“If you visit American city You will find it very pretty Just two things of which you must beware, Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air.” I first heard this song by Tom Lehrer 30 years ago. Sometimes I think we have made great progress since then. Sometimes I do not. Recently, I was torn between these two feelings in the space of an hour. I headed out to Silverdale, Washington last week to see what a local Global Citizen Corps (GCC) group was up to on this cold Sunday morning. I heard they were doing something about clean water and climate change, and I had a gift to bring them from their counterparts in Iraq. As I waited in a lovely waterfront park, I gazed out to the windy sea and saw some surprising signage. Tom Lehrer’s song immediately revved up in my head. Just moments later, the song was interrupted and replaced by a loud and enthusiastic chanting coming from a crowd of 40 youth marching down the street. They were marching the two miles from Island Lake to Puget Sound — from one polluted water hole to another — calling attention to World Water Day, as well as their efforts to raise money for purchasing incredibly low-cost water filters for families in Ethiopia. They ended their march on top of a giant map of the world next to the sea, and stood in solidarity next to the eight countries where other GCC leaders were taking similar actions this week. These young leaders all knew that, if we do want to drink the water and breathe the air, it is going to take all of us across the globe — working together — to make it happen. I offered them two gifts as we stood there on top of the world: a commemorative tea plate Iraqi youth asked me to bring to U.S. youth leaders, and news that the Iraqi GCC leaders had just planted 1,300 trees and organized 2,000 people to call attention to climate change. I left the park a little chilled, but at least Tom Lehrer’s song was no longer rattling around in my head.
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Lebanese men pass their citizenship on to their children. Lebanese women, by law in Lebanon, cannot — unless they are married to a Lebanese man. I recently learned of this disturbing law. And I immediately wondered how can this be in this day and age? How did it become law in Lebanon some 85 years ago and still hold till this day? What does the man or woman in the street in Lebanon think of this? Until recently, it was nearly impossible to find out directly the answer to such a question from a Lebanese native, unless they spoke English. Or unless I learned some Arabic real quick. Sure, there are automatic translations that Google and others can do, but they're pretty lame. It’s like when I travel with my basic Spanish and go to a Guatemala: I can ask directions, find a place to eat and say "hello" just fine, but don’t ask me to explain why I don’t believe in capital punishment to a local. Things really get lost in the translation. But today, thanks to a new website called Meedan, all that has changed. Whether you write in English or Arabic, what you say gets translated into the other language automatically, a human translator reviews it and refines it, and posts the new and improved translation. As a result, I found out that lots of people care about this Lebanese nationality law, and in fact pressure has been applied to Parliament recently by many young people there. And now it may be on the verge of changing. I also found out that the reason for the law is far more than simple discrimination. It relates to past wars — specifically, who lives in the country now and who lives elsewhere as a result. It relates to ethnic and religious reasons. It is, in a word, complex. Still unfair, I concluded, but now after having written and discussed the issue with numerous Arab-language young people, I understand much better the dynamics of the law. And young people in Lebanon, as a result of the on-line conversations with others around the world, now understand strategies and tactics used elsewhere to change similar kinds of laws. It would be a human tragedy if we all just spoke one language. Just as it would be a tragedy if our forests only grew one kind of plant. But by being able to communicate accurately across our various languages is a huge step, as noted in a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor. Nothing will ever surpass the power of meeting face to face to cultivate understanding across cultures. And if our language is different, nothing beats having someone right there who can translate what we are saying to each other. Last month, we did just that when we brought young leaders from Jordan, Lebanon, the U.S. and the UK together in Edinburgh for our first Global Citizen Corps International Youth Festival. It was great, but it was just 16 youth. How do we do this in a way that affects thousands, even millions? This creates one of the key paths. What is behind the mask? Heart like rock?". This is the caption, my new friend, Huzaifa Hamid in Iraq tells me, for this photo above, taken by his brother at the protests this past week in Sulaymaniyeh. I visited this city last year, a city with a population about the size of Seattle, meeting with youth leaders there. The photo is startling to me for a couple reasons. First, it is of a young woman activist taking this brave, bold action, in a city where 4 young people were killed last week by soldiers. Most of the photos and videos we have seen so far from protests in most Middle East countries this week have been of young men. Second, it immediately reminded me of another famous image from our own anti-war and civil rights protests. More protests are planned for next week, calling for not so much an overthrow of the regime in Northern Iraq, but more focused on weeding out corruption in government, and an improved economy. I was most struck by Huzaifa's empathy for the soldier. He writes; "I think the soldiers themselves are very good persons and they do not wanna do violence but they take order from their boss from KDP or PUK (the ruling parties) that's why they are doing violence, and if they reject the order,they must quit their job and can not get money to keep their family a life." To me this is most remarkable, this empathy for those with whom we often see as our enemy. Yet, this can be the most powerful part of non-violent resistance, this ability to keep one's own humanity in tact by remembering the humanity in others. When 4 people have just been slaughtered, this can seem to be an unimaginable, even abhorrent task. Heart like a rock? My friend tells me the soldier is being challenged here to make a difficult choice. Accept the flower or risk a hardening heart. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela all helped us to seek non-violent change, fueled by this ability to be our strongest by remembering the humanity in us all. It tests us on both sides of the gun. Maybe it is too much to ask the soldiers to put down their guns at this moment. But I wonder if they could be asked to pull off their masks? As events in the Middle East have unfolded this month, starting first in the streets of Tunisia, and this morning with the fall of the government in Jordan, I have been talking with activists around the world to get their take of the situation. Dramatic and surprising things are happening and I have been glued to the internet to understand it better. This is the new frontier for how we can get the news, not second-hand, but from direct sources. We no longer have to only rely on Walter Cronkite (my day) or John Stewart (my kids' new day), or Glen Beck (some of my blood relatives). Today, from Abdellah, my friend in Morocco, I learned that the streets in his country remain relatively quiet, but supportive of the street protests in Egypt. From Ali*, a youth activist from Gaza, I learn that Gaza youth are very active in support of the protests, and it could affect politics there, where both the local government (Hamas) and surrounding governments (Israel) remain hostile to freedoms of the citizens in Gaza. I talk via skype with activists in Lebanon, (who participated in running mock elections like the one pictured here) and learned that there is lots of talk among youth leaders there about these unfolding events and what it means for their own country. This all helps start to paint the picture of the real situation. And, when I combine it with on the ground reports from CNN and trusted voices like Nicholas Kristoff who is talking with folks on the streets in Cairo, I begin to get a sense of what is really happening now. But using that to predict what will happen next is tricky. Obama is trying to do the same thing, and I suspect he has just a few more direct sources than the rest of us. And even with that, it is hardly predictable. Will Mubarek resign (I think yes) but will the government that replaces him be less repressive and improve the social conditions in any significant way? Will Egypt become more hostile to the US? Will Yemen, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia follow in the Tunisian path and democracy and civil society grow in the region? If Martin Luther King is right, and "the Arc of the Universe is long, but it bends toward justice", then this may happen. Over time. A long time. My brother and I celebrated my birthday this weekend with 3 days of golf, a massage, and then a rare trip to the local casino for a game of roulette. I won big, taking home an extra $67, (which will go directly into that very large, and very deep black hole we call "Jenny's College Fund" ). Yet, as my financial wizard brother informed me, "the Arc of the roulette wheel is also long, but it bends very predictably towards the House". The optimist in me wants to say that the organizing in the streets calling for improved social conditions and free expression that is spreading like wildfire now will result in improved living conditions for folks in several more countries in the decade ahead. And the optimist in me also wants to return to the Casino table, now that I am on a roll. I hope Dr. King is right. I know my brother is right. *(Actual names in this post not used to ensure confidentiality This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. “What should I wear if I do not have a long, loose dress? haha… that may sound trivial but I want to be respectful. Do you get my question?” Now I generally do not wear dresses, but I did understand all too well her question she texted to me this morning. Molly, a 17 year old student and leader in Mercy Corps’ Global Citizen Corps, is getting ready to lead more than a dozen other students from her high school to a press conference and tour of a mosque in Seattle Washington today. It’s September 11th, a day of remembrance, and one in which Molly and her group want to recognize as a day to build bridges to understanding as an antidote to fear and distrust. I understand her question all too well because earlier this month I faced a similar dilemma. I had been invited by Charlene Teters, a high school classmate, to come to her annual Pow Wow for her tribe, the Spokane Indians. I had connected with her at our 40th year class reunion last month. We didn’t know each other well in high school, but I did remember her brother, George quite well. He was the guy who beat me with a high degree of regularity in competitive wrestling throughout high school! At the reunion, I learned that over the years Charlene had become a nationally prominent activist, leading to major policy changes so that today many sports teams no longer use Indians as mascots for their teams. As I got ready that morning to pack and go to the Pow Wow I realized I had nothing to wear that would work. I pulled out my one clean white t-shirt, with a Seattle Mariners emblem on the back (that seemed ok) but the logo on the front was of Alaska Airlines, with a Native face. I grabbed another t-shirt I had gotten at the Grand Canyon some years ago, and then noticed the image of Kokopelli, a fertility deity worshiped by some Native American tribes in the Southwest. Not ok? I grew up in Spokane, a western town of sorts, so decided to grab my leather belt and leather hat I had gotten in Peru a few years back. Both hand-made. And both etched with what some believe to be religious animal symbols, called the Nazca Lines, from the ancient time of the Incas. Another commercial exploitation of Native culture? My last option was to go a little fancier, and pull out my best western-looking shirt, a black, decorative Cowboy shirt. Eek! Now that would be a real poke in the eye. We really know so little about each other. Maybe none of this would be offensive, I really don’t know. And I didn’t fully know what to expect at the Pow Wow, or, for that matter, what we will see when we go to the mosque today. I have traveled to 26 countries so far in my life, a good number of them in the middle east, and in all that time, I don’t think I have ever stepped foot in a mosque. What one wears, or uses for a mascot, or burns, or makes a cartoon about, or builds near; these things can seem trivial to some, but to others are critically important. We don't really know why it is important unless we all learn a heck of a lot more about each other. And come to understand what we mean with our actions. For that, we need to step into each others' worlds. Today is a day to take one more small step. Time to get ready “If you visit American city You will find it very pretty Just two things of which you must beware, Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air” I first heard this song by Tom Lehrer 30 years ago. Sometimes I think we have made great progress since then. Sometimes I do not. Recently I was torn between these two feelings in the space of an hour. I headed out to Silverdale, Washington last week to see what a local Global Citizen Corps group was up to on this cold Sunday morning. I heard they were doing something about clean water and climate change, and I had a gift to bring them from their counterparts in Iraq. As I waited in this lovely waterfront park, I gazed out to the windy sea and saw this surprising signage. Tom Lehrer’s song immediately revved up in my head. Just moments later, this song was interrupted and replaced by a loud and enthusiastic chanting coming from a crowd of 40 youth marching down the street. They were marching the two miles from Island Lake to Puget Sound- from one polluted water hole to another, calling attention to World Water Day. And their efforts to raise money for purchasing incredibly low-cost water filters for families in Ethiopia. They ended their march on top of a giant map of the world next to the sea, and stood in solidarity next to the eight countries where other Global Citizen Corps leaders were taking similar actions this week. These young leaders all knew that if we do want to drink the water and breathe the air, it is going to take all of us across the globe, working together, to make it happen. I offered them two gifts as we stood there on top of the world; a commemorative tea plate Iraqi youth asked me to bring to US youth leaders, and news that the Iraqi Global youth leaders had just planted 1300 trees and organized 2000 people to call attention to climate change. I left the park a little chilled, but at least Tom Lehrer’s song was no longer rattling around in my head… This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. The biggest issue that regularly confounds me each time I vote here in Seattle is finding a postage stamp. Despite this, I have become a strong believer in the mail-in ballot, mostly because I don't have to haul myself to the polls at 7am before I head off to work. But, as I learned this week, voting in Iraq presents other challenges. I was talking yesterday on video Skype with my colleague, Mohammed, a Mercy Corps staffer for the Global Citizen Corps program about the recent Iraqi elections and wondering how it had gone. "Oh, it's gone quite well, very safe, only a few very small bombs went off". Now I don't know about you, but I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of safe "small bombs." Over 100 people were killed in these March elections in Iraq, so to me, it is a pretty big act of faith to march down to the polls, dip your finger in ink, and make your views known through the power of the ballot box. But many, like Mercy Corps' Global Citizen Corps member Kardo (pictured) did. This desire we have to vote, to help shape the way we are governed, is very strong, it seems. And while I would hope I would do the same if I were in Kardo's shoes, I doubt I will ever get to the point of thinking of any bomb as "small"..... Dear family and friends, As some of you know, I headed for Scotland last week with some reluctance. Having traveled more in the developing world, I have acquired a taste for the unusual, the more close-to-the-tidewater kind of travel that countries like Guatemala, Iraq, Lebanon and Belize provide than the more comfortable developed Western World. It seems to me there is more to be learned when you cross these larger cultural and economic divides. Yes, there is the increased food poisoning, hole-in-the-ground toilets, and bullet-whizzing risks you accept that some have been quick to point out, but with every flowering cactus comes its thorn. When I announced I was headed to Scotland, it was clear that it was far down my list of places I would like to go. Jenny, Boots, Denise and Erica all called attention to my cultural snobbery and were quite animated about the rewards for traveling in such a place. “It’s part of your own family roots, there are castles, and history, plus the famed golf courses of the world there!” they enthused. I was not convinced, but did decide to be a bit more open to the possibilities here. I have not been disappointed. First I found that it is as easy to get sick in Scotland as in my favored poverty-stricken countries. Within my first two days in Scotland, I was attacked by a back-bending cough and chest cold as painful an experience, I am certain, as it was for those afflicted by Scurvy in the famed Irish Potato-Famine. I finally dug out some old unused Cipro antibiotics saved from my last trip to Gaza and threw them at the Kilted Demon that set up shop in my lungs. Today is Day Six of my Scottish Adventure and while I continue to keep a “Phlegm-Cup” close at hand, I don’t have to empty it nearly as often. Second, I was surprised to see how much there was to be gained in bridging the cross-cultural divide as well. On Day Two I met up with one of our local youth leaders, Thomas from Scotland. He is here with 16 other young leaders from Lebanon, Jordan and the US for our first International Youth Leadership Summit at Mercy Corps. We got into a very engaging discussion about electronics and he pointed out to me the great advances being made in IPod technology. “Look at this tiny IPod player, its only as big as a thumb drive, and holds 16 Gigs of memory”. I was impressed by its tiny size and power and how it could fit so easily into your shirt pocket. Thomas went on to say, “With the new headphones that fit around your head, the sound is crystal-clear brilliant... And get this, its only 60 pounds!” “Well, I like the idea of brilliant, crystal clear sound, but headphones at 60 pounds seems like way too much to me”, I cautioned. “No, it’s not too much, it’s the best you can get anywhere”, he argued. “But isn’t that a lot of weight to put on your neck?” I inquired. “NO, 60 pounds, that’s the cost, man!” Thomas exasperated. I have learned much more in my time here, including a whole new vocabulary of English words that I did not know existed, from “bidden-lay” (a person of the opposite sex that you live with), to “a Quizzy”, a type of questionnaire. The sheep are so plentiful here even a Texan would be fully satisfied. And in the summer, I was told by one bloke, the mosquitoes are so big they can rape a chicken. Fortunately I return home in a few more days so will not be able to verify this. As I lay awake at 3:30am this morning,(my body’s “Just Say No” policy for Radical Time Zone changes), I was reminded that if you keep your eyes open in life, you can learn something new every day, and traveling only accelerates that process. Even in Scotland. This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. I have been thinking a lot about hope and fear the past few weeks. It is hard to avoid at this time of year. Christmas and New Year’s are holidays of hope. Yet that hope easily can turn to fear when we find out people are flying with explosives in their underwear. Fortunately, that attempt to kill innocents in the airplane failed. But in Iraq last month, one of the countries where I work with young people in Mercy Corps’ youth leadership program, the attempts succeeded, with terrorists killing 127 people in Baghdad. One of the great things about working in Mercy Corps is the exposure you get to extraordinary people. I listened to two such people last month, hoping to get their perspectives. Both have dedicated their lives to bringing education to girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Greg Mortenson, author of Three cups of Tea, and Julia Bolz, a Seattle-based activist. Between the two of them, they have helped build hundreds of schools for girls in this part of the world, impacting not just these individuals, but generations to come. The question weighing heaviest on my mind is what do we do to end the terror? There is no simple answer here. But one thing stuck out to me as I listened to them both. Both spoke with one clear message; “promoting peace is based in hope. Fighting terrorism is based in fear”. Two days after the terrorist bombings in Baghdad, I heard from another group of extraordinary people. Two hundred Iraqi youth in our Global Citizen Corps responded to the bombings by organizing a caravan to the city and donated their blood, most for the first time. Their story was picked up by national and international media, reaching more than 5 million people with this story of hope. The driver of one of these vans was so moved by what these teens were doing, that he refused to take any money for his services that day. I doubt we will ever capture, kill and eliminate every person who is set on terrorizing others around the world. But I am convinced that most people want to live with hope instead of fear, as these young Iraqi demonstrated last month. If we only give them a chance. I love to camp. I associate it with mountain meadows, alpine flowers, a warm fire, a cold beer. And the occasional bear. So when I heard I would be going to a Palestinian camp in Lebanon, I had a really hard time wrapping my brain around it. I imagined there being tents in a desert, far from the urban landscape. Hot, dusty, maybe a fence around it just to give it a sense of place. This was my second trip to the Middle East, to work with young adult leaders who are part of the Mercy Corps Global Citizen Corps program. Meeting these young people throughout the Middle East continues to be a daily myth-busting experience. This month, I found out what it means to be a Palestinian camper. The first thing you notice as you come upon the camp is that it is anything but a camp. It sits just on the outskirts of Tripoli, one of the largest cities in Lebanon, and looks like a poor urban neighborhood, of several thousand people. And yea, there is a fence, but it’s impenetrable, and you need a passport and a pre-approved Visa to get in. The guards are heavily armed, and I am pretty sure it’s not about the bears. We got the OK to enter, the five of us in a Mercy Corps vehicle, and drove several hundred yards inside where we stopped and got out. The roads are dusty, the “tents’ are concrete, bland-looking structures. It feels solemn, sad, and temporary. But it has been here for half a century. In addition to meeting with a local youth group that Mercy Corps works with, and hoping to get involved in the youth leadership program where youth discuss issues on-line and take action together, we visited a local after-school youth center run by Palestinian leaders from the camp. We walked in as children were singing and dancing, and playing a game much like musical chairs. The walls were filled with colorful youth-produced art, along with a shocking black and white photo, showing 2 young people from Hiroshima at gunpoint, hands held high in the air. Startled to see such a photo here, I asked the director what it was about. He told me that it is part of the trainings they do to let youth know that no matter how difficult times can get, people are resilient and can find a way to improve their lives. “Hope is what we most need, and seeing examples of others who have overcome tough times is very important for us”. This continued to be the most consistent and myth-busting discovery I uncovered in my work with young people here. And it was further reinforced reading “Children of Jihad” on my plane ride home. It is written by Jared Cohen, a young Jewish American who recently spent two years traveling in these same Middle East countries talking to young people to find out how they see themselves and the world. He too, talked with youth in Palestinian camps, Hezbollah youth groups, and on university campuses. He concludes this riveting read with “I can say from my own experience, living and traveling in this volatile part of the world, that reaching this under-thirty generation is our best hope for greater communication-but only if we engage with them on their own terms. Amid the despair of war, poverty, and oppression, they are the ones who respond to creativity. Could it be that they will also find creative solutions for peace someday?....Like us, young people in the Middle East all desire better education; they all have a fascination with innovative uses of technology; they all get bored and crave adventure and entertainment; they all seek interaction and global connectivity; and more than anything, they all want to feel as though they belong, have a purpose in this world, and can have a better life. Young people in the Middle East are reachable-and they could be waiting to hear from us.” |
AuthorGreg Tuke teaches and travels internationally, working with university faculty in India, Indonesia and the MIddle East, sharing strategies for implementing international collaborations within course work. This blog chronicles key experiences and insights about those experiences. All opinions expressed are mine, and represent no other institutional affiliation. Archives
March 2020
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