Showing posts with label global citizens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global citizens. Show all posts
Monday, November 8, 2010
Sunday, March 8, 2009
On Our Generation, and Optimism in Recessive Times
I have mixed feelings about this article from today’s New York Times Magazine titled “Generation OMG.” I recall learning about an era called the Roaring ‘20s, a time right before the Great Depression when life was lavish, parties were like dreams, and the future seemed wide open for anything to happen. Is it really true that a generation on the brink of entering this possibility-filled world, a generation so close to this recent forgotten time that they can see it in the tired eyes of parents and older friends, abandoned all ideas that the prosperous life that those before them had lived could become a possibility for them too?
In this article, the author quotes an English professor as saying, “The ‘30s challenged the whole idea of the American dream, the idea of open economic possibilities…The version you get of that today is the loss of confidence on the part of both parent and children that life in the next generation will inevitably be better.”
I think there are some crucial cultural differences between our generation and the one that came of age during and immediately following the Great Depression. For one, we are significantly more connected. We are in communication constantly and we participate in digital forums where we bounce ideas off each other, form interest groups and partnerships before we even meet, and develop programs before we acquire the resources to support them. Additionally, overall we are significantly more educated. We have the social, human and cultural capital to understand the economic situation and how similar situations have played out historically; further, we have the tools to make the best of our situation and the ability to balance risk with safety and security while pursuing innovative courses of action.
For our younger counterparts, those whose parents are seeking to put them in daycare because they’re working longer hours or those who are just learning to read and write in Kindergarten, those who are learning life through the lens of an economic downturn, I think there is actually great hope. For all the reasons cited above, the youngest of our citizens have resources and tools at their disposal that were unfathomable in the 1930s. Further, these young people ten or twenty years behind us will come of age in a world that is being redefined by us. They may face more of the “psychic scars” that Kate Zernike discusses, but couldn’t they be mediated by the unabashed optimism of impressive innovation, young leadership, and bold assertion of new approaches?
Zernike acknowledges these possibilities toward the middle of her article. She writes:
In this article, the author quotes an English professor as saying, “The ‘30s challenged the whole idea of the American dream, the idea of open economic possibilities…The version you get of that today is the loss of confidence on the part of both parent and children that life in the next generation will inevitably be better.”
I think there are some crucial cultural differences between our generation and the one that came of age during and immediately following the Great Depression. For one, we are significantly more connected. We are in communication constantly and we participate in digital forums where we bounce ideas off each other, form interest groups and partnerships before we even meet, and develop programs before we acquire the resources to support them. Additionally, overall we are significantly more educated. We have the social, human and cultural capital to understand the economic situation and how similar situations have played out historically; further, we have the tools to make the best of our situation and the ability to balance risk with safety and security while pursuing innovative courses of action.
For our younger counterparts, those whose parents are seeking to put them in daycare because they’re working longer hours or those who are just learning to read and write in Kindergarten, those who are learning life through the lens of an economic downturn, I think there is actually great hope. For all the reasons cited above, the youngest of our citizens have resources and tools at their disposal that were unfathomable in the 1930s. Further, these young people ten or twenty years behind us will come of age in a world that is being redefined by us. They may face more of the “psychic scars” that Kate Zernike discusses, but couldn’t they be mediated by the unabashed optimism of impressive innovation, young leadership, and bold assertion of new approaches?
Zernike acknowledges these possibilities toward the middle of her article. She writes:
Surveys have shown young people becoming more civic-minded in the last four years, and those who study them suggest this will increase, if only because the jobs will be in creating the public institutions and infrastructure of a new economic order. And with the assumptions of the past decade now popped, the older among the recession youth might feel bolder striking out in more creative directions.Through questionable stimulus bills and excessive layoffs, through the closing of companies and the changing of mindsets, we, the 20-somethings, wild and smart, are poised to re-frame the American economic and social order. Perhaps we saw this coming--many of us have been trained to think outside the box, to push the limits of the way we understand the world and to seek creative solutions to problems we identify. We have been building this capacity and this energy, almost as if we have been waiting for this moment to throw it all out there into the world and start something new. Whether we repeat the trends of the early 20th century or we define a new world order, unique from anything seen thus far, has yet to be determined. As we break up the forms and feel new things, to use the words of Michael McClure, we must declare ourselves the shepherds of change and the leaders into the brave new world. For our peers and for those who tread lightly behind us, soaking up the world through our schools, we must fearlessly build a future full of days that are definitionless and open, that prioritize creativity and maximization of talent over commitment to routine and safety at the expense of innovation.
Friday, November 28, 2008
This One's for Mumbai
In August 2006, I started an entry with this: "As has been said one thousand times before, we live in a world of terror." Almost five years after September 11, we were still living in fear that someone out there would turn anger into mass destruction at the cost of people's lives. Now, two years after I wrote about the terror in Lebanon and seven years after my own city saw this grief, the world is mourning and fearing on a large scale once again.
Terrorism is not a new term; it's not a concept that has been introduced and defined in the last twenty or thirty years, like the internet or fiber-optics or in-vitro fertilization. In the last few American political administrations, though, the term has taken on a significant political weight. It has become a method for perpetuating an "us" vs. "them" rhetoric and, as a result, has become something we think about on a regular basis in evaluating how we behave versus how other people behave. It's important to look beyond the way we are taught to think about terrorism, though, and understand what it really means absent of our own political and social interpretation of it. In 2004, the United Nations Security Council defined terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." In short, terrorism means trying to promote a political agenda by seriously harming regular people.
There are two facets of terrorism that I find most disturbing. The first is the idea that physical force against innocent people is a useful mechanism for instigating political change. This has nothing to do with our group versus that other group and everything to do with the perception, held even by a small group, that violence against civilians is a constructive method for change. This is something that sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, and political scientists are all studying, but once we know the cause, will we then know how to change it? Since this discovery seems unlikely, we must operate with terrorism as a reality, as skewed as it may be, and learn how to live with it rather than against it.
This brings me to the second element of terrorism that disturbs me. Terrorism, in the most unfortunate of ways, takes precedent over all other things because of its unpredictability. In my normal, day-to-day life, I am training to be an educator. I believe that schools make a difference in our society, and my goal is to make American schools training grounds for capable and engaged citizens. Yet when tourists and businesspeople are trapped in a Mumbai hotel under siege, having spent one minute sipping a cocktail in the hotel bar and the next being ushered by men in masks into a hostage situation, the mission of education seems quaint, like a topic for cocktail party discussion or some sort of idealist, hippy-dippy dream distracting from the "real" issue. Terrorism does more than inflict pain on individuals and their families and pressure governments to change political stances. An act of terrorism commands the attention of the world. It pushes all other matters to the wayside and, like a child doing something unfathomable just because he hasn't received enough attention, momentarily shocks us into abandoning our long-term missions and day-to-day activities.
Fear is debilitating, and terror, according to Merriam-Webster, is "a state of intense fear." Our challenge, as global citizens, is to recognize terrorism as a misguided agent of change and continue onwards in building the kinds of agents and mechanisms that will instigate change appropriately and civilly. Though thinking of terrorism through an "us" vs. "them" lens, in which we are able to victimize ourselves and feel helpless against psychologically disturbed and violent rouge groups, is easy given the constant rhetoric of our political leaders, we must look beyond this self-victimization to work towards the world we want to see rather than fearing action in the world in which we currently live. Fear is all-consuming, and loss even more so; but the greatest thing we have to fear is leaving a terror-drenched world for our children and grandchildren. If we instigate positive change in our domestic social systems (like education) and our international interactions, we could reshape this world and slowly begin to see the change we need. Facing forward through challenge and potential loss, prioritizing the power of the future over the immediacy of grief and fright, we must remember what FDR said in his 1933 inaugural address: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Terrorism is not a new term; it's not a concept that has been introduced and defined in the last twenty or thirty years, like the internet or fiber-optics or in-vitro fertilization. In the last few American political administrations, though, the term has taken on a significant political weight. It has become a method for perpetuating an "us" vs. "them" rhetoric and, as a result, has become something we think about on a regular basis in evaluating how we behave versus how other people behave. It's important to look beyond the way we are taught to think about terrorism, though, and understand what it really means absent of our own political and social interpretation of it. In 2004, the United Nations Security Council defined terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act." In short, terrorism means trying to promote a political agenda by seriously harming regular people.
There are two facets of terrorism that I find most disturbing. The first is the idea that physical force against innocent people is a useful mechanism for instigating political change. This has nothing to do with our group versus that other group and everything to do with the perception, held even by a small group, that violence against civilians is a constructive method for change. This is something that sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, and political scientists are all studying, but once we know the cause, will we then know how to change it? Since this discovery seems unlikely, we must operate with terrorism as a reality, as skewed as it may be, and learn how to live with it rather than against it.
This brings me to the second element of terrorism that disturbs me. Terrorism, in the most unfortunate of ways, takes precedent over all other things because of its unpredictability. In my normal, day-to-day life, I am training to be an educator. I believe that schools make a difference in our society, and my goal is to make American schools training grounds for capable and engaged citizens. Yet when tourists and businesspeople are trapped in a Mumbai hotel under siege, having spent one minute sipping a cocktail in the hotel bar and the next being ushered by men in masks into a hostage situation, the mission of education seems quaint, like a topic for cocktail party discussion or some sort of idealist, hippy-dippy dream distracting from the "real" issue. Terrorism does more than inflict pain on individuals and their families and pressure governments to change political stances. An act of terrorism commands the attention of the world. It pushes all other matters to the wayside and, like a child doing something unfathomable just because he hasn't received enough attention, momentarily shocks us into abandoning our long-term missions and day-to-day activities.
Fear is debilitating, and terror, according to Merriam-Webster, is "a state of intense fear." Our challenge, as global citizens, is to recognize terrorism as a misguided agent of change and continue onwards in building the kinds of agents and mechanisms that will instigate change appropriately and civilly. Though thinking of terrorism through an "us" vs. "them" lens, in which we are able to victimize ourselves and feel helpless against psychologically disturbed and violent rouge groups, is easy given the constant rhetoric of our political leaders, we must look beyond this self-victimization to work towards the world we want to see rather than fearing action in the world in which we currently live. Fear is all-consuming, and loss even more so; but the greatest thing we have to fear is leaving a terror-drenched world for our children and grandchildren. If we instigate positive change in our domestic social systems (like education) and our international interactions, we could reshape this world and slowly begin to see the change we need. Facing forward through challenge and potential loss, prioritizing the power of the future over the immediacy of grief and fright, we must remember what FDR said in his 1933 inaugural address: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Understanding Communication
Despite the fact that English is widely recognized now as the international language, you cannot reasonably expect it to be spoken on international flights between two non-English speaking countries. For this reason, I find myself sitting in the Tel Aviv airport listening to announcements about my Air France flight being given in French and Hebrew. I seem to be the only one who doesn't understand. Are we really in that straight-forward of a world? Are Israelis and Parisians truly the main demographic on the Tel Aviv-Paris flights? How many of us are just passing through? How many of us are ex-pats of some other nation? How many of our reasons are unaccounted for?
It takes the experience of being left-out, of having no comprehension of what's being said, to understand the value and weight of communication. In Jerusalem, Adeesh said he felt like a child sounding out the words on signs. Learning a new language is beginning again. It involves the most basic maneuvers--those we learn by rote through the simple act of being a child--to achieve any level of comprehension. The patience and commitment associated with this act, and the resulting allegiance to the language which one learned first, and even second, is so great that the possibility of one universal language surpassing all others seems inconceivable. Language is so thoroughly embedded in history and culture that some languages have words for emotions or settings or crops that cannot be translated because the very concept is inexplicable beyond the particular cultural context. The result is often the incorporation of another's word into a language that desires or adopts the word's object. Schadenfreude, cabaret, and yallah are examples of this. Hundreds more are exchanged everyday. But this incorporation is piecemeal; a new, foreign word is a shortcut to save us from a lengthy explanation. It does little to bridge the barriers between French-speakers and Catalans, me and the Hebrew-speaking flight attendants, the two of us who sit in silence, strangers though our language is the only thing that distinguishes us.
It takes the experience of being left-out, of having no comprehension of what's being said, to understand the value and weight of communication. In Jerusalem, Adeesh said he felt like a child sounding out the words on signs. Learning a new language is beginning again. It involves the most basic maneuvers--those we learn by rote through the simple act of being a child--to achieve any level of comprehension. The patience and commitment associated with this act, and the resulting allegiance to the language which one learned first, and even second, is so great that the possibility of one universal language surpassing all others seems inconceivable. Language is so thoroughly embedded in history and culture that some languages have words for emotions or settings or crops that cannot be translated because the very concept is inexplicable beyond the particular cultural context. The result is often the incorporation of another's word into a language that desires or adopts the word's object. Schadenfreude, cabaret, and yallah are examples of this. Hundreds more are exchanged everyday. But this incorporation is piecemeal; a new, foreign word is a shortcut to save us from a lengthy explanation. It does little to bridge the barriers between French-speakers and Catalans, me and the Hebrew-speaking flight attendants, the two of us who sit in silence, strangers though our language is the only thing that distinguishes us.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
On the Dead Sea, Identity, and Carpets
At Mount Nebo, tourists peer through the haze over the rolling hills toward Israel. They strain their eyes, close them, squint--they try to see what Moses saw, what Jesus proclaimed--they remember this as the Holy Land. At this site, Moses was buried. From here you can see across the Dead Sea and the River Jordan, Jerusalem and the glaring deserts of Jordan. We begin our morning here, reflecting on this historic site, this place that shaped most of modern Judeo-Islamo-Christian civilization. Then, we descend through the hills, past Bedouins and camels, to the border that didn't exist for Moses. After 2 checkpoints, we arrive at the Amman Beach on the Dead Sea. Israel lies just a few miles across the water, and guards keep watch for any signs of illegal crossing.
The Dead Sea region is not nearly as hazy or as putrid or as calcified as all the guidebooks have led me to believe. At 400m below sea level, the Dead Sea shore is rocky and sandy, like any ocean shore. The sea, an eerily calm basin separating two barely amicable nations from one another, muffles sound, as if this were the quietest, most solitary place in the Middle East. But then the Arab families and the French tourists arrive, and happy children squeal at the strange sensation of floating on water. Breaking the sheet of serenity, Jordanian salesmen pedal mud products while women in hijab wade steadily into the sea. We walk into the water until our feet are swept up from under us, and we are turned horizontal by a silent, powerful, motionless force. Floating effortlessly, unable to right ourselves without conscious strategy and careful motion, we gaze at Jordan to one side and Israel to the other, alone in a lifeless, dying Dead Sea. Is this where Jesus walked on water? Where Moses dreamed? Where countless explorers reached a seemingly insurmountable barrier?
Stinging from the salinity, I pull myself toward the beach. It is a strange sensation, but not one that is particularly alarming or fresh. On the beach I dream of sharing tea with the Bedouins, being nomadic, shepherding. Are these things I could ever do? I cannot stop thinking about the boundaries that we can't surpass, those things that by defining us confine us: the color of skin, gender, language, to a much lesser extent now, nationality. In a borderless world there are some borders that will always remain. There will never be a day when I can sit with a group of Bedouins or Parisians or African-Americans and not be, even just a little bit, an outsider. This makes me strangely sad, this permanence of identity, so malleable but ever-present.
After visiting the Dead Sea, we drive back up the winding road through the hills to the Mariam Hotel. We decide to mail our carpets and embark on a Madaba adventure. The post office gives us mildly credible information, and we visit a small stationery shop in hopes of finding packing supplies. A friendly man plays charades with us as we try to obtain packing tape and a box. After many comical interactions with other shopkeepers, we return to the hotel victorious. We end the evening poolside, supposedly the "hot nightspot" in this town, after overfilling our bellies at a reasonable restaurant.
I am not overwhelmed by difference here, as I expected to be. I am not sure if this is a pleasant or disappointing surprise.
The Dead Sea region is not nearly as hazy or as putrid or as calcified as all the guidebooks have led me to believe. At 400m below sea level, the Dead Sea shore is rocky and sandy, like any ocean shore. The sea, an eerily calm basin separating two barely amicable nations from one another, muffles sound, as if this were the quietest, most solitary place in the Middle East. But then the Arab families and the French tourists arrive, and happy children squeal at the strange sensation of floating on water. Breaking the sheet of serenity, Jordanian salesmen pedal mud products while women in hijab wade steadily into the sea. We walk into the water until our feet are swept up from under us, and we are turned horizontal by a silent, powerful, motionless force. Floating effortlessly, unable to right ourselves without conscious strategy and careful motion, we gaze at Jordan to one side and Israel to the other, alone in a lifeless, dying Dead Sea. Is this where Jesus walked on water? Where Moses dreamed? Where countless explorers reached a seemingly insurmountable barrier?
Stinging from the salinity, I pull myself toward the beach. It is a strange sensation, but not one that is particularly alarming or fresh. On the beach I dream of sharing tea with the Bedouins, being nomadic, shepherding. Are these things I could ever do? I cannot stop thinking about the boundaries that we can't surpass, those things that by defining us confine us: the color of skin, gender, language, to a much lesser extent now, nationality. In a borderless world there are some borders that will always remain. There will never be a day when I can sit with a group of Bedouins or Parisians or African-Americans and not be, even just a little bit, an outsider. This makes me strangely sad, this permanence of identity, so malleable but ever-present.
After visiting the Dead Sea, we drive back up the winding road through the hills to the Mariam Hotel. We decide to mail our carpets and embark on a Madaba adventure. The post office gives us mildly credible information, and we visit a small stationery shop in hopes of finding packing supplies. A friendly man plays charades with us as we try to obtain packing tape and a box. After many comical interactions with other shopkeepers, we return to the hotel victorious. We end the evening poolside, supposedly the "hot nightspot" in this town, after overfilling our bellies at a reasonable restaurant.
I am not overwhelmed by difference here, as I expected to be. I am not sure if this is a pleasant or disappointing surprise.
Friday, August 4, 2006
When Returning is Harder than Saying Goodbye
As has been said one thousand times before, we live in a world of terror. As I sit on a flight to London, a new friend sits beside me, trying not to think that she may never be able to go home because her country is no longer safe. Meanwhile, another new friend goes from gate to gate in the Amsterdam airport after hearing word that the roads from Damascus to Beirut have been bombed. Unsure of where he will be able to go, he tries to find a flight to London or Orlando, where he will watch the news and wait, for better or for worse.
The Lebanese are not the only people scared for their homes—they join the ranks of countless others living in a world of uncertainty and anger, a world in which conflict too often results in displacement, disillusionment, loss of life, loss of home. The events in Lebanon and Israel during the past four weeks only emphasize how important our studies are. As we’ve said, we live in a new world order. This does not just refer to global cities but to the ways in which the world’s parts relate and interact. We live in a world in which the old answers are not enough. We live in a world in which trust is obsolete and security is never guaranteed. To relate it to this past week in Holland, what do we know now? What have we learned on these visits that we can use to smooth the transition of this new world order, how can we look at what we have to find out what we need? To me, these questions are powerful, and we can only begin to consider them.
I have seen a lot in the past week. I now know that states can work together and that they are held accountable for their actions. I know (from OPCW) that the world is interested in a more peaceful dynamic and will take steps to see this change. I know that if we don’t have faith in this, there is not much hope. So where do we pick up from what we have and continue on? How can we start to think and work proactively instead of retroactively? If I had all the answers to these questions, I would be sitting beside Kofi Annan and Tony Blair, implementing something better. But these questions need consideration and I will not give up.
The Lebanese are not the only people scared for their homes—they join the ranks of countless others living in a world of uncertainty and anger, a world in which conflict too often results in displacement, disillusionment, loss of life, loss of home. The events in Lebanon and Israel during the past four weeks only emphasize how important our studies are. As we’ve said, we live in a new world order. This does not just refer to global cities but to the ways in which the world’s parts relate and interact. We live in a world in which the old answers are not enough. We live in a world in which trust is obsolete and security is never guaranteed. To relate it to this past week in Holland, what do we know now? What have we learned on these visits that we can use to smooth the transition of this new world order, how can we look at what we have to find out what we need? To me, these questions are powerful, and we can only begin to consider them.
I have seen a lot in the past week. I now know that states can work together and that they are held accountable for their actions. I know (from OPCW) that the world is interested in a more peaceful dynamic and will take steps to see this change. I know that if we don’t have faith in this, there is not much hope. So where do we pick up from what we have and continue on? How can we start to think and work proactively instead of retroactively? If I had all the answers to these questions, I would be sitting beside Kofi Annan and Tony Blair, implementing something better. But these questions need consideration and I will not give up.
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