for your life as if you live forever and as if we die tomorrow”, which we agreed is an amazing way to live the life, but at the same time extremely hard!
Then Hannah had to leave to go to vote (because of the mid-term election in USA) so me and Hager started our conversation on the topics useful to develop our final papers. We started about the ideas of independence for young women that our societies have, and it turned out that they are quite distant, even if some common points are present. For example, Hager told me that she is the only one among her girl friends to not be officially engaged: her family wants her to first finish the university, but she underlined that it is an exception. She also added that in general the situation of women is not very easy in Egypt: for example, being a single mother in Egypt can be very dangerous, because not being married and having children is considered something against the common decorum. I asked her if she would like that this kind of traditions change, like the possibility for a man to marry up to 4 women. She told me that, even if she doesn’t like a lot some aspects of her culture, it’s her religion, and, since everything is written, according to her it will never change. You just have to accept it as part of the traditions. I argued that there is the possibility to separate the rules of the State by the one of the religion, but I respect her point of view, and I can see the struggle that herself is doing to express herself also in a professional life: she would like to be a translator, and she is aware that she may find some obstacles, because of the possibility to be a woman treating with man for business.
In the end, it was a very direct, sincere and fruitful conversation for both, and Lisa gave us all the time we needed to share our thoughts: we decided to post-pone the discussion on the reading about religion to the next week, hoping that more people will show up. Me and Hager will continue our discussion by emails and Facebook, waiting the meeting of next week!
Liliana
Elena Melotti
RispondiEliminaHi everyone!
I’m coming right now from my fourth session.
I didn’t wrote about the third cause it was full of technical problems and sincerely it was quite boring. We were just two people and conversation was stagnating.
Today our companion from Lebanon came back to us and we discussed a lot about the role of youth in today world and in the past, commenting a citation brought foreward by our facilitator, saying that nothing significant in the world has ever happened without involving young people.
We touched the ’68, the Arab Spring and then we end talking about the fact that often young people are manipulated by older people in power.
Our companion of Lebanon, talked about children soldier and young people deviated towards terroristic groups. She told us about sects in Lebanon, muslim or christian, using religion to gain power over youths, but not only. Persuasion by this groups rely also on offers of jobs, money, a better future for the family. It really sounds like a kind of mafia, nurrishing herself with the hopelessness of young people. She also said that she indirectly knows, trought a friend, a boy who engaged in such a sect and became another person, cutting bridges with anybody he knew and was hanging around with before.
This thing made quite an impression in our little group.
Always about Lebanon, we discovered that unlike Italy or France, except for some faculties (translation, languages and education), faculty in general, including the scientific ones, are attained by an equal number of males and females. Yes, in Lebanon engeneering is attended by an equal number of boys and girls. How have they reached that?! I failed to ask about the medium marks, if there are any differences, since according to some studies girls generally perform better. I’ll ask it next time. I’m curious. We discover also that in Lebanon it is not popular belif that boys outperform girls in mathematics.
The theory adopted in the group right now is that girls, at least in France and Italy, are generally more attracted by things that seem more “alive” than bare numbers: the thought comes directly from the mind of our french companion studying biology.
I look forward to next week session in order to prepare and ask some more questions about boys and girls in education. And I’m also waiting for the discussion about religion and the islamic veil, cause today we talked so much about othe things that we didn’t manage: a pity there are no boys and no more people form eastern countries with us!
Just a little thing to add: I think I’ll miss this program when it will end. Even if not everything is as it was meant, right now I find myself talking about things it rarely happens to me to talk about with people more or less of my age.
Dear Diary
RispondiEliminaI’ve just finish the 4th session of my Soliya project. I have to say that it was not so exciting like the last one, also because we started with four people missing; Will the american guy didn’t remember the time changed and Hassan and Saleh have had some connection troubles because of the lack of electricity at the University of Cairo,Salmandir joined us one hour later for personal issues and also I have had some problems at the beginning of the meeting with my headphones but in few minutes, thanks to the technical support, we straighten out everything.
However it will be better the next time.
Today our discussion was focused on the role of religion in our daily life.
This is a strong and important topic for me because is useful in the understanding on how religion can be divide and also join together people. I gave the start to this conversation saying that even if all my family is Catholic I’m not religious and so i don’t practice anymore, I added that even if this position at first sight should looks extreme and maybe radical I have a great respect for people who believe in something cause faith is a great resource, but at the moment I’m searching answers by myself and maybe in a future I will be more near to religious feelings than now. I was scared that someone of the other participants could be have a bad or negative impression because of this affirmation but I was wrong. Mari the American girl said me that also she is not religious even if all her family go to the church every sunday and this is a great challenge for her because often they have strong discussions about this theme. The other american guy, Will, shared the same feelings too.
Completely different were the statements of the muslim participants (all the other participants are from Egypt and Morocco and they are muslims), they all practice and strongly believe in Islam. In particular Saleh told us how special is being muslim and believe that if you adopt a right way of life and follow the Coran’s law your life after death will be beautiful and this is the reason why your behaviors on earth must be correct and good. I don’t believe in any kind of paradise or resurrection and I told him, I think that your good intentions are due also to your morality which is not strictly linked only to religious teachings, Will added that religion can be also a free choice, we are free to decide what to believe on the base of our personal feelings.
Then it was the turn of Salima who said:” Islam controls our life, its not like other religions, for example if you are muslim you cannot change your religion, while a catholic or a jew can change whenever he wants”.
Religion and control are two words that I don’t like to use together, I have a very different views on what religion is, religion must be associated to words such as respect, love, confidence, forgiveness and not control. However I didn’t want interrupt the discussion and I didn’t tell anything.
So trough this short discussion we embraced the theme of extremism, anyone of us shared his own opinion about that (in the end we all agreed that in every field extremism is something wrong and harmful) we talked about the religious extremism in Islam and the muslims guys told us that extremist people are not really linked to Islamic religion,they misunderstand the real rules of Islam and use religion to fight their own battles. I don’t know I’m still a little bit sceptique about this explanation, but this is also the reason I’m doing this way with Soliya, knock off my prejudices and being a little bit more openminded.
They also answered to my question which was about the steps to make to stop terrorism and Islam instrumentalisation to fight political battles. Salmandir told me that they tried to open communicative spaces to find a solution for all these problems but still the situation is hard to deal.
RispondiEliminaAt the end of the meeting we were divided into three groups in order to talk about our final project. I have to be sincere, we (me Salmandir and Saleh) didn’t talk directly about the final project, we talked about the use of the veil in the muslim society, through this conversation I discovered thanks to Salma and Saleh that in Morocco and also in Egypt a woman can decide if wear or not wear the veil but in many other countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia you don’t have this freedom. I explained the situation in Italy and in the other european’s countries cause they didn’t read all the articles planned for this session. After that we joined the rest of the group and we shared our impressions about this session. All positive, we are all involved in the conversation and we like to express our personal feelings and thoughts about the themes touched.
We also gave our ideas on what to talk about during the next session and the most voted proposal was “food and culture”, so now I’m waiting for new culinary experiences, it’s a pity that we can only talk about food and not taste it, but never mind I will ask for some recipes and then I will try at home!
See you next week!
Sara
NATASCIA PIASENTINI
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Yesterday I had my fourth session for the Soliya project.
Theoretically, we should be 7 of us but every time there are only 4 of us so, in the end, I have to say that my group is made up of two Americans, one Moroccan and I. I only saw the other three people at the first session so I think they don’t take part in the project.
We are a great group and, the discussions are getting more and more interesting every time.
Yesterday we discussed 4 articles about the meaning of the veil in the Muslim religion, and about moderate and extremist people. When I connected to the session at 5pm, it was just me and the facilitators. Five minutes later, Matt (the American boy) joined in. To start the conversation, I asked Matt if he celebrated Halloween in his country (US). Matt answered that Americans celebrated it, while, the facilitators from Egypt, said that in their country people didn't celebrate it. In Italy, I said that it was a British celebration but we have adopted it, so Italian children go from house to house asking "trick or treat" and young people go to the disco or go out with friends. We sometimes dress up like ghosts, vampires or witches.
Anyway, 20 minutes later two other people joined in the conversation. After this little interlude about customs in each country, the facilitators launched the session with an activity. They told us 5 words and we had to write the first word that came in mind in the chat box. The words were: Religion, Islam, and atheist, Judaism, Christianity and Secular. We focused on the words atheist, religion, and Islam, and in particular we discussed the veil.
About atheism, the two Americans and I wrote "non faith" and "non believer". We then explained in more details the reasons we had chosen these words. I said that I thought an atheist did not have faith in God, but they sometimes believed in something else like Science, Maths and in evolution of the species (Darwin). The participants agreed with me. We added that in our societies an atheist is accepted and not discriminated.
Natascia piasentini
RispondiEliminaThanks to Soliya, I now notice differences between Western and Eastern societies. Abdul, the Moroccan boy, is very religious, I think. He always puts religion first. Maybe it's just my impression but his answers are different from ours. For example, one of the questions of the facilitator was (I write literally from the chat box) "...would you accept an atheist in your society?" Abdul answered "I accept them as long as they accept my religion". I believe that while the answers of Western people in the group, but maybe also in general, are about "to respect religion" in general, "each person is free to choose or believe in whatever they want", "for me if a woman wears the veil, it’s ok"... his answers were given in a defensive tone as if there was someone who wanted to attack him. I hope you understand what I would like to say here. This is the way I see things personally and maybe I am wrong.
Then, we talked about the veil. We (the Americans and I) respect a woman with veil because it is her religion and, in general, we tolerate other faiths and other cultures/traditions without discrimination.
Abdul said that European countries banned the veil after 9/11. But this is not true. The article we had read was about the burqa and the niqab because they cover the whole face and body and in some countries, like France, they do not want women to wear these types of veils. I said that in Italy, there were people wearing the veil, even in my university. Abdul made a connection between the problem of the veil and the 9/11. I tried to explain that I thought that in some countries the problem of the veil was probably connected to security problems because after 9/11, people were worried about the bombings and that a person, fully covered, could hide something under the veil. I do not think that it is properly a religious problem because a Christian person completely covered could be suspected as well. Abdul asked why most of the Europe countries banned the veil after 9/11 and not before. Matt said that the answer could be because of the panic and fear in the US which then reached Europe also. Abdul asked why there was no fear before that. Matt replied that he was too young to answer but I tried to answer saying that the US had never been attacked at home before 9/11 and the reaction was fear and panic among people. I think this is why we connect veil to security.
This session was very intense and interesting. I am very enthusiastic about taking part in Solyia.
See you next week.
Natascia
Last evening, during the fourth session, Soliya program showed me a new face, and not completely pleasant. The meeting didn’t begin in the best way: I was slightly late – and I hate to be late – and immediately I was in trouble with my microphone.
RispondiEliminaOther people said me they weren’t able to hear me, and surprisingly the tech service opened on itself and someone wrote me suggesting to change headset.
I did so, but I felt … spied. I know, it’s a nonsense, but in that moment I realized that there’s always someone listening to us and our speeches.
The second thing I disliked is the difficulty to understand facilitators; Sarah is usually connecting from a café in Egypt, so voices and shouts are often louder than her voice, while Matt’s microphone has got several noises and interferences. Maybe I’m only looking for an excuse to justify my bad English, but sometimes I feel truly uncomfortable; I can see that also Mathilde or Safouane often write “please type” or “pls write a summary”.
This evening we were only four, cause we lost also Sophie and Amine, so the group was almost completely “European”: me, two French guys and Safouane, the Moroccan boy.
Once Safouane tried to involve Sarah, one of the facilitators, in the discussion, since we talked almost all session about religion and about the veil worn by Muslim women (and Sarah wears the veil). He tried to joke and to be sympathetic, but facilitators became very formal and closed the discussion, warning that they can’t discuss issues with us. They’re very professional and they’re strictly following their task, but I think they could sometimes relax and feel free to interact with us like companions.
Maybe I’m not dealing seriously enough with the program, while they’re worried about the final result and, mainly, about not hurting participants’ sensibility.
I noted this when we focused on a futile point: how to call correctly the predominantly Muslim countries. It was obvious, for me, to call them simply “Muslim countries”, since they’re governed by religious parties; but it wasn’t so obvious for the others and, after a short discussion, we stated to call them Arab countries (in relation to the conflict between those nations and the westerners ones). I think I forgot this rule quite immediately.
The discussion went on longly about the veil, which meaning changes depending on the context: it’s a symbol of freedom in Europe, where some women want to affirm the right to wear it although it’s banned, and it’s a symbol of oppression in some (Muslim) Arab countries where women are forced to wear it (and punished if they do not).
The last part of the meeting, as usual, is a short talk with a partner in the breakout room. My partner, Safouane, is a sympathetic boy and I’d like to meet him one day. He’s always in trouble with readings and he candidly admit that he hadn’t read at all the articles assigned during the week. He could be my son, as they’re both always late with homework.
Finally I want to say that the discussion, although some problems I underlined, is very interesting and I’m unhappy for my scarse knowledge of the language, because this lack does not allow me to be more active, and more friendly with my group too. I want to go searching them on facebook now!
(Part 1)
RispondiEliminaI have just finished the Soliya meeting. Today I could not stay all the time because I had to go to work I'm sorry because this session was very interesting. We talked about religion and Islamic veil.
I red all the articles to prepare the meeting. I reflected on these.
At the beginning, Casper asked us what values are important in our community. We answered: democracy, freedom, tolerance. Wafa told us that in Morocco there is much tolerance but little democracy. I always thought it was the other way around.
Then we talked about Islamic veil. Jeanne explained us that in French law it is written that in public places people have to be able to see your whole face. Also in Italy this is true, but this was not what was written in the article and I said this to her.
At this moment I became aware of things that I never thought. Chiraz told us that Muslim are not obliged to cover all their faces, only the wives of prophet Mohammed must do so and that the full cover is mostly in Saudi Arabia and gulf countries, it is increasing in Tunisia, but it is not written in Islamic religion that they have to do this.
Also Wafa spoke about this: she said that in the Koran it is not said they have to cover their faces, in fact in Morocco they don’t have to do it, they have to cover only their hair. Zakaria agree with Wafa and Chiraz, he told that in Morocco people can chose to wear the hijab or not.
In my city there aren't women who cove their face with a veil, even if here there are many people who come from Morocco, Tunisia or Arabia. Maybe they have changed their ideas to adapt to our country.
When I meet a woman who wears the veil I ask me: "why has she decided to dress the veil?" but above all: "Is she free? Does someone force her?" If the veil is a personal religious free choice, therefore I respect and I don't judge her . The problem is if she isn't free, if her husband or her dad force her.
In Italy there isn't a law to ban the Islamic veil in public places, but many mayors of cities prohibited the Islamic veil.
For example, mayor of Como had adopted a law to prohibit Islamic veil, but a judgment of the court of cassation has eliminated this law.
In some cases it is possible that mayor takes a law to prohibit the Islamic veil to go to the museum, or to the picture gallery and so on.
About this topic I found a website dedicated to non-EU where was publicized a Charter of values, it is a document made to protect non-EU.
Casper has shown us an image: it was an iceberg in the sea. The emerged tip consisted of two aspects of the human personality, position and conclusion, while the immersed part was composed of values, observations, intentions, perceptions, assumptions, needs, beliefs. I had already seen that image, it represented what we are. The part you see of us is nothing compared to what we really are and it is our task to bring out our perceptions, our inner self. It is a hard work that often leads us to discover parts of us that we do not like. It's a work that continues during our lives, and when we realize that we aren't so good as we thought, that in a little piece of ourselves there is racism or hatred or false beliefs, we go into crisis. But it is precisely then that we improve and become people in the true sense of the word.
(Part 2)
RispondiEliminaI loved listening to the members of the group describing the image, each of them has expressed his own opinion by saying that often our false beliefs prevail over truth and that we must strive to show what we truly are.
After this dialogue Casper asked us to answer two questions: 1) What role does religion play in our life? Why is it important/ not important to us? 2) What are the most important tenants of our religion? What are the elements that are most important to us ?
I answered that religion is important in my life. The Christian message is made by peace and love. The first commandment is to "love your neighbor as yourself" but the most important for me is "love your enemy". We meet our enemies every day: the neighbor who screams, the boss who does not understand us, the partner that does not respect us, the husband who is not as we would like, the son who rebels against our teachings, our leaders which steal our dreams. If there were not these teachings probably I could be a cold, angry and depressed middle-aged lady. But religion is not just that, it helped me in important parts of my life, in difficult parts when I lost my fourth child, or when I learned that my daughter Martha is disabled.
Jeanne and Gerell aren't religious, Jeanne's family is not religious, she doesn't want to be told what to think, she want to be able to make her own decisions and Gerell agree with her at 100%. He believes in most things of religion, but he doesn't believe there is only one religion. He doesn't believe in a higher power but he believes in the power of religions and that some people make a wrong use of it.
While for Kadie, Wafa, Zakaria and I religion is very important. Chiraz said that when she is depressed, religion helps her then; Kadie is convinced that there is a God who created everything and that her problems will be resolved because God brings her comfort. For Kadie religion plays a big part in her life, she prays every day. For Zakaria God created all, religion is religion of love and peace but he warned us "Don't believe in the propaganda of my religion!". So Casper explained us that people from everywhere are saying that Islam is the religion of terrorists and even in the article we had read, it is said it is the religion of terrorism, but this is propaganda, Zakaria's religion is about peace and love.
I believe in God, but I often don't believe in men and my church is made up of men. I think church is paying its errors with young people and women. The Church is too much rich while Jesus Christ was poor. He was born in a stable, he was the last of the last, I think about the prostitutes, the blind, the hungry who he has met in his life. I trust Pope Francis and his message, his way of talking to young people and his way to give hope will certainly improve the Church and can remove the problems that have been afflicting it in the last few years.
Christian message is of peace and love, our Jesus is dead to save the humanity, so there should not be wars or hate or pain.
God leaves men free to make mistakes; even in my religion as in other religions this comes true every day.
Hi everyone!
RispondiEliminaOn tuesday there was the 4th Soliya meeting. This time the meeting was more stimulating. We started talking about our families and about the argues with our parents. The conclusion was that every family in every part of the world argue a lot.
I’m the only one in our group that doesn’t live with her parents. I explained that I live with some friends, in the city where I’m studying and that I can’t come back to my parents: living with parents could be very boring for a grown one, even though sometimes could be more confortable.
I have learned something new about Thanksgiving, and it has been very nice.
After this discussion Erin put us a link for a video in the chat box. The video was an “awareness test”. Than she asked us why she show us that video.
Houssem told maybe she wanted to show us that when we're concentrating on one thing, we can't see the other things that happen.
I though that she wanted to show that when you are looking for something you eventually see it while you can’t see something you aren’t actively searching; and this works either in a video or in real life.
Erin told us that the video was a cool illustration of the types of things that we should keep in mind in our conversations. Sometimes we only see what we expect to see and we only hear what we expect to hear without really listening or acknoweding what is being communicated.
After this we started talking about religions.
Erin asked us: “What role does religion play in your life, if any? What are the most important tenents (or principles and doctrines) of your religion, if any? What are the elements that are most important to you, if any?”
She also asked us to speak from a personal perspective.
I think that the discussion about this topic was the first really interesting discussion of our sessions. Farah sayd that religion has a big role in her community. It helps them to determine and organize the community and it helps them to respect everyone, teaching what is good and what is bad.
I asked Farah if religion has an important role in her daily life and if she bases it on religion.
I told her that religion in my life doesn't have any role and that I'm totally atheist, even if I grow up in a Christian society. We began a discussion regarding our societies, about people that believe in God and people who don’t. We also spoke about how important and helpful is religion and the secolarization of our societies.
Than we talked about the differences between Christian society and Muslim society. During the discussion we asked ourself what’s the role that religion should play in our community and in our government.
The american girl told that in her opinion, religion doesn't play a huge role but it's always in the background: She told that in the government, they’re supposed to have a separation of Church and State, but a lot of times the lines are blurred; her opinion was that the government should definitely be not influenced from the religion.
I spoke about the influence of Vatican State in Italy, especially in relation with ethical topics like homosexual marriage or euthanasia. Erin asked me to explain what I mean when i use the term "eutanasia”, because she wasn’t sure that everybody knew the meaning of this word.
I shared in the chat box some articles on the recent facts about Brittany, the american woman who just choose euthanasia to die because she had a terminal (fatal) form of brain cancer.
We used the last ten minutes of the session to speak privatly about our final project. I think it will be tought to carry out the final project with Farah, because I don’t understand almost nothing when she speaks.
But I’m going to try hard to overcome this problem. See you next week.
Marina Molinari
(Part 1)
RispondiEliminaDear Diary,
On Thursday I had the fourth Soliya meeting. This time Ian, Elena and I joined the meeting room five minutes earlier than Rangineh did. When Rangineh finally joined us, I jokingly told her that we didn't need a facilitator anymore, she laughed a lot about it.
The ice breaking question Rangineh asked us was whether we could have dinner with any person, either dead or alive, who would it be and why. Elena said she would have a dinner with Benjamin Franklin, cause she would ask him about his being mason. Then she nominated me and I said that I'd like have dinner with Henry Kissinger in order to question him about the China files. Then Ian told us he loves reggae music hence is really fascinated by Bob Marley and he'd like meet him eventually. Afterwards Nihel said she'd like have dinner with Obama to ask him if he considers satisfactory his five years of presidency looking at the agenda he had set when he won the election. Danil would like to meet the CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corporation and Tesla Motors Elon Musk to learn from him where research works are going and what type of batteries we will use in future. Luke'd like meet his idol Jeremy McKennin, founding member and the lead vocalist of “A Day to Remember”. Finally when Mahira joined us she said that she would have a dinner with Hitler in order to ask him what made his mind so narrow. A really serious answer, yet I think meeting Hitler could be very interesting so I think Mahira reached the point.
After the ice was broken Rangineh, as usual, remembered us the group guidelines that are “Don’t judge people based on where they live, Tolerance, Honesty, RESPECT, Exploring other cultures and Respect for opinions, arguments and culture”.
(Part 2)
RispondiEliminaFor this session we have four essays to read. As you know Elena and Mazen have to bring the group a couple of questions about “Role of religion” which wasn't a reading title as I assumed it to be, but the broad topic links all the articles we had to read. This time Mazen missed the meeting, as he'd sadly explained on the Facebook page after the talking ended he was waiting for the session but the security personnel and the instructor had already left with the laboratory's keys. Therefore Elena only asked the group. She asked us if in our opinion religion is used in politics to gets votes.
Every member said in their country religion is actually used to gained votes and people consensus eventually I added that in Italy and others European countries Christian Democratic parties won the elections for forty years as a confirm of the heavy Catholic Church influence across Europe. Indeed Nihel and the others Muslim guys didn't underline the religion influence on their countries and I think it is sadly because they don't realize that religion bonds their hands limiting their views.
At this point Rangineh spurred us to think of a few concrete examples where religion was used for political goals. Almost every ones gave the example of the medieval crusades then Danil said that the so called Wars on terror involve religion and Nihel caught the ball right away confirming her anti American attitude saying that the best example was the U.S. fighting in Iraq in 2003. Firstly Danil said he thought biological weaponry rather than religion in that case was used to justify the attack and that what Bush had affirmed in his speech before starting the war - for he claimed that he saw Jesus Christ in his dream who told him that the U.S. Had to storm Iraq for the World's and humanity's sake - it seemed to be a way to spur the public opinion in order to support the campaign against Iraq much more than justifying the war. Luke - an American student - said the U.S. National defense was threatened by Saddam Hussein, who had allowed terrorist groups to harbor in Iraq. According to me and almost everybody else ISIS, Al Nusra and all other terrorist groups grow up in that country after Saddam Hussein defeat. We also believe it is also a bigger threat to the U.S. much more than the Iraq ruled by Saddam.
Rangineh said she really appreciated the diversity of opinion in the room remembering us the goal was not necessarily agree each other but rather try to achieve understanding other opinions, positions and, thinking.
After this interesteing debate Rangineh encouraged us to select a member in order to collaborate with him to the project we selected. Whereas only three chose to do the Video Project we created a Trio rather than a couple. This is composed by me, Elena -Italian- and Mahira -Pakistani-. I'm very proud of the working team where I've been included cause we are very collaborative and chatty so work between us will be surely easy and productive. So our team was been assigned by Rangineh at the Breakout Room 1 in order to chat yet the available time was almost to an end and we chat only five minutes yet Elena created a multiple message chat through Facebook between her, Mahira and I and we are writing each other.
I really enjoy this session and I'm looking forward to the next meeting yet through Facebook we are keeping in touch with each other.
Nicola Berto
Carolina Olivi - 1st PART
RispondiEliminaDear Diary,
this fourth meeting has been the hardest one for me, until now. I am going to explain why.
We initially talked about our religions, and we were kind of two groups: the muslim girls, which were five, and the non-religious ones, that were all “Westerners” (i.e. me, the French girl and the American girl). The Christian girl from USA was missing, unfortunately, so it could seem that we were two opposite sides. It was not like this, because we are very tolerant towards each other, and we already knew others’ beliefs, more or less.
Apart from this, the Pakistani girl told us her story specifically, and she shocked everyone. She is part of a particular sect, called Ahmadiyya: but in her college she cannot tell anybody! As a matter of fact, she explained to us that in her country it is legal and within the Constitution to kill and burn their houses. So that is the reason why she and her family keep the secret. She also tried to describe the characteristics of this sect, but I only understood that they consider themselves muslims, although other muslims do not. We found out that there are different sects within Islam: for example the Lebanese girl belong to the Druze, while the other muslim girls are all Sunnis.
I felt bad for Annie, and I asked her if she had never thought about moving to another country, where she could live without fear. Her family actually applied for a transfer (to Canada), but it all depends on immigration bureaucracy. I think that the other muslim girls were touched by her words, because they underlined that they believe in a peaceful Islam, which teaches tolerance and love for everyone.
Then, I had some difficulties in understanding the muslim girls’ mind. They told us that Islam plays an important role in their life and it controls them, in every areas (family, school, social life). They believe that religion makes them better. I liked that, but I added that it is not always true that being religious makes you a good person. For example, I noticed that here in Italy the most religious ones are usually the less tolerant, although there is no logic in that. I agreed with the Pakistani girl when she said that every religion promotes peace and love: the problem lies in warped interpretations of this message.
After telling each other the more or less importance of religion in our societies and governments, the discussion moved on a hard topic: the total Islamic veil. I am usually very free about what a person wants to wear. In spite of this, I am not sure I would allow the burqa, for a question of security, first of all. But what about the niqab, which shows the woman’s eyes? I still do not have a definite opinion about that. I was impatient to hear their reasons, but I must admit that now I am more confused than before.
2nd PART
RispondiEliminaThe girls which wear the veil told us that they wear it because it protects them from bad things when they are outside, and because they think that a woman is something beautiful, like a diamond, and so it must be covered. I am really convinced that they see it as a symbol of women’s beauty and need to be protect. I can understand that. They think that girls are something special and the veil increases their value.
But there were some points that were very hard to understand for me. In fact, they use as an example two pieces of chocolates, one covered and one uncovered. They told us: a man would choose the first one! Obviously, this metaphor was totally shocking for the rest of us. I tried my best to interact with them without being tactless, and I said that it was hard for me to understand because I am not accustomed to thinking about women in relation with men, or to doing things for them. The French girl was also very diplomatic, although in our private chat we agreed on the difficulty of understanding such different opinions.
Surprisingly, the Pakistani girl (which is muslim but with no veil) was the frankest one when she said she totally disagreed, and she complained that people often reduce women to objects (like diamonds and chocolates). She thinks it deindividualized us. She added that a veil cannot protect from bad things, because women wearing veils in Saudi Arabia get raped just as much as a girl wearing a bikini in the States. In her opinion, clothes have nothing to do with it, and the real cause of bad thing is bad people. Later she confessed to me that she is not diplomatic at all, and I joked that I did noticed it.
However, at the end it was also funny because it came out a peculiar difference: the muslim girls wear make-up only with their man, to be beautiful for him, while the French girl and I do the opposite! Our hair are a mess at home and we only leave our glasses for contact lenses when we go outside. Our boyfriends are not so lucky, in a certain sense!
I did not like the last part of the session: I was alone with Heba, in order to discuss about the Final Project. It was the first time I met this Egyptian girl, but she had connection problems and she does not show her face, so the conversation was very difficult for me. I hope we will become more close next times.
Carolina Olivi
Part 1
RispondiEliminaWe are already on the fourth week, and now that we’ve come to the half of the programme the level of discussion is getting quite deeper. During this session, which in my opinion was the best one so far, we discussed a lot about religion. Unfortunately, as usually we were just three students, and none of us was Islamic. As I had already said we have one Egyptian facilitator, but as she reminded us more than once her role doesn’t consent her to give an opinion.
When I connected we were just two: our American facilitator and me. So we started talking about U.S. elections and about the problems tied to the results, that brought us to compare Italian and U.S. political system, and even the Norwegian one (as a matter of fact she’s been living in the U.S. for many years, but she actually comes from Norway). It was an interesting discussion although brief, as the other guys connected soon enough; when the American guy joined us I tried and asked him about his thoughts on the elections, but he didn’t really know what was going on since, as he said, he’s not interested in politics at all.
Then we started discussing religion, as the facilitators asked us to tell each other about our relationship with it and what role it plays in our life. Truth is I was glad to talk about this topic because, even if I’m not religious at all, I’m very interested in religions, more specifically in the part they’ve played and still are playing in history and in politics. I’m particularly interested in Islam, so I was hoping that there would have been som¬eone on that side to talk to. The interesting thing, though, was that we discussed with our Egyptian facilitator the situation of Copts, the Christian minority in Egypt, and the outcomes of the revolution. I couldn’t hear her so clearly, so it was a bit difficult to follow her speech.
Then we came back to the original discussion, and the facilitators asked us about the readings. We didn’t talk much about that anyway, since we quickly moved to the topic of relationship between religion and politics giving our opinions. Even then we talked a bit but we didn’t discuss much, we spoke about how it works in our countries, but eventually we all agreed on the fact that religion and politics should be completely separate.
Part 2
RispondiEliminaLater our facilitators made us watch a video about the niqab, one kind of Islamic veil which covers women’s entire body and face except the eyes. I had already seen that video as they published it in our Facebook group the night before. In truth I had seen that video several times due to the fact that it really made me angry, which is not so easy about these topics, I’m usually very opened-minded and more curious than judgemental. Anyway, since it really irritated me and since I knew there would have been an Islamic person in our group I preferred to watch it again and again until I was completely sure I had really understood it. Unfortunately my first impression turned out to be right. In the video there were some Islamic women in niqabs who claimed their right to wear whatever they want to, and I completely agreed so far. Then they started talking about the veil as a protection from the world, and I could get that, until they got to the statement that they didn’t want to be “just another rate statistic”, referring to the share of annual rapes in the world. It seemed to me that from a certain point of view that sentence could contribute to justify rapes towards women who are not as covered as them, or at least a way to say that the veil prevents from this kind of crimes. Moreover they stated that niqab is the real freedom (for both women and men), and that Western women are merely seen as sex objects. I think that this is a real issue of Western societies (not just Western anyway, even if in very different ways), but I really don’t think that’s a problem of covering up.
In expressing my thoughts I was very concerned about possibly offending our Egyptian facilitators, who wears a veil too. My concern wasn’t about the subject though, because I don’t think that she shares the same ideas as the women in the video, I was more worried about the limits given by expressing myself in another language, and I think that’s the first time I felt very unease in this sense since the beginning of the project. Beyond these concerns I completely get that they made us watch this video to provoke our reactions and to stimulate a confrontation, and I really appreciate it. Unfortunately there weren’t Islamic students, and our facilitator couldn’t give us her opinion, although I was really curious. All of us were pretty annoyed though.
To conclude I feel very satisfied about this session, and I really hope we’ll be able to repeat this experience next weeks.
Laura D’Onghia
Part 1
RispondiEliminaDear diary,
Last Wednesday I had my best session! Actually we were the same five people as the first one, but we were finally able to work and discuss successfully during the whole two hours, without any kind of distractions.
At the beginning we talked about the US midterm elections held on the day before. Monica said to us something that either I’ve already studied in my training or I’ve just read during the days before: the win of Republicans at the Congress initiates the typical situation which often happens in the American political system, that is the “divided government”, and now the balance of power between the President Obama and the Congress is going to change radically. Clay said that he’s a sad American who doesn’t vote, nor he had watched TV or read newspapers yet, so it seemed like I knew more than him about American home affairs (actually it was 9 a.m. in West Virginia, so I think I can justify him!). However I took that opportunity to ask them what they knew and what they thought about the New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio and, as I imagined, they were really surprised about that question because they didn’t expect him to be famous in Italy. Instead Taghreed gave us some terrible news happened on that day in Egypt: in the morning a school bus hit a truck full of oil and fuel and the accident caused a huge fire where about 18 children died, also the number were dramatically increasing. After this sad report we started talking about the topic of the day.
We had to talk about religion. To prepare the discussion, we were required to read some papers proposed by Soliya’s staff for that week, and we also watched some videos posted by the facilitators in our Facebook group. As I said before, since that moment a great discussion got started. First of all we shared our points of view on religion and explained if and which role the religion has in our lives. As usual, we couldn’t have a real confrontation with Arabs but, even if Taghreed is a facilitator, she played the role of “the Representative of Muslims”; that’s why I asked her why in one reading it was written that Egypt is the most religious country in the world. She agreed with the statement and explained that in Egypt Muslims and Christians live together respecting each other. I was a bit annoyed because I knew another story, a story in which many Egyptian, in particular Christian ones, have died during last years in a kind of war between religions, and I exposed my point. She answered that it was true what I said: there were different cases of violence after the Mubarak regime’s end. But also, she highlighted that it’s not a “war” between religions, it’s more of a fight between extremists, both Muslims and Christians, who want their religion to become the only one in Egypt. She considered them just minorities and in her opinion the fault is on the country’s instability, and consequently of the absence of a clear religious tolerance policy. It was an interesting point that I had never heard before, but I wasn’t sure to totally agree with her yet. I also supposed that it could be possible that Western media focus more on Christians’ death in Arab countries than something else. So she showed us a picture in which some Muslims protected, by their bodies and while holding hand in hand, the Christians who were praying in a square. That was strong because it gave me a very different image in contrast with what I thought before about Egypt.
Part 2
RispondiEliminaAnyway, this doesn’t mean that Egypt is a “pacific” country in this moment, and I cannot definitely change this certainty. In fact I started to shower her with many questions on the current Egyptian situation, issue that really interests me, because, as I said to her, it’s harder to understand the development of events in Egypt than in Tunisia from this side of the Mediterranean Sea. She illustrated two different main points of view in the country: some people are happy because they got rid of a very corrupt regime; others are afraid of the chaos that happened and have fear of what will happen. It’s a paradox: before there was stability but also corruption and now they have openness but uncertainty at the same time. She also asked us how we evaluated the revolution in Egypt and in the Arab world, and in that occasion I desolately considered that from my own perspective, the Arab revolution was “a wasted opportunity” in its whole, a part from (maybe) Tunisia. Finally Taghreed spoke about Muslims Brotherhood, saying that it’s a political organization which mixes false tenets of religion with politics and so its rise caused a lot of confusion in the country.
This last statement brought us to another issue: “religion and politics”. It came as no surprise that none of us thought politics should be based on religion. As Westerner we also agreed with veil banning but only for security reasons and not as a form of discrimination toward one particular religion. The issue of the veil heated the discussion in the end; I mean that Laura and I were particularly irritated because of the video posted in our Facebook group in which Muslims girls, who wore the veil, said that veil is a symbol of freedom and that Western girls are just sexual toys. Anyway I prefer to continue this matter on next session report, because we will surely talk about this controversial video again, even because Monica asked in a post (still on Facebook) what our Arab friends think about the video and if they agree with the girls in it; so I’ll be waiting for their feedbacks.
In conclusion, I have to say that last Wednesday it was a proof of maturity for our group because everyone was able to share his opinion contributing to develop a great discussion. Finally we were all satisfied, the time ran quickly and no one wanted the session to finish. I also received a little recognition from Taghreed who thanked me saying that I was a “great critical thinker” and that made me glad! Now I can just wait anxiously for the next session!
Gabriele Chiarello