Much Needed Updates (not yet)

States of the former Yugoslavia, 

purple highlights are cities, red is basic route.

I am in Belgrade Serbia, having recently spent time in Zagreb -Split and Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Mostar and Sarajevo, Bosnia.

The perspectives from each place are hard to wrap up in a nice neat little package and due to the seemingly large lack of English in Belgrade I'm not sure I will get much of the Serbian perspective... although I'm going to the war museum tomorrow which I hear is quite nationalistic.

Conversations, pictures, tours, it's all too much in a lot of ways..

Papers soon, I hope as the semester is winding down.

I'm worried there wont be wireless in the areas I'm going. Istanbul in two days, it's a massive city, there ought to be wireless somewhere.

This is just an update on what will come.

Slovenia

The Yugoslav vs Slovenia war was only ten days and thus people really don't feel too bad about it. They are fairly open about things and feel/know that they have benefited more so than the other states of the former Yugoslavia.

The actual place is a mixture of East and West, with influences from Austria, Italy and the East (Soviet States).

The landscape is beautiful, the cities look nice, if just a little warn by the functions of weather and time.

The capital -Ljubljana (pictured) is relatively clean, safe and luxurious like Italian tourist towns.

The people are open and friendly (if just slightly cold when you meet, they warm right up)
and many people speak multiple languages including English.
The accommodation is a little expensive (roughly the same as Italy) but the food is much cheaper and transportation East is also cheap.
The people here go on vacation in Italy or Croatia and seem to have taken full advantage of the less expensive states of Bosnia and Serbia.

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Metelkova is the area in which my hostel is and its a small city less than a block really... made up of converted military barracks and a small prison. The artists and musicians of the city took it over after the war, promised by a very "giving" new government which quickly changed their minds prompting the artist to squat there for two years without water or electricity --which is apparently guaranteed by their constitution anyway. The place is the cultural capital of the country and home to the alternative scene and way of life -ten music clubs and plenty of open galleries all within a tiny area.
The problem for me is the peace loving alternative scene (though I felt at home) isn't the best example of the greater area.

In a packed reggae bar tonight I saw one black guy who was DJing but plenty of dread-locked Slovenians.
In a club not 50 yards away I saw a Roma band playing semi traditional music with amps and a dancing cheering crowd who knew all the words singing along and encouraging the tourists to sing too

 

This is a rainy Thursday night and tomorrow and Saturday are supposed to be even wilder with people wrapped around the blocks waiting to get in.
The age range was about 15-60 it was quite beautiful.




The band is playing a cover of the song "Mostarski Ducani" by Mostar Sevdah Reunion
For the studio version (along with a picture of Mostar)  click here

Updates and such

Book

I meant to have the other book read a few weeks ago after I got it, but the pace is a little slower with this one and so I an not very far into it (too much jargon).

But hopefully soon I will finish and yes I know I still have three papers to write. I am looking forward to forcing myself to wrap some things up, probably next week after Warsaw, before Yugoslavia.

Trip

The remains of my trip are looking like:

Warsaw, Poland. 

Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Zagreb,Split and Dubrovnik Croatia.

Sarajevo, Bosnia. Belgrade, Serbia. 

Istanbul, Turkey (more?)

Greece? Romania?

Then maybe back to Prague, and Krakow. 

Then London, then home.

Conversations

The most amazing thing happened the other night, and I probably wont go in to all the details but I was sitting in the hostel, e mailing and listening to music, and a couple of English cats came in drinking beers. After a while it came up that one of them had spent time in India working for the IT company we went and visited (Symphony Services). Even more, he was working to help them (by training Indians) to transfer jobs from London to Bangalore. So this fit in perfect with basically the whole India trip, and I figured I could ask him about his thoughts on the premises of the books as well. 

So he agreed to have a conversation the next morning and it was probably one of the best conversations I have had on this trip in terms of my thoughts on globalization, because in a strange way he both elaborated, confirmed and gave an extra value of hope to the process. Considering he is on the front lines I was amazed to see how open he was to it, but in being aware of the downfalls and being on the inside it meant that he could be actively working to make sure that the problems are addressed.

The process of outsourcing (which seems inevitable) does increase profits, but doesn't always increase efficiency, because the cultural barriers mean that often the work needs to be checked.

For example he said that Indians don't tend to know or care about many of the products available in the West so when they bring up stats on how to sell them better they are often flawed because they don't know about the culture.

So they might have a theory that a food product would sell better next to another product, but Americans or English might be used to buying their cereal and milk right next to each other and it would throw off their sense of cultural comfort or whatever (stupid example, but it makes sense).

Indians wont understand why Americans love Starbucks, because India doesn't have Starbucks... (which is an interesting thing in itself, protecting the Indian tea and coffee industries...)

Anyway he said basically that this can slow down the process, despite the 24 hour work day (24 hours because of time zones) so that was kind of interesting.

Another thing he brought up, is that it is in the best interests of the West and others to set up infrastructure in other places (which I just love to believe because it helps my idealism) but basically he (and I) hope that the multinationals will come to understand that the (very American) desire for fast increases at long term expense doesn't make sense, and that true steady income will come in increasing money for infrastructure education etc.

Part of the reason India is set up so well right now is because of their "mom and pop" government which enabled half the population to get a decent education (half their population is more than our entire, so it works out for them).

other things...

I asked about the market dominant minority concept Chua discusses in her book (in which a minority dominates the market of a country or region) and in thinking very openly towards globalization he responded that soon (due to telecommunications etc) there will be no reason to move to other areas... the market dominants will be able to stay in place and control from far away, which cuts down on the openly violent nature of things, but probably increases frustration (unless that last point about infrastructure and trickle down is worked on very adamantly.

Anyway it was a really good (though short) conversation.

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp (This comes at a point of frustration for my travel partner....)

I made it to Sachsenhausen, with a million thoughts and feelings on the way, while there, and afterward.

Some main points.

A) On the way there I saw some of Eastern Berlin, (which is now fairly hard to tell the difference) and wondered about their satellite dishes, cars and all the added conveniences. Are the people actually happier, do they use their freedom? Do they wish they had the old comradery back (even if it was forced upon them)? Are they complacent?

B) Sachsenhausen is outside the town or Oranienberg north of Berlin.

Are these the same people that lived here so long ago? Were they ashamed, do they feel guilty, did they even know? Were they aware that the ashes, the soil they plant their flowers in is human remains? Are they sickened by it.

How do they feel about the tourism, is it just another quick buck? 
Are they proud to display how far Germany has come?

C) How far has Germany come? The differences seem amazing. The complete turn around and awesome power of people coming together after being torn apart, after tearing themselves apart.

Are they proud or humbled, do they care at all? Have they put it behind them or do they want to remember? Are they wary of the consequences, are they actively standing up against new forms of tyranny? When they see something terrible happening, is there something in them that calls out "No! Never again!" or do they not see it as the same thing, if it is discriminating against new populations?

D) I guess D is reserved for all the horrible emotions, even the exhaustion the frustration, the absolute horror... I have always been a firm believer in peace despite being very interested in history and warfare. I love to remind myself why its important to keep that way.

E) When comparing genocides, are gas chambers or machetes more humane? Which shows more hatred which shows more disrespect. When you personally can look a person in the eye and tell them you want to destroy them or when you send them off to some camp where you don't have to hear about it. Were the German people so absolutely aware of the horror of it all, so aware of the inhumane way they were treating people they knew were human, that they couldn't do it themselves?

F)  Sachsenhausen was designed to humiliate political opponents, the other people sent there were usually just on an in between stop from other camps (still that stop was life and death for a second, a day, a month, a year and with no concept of time and a system designed to take away your pride, personality, culture, love and life... isn't a second too long anyway?)

So on a personal note, when facing such horror I make sure I put it in my terms.

I would have been sent there.

My Mom and Step Dad are both pacifist Pastors, they would have been sent there.

My Brother is a political activist/politician, he would have been sent there.

My Dad's side of the family is Lebanese, I'm not sure our blood would have been wanted.

About a quarter of my best friends are very into activism, they would have been sent.

Another quarter (like myself) are bisexual or homosexual, or just so damn aware that it shouldn't matter that they claim not to be heterosexual just to make the point - we would have been sent.

I grew up in a town with a 30 % Jewish population, due in fact to a Minnesota Ghetto. About half my best friends, associates, my teachers, my employers, the people I buy my groceries from etc  would have been sent. 

My girlfriend is Jewish, she would have been sent.

Even the thought, simply imagining for 5 minutes, the people you love, the people who inspire and give you hope, the ones who have made life worth living for you, to think about them disappearing one by one...

It was cold and raining at the camp. We had hats, mittens, jackets, we were freezing still and I can't tell you how bad it makes you want to strip down, how horrible you feel wearing or having anything at all when so much was taken from so many.

I know times have changed, and a lot of these things wouldn't have been talked about at the time but I guess that brings me to my last part.

G)  I have a history with the American customs office- a  history of them "randomly selecting" me.

Three years ago I was accused of being a terrorist.

I left the camp yesterday so happy that I was able to say and think and do the things I wanted to in life. Happy to live in the US, a country I love, am proud of and am enraged by with such an extreme passion.  A passion I am "allowed" to have.

I left the camp with the same rage and shame I had when last I was stopped, I left wanting to call those customs agents the most horrible of insults, the most degrading of things, because they would make anyone feel so horrible, so worthless.

I left the camp wanting to get stopped again so that I could give them the lectures this time. So that I could stand up against the BS, the ignorance, the prejudice the injustice, the oppression we force upon so many.

At the same time, sometimes I want to thank them for forcing upon me, for only an hour or two the horror that others face daily.

The trip back to the hostel was one of the most exhausting things in the world. I was so emotionally and physically spent.

At the camp they talked about how the detainees would rush back to their over crowded and miserable bunks, so over worked that even a rest in hell seemed better than another minutes work.

One last note and this sucks... but they talk about how many people committed suicide and it was encouraged by the guards and sometimes the inmates at every opportunity. The fences surrounding were electric and guarded with dogs and soldiers.

There was no escape but death for most (I think they said that only a couple ever made it out).

There was a poem they put on the audio guide that a man had managed to write and part of it talked about his friends decision to die rather than keep trying.

And you wonder what you would do?  I can't imagine the strength it took for the survivors to not only make it, but live and work on to bring people back together - to keep it from happening again.

It makes you wish you could be the one singing, or writing letters of hope on scraps to give the other people. To remember the prayers that guided your life, to still want to live on, to still think life was beautiful.

I can't imagine that kind of strength...

I can't imagine the beauty of those people and when you hear they didn't make it.  I cant imagine the loss. Overall its impossible to imagine the loss. Hard to imagine how it continues... hard to imagine not wanting to struggle in any and every way against it.

I think that's why I think I would have been there. I couldn't live with not trying. I still can't.

So if I get arrested for arguing with customs agents well one more stupid attempt to make things better.

Anyway this wasn't supposed to be this long...

enjoy peace
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Conversations

Madrid

Welsh, student living in western England.

In Madrid late one night, a young drunken Welsh lad, saw that I was awake typing away or drawing silly pictures on my computer one night and waved me out of my solitude. He proceeded to chat up a storm which led many near by to become disgruntled but we ventured forth in to the lands of laughter and good conversation, all the while he stood facing my bunk bed tapping his fingers on my closed lap top and I sat semi nervous on the top bunk whilst Krystin kicked the mattress beneath me to warn me of the hour.

I’m not sure I even caught his name and the next day I realized he probably wouldn’t have talked to me (and didn’t for the next two days) had he not been drunk, but we had a good time.

The conversation began simply, “Where are you from?” I asked noticing his strange accent (not quite English and not Scottish, but hardly thick or distinctive at all) and he said Wales, which I gave a weird look at him for (knowing that Welsh accents are usually quite distinct) he said, well I live in England, and I thought okay that might do it and asked where, and he said “in between Manchester and Liverpool” which I then laughed at, because once again you got some distinctive accents there and I explained why I laughed and he said “yeah isn’t it weird, how like every town has a different accent?” and then we started talking about that and how in Britain just about anyone can tell where a person is from if they are local (sometimes down to the neighborhood of a city) or about where they are from just because of the way they speak, (something I’m quite fond of guessing in secret, which is why his case posed a particular challenge being not quite anywhere specific) 

 BBC Voices Project

Anyway our conversation began in ways of speaking, then switched to words in English, the similarities and differences (mainly focused on American vs Britain, leaving Canadians, Aussies and Kiwis for another day. 

So we proceeded to discuss the fact that different cities/regions have different words for things, with him occasionally spitting out phrases I couldn’t understand, and me occasionally using my casual and very anti-formal American slang (which I do without realizing it, sometimes even in papers.

Then we started discussing why he was able to understand me while I couldn’t understand him, which lead to a conversation very briefly on the media and then flooded into politics, after I explained that I had recently heard that our vice president shot a man but would not go to jail.

Anyway we started comparing notes, on the US, Iraq and Afghanistan, the EU, but mostly on the British political system and its similarities and vast differences to the US system.

For instance I got to explain why we had Bush for a president despite his losing the popular vote, and he got to explain the trend toward conservatism that Tony Blair has recently turned to (his theory was for reasons of legacy). 

Our similarities began to add up when comparing leaders and we especially noted the trend towards the middle that both sides of our respective political parties (in each country) tend to start running to. While both of us complained about wanting a left party that leaned left and a right party that leaned right, each of us agreeing that we would surely vote left, if we felt they were left enough.

I started wondering how to get this on track for a globalization spin, so I brought up Britain’s position in the EU and he explained how more and more he was sick of the west’s view of globalization being something so horrible. The classic “they will take our jobs” line of the right along with the popular “its hurting people economically in other countries” line of the left, had left him with a feeling of frustration. He felt personally that the west could offer several jobs, and that that was capitalism so why not, and that the thing to do, (not that globalization is unstoppable) was to stop complaining and speed up the possible process of making it work for all (I heard very similar things in India).

By making it work for all, he meant using systems of government to ensure equality and relative security to all and felt that this was the EU’s intention, but that the countries who stall or do not work to make the changes help their citizens are merely hurting themselves. In this sense, the EU is the world on a smaller scale. That’s about it from what I remember.

Barcelona. 

This would run a lot more into Krystin’s topic

But I went out with 2 guys one night to get tapas, some nice Spanish food, which I don’t eat because I’m a picky eater and I don’t understand why every Spanish dish (except Paella) has jamon in it…?

Anyway a night on the town in the heart of Barcelona eventually led us down the more seedy streets of the Gothic Quarter (as a side note Barcelona is one of my favorites cities in the world)

 I was with an English guy from Manchester and an Aussie from Perth and the guy from Manchester had seen a pub earlier in the day called “Manchester” and thus he had to take us, more for laughs then for anything else. 

Our conversation was mainly centered on four things: traveling, food, comedy and very seldom politics.

The traveling bit we got out of the way early all of us were fairly well traveled, which led to the conversation on American junk food, and Australian delicacies such as oh say anything but wombats and koalas apparently….

It was kind of funny as the English guy went down a list of anything he could think up, including snakes, crocs, roos and grubs, and the other guy checked off each item as if it were nothing and compared their taste to what he figured we would know. I think he said he hadn’t had British blood pudding  which I had to agree didn’t sound too good.

From there we started going into comedy tv and comedians, which was a fairly interesting conversation I found hard to follow noting that I had only seen like three of the shows…but apparently British comedies are often exported to Australia where they tend to do quite well if they aren’t too dry. The British guy explained why American comedy doesn’t do too well in Britain, mainly it is too blunt or too posh as in too fancy and wealthy, where as British comedies go after the middle class working family, or typical office situations which everyone can relate to. 

The Australian shows minus one (that one Kylie Minogue was on-she is now a pop singer) almost never do well in Britain because Brits are too classy for low brow beer humor, was the general opinion….

Anyway both of these guys were huge fans of American cartoons like Simpsons, South Park and Family Guy, (all pushing the extreme) and would settle for things like Cheers, Friends and Seinfeld which they found appealing (in that middle class sense).

As far as politics, it was funny, for 3 worldly guys semi well educated and such we preferred to get the old well how do you feel about Bush questions out of the way and then move away from politics. But I think when you look past that level, you got three guys complaining about paying too much to travel (knowing full well the fact they are able to travel puts us in like the top 5 % of the world’s wealthiest and still we complain). We scoff and joke about the silliness of the Danish printing anti Muslim cartoons in their papers causing riots and the deaths of several protesters… meanwhile we tend to each proclaim the glory of the free press (me especially loving European papers and news because its less censored, but just as hyped).

Then we discuss foods and television, suggesting snacks and programs to download or buy the DVD of ignoring the fact that most of the world can't afford that food or even dream about that computer, TV or DVD player.  All night the English guy had been trying to use his debit card at the ATMs finding they had cut him off for the day (reached his daily limit) which he hadn’t and I started wondering about our dependency on global banking, electronic transactions, etc…

So the next time I was at an ATM I took out extra money, just in case the same thing happened to me.

Later in the hostel in Barcelona a group of 8 or so of us, Germans, Americans, Aussies, Canadians, and Argentinians spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out the name of a "set crème dessert with vanilla beans and sometimes raspberry sauce" That was funny with 8 minds looking through translation dictionaries hoping to stumble on the right word, hoping even more that if one of us did we could convince the others that that was indeed what we were looking for. Its not flan, its not tiramisu, its not pudding, its not… etc. French, German, Spanish three types of English not one of us could figure out the word.

But a girl from Toronto made my day and said she drinks Coca Cola and Orange Juice together which is a drink I'm quite fond of and that I have never been able to convince anyone is good. 

I think I fell in love.

Ignoring the Anthropology student/free lance writer I met last night who gave me a lecture on ethnography while I was typing a paper on Anth methods...

In Vienna 

I had a conversation with a Turkish man tonight that I may go visit again..

We have become quite fond of kebabs (apparently “gyros” is trademarked or something).

So I was out for a late bite and the guy asked me if I was Australian and I said “na, American” with a sigh like I tend to do… and he apologized saying that he can't tell English speakers apart by country.  I nodded figuring its probably like how I can't tell Germans from Austrians or Dutch even though they are apparently quite different, but assuming that he wasn’t from any of these countries I asked and he said he was from Turkey. Having been there I asked where and he said Istanbul (because everyone from Turkey says that) and I remarked how it was one of my favorite cities in the world, life, beauty, culture, history, millions of people, whats not to love? Anyway I started wondering whether he was Turk or Kurd but he answered without me asking saying as a Turk in Austria he felt like Istanbul was still the most beautiful place in the world. He said he had lived in Vienna for three years and that every night he still dreams of the city. What is it that is so great I asked? 

You are free in Istanbul he continued, true you have laws and rules and such but there is a natural chaos that comes from a city like that (his closest comparison was New York). He loved that in his city you could find anything, you had everything you needed, 4 religions on one block, not being a devoted Muslim by any means he noted the beauty of the mosque (while sipping beer). “In the mosque” he said “you have light from everywhere, unlike in the churches of Europe which are dark the domes allow for light and color, warmth, and carpets…” 

Hard not to agree with him

He was a cook by trade but an artist by birth, by love, by nature and noted the colors of Istanbul of the mosques, etc. His colorful paintings decorated the restaurant we sat in (and being a bit of an artist myself) I asked him about them.

He started discussing the symbols and colors, the compliments etc and then started talking about the Turkish (oriental) in Austria and how the Austrians don’t have color, or life, expression in their art, they don’t express from the heart (this was according to Austrians who buy “oriental” art) and so the “oriental” art is extremely popular and it is easy to get a showing.

He also noted that his parents (who were still practicing Muslims and didn’t let him sell pork in his store) were quite famous amongst other Turkish people in Vienna because they came very early and helped many of the people around Vienna get legitimately in touch with the Austrian Government for social services and visas and such. 

Pretty cool guy, makes a delicious sandwich.

____________________________


On backpacking... its still the low season but that is the time of year I was here before just a few years ago and one strange but welcome difference is the dramatic increase in women traveling. They tend to travel in groups where as guys partner or travel alone, but when I was here before the ratio at best was about 2 girls to every 10 guys and now it is at least 50/50.
Interesting, is the world safer? Are women more independent? What would cause such an increase?

Pietro

Krystin and Pietro

Some of this will be review from Krystin's but I will try to go into some of the specific globalization concerns a little more.

Basically Pietro is a University student in Firenze (Florence, Italy) who studies at St Thomas (In St Paul, MN) during the summer. He is a Political Science major and works in editing. His family seems to be middle to upper middle class (though there are rumors of more). He has one older brother (I think) who is married to a Serbian Woman and their marriage took place in Serbia.

Some of the stuff Krystin has covered: His Political background is mixed, he believes firmly in change to get things done, seems to lean left, has noticeable frustration with the right, but has voted for several parties, rarely if ever the popular choice. He seems to be more interested in regional, or even local city matters over state level. Currently isn't a big fan of either the Prime Minister of Italy, or President Bush and recognizes many of the positive and negatives of Italy joining the European Union (EU).

When I asked about immigrant populations he quickly prefaced the talk by saying that many of the reasons for people being singled out in Italy was due to frustration with the economy in Italy (past few years) and that like in all countries (US included) the prejudice usually comes from not having a proper understanding of the culture of the people, or the sociopolitical/economic situation in the first place. As a whole he seems to have concluded that people should be better educated on the subject.

The 4 groups he identified as being particularly noticed were: Chinese, Albanians (and other former Yugoslavians), Filipinos and North Africans. The Albanians and the North Africans are generally perceived as being involved with crime, but he took particular care to note that not only do these groups tend to make up the majority of "non wanted" jobs, but also work the factories which drive the industry of the country. He also noted that these two groups tend to mingle with Italians more and it is in many ways that interaction that causes the friction between the groups. Albanians and North Africans are often pushed into jobs where they have to serve the public and thus are the more noticeable minorities.

One more note, is that the political party on the right, tends to blame most of the problems of crime on these two populations, but the captains of industry who own the corporations and often vote Right, tend to be the same people employing and introducing them to the country.

The other group he spoke about were the Chinese, who like Krystin said, tend to not associate with Italians as much. Pietro described them as taking up entire neighborhoods and suburbs where they live and work amongst themselves. He notes that many do not learn Italian and do not teach their kids it. The problems associated with the Chinese are related to the influx of cheap "rip off" products that compete with Italian goods. These products are sold at all the market corner stands etc, and many feel this is slowly killing the economy.

In terms of all of this, it does not seem that these groups will come to dominate, despite concerns and prejudices. The market is so Western leaning that other Europeans and Americans have a far easier time establishing businesses or at least a cultural dominance.

(Krystin covered a lot of what he said about Americans coming in to Italian towns)

One interesting note he made, is that if you ask an Italian "What is American Culture?" they wont recognize a lot of the things they know and use because they associate it too closely to themselves. They may "know" McDonald's and Nike are American but to them it is not American Culture.

He also paid a nice tribute to the "American Dream" which he says helped many Italians both in the US and in Italy thrive, but notes that economic stratification has become very hard to break. Not a lot of social mobility between classes.

Lastly I think it is interesting that he and his family/friends vacation in Eastern Europe. They see it kind of the way people see Tijuana, Mexico in the US, as their playground, where anything goes and everything is cheap.

But in spite of that I think it has helped him personally to realize what he has and what others have to deal with. In the same way I think his perspective on the US and Americans is somewhat more valuable as he has often been to the US to see how people live etc. 

Maybe this isn't the place to share this, but as this is the more intellectual (school oriented) of my journals,

I was reading up for my Anthropology Methods class from last semester (which I still haven't finished) and read a book called The Professional Stranger by

Michael H. Agar (weird coincidence with the name) in which he talks about his realization and changing of a bias.

He starts talking about how he was supposed to do research with, or talk to people who had done research on drug support groups. Initially he decides that the study is too small, too non varied and that it doesn't make for good research that can be generalized or applied.  When he enters the room to present his research, rather than sharing his conclusion (at the time), he just asks how they felt about the research. The audience (of professionals) go on for an hour overwhelmed about how it changed their lives and was an amazing breakthrough.  He realizes he was wrong and that it was a good place to research if nothing else just to turn them on to the possibilities of more.

That's how I feel about the India trip. I expected more from it, so I came to the conclusion that it must be that way for everyone and now that I have heard how inspired some of the people on the trip felt, I feel somewhat ashamed about my presumptions.

What is more, from having the time to sit back, to hear some of their impressions I am realizing much more how much I enjoyed the trip and how good it was for me.

So that's smooth, anyway that was more personal. 

I think it might speak to things like how little interviews may seem like nothing, both to me at the time and to the person, but maybe later both parties will realize that the interaction was good.

Hopefully.

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Already falling behind

We spent a few days in Stirling where I finished the Chua book (World on Fire).
I thought it was interesting that before I even read it I had been commenting on the economic oppression of ethnic groups, but in a completely different way.

Stories from years ago.
I remember being in London a few years ago (Oct 2002) having a conversation with two Arab men who were drinking beer, making jokes about a christian who doesn't drink and Muslims who do.
We talked for hours about the state of the planet, politics, religion and such. The Iraq war hadn't begun yet but Afghanistan and 9-11 had. The man I talked to the most asked me how I felt about Muslims and I responded that I had no negative feelings and was quite interested in the religion. He felt he could give me a run down on the way of the world, and being younger and the non drunk one of the two of us I felt I could give him a few hours to give me a lecture. He sort of felt he was on a quest to find himself, and wound up drinking beer in a London Hostel talking to two German kids and later me the American boy.

The thing I remembered the most from his few hour long lecture, in which I halfheartedly nodded along, was his comments on Jewish people. I grew up in a town that use to be the MN equivalent of a Jewish Ghetto, 30% of my friends at school (as well as the city in general) were Jewish and I was very interested in his opinion. "The Jews are a clever people, God made them clever because he chose them." Was the most positive thing he could say. The rest was what Chua referred to about typical impressions of Muslims towards Israel and the Jews of the world.
"America has made them powerful, or else (motions of them being wiped away)... They use their cleverness to hurt people, they are greedy... They are secretive, they are ashamed, they are sneaky... They talk amongst themselves and plan things in their clever way... They are selfish... powerful... ...abusive... good with money... they talk in codes...they are planning something, they are sneaky... they don't let anyone know what they are talking about so they can steal from you... the Jews  were behind 9-11" etc etc etc
I objected to many of these statements and the man agreed that he was biased but asked how he could not be.

The next day or a few days later I took a bus to Edinburgh and watched two older Orthodox Jewish men be avoided on the 7 hour bus ride. They talked amongst themselves (certainly people are not all that open on long bus rides-most prefer to sleep). Anyway the two men did indeed talk in phrases that others could not understand, interjecting jokes and words in Hebrew and in Yiddish (despite having English accents -which was weird to me having only heard these words coming from American mouths). They looked through the business sections of newspapers and business magazines.

*I recorded all of this in my journal at the time which is why I remember it.

I remember being mad at them actually, for fulfilling so many of the stereotypes. These men, unlike my friends at home and such stood out, stood on their own and I could totally understand how men who grew up in a biased society would hold it against them, would assume they were plotting.
By the end of the bus ride though my feelings had changed, because I saw in them the bond of fraternity I guess, they reminded me of me and my best friends. Having spent years in close capacity we learned to speak in one liners that only we understood, we had our own interests and couldn't care less what others thought of our small group. These men had been friends for years and it showed. I felt really happy for them.

In that same year I met a hotel operator who very briefly asked me where I thought he was from. I was unaware that there even was a difference between Iraqi, Turk, Arab, etc at the time, (I'm usually aware of these things but the American media had me in the dark).
He was Kurdish. "Where is that?" I asked and that's when he decided he needed to give me his pre-wrapped political propaganda speech about needing a country.

"30 million of us and no country. Like the Jews before Israel, but the world steps in for them and not us? We are spread along the borders of many countries, oppressed, without freedom." 

Kurdistan (the land of the Kurds) is the ethnic and cultural area in which the Kurdish people live. It is within the political borders of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Later in my trip I visited one of those countries. Turkey was one of my favorite countries of the entire trip (and still is one of my favorite places in the world). On my first Day in Istanbul I met a man  who I initially pissed off -later he became a friend. He worked at a hostel in Istanbul, he was the manager of the restaurant upstairs and was incredibly nice and giving.
We had a conversation about Kurds in Turkey and he declared rather proudly that he was Kurdish. I asked him how he felt about Turkish/Kurdish rivalry (discrimination) and he said rather honestly he was sad to see his people being oppressed, treated as second class. He said how despite being able to be proud of his people in his restaurant, had he gone outside just a block down the street and yelled the same thing he might have been beat up. He was not joking and didn't seem to be exaggerating. Toward the end of my stay we discussed the upcoming war in Iraq, it was clear in Turkey well before here as the US was putting pressure on them to use military bases in the Eastern part of Turkey (Kurdistan). My Kurdish friend, along with many men of his age group, was being conscripted into the army.

"They want me to go and fight, you know who I'll be fighting? My brothers and sisters, my people the Kurdish people are in Iraq, and when they cross the borders they will want us to shoot them. They don't care about us, they don't give us a country, they use us to kill each other and we have to."

I didn't understand at the time, I mean how could one understand anything like that. But I have been pretty anti-war since the first gulf war so I knew I objected to his being used.
When men go to join the army in Turkey, their family and friends gather at the bus station next to the bus they will be sent away on. The families gather around them sing and pray, buses are delayed (sometimes for hours) due to this and its not questioned. I saw several of these events while heading out east to Cappadocia. The East of Turkey is very sparsely populated (or so they want you to believe) because its mostly Kurdish people. As I saw more and more of these gatherings, I realized he was right, Kurdish people were entering the army all over the country, the poor, the oppressed the ones without the right or the money to fight back.

Luckily the war didn't have as many people fleeing across the border and "ended" rather quickly. I would be interested to know how these men feel now, but I have no way to contact them. I would be interested to know if my friend is alive.

Turkish children doing a performance piece on War (Spring 2006).

India and Britain

I have not had time to read any of the books, I will probably start them in the next few days. Between the India trip and finishing up last semester I haven't been able to keep up on reading.

I was able however to incorporate a lot of what we were doing with the India trip into some interviews on a variety of topics related to Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and globalization. I took notes on a number of lectures and asked extra questions at the end relating to the topic, plus I was sometimes able to ask for opinions on the side. I was also able to have a number of small chat/interviews with people including a Canadian who has taught and worked in an orphanage in India for several years, an American university student who has been working with NGOs in India for ~ 5 months, an Indian University student in the process of getting his PHD and several Indian people who's lives seem to depend upon foreign investment (either directly or indirectly) including fishermen, mall salesmen and souvenir sellers. These conversations often ranged from 2 minutes depending on language barriers to 15-30 minutes.

In the next few days I will give some brief excerpts along with some case studies of NGO work in India, and hopefully start reading the books so that I can incorporate that into it.

Members of the NGO Rural Institute for Development (RIDE) at a rally.

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On a personal note, reverse culture shock hit me hard when I got to London: the language, climate and people all hit and depressed me. I spent a few hours waiting at a bus station considering the differences between the people and the commercial stores.

Besides skin color, there was also a general unfriendliness about the British people, most people didn't smile, looked tired or bored and didn't seem very eager for life.
Although several of these traits could be noted in India people at the airport, one also found a lot more hustle and bustle. In India there were always very eager sales-people trying to get you to buy things at their store or something similar.  The British store clerks had their heads in books and seemed uninterested in whether people bought from them or not. In India it was uncommon to see a store person sitting down when you entered, they saw you before you walked in, greeted and welcomed you, regardless of whether you got anything, they were glad you had been there.

I wonder if this is a strictly cultural difference or economics or what. I was treated similarly to the Indian style  in Turkey, Morocco and Tanzania but there are more similarities between India and Islamic cultures than Indian and European.

Food Court at the mall in Bangalore

Still evidence seems to point more to economics, in the rich stores of Bangalore, the salespeople didn't follow you around.
*Though one could make the argument that Bangalore as a whole has adapted to Western cultural habits.






What makes it really interesting though is that in Britain and much of Europe you find these same people working in many of the small corner stores, or the less wealthy markets. Indians, Pakistanis, Kurds in Britain, Turkish people in Germany, North Africans in France. So it makes it hard to tell whether culture or economics plays more of a role.

3 Weeks In...

This will be the place where I post reports related to my directed study.
I have already spent all the time I had in India, so it's Europe from now on. So far the plan is to do some traveling around Britain in the next few weeks and after, then head to the continent probably Southern France, Northern Italy, etc.


The next few days I will post some of the comments and perspectives on different topics from conversations in India as well as some of my personal thoughts on my trip there.




Right well, we are gonna go see the north sea and maybe the Firth of Forth. Peace.



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An update from later: We got no where near either of those destinations. As per usual my gross underestimation of distances on maps came into play. We did get lost, wound up at a cool mall and grocery store and found our way back eventually.