Sunday, October 18, 2009

Change of Venue

From now on, you will find my blog posts over at http://davidbrown05.wordpress.com

:-)

Friday, October 16, 2009

Loza and Cigarettes

Last night was fantastic... . I attended a lecture on the erased, hung out with, and scored the personal email of, Silvia Federici and two Sloven activists / akademics from Ljubljana.

In talking at length about the issue of the Erased in Slovenia, about Freedom Fight in Serbia, and migrants and Roma issues, I felt totally at home in the subject matter. I also realized how strong my desire was to be part of an intellectual community and to be connected with the Balkans...

Ironically I also thought about the fact that it took a return to Maine to make akademic connections in Slovenia. But now I have them, and they will be useful, particularly if I opt for the MA Program in Bolognia, and go to Ljubljana for the second year. I will also have all the right connections for a sweet thesis on migrant / immigrant / Romski issues related to borders as power and transnational citizenship.

I still don't want to be a professor, but I realize how important it is for me to have this kind of stimulation in my life. Without it, and this happened to some degree in Belgrade (though I did have this kind of interaction with Aleks) and over this past summer, I get bored and lazy. This then becomes a slippery slope towards general unhappiness. So I am glad that I am finding a balance of work and intellectual challenge in my life again.
:-)

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Welfare

I spent about two hours at the Department of Health and Human Services today in order to apply for food assistance. It was an experience in the diversity we have in Portland, it was long and it was boring, but none of that came as a surprise. Upon entering the building, I was confronted by a sign that read We are experiencing a high volume day... In other words: be ready to wait a long time. Ok so. I got in line, filled out my paperwork, took my number and began the wait. Sitting there, reading Virgil’s Aeniad and plugged in to my ipod, I was suddenly conscience of my upbringing, my class, and my ethnicity. I was suddenly the minority in all categories: white, middle class and a tri-lingual, continental European. It was clear to the eyes that looked me over that I didn’t belong there; these services were not supposed to be for me.

I likely reek of middle class-ness to some of my companions in this particular waiting room. Although this is not totally accurate, I really do have a few serious safety nets in my life. While my parents never earned a lot, it was middle class income and I was educated in elite International schools in two of Europe's richest cities. If I was truly about to face homeless-ness or destitution, I would be sent money for a plane ticket, or to see me through a few months (and there are a few sources at least, I can turn to). This means, as I walk into DHHS and sit waiting for benefits, there is a visible wall of privilege between me and my companions. For me, going to get food assistance is a luxury, something I decided (another indicator) to do during a quiet afternoon at work. I am eligible for food assistance because of the nature of my work (I am a volunteer on a very small monthly stipend). The reality of my income is such that it is very hard for me to live within my means, but only because of all the extras in my life: cell phone, credit cards, restaurants, etc. If I were to really go through my spending each month, and cut out just the “entertainment”, I bet I could live on my income and not need food assistance.

I was given more cause for reflection when I sat in the office with my case worker and she was going over my numbers. She literally threw money at me: food assistance, food pantry vouchers, heating assistance and medical insurance. All of this is great, and I am thankful that I live in a system that provides me with these support nets, but what struck me is how quickly my case worker determined that I, and my flat-mates, clearly didn’t have enough money. We needed lots of assistance to off-set our costs each month. We were offered ways of getting most of our ‘essential’ bills reduced (housing, heat, water, food, etc.) with virtually no verification.

I am struck by the fact that we are fortunate to have these supports, and I believe that we should have it this way, but it is also amazing how much we feel we need. We don’t live within our means and to some degree, we have a system that is facilitating this excess. On my income, it is a relief to get food assistance, but not totally essential, and all the other stuff just mean I am have more disposable income. Again, this is good, most of it will go into savings, but it is crazy to me that $800 a month, as a single individual, is considered too poor to survive without help. So, my point here is that rather than simply being supported in ways that are significant to the individual applicant, I left DHHS with a sense that I now had more ‘fun’ money, I was encouraged to take more than I needed.

Monday, October 12, 2009

To myself ~ a confession

I was accused today, of being conceited in how I use my lack of roots to keep my distance from everyone. I was accused of keeping everyone at arms length, and, in some fashion, martyring myself because I cannot settle. It stung. But it was liberating also. I wish I had been told these words months ago. I wish I had been told what I was doing, that I couldn’t see myself. I wish it didn’t take hurting a companion to see myself clearly.

When I came back to Maine from Belgrade I was happy to do so. I wanted the stability of Maine, of my friends, of being with someone very special. I got here and things didn’t work as smoothly as I wanted, and I began to feel a bit lost again. Everything was a challenge, and the European grass was getting greener and greener. I began to focus almost exclusively on a personal relationship, making it the definition of my happiness. This was totally unfair, and I became resentful when the relationship remained complicated, and didn’t solve all my problems.

I didn’t find any work that was fulfilling or that provided me with some stability in making future plans. But the reality was, I had returned to Maine because I wanted to be there, and I had claimed repeatedly that things such as material gains were secondary, that just being in Maine, in love, and with friends was enough. But alas, it wasn’t. Rather than looking at myself for what was wrong, I looked at all that was around me: bad economy, complicated relationship, lack of home, etc, and I blamed these things for my discontent. But really, I was just personally unhappy. I had lost sight of why I was inspired to come back to Maine. If I am objective, and recall some conversations about how I could justify going back to Maine, I was looking for small projects, a life less hectic than I would have at large, bureaucratic institutions. And, holy shit! That is exactly what I have. I have (had) love, friends and a job allowing me to focus on small local projects.

But somehow this wasn’t good enough. The reality is, I couldn’t hack the transition out of the OSCE. I was lost and no-one was offering me a job. I created a fantasy of returning to the farm; I returned to the farm; I still felt bad. Always it was someone else's fault though, never my own. The worst seems to be the effect it has had on the relationship I was in. Certainly it takes two to Tango, and certainly this is just my side, but I was so blinded by my own dissatisfaction (with myself) that I pushed her down and then got mad when she didn’t support me.

I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity rather than get up and get on with it: Yeah, I didn’t get the jobs I wanted, yeah, I only get $800 a month, yeah, I have to share an apartment; deal with it! But look at what I did get: Friends, a great place to live, love. I am sorry to all that the awakening has come late, but there it is. I am perhaps not quite the exile in Said’s terminology, but certainly I am in Freud’s. I am experiencing the forced separation from my symbolic mother, and I cannot return to the womb. It is simply impossible, and I cannot come to terms with the fact that I am standing on my own two feet. If I could come to terms with this, then I would see the world from a different perspective all together. I might see opportunity rather than insecurity, experience rather than disappointment, Love rather than problems.  Ironically, this experience has nothing to do with geography, though that has always been my excuse. I won’t ever find a replacement home by continually moving; because this isn’t about Geography, its about me. It is about realizing that I can do what ever I want, and that pressures such as job and money are only as powerful as we let them be. We are all exiles, or as she said today, we are all visitors in this land, and this is about me reconciling myself with a life that is not easy, but is or can easily be fulfilling and rich in experience, no matter where it is lived.

The Daoist would say I don’t need to leave my front door to know the world. There is infinite truth in that. The world is in me and you, and finding the world means finding me. I found work I am good at, I found an academic subject I love, I have amazing friends on three continents and I have a loving family. I hate to admit it, but there is no reason to be unhappy with that lot. I am so, so sorry.

Friday, October 9, 2009

On Love

Sent from Belgrade to cheer me up:

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down.”

~Woody Allen

Monday, October 5, 2009

Soccer violence

Is this an ominous foreshadowing of the end of the Federation? When Yugoslavia began to shatter between 1990 ~ 1993, the ethnic violence was initially manifested in soccer stadiums and between rival fans... Now Bosnia is in a political crisis, and we are seeing soccer hooligans, divided along ethnic lines, begin to kill each other.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/22632/

Think and Write

I'm wearing my Che t-shirt and a pair of chuck taylors; I'm unshaven and I don't give a fuck what you think.
 
~~
 
The weekend is past, and although it is Monday, I am feeling better than I have for sometime. Maybe suffering from the a mysterious stomach ailment on Friday and into Saturday was helpful in clearing out some of the mental blocks (i.e. I felt so miserable being sick, that once I recovered, everything had to feel better). Then Sunday was relatively relaxing and I can look forward to a three day weekend in the hills of New Hampshire in 5 short days.
 
E made an interesting point last night after the Belly Dance show. Asked why she thought that the No On One campaign might promote itself with a form of dance historically associated with inequality, subservience and servitude, E said it was possible that many of the Women likely considered it as empowering. Considering that once they were forced to dance, the fact that they now have a choice to dance, means they are controlling their involvement and reclaiming its location in their lives and in culture. This then relates well to No On One in that the campaign is equally about a marginalized group standing up and claiming equal rights under the law. Like Belly Dancers, they then choose to participate in one of the symbols of their oppression and exclusion (they choose to get married). It is not exactly apples to apples, as belly dancers were not excluded from the hegemonic community, rather they were objectified and used for entertainment (the fact that they were primarily Women meant, of course, that they were excluded from participating in community affairs). But the analogy of one marginal group (re)claiming power is what is relevant in this context.
 
I haven't seen a Belly Dance show since K left. I am still not sure how I felt watching it: there was a twinge of sadness mixed in with ambivalence about earlier association I had with it. But above all, the movements were beautiful as were the Dancers. On the night, I guess that is what matters most; that and the No On One campaign.

Monday, September 28, 2009

On Death

As the news of Ali's passing sits on my mind today, I think about the meaning of death to me. It feels so abstract, as if it were some philosophical concept to be thought about, deconstructed and articulated in some 'profound' analogy. Death, when it comes, is just the end of life (life in the secular sense: bodily life, terrestrial life), the end of the functioning of our bodies and, most likely, our minds.

But it is always abstract to me. I have never seen death of any kind. I have seen death only on TV, and thus I have never connected with death as a reality, as something that actually happens. I've never seen a dead body, been to a funeral, or experienced any of my pets die (except for one hamster that I didn't like much). So I feel strangely ambivalent about death. It has no face to me. I've been sad when people I know die, but I have never really understood what that means, on some elemental level, beyond the fact that I will never see them again.

I would like to think that I am not afraid to die, that I can see death as part of the cycle, and thus an extension of life. But how can I know? Life has never seemed fragile to me. Ali's death is no closer to me than the news of 58 protesters being killed in Guinea. Yet I knew and loved Ally personally. I will not be at her funeral, nor will I have contact with her family after today. Just like I won't attend the funeral of people I didn't know in Guinea.

But that is not to say I am not sad, or moved in anyway. It is simply that my feelings are confusing to me, rather than clearly 'sadness' or 'loss', because I don't know what that means beyond knowing I will never see her again.

But there is another element to death in the age of internet. I have now put her memory in cyberspace, which will exist so long as we generate electricity and have the ability to understand it. She also has a facebook page, which at the moment of posting, has yet to acknowledge her passing. Thus she is not dead in that space. Hmm, feels strange to write these words, almost as if it were a disrespect to her or her family. See, I am making her death into an academic thing, making weird arguments about facebook defining life and death.

Allison Wills was my 6th grade Social Studies teacher, and my 7th grade English teacher in Munich. She was a great person who was not confined to arbitrary boundaries of politeness in the class room. We were free to address topics that some thought inappropriate; she removed taboos for us hormone-saturated teenagers. She died of cancer. I knew for a year that she had it, but I never thought she would die.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Think and Write...

...with a nod to Bjelic and Baudrillard.

The issue of racism is one of perception. Orientalism, for example, is problematic because we in the west only understand the orient through the works of Western men who explored the lands during the colonial era. Thus, all knowledge created at this time of intellectual exploration, and all subsequent knowledge built off of the initial corpus, was written and interpreted from the hegemons perspective. This means that we only have a single, ideologically infused, perspective from which to analyze the data, to acquire and understand the information.

Reality is created through the relationship between the signifier and the signified: the signifier is the language that creates the object, the signified is our experiential understanding of the object (our understanding via interaction). In other words, we know it is coffee because we have language to define it (the signifier), we have our understanding of it through language (the signified), and the third component is its physical root / manifestation, the referent.

Hyper Reality is when reality becomes more real than reality itself. Said differently, this is when the signifier becomes the referent to its self. Reality in this context is totally detached from any actual physical reality. Mickey Mouse has no physical referent, rather it is real only because of its signifier: a drawing of a mouse. Yet, you can now go to Disney Land and chill with the Mouse, shake its hand etc. Hyper Reality occurs when the signifier tells us how to understand an image that has no referent.

We can watch a media image totally unconnected to the narrative, but assume it fits the narrative by virtue of its ‘representativeness’ of the the narrative, and through the language of the narration. In one news report the sniper is a Serb, but when the same image is recycled on another channel, the sniper becomes a Bosnian-Muslim. Thus our racism must also be only a flawed perception of this other. Our perception is not rooted in reality, particularly when our understanding of the other is created through portals of hyper reality such as mass media.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Soap box rant

All things considered, these are hard days. But then, in how many eras has that maxim been spoke? I cannot think the Trojans thought they were in for a good time when Achaeans landed on their shores. Same for the Egyptians when they saw the French and then the British sailing up the Nile. I say this only because I caught myself thinking today how things seem worse than ever in the World. But that is pretty foolish. I’m just having a Howard Beale kind of week:

Edward George Ruddy died and woe is us!

But, most likely, the world has always been a pressure cooker for ‘civilization’ with fantastic pressures through war and alienation. This was probably as true now as it was during the Peloponnesian War, it is why the Dao was written, and why we are in a constant state of war today. Maybe I am reading too many of the classics (The Odyssey, The Aneid, Trojan Women) but the news seems to be unusually brutal these days. Maybe it is this sad business with the Roma in Belgrade. I know the context is different, and the violence of a much lower magnitude, but is the destruction of Gazela not, as an action, similar to the destruction of Palestine? An unwelcome people in a prestigious location. It is all I can think of when I see that image on B92 of the Bulldozer.

I am alienated from the health care debate raging in this country. Really? Let us not get a national health service say the same people who also agree that the current system is busted. So they oppose a ‘universal’ system that would guarantee a basic coverage for all the un- and under-insured people, while everyone else can keep their private insurance. Its not even supposed to affect Medicare / Medicaide. Instead they would rather just keep moving towards privatization. Are they afraid of something? Maybe that people will drop the insurance companies? If we lose the health care struggle, then woe is us.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

I have no Home

The news, the very tragic and disturbing news, of Gazela has come to me late. I want to be in Belgrade, if only because of a morbid, privileged type of curiosity. The same type of curiosity that came over me after I went to NYC some months after the destruction of the Twin Towers. The destruction of Gazela: is this a ground zero for Roma in Serbia? In the Balkans? What does the site look like now? I have only one picture, on B92, of a bulldozer crushing what used to be the home of a human. A human who has now been sent somewhere, possibly South Serbia, possibly a metal trailer with some furniture and plumbing. Is this really a replacement for what was once a home?

Friday, September 11, 2009

A Day of Service 11.09.2009

September 11th is Patriots day, a day of service in America. The connection to September 11th, 2001 is obvious I guess? No need to explain. In my new job I was ‘encouraged’ to take on a volunteer project for the day. As it turned out, we piggy-backed on another project, a park cleanup/city beautification event. I spent the day conflicted. Conflicted on many levels.

I like what I do for work. I like connecting communities, bringing people together, and being able to explore other identities through my job. So I have no problem with volunteerism, or even doing community service as a response / reflection to violence. But I don’t like tokenism. I’m also not a patriot of any nation: nationalism is a dangerous, violent and divisive emotion / ideology. The only time I get vaguely nationalistic is over soccer, but even so, I’ll never take to the streets in defense of a nation or national ethos. So the first conflict for me is that my job, by definition, is in service of a nation-state. But, I am not confronted with it on a daily basis, and I have enough freedom in my work, that I can bring my own ideas to the projects, ideas that are not Nationalistic in nature. I can work with critical multiculturalism in my mind as I approach something, etc...

But the larger conflict for me was /  is the token-istic nature of Patriot Day, and doing a beautification project on that day. I wandered round for over an hour picking up rubbish in the park and wondering why I was doing this? What does 11.9 mean to me? I wasn’t in this country when it happened, and I am repulsed by the Government response to the event. This response has caused the deaths of many more than were killed in the Towers. Is this a proportional response? Does it address the root cause of our conflict, the cause of the attacks? More over, how does my beautification of a city park have any reflection on the tragic events of 11.9 and those since? It doesn’t, is my conclusion. I have done nothing more than done the work of our Parks and Recreations Department for a few hours. We had no reflection on what this day means, 8 years later; there was no debate on appropriate responses; and there was little in the way of alternatives.

Perhaps this is partly my fault for not organizing the alternative, for encouraging a reflection, etc... But when I refused to write cards to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, I was given dirty looks. This is not a crowed, liberal though they are, that wants to debate the last 8 years, the meaning of Sept. 11, or the appropriate activities for today. No, we must clean, and not question. Certainly I wish America had just turned to its gardens, and to its own streets on Sept. 12, not to guns and credit cards; I wish the States had encouraged growth rather than death after the attacks, but they didn’t, and they, myself included, really need to talk about it.

I also don’t understand why do we need to set a day aside for this? If community service is a value we hold dearly, then why only do it once a year? The fact that we need to make a show out of this event, invite fancy people and small children, shows how shallow our regard for community work is. Hey, I’m not moralizing here, ‘cause I’m as lazy as the next guy. I only started doing community work because my jobs demanded it. It is like valentines day, if you love someone, you should treat them well and tell them how you feel everyday, not just on February 14th. The point here is just that we should be doing community work because we want to and think it is important, not just because 8 years ago some assholes flew planes into some of our buildings.

There is a further point, and that is one of perception, which is perhaps one of the most important elements. The city I live in has many problems, the least of which is the lack of rubbish bins in the park. So was a beautification activity really the best thing? How are the immigrant and refugee communities going to perceive this? We would rather clean a small park than spend a day with them? Many are here, after all, because we invaded their country... My points here are not meant to be Anti-American, though I understand that I cannot totally avoid it. I was glad to see people out on the streets today, people doing something together that didn’t involve national anthems and flag waving, I just wish we would do more of this, any and every day, not just as a memorial.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Am I too cynical for this?

Written 12 August, 2009

Am I too cynical for this?

The question turned round and round in my head as I listened to the evenings motivational speakers, one of whom will be my mentor for the next three days. I didn’t feel the spirit, I didn’t catch the fever in the room, rather, I often found myself being critical of what I heard. The nationalistic rhetoric was at times brutal, the message often condescending to the communities we will serve, and as my room-mate remarked, some people join cults after hearing motivational speakers.

We were shown pictures of Kennedy and Johnson, of poor blacks and Indians, we heard about how this was good for America, and that we were joining a legacy of people who had given to develop a better society. Finally we ended the video with my man Barak Obama talking about his year of service, and all I could think of was a thick jar of treacle. We then turned to the people at our tables and each rattled off a bullet points of the things that caught our attention. I thought everyone missed the point. They talked about how this was good for America, that they could finally feel like the lived in America... But I don’t know what that means? And I am not sure they do.

The one thing I liked was the idea that poverty is more than just lack of cash, but also the inability to access opportunity, or to even imagine it. I told my table that I thought this is what VISTA was about: helping people see their circumstances, and helping them to figure out how to change that circumstance. It is about sustainability, and we can keep throwing cash at problems, but tomorrow the people will still be hungry. So opportunity, or the ability to be creative and create opportunity is so much more valuable that some bullshit American nationalism. This isn’t about America or any other country; this is about being good to the people around you, about sharing, about giving back.

Only one of the speakers had something interesting to say: if you have questions about service, then don’t do it. i.e don’t waste our time if your not serious, because this will be hard. How do I respond to this. I am cynical, I don’t buy into the corporate mentality they want to socialize me into, I’m not doing this for America, or for my man Barak. I’m doing this for me, and for the community in which I live. I’m doing this because I am sick of hearing racist diatribes about refugees being criminal minded and destroying the fabric of my city, and I’m doing this because I didn’t get a better offer for the year. So should I turn this service down?

No – I don’t think so. I have a different agenda to be sure, and no doubt this different perspective and cynicism will get me into some trouble. However I bring diversity of thought and approach, and thus I facilitate the creative possibilities of the office in which I work. Moreover I will be good at my job, even if I am not doing it for America, or my man.

Monday, July 20, 2009

The day Fitzy saved Portland soccer...

The kid was lying on the ground in a crumpled heap, clutching his stomach. Blood was pouring from his nose and with each drop, my nightmare scenario was being enacted. As the league director, this was now my mess to clean up and avoid a mutiny by the other teams. Along with the kid bleeding on the floor, my ref had also been slugged, although this appeared to be accidental, and he was ok. In misfortune, I had been lucky: lucky it wasn’t worse, lucky the ref hadn’t quit, lucky no-one was arrested, lucky the kid was ok, lucky...

We called the game and told the teams to leave immediately. Get the fuck off the pitch and go the fuck home. But the kid who took the beating was now standing; he had gone for some rocks and was trying to hurl them at the opposing team. Luckily he was being restrained by team mates, but it was enough to have the whole opposition team massed once again, ready to fight... So I did the only thing I could think to do: call 9-1-1 and get the cops to send everyone home. I hated doing it. It was an admission that I was out of my depth, and that I had failed to control the situation myself. Two minuets later, the cops were there and asking who was in charge. That would be me officer... I explained the situation, told them the trouble was over and if they could just encourage people to leave, that would be a help. They did just that, staying for less than 10 minuets.

There were about 20 minuets before the next game, which I did not cancel. So I went and paid the ref (who left with a smile and feeling ok), and spent the remaining time in my car thinking about what had just transpired, and how to deal with it. E came around and gave me a hug, and listened to me for a few minuets, which helped a good deal. Around the time she left, Fitzy showed up. He is a kind man and also the ref for the next game. We sat on the grass at KP, in the shade and talked through the situation. It was calm now and some people were milling around the food stand, a few players for the next game were warming up at the far goal. People should play because they love the game, irrespective of results or ideology; I couldn’t help thinking that was a totally naïve desire. The whole thing had made be really sad.

Fitzy, an accountant by day, calmed my nerves with his jovial smile and his lack of serious concern for what had just transpired. It wasn’t that he didn’t think we needed to take it seriously, but that it wasn’t something that should cause us to consider whether the league should have a future. He loved the league, and had come to know so many of the players, as have I. He didn’t want to see it go away. The league just needs to come down hard on the few that were involved in order to break up the mob mentality of a few of the teams. This I agreed with. The heart break for me was one of the culprits has been a real leader all season, getting involved in addressing the leagues issues and making sure his team was not getting into fights.

After the last game Fitzy asked me if I would remain involved next year. I half lied: yes. Truth is, I don’t know if I will. I don’t know if I want to. I enjoy soccer, no, I love soccer, and there is nothing that can change those feelings. But I also spent a year writing a thesis about how the sport is ultimately a divider, rather than a unifier, and I don’t believe that it will ever unite Portland’s divided communities. So, will I keep giving up every summer weekend for something I don’t believe in and makes me no money? I doubt it. I wonder now, if the league isn’t facilitating conflict rather than resolving it? If that is the case, then we should all walk away now, rather than ferment nationalistic tensions along ethnic lines in this small costal city. If the league is fostering tension, rather than diffusing it, then I want no part of it. Fitzy left with an offer to be involved in the management next year.

Well, the season is coming to an end in 4 weeks, so I will see it through to the conclusion, and then take the winter to see if I want to stay committed or walk away. And it had been such a wonderful day, 75 and sunny...

Friday, July 17, 2009

Short Story

Here is a short story I came across last night. It was written by Ralf Bönt, former captain of the German National Writing team.

http://www.ralf-boent.de/essen_gb.html

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Saying no to discrimination....

...is discrimination against people who want to discriminate. :-)

UEFA recently announced its newest initiative to tackle racism in stadiums across Europe. This initiative comes almost exactly one year before an African nation prepares to host the World Cup for the first time (South Africa in 2010). While there is no direct link between the these two things, the reality, in Europe, is that African players are most often subjected to racist abuse and FIFA will need to consider the demographic represented in many of the National fans that may travel to South Africa next summer. So in a sense, FIFA may want to pay close attention to how well these new initiatives function.

Basically, UEFA has mandated that the Referee be give the power to interrupt the game in three stages when they become aware of racist behavior towards players on the pitch. First, they stop the game and have the stadium announcer make a public announcement, if the abuse continues, then the game is to be stopped for 15 minuets, the teams sent into the changing rooms and another announcement is made, if the situation continues, the game is suspended until further notice. I find this approach interesting for a few reasons, not only because it will, in theory, create a public pressure inside the stadium against racist behavior. UEFA is essentially introducing social regulation by punishing everyone for the transgressions of a few individuals. The idea is as ingenious as it is suspect, and the potential for the public to act as a lynch mob should give pause for thought.

No-one who paid the relatively high ticket prices will want to see the game cancelled, or even interrupted, so the logic is that the public will get involved when they see racist behavior on the part of a fan (or group of fans). It is a carrot and sticks approach that will punish a whole village for the transgressions of one of its wayward children. Interestingly, I just watched The Art of Soccer with John Cleese. A portion of the documentary was dedicated to Xenophobia: many of the people interviewed (players subjected to racism, and fans) formulated a similar approach to the one UEFA has now taken. The idea being, if fans see people being racist, they will take action... But as much as one hopes that this action would be a nice group explaining to the racist what they had done wrong, I fear it could be much more violent than that.

But this is also facinating on another level: it is meant to develop normative behavior and is thus a sort of mass brainwashing. The effect that this could have, though I may be giving too much credit to the power of soccer, is of building community. It is, on some level, an extension of the imagined community as much as it is part of Schmitt’s thesis. We are now united against racism, as a community, and we will be held responsible, as a community, if we fail to ensure that racism is controlled.

I bring this up, in the context of the first African World Cup, because it will be fascinating to see how fans from Europe, notorious for highly racists views, attitudes and songs, will behave, and how FIFA will handle the racism. It may be a moot point, because maybe South Africa will simply be too far for these types of fans to travel. But in case it is not, FIFA will need to have effective measures in place to handle such situations, on the field and off. But I also think it is interesting to reflect on this in light of recent comments by Arch Bishop Tutu, who said that it would be the World Cup that will help South Africa grown an additional two inches in stature. South Africa, with its deep history of a vitriolic racism, is facing a massive challenge as host of the worlds largest sporting event. Success and failure, either way, will have lasting effects on the nation as much as on the sport.

Football cannot be used to end racism. We have to educate them. ~ Kaká

Stand Up...

Monday, July 13, 2009

About a Film

I am so glad he didn’t ask me what my favorite film was; I dislike that question. How do you answer that? Maybe this is an easy for some, but all I can think is: based on what criteria? Genre? Director? Do we start with Orson Wells, Kubrick, Roeg, Almodovar, Kurusawa or Von Trotta? What about Fassbinder or should I go back to D. W. Griffith? But as I was thinking about ‘favorite film’, and my interlocutor was quick to offer Millers Crossing as one of his favorites (a great film, to be sure), I thought about the one film I have often used to answer that awful question: Easy Rider.

Having grown up in Europe, the road movie was something of a novelty; fascinating and difficult to relate to. Easy Rider has a simple narrative, two men traveling from A to B on bikes during a time of great change in American Society. The simplicity is not a handy cap however, and the film yields an effective social critique of the downward spiral (from the film-makers point of view). Well, I don’t mean to get bogged down in offering a review of this film, but it has been on my mind again, particularly as I read Jean Baudrillard’s Amérique, a European’s take on America in the 1980s, half-way through the Age of Reagan (a time seriously committed to the rear-view mirror fantasy). He opens the text with a quote: objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Most Americans see this short statement on a daily basis as they look back at the place they just came from, they read this as a literal statement: the car behind you appears larger to you than it really is. But for Baudrillard, this means something totally different. It is a powerful statement about a culture in which everything is a mirror image of something that has already existed, but in its recreation, it has been made bigger (larger than life). According to Baudrillard, American culture, or the American experience, is defined by the fact that everything is a reproduction of something else, but bigger and better than the original (I am thinking of Las Vegas thanks to Simons blog entry). Everything in a mirror is artificial, two dimensional and unoriginal.

In Easy Rider, we get something of a premonition of Baudrillard’s analysis. Representing the counter-cultural movement in the USA, the two protagonists go in search of the authentic experience, without a real roadmap, and certainly no time-frame in mind. But their existence is an affront to most of the characters they meet along the way. Their death at the hands of strangers is the result of their lack of conformity (at least in a superficial reading of the film); their authentic life (and look) is a challenge to a system built in a rear-view mirror with magnifying properties, and they are not the mirror image of anything. In fact, they represent a moment of authentic creation in Americana, and they have since been mirrored, along with the whole counter-cultural movement (in language, dress and attitudes, we constantly recreate the 1960’s in our new realities).

In death, Billy and Captain America (along with the whole movement) became pure and unassailable, and though is was lambasted and repressed at the time, they have now become a beacon of American free-expression and liberty. We dream about the freedom that comes from the open road, the lack of schedules, and the feeling of the wind screaming past your ears. Our idealistic view of this period is problematic however, and it is false and out of proportion, unoriginal and larger than life. The trip in Easy Rider begins with a drug deal after all. Billy and the Captain were flawed, as was the whole movement, and it wasn’t just about flower power and free speech either. But that is, in many ways, all we know of it today. Kids at Target buying their 1960’s inspired shirts and dresses are not reflecting on what this means (well, maybe they are) on a symbolic level, and how they feel about recreating a rewritten history. We often do not ask ourselves what it means to wear a Ché shirt or wear peace symbols, we do not think about how these things came to be, what they were then, and what they are now.

In any case, I love this film, but it is only one of many that are, in my tilted view, brilliant...

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Negotiations

You are leaving already? But you haven’t contributed anything yet! His face was darkened by the sun coming in through the window behind him, and for a moment I thought he was mad at me. I replied that I was simply listening because I thought they were sending me to Sudan. Everyone laughed. It was the fourth of July and I spent the whole day with non-Americans, Africans and Serbs, and it was a great day. After coffee at NorthStar with Alfred, we tooled over to SoPo to visit with his brother and have some food. We’ll be there for an hour or so, he said. But you have to be flexible.

Three hours later, my belly was stuffed with Sudanese foods and tea, most of the women and all the children had been kept away from us men, and we were now deep into debates. I quickly realized that I was in an intense meeting over the construction of the school Southern Sudan. People were calling contacts in Jubba, men were offering advice to Alfred on how to handle the ‘locals’, and the whole time we sat in a circle sharing the floor fairly democratically. A few voices dominated the conversation, but even being a total outsider, I felt as though I could have said something and they would have listened.

Alfred drove me back and I could see he was strained. As experienced as he is, the trip he was about to take, going home for the first time in 14 years and overseeing the construction clearly feels like a monumental task. I spent the evening playing soccer and watching Milos Foreman movies. I didn’t even bother with the fireworks.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Constant Gardner

He paused. The rake was cutting into his hand, tearing away a small patch of skin. Some part of him enjoyed the sensation; it wasn’t too painful. He examined his work, the clear patch of dirt, and thought about the people he knew, about good will and trust. Were people generally good natured? Those he knew were, so he believed. He trusted and had been hurt as a result. He trusted again and suspected he was being played now.

Pressing the wooden handle of the rake against the open wound, he went back to work. He didn’t turn to look at his friends, it wasn’t them he was thinking about. He had nothing to offer them, and they nothing to offer him. They were friends because they all wanted to be. He thought about how pain fades and scabs over, like the small wound on his hand. Someone yelled out; a bird was busy scolding him for being too close to the nest, and he felt calmness come over him in that environment. Focusing on a patch of weeds right in front of him, hidden slightly under the burning bush, he went over the ground, again and again, slashing through roots and pulling up stones. His nose was filled with the smell of freshly uncovered dirt. He kept going. Not aggressively, just rhythmically going back and forth.

Beer? Before he answered, the bottle cap was removed and the pressure released with a sucking sound. He put down the rake and held the bottle against the place where the skin had rubbed off. It felt good.

I’ll go see about those rose bushes next. He walked across the newly laid sod and her eyes followed him.

Don’t injure yourself.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Responsibility

He felt the pressure and strain of the day on the bridge of his nose. On that point slightly below the eyes. Rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger did little to relieve the stress he felt. I want some tea he thought. They had been driving around, bouncing inefficiently from place to place. His companion smiled, doing business on his own schedule, in his own way.

But the driving had some calming properties. He had time to think between phone calls. He wasn't driving. He used the time to look out the window, while his companion was distracted by Michael Jackson songs.

I don't want this responsibility. I want this responsibility. But now he was in too deep to walk away. Something about these commitments made him feel ill at ease. Like he was no longer free to walk out when he felt like it. But maybe that was the point; maybe it was time to learn; time to commit.

I'm starting with the Man in the mirror...

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

PUSL News

It was a rather rough weekend for the league. The kind that makes you question the whole point of what you are doing...

We got through the first two games on Saturday with no problems; the new Ref was outstanding and well in control of the players. He even got a few thumbs up from our lads. But towards the end of the second game a group of oversized rugby players showed up and started to get into kit. It was confusing because we had the space booked for another two hours, but they began insisting that they had it book. They insisted to the point of calling the police on us.

Alfred negotiated for almost an hour, but had to give in and move the final game to Back Bay. So we started the last game an hour late, but basically without any further issues. Thankfully the teams were fairly cool about it. And that is where the good news ended...

After getting to Back Bay and getting the game started, everything seemed to be going well and I was watching one of the best games of the season. But in the 60th minuet the coach of one of the teams lost his mind over a call by our linesman, stormed across the pitch and started verbally abusing our man. The game continued for a moment, the opposing team had a free kick, blasted it into the area and scored, what the coach called, an offsides goal. The everything went to hell. The ref came over to check with the linesman, who said he could not see because the coach was blocking him, so the ref gave the goal; this enraged the coach, who proceeded to physically attack the ref. Thankfully his own players restrained him, but he was thrashing away non-the-less.

At that point the ref had no choice to call the game as it stood, and flee... but not before the coach and some of his team-mates accused him of racism... The coach was dragged to his car, we negotiated with the players and eventually got everyone to go home.

Sunday started where saturday left off, because the ref who fled was supposed to officiate the first game, but do you think he showed up?? Nope... We started one hour late, and the final game was fore fit, to the frustration of the team that bothered to show...

Thursday, June 18, 2009

A Blue Pill and Alcohol

It was early, but not too early when he lifted his head. Perhaps it was out of boredom with the ground beneath his feet. Dirt and gravel for three and one half mile, changing only briefly as you cross the bridge. Or perhaps something about the view onto the city had caught his eye.

Portland was just beginning to yawn and stir from sleep; the clouds were still thin enough to suggest that there was sun near by, rising somewhere to the east. His heart was pounding and the sweat was running into his eyes. The city has a real skyline to it, and it did, particularly at that moment. He had seen many cities with distinct skylines, but he had returned to this one. He pondered these thoughts as he rounded a corner, heading for the bridge where the ground would finally change, if only for a moment.

He could feel his limbs freeing themselves of the blue pill and alcohol from the night before. He powered on. Before focusing on the last mile, he noted the lack of cars on the streets and thought it was a good thing. Then one more thought crossed his mind as he looked across the bay:

I don't want to get used to this city without you.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Dreamland

I hate people who use the term retard or gay as a slight.
I was sitting next to this person on the couch, though I had no idea who he was. I think he worked with disabled consumers. We watched the TV, and I commented that the show was retarded.
Then I said sorry. I just realized that I used ‘retarded’ to describe the show. He nodded. Yeah, I know.

Sleep was fitful and interrupted all night long, as it has been for a week now. I was overheating and awoke feeling like I was hung over, even though I had had nothing to drink the night before.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

PUSL News

Not a bad week for the League. We have established a connection with an organization across the country in San Francisco, Soccer Without Borders. They are interested in helping us develop the community aspect of the league, so we can move it away from being just another soccer league. We will be having our first conference call with them next week. The Portland Police Department has also begun an Athletics outreach program, and they have contacted us to arrange a meeting. We will see how the Police and PUSL can collaborate on a few things. These two developments will enhance the social aspect of the community league, which will get us a step closer to the central mission of the league.

Filmmaker Amy Brown, a native Mainer, has expressed serious interest in developing a short piece on one of the teams in the league (The Misfits, Alfreds outfit). This team really represents the core hope of the league; that we would bring people from the S. Maine multicultural community together and have them get to know each other better, thus de-essentializing their perceived differences. Amy will tentatively be coming up from NYC in a few weeks to meet with us and shoot some footage of the league.

We will also be helping Seeds of Peace with a new leadership test they developed. Tonight at the Coaches Meeting we will introduce the exam in order to generate interest, with the hope that the coaches will sell the concept to their players. Revolution already took it, and C.D. El Salvador has already agreed to take it. We, along with Seeds of Peace, will then follow up at the end of the season in order to see how people reflect their ‘results’. Should be interesting if nothing else.

Most importantly, the league now has a Facebook group! Yups. Since nothings true or cool ‘till it’s on FB, we are now 4 REAL. So if you haven’t already received an invitation to join, just look us up.

Commitment to Poverty

I have accepted a position with Americorps VISTA which will last one year (August 2009 – August 2010). The position will entail seeking out service opportunities for USM students within the greater Portland Non-Profit community, with special emphasis on the Multicultural organizations in the community. Americorps is at its base a poverty reduction program seeking to give the volunteers, as we are called, first had experience with the struggles of poverty. They achieve this by putting the volunteers into poverty; we are paid less than $800 per month, not allowed additional income, given access to some of the welfare benefits (such as food stamps and health care), and we are expected to see out this commitment for a full year.

I have accepted the job, or position, because I believe in the type of work I will be doing. I think it will be building on some of what I did in Serbia: capacity building within civil society, project development, and working with minority / multicultural communities. These things I am very excited about, and I do believe this work will be challenging and provoke personal and professional growth. Where I have issue, is with the treatment of volunteers and the forced reduction to poverty, and we shall have to wait and see where I end up, if I can indeed manage everything on less than $800 a month. I can continue to live rent free for the next two months, which will help me save a bit of money (provided I get a bit of work between now and August, when I start my year of service).

I think the aspect that is hardest for me is that I will be 30 next April, and I will still be living pay-check to pay-check, relying on handouts and the kindness of others. I have spent all of my 20s in this system, and I hoped after I worked for the OSCE I would find opportunity that was professionally satisfying and financially rewarding. But I have found it much harder than expected, with the VISTA position being the only interview and job offer in over a year. In some sense I still depend on others for survival, which dents my pride and challenges my masculinity (see the previous two entries...). But I must also recognize that my work will be contributing to the development of a more vibrant and open community in Maine. I think that we are at a critical juncture, particularly in places like Portland and Lewiston, and there is a great need for us to give time and resources towards fostering the connections between institutions, such as the University, and the poor and immigrant / refugee community.

I have begun to get to know this community over the last few years, and thus it makes sense that I will spend a year working closely with them. I feel that is important and I want that, but I would love to have about 200 – 300 more dollars a month. Technically that would still make me poor (by both Maine and Federal standards), but would be enough to survive, make a few savings, and perhaps take a trip to Italy, or England, or France, or home to Germany. Well, it isn’t to be this year. I will have time to work on building the PUSL, and I may even find a way to bring that into the VISTA position, which would be great. For that and the other positives I mentioned above, I think it is worth it.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Day in Moments

Having gotten over the initial shock of having one of his close friends turn vegetarian, he cracked a huge smile and showed his white teeth. Maybe you need to be more flexible! You should be a flexitarian! His laugh was full and it made me smile. In that moment, I was thankful for his friendship.

We sat down after ordering our food and he said it was important that we all find ways to make a difference in the world, even on a small scale. If this was my way of doing it, I support it. But I’ll still give you a hard time. We laughed. The food arrived and our conversation floated on to other things.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Three Men in Nature

We set off at 845 a.m., heading north-west for half a day of hiking at Burnt Meadow Mountain. I think each of us may have had different reasons for getting out of dodge, even if only for a few hours. For me it was a chance for fresh surroundings, the calmness one only finds in the mountains and room to reflect on relationships and job opportunities. For that it was a perfect half day.

As we climbed through the cool forrest towards the top, the subject of my last entry came up: Man-ness. We were, all three of us, not fitting the image of what men should be (as I defined it in the last entry), and to some degree, we are all suffering as a result. As we talked I realized that what was missing from my argument, my last entry, is the fact that it is not the car as such that causes the stress. Rather, it is the lack of independence that comes in a commuter society when you lack your own transportation. It means that as men without a car, we are essential dependent on others. Independence is considered a masculine trait, and dependence is thus feminine.

As Men without this essential component of masculinity, independence, we are castrated. It is of course, a constructed reality, and not something we need to be subject to, and I think the three of us do fairly well in bucking the trend. Being aware of this fact is half of the battle and essential to be able to counter act such false standards.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

The man in me

I look around me from time to time. I mean, I look around in the abstract sense, obviously I look around everyday, when I cross the street, etc. It has been particularly interesting to look around in these months where I have been idle and dealing with my less-than-stellar circumstances. I have felt a certain level of impotence as a result of unemployment and being cash poor. It has dented my self-confidence and made me question my ambitions. I find that, as I think about what “A Man” should look like, what he should possess, and how he should behave, I realize that I in fact have very few of the “masculine” qualities. As I think about it, that goes for traditional as well as modern.

I’m not a provider, a procreator or a fighter, I don’t have a car, a job, a house, etc. This makes me insecure, because I see many men who have these things. I had a car once, and the experience was kind of a disaster; I don’t even really care for driving. The point being, I clearly don’t fit the mould, the GQ stereotype of what a Man should be. But fine, I survive right? My masculinity is not really in question, at least not with people who count. So why do I care?

Because when-ever I do venture into abstract thought, I realize how alienated I am from the world; from the modern concept of what I am supposed to be. I’m not that competitive, relatively of course, and I prefer quiet reflection over fast development. This begs, in my mind, the question: where is the problem? Is it with me or with the definition of masculinity? Well, I’m not perfect, far from it. But I’ve also never met anyone who fits the GQ stereotype, not really. I’ve met chumps who try hard to be that way, but they are totally transparent. So is the definition of masculinity even an attainable thing? Clearly, if I’ve never met a Mr GQ, then there must be a whole host of insecure men in this world, because it means the perfect man is few and far between.

I’ve always been insecure about the car thing, particularly in my relationships with women. In America, the car is such a defining object, and traditional roles would dictate that I should be mobile, and behind the wheel, but 99% of the time, I have people drive me around. In my relationships, the women have always driven me around. The car, amongst men, represents status, and I don’t have one, so I feel, stupidly perhaps, that I am always starting with a negative, that even when a woman is attracted to me, and clearly doesn’t mind that I have no car, I still fear losing her to some dude with wheels. Madness!

Well, I digress. My argument is that the definition of masculinity is in fact the problem, and not me. In reality, insecurities aside, I do fine. I don’t fit the mould, but I still get jobs, respect, love and attention. The next question is: why is it like this? Why do men, none of us being Mr GQ, and thus perpetual failures, accept this condition? Perhaps it is the product of a competitive, marked based economy: in order to expand the market, and get people, in this case men, to invest in the product or image you are peddling, you need to offer something new on a regular basis. People need to be convinced the product is necessary for continued enjoyment of life (hence Adorno’s pleasure industry). If we don’t feel like we need it, we would not, and do not, buy the damn thing. This goes for image as much as for ideology or material. Ard also mentioned that American culture defines itself through productivity and ‘being busy’, thus idle time is problematic, anti-social and counter intuitive.

So, here I am, with my natural state of being, preferences and routines, all of which are being defined by the fact that I somehow feel inadequate. I am driven forward by this fear, by the fact that people are buying into this folly, and if I don’t do so myself, I risk being left behind. And ye gads, we cannot have that! So the unattainable image is in fact the perfect market mechanism. We men are like a bunch of starved and crazed donkeys chasing after that magically floating carrot that is just in front of us, yet always just out of reach. But because we are hungry, we must give chase.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

I Shall Be Released

This morning I thanked God for tea. I meant it too, not the God part, but the bit about the tea. There are few things as comforting as tea in this world, and this morning, I needed that crutch.

I left her apartment and returned to the place I went to make a decision about K all those years ago. I went and looked out over the airport again. My heart was so heavy and my eyes damp with tears, but the music was different this time. Maybe I was different too, older, more experienced perhaps? I didn’t have a destination in mind, I just ended up there. The sun was emerging from behind the clouds for the first time in days, the air was heavy and warm, and the ground was still wet from an overnight rain shower. Like me, the place had changed in the six years that had passed since I last sat there. Six years, it seems like so much time to me now. The stairs leading down to street below the park were gone; there were lamp posts and a well paved path, winding its way down. I remained there for only a few bars of the song; not like last time I had sat there with a heavy heart. Back then, I sat for the whole album.

This time, there is no decision to make on my part. I made my mind up a while back, and I stand by it, even now. I chose to take the risk of being in love. But because these are matters of the heart, matters involving people, it just isn’t that easy. Both sides have to find consensus.

I know I cannot sit around and wait for consensus to appear, nor will I. But you could call me a lair if I told you I didn’t want to sit around and wait for her. Of course I do, but that simply would not help either of us make headway in this bitch of a life, as Guevara once called it. In the mean time, I will be there for her if she needs. I’ll be an ear to whisper into or a shoulder to rest on. She may wonder if she deserves this, and I can only say that deserves got nothing to do with it. I have everything I need, so this decision to be a friend and to give her time is based on what I want. C’est tout.

I thought about all the messed up people I know, including myself, and was shocked to conclude that almost everyone I know is in the shit at the moment. So much of the source of the misery comes from failed relationships. Is this how it goes? Is it supposed to be like this? I have Chris Martin’s voice in my head, telling me that they said it wasn’t going to be easy, but no-one said it would be this hard. Here, here.

I thought about the abusive son of a bitch who won’t leave her alone, and I wanted to blame him for everything, for destroying something that was once so beautiful it made others want what we had. I wanted to show him the damage he has caused in her, in us. Yet I could not. It was only her and me to blame, and me more than her. In that moment I didn’t know what the future would bring. I too, can not see the light at the end of tunnel. I only have experience and Plato to tell me that it is there, somewhere. I found it last time, so I know I will again. With or without you at my side.

Je t’aime avec tout mon âme. J’espère que tu serrait a ma côté pour les prochaines aventure.

            

Monday, May 25, 2009

501c What?

I'm helping start up a non-profit with the director of PUSL. My idea is to turn this non-profit into a community development organization, of which the PUSL will be a branch, as we want to do more than just sport related activities. Our guiding philosophy will be drawn from deconstructionist thinking and critical multiculturalism, so that "community development" comes to mean broader and more open minded citizens as a result of exchanged experience with the 'other'. I will need to read Augusto Boel and Paulo Firere I think, as well as refresh my memory of Peter McLaren.

In any case, how ever it ends up, I think the process of developing this structure is interesting, and not so cheap either! I am already slightly confused by the IRS requirements for submitting an application for nonprofit status; and the approach may be to bring someone on board who has started a nonprofit and who can guide us through the process.

Well, watch this space! I'm sure there will be tales of fear and loathing as we try to navigate the deep halls of American bureaucracy....!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

You were supposed to dance and sing

Faith is a state of openness and trust. To have faith is to trust to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In the other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the Universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be. I want to know the truth! ~ Alan Watts

Portland United

Portland United Soccer League kicked off its season again yesterday. It started with a one day tournament in honor of James Oryem Angelo and Wilfred Okot Omal, which was won by the reformed North Atlantic. Angelo and Omal were members of the refugee community in Maine, and both were tragically killed in recent years.

It was great to see the teams running out again, to be down at KP and to be around all the players again. Not only does it speak to my love for soccer but also, it reminds me how much I love being in the multicultural setting. It is nice to hear all the languages around me and to see the great, and growing diversity here in Portland. I’ve spilt a lot of ink on the paradox of soccer as a force for social change, but when you witness the level of fun people were having on the field, when you see the Somalis buying food from the Latino stall, when you see old friends coming together to have a good time and tell stories, it is impossible not to be moved and feel that on some level, that this is worth investing in.

The question here is, how do we take this raw energy and get some of it dedicated to giving back to the community; how do we break down the national divisions in the team compositions?

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

East End (Slight Return)

Today I took a walk down to the water on the East End and looked over Mackworth and Peaks Island. The breeze was fresh, the grass was newly cut and the Atlantic so vast that it eventually swallowed even the sky; that beautiful blue and cloudless sky. I was momentarily stunned by my surroundings. I thought about all the place I have been in the world, but that this is the place am returning to for the second time. It is never for a single reason, but rather an amalgamation of memories, people and an unshakable desire to flee big crowds and oppressive sky scrapers; to trade steel, glass and concrete for trees, grass and a fresh ocean breeze.

It is a culture in-and-of-itself; maybe it is not Paris, Prague, Beijing or Milan, but it has its own beauty non-the-less. I might not stop here for more than a year, returning to the crowds and subways of New York or Washington D.C., and maybe, if I do leave again, it will be the last time. However it works out though, these moments will never be lost on me. They give me energy, creative and physical, for the rest of the day.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Response

In response to my last entry, on the inevitability of human nature, a friend sent me some lines from Chuang Tzu:

" yearn for a good without evil
    justice without injustice,
    order without disorder
    means does not understand the laws of the space,
    because it means long for heaven without land,
    yang without yin,
    positive without negative. "
 

Friday, May 8, 2009

The inevitability of Human Nature?

Wahrend die Weltzeit Uhr auf Alexanderplatz auf Mutters Gebuhrtstag zu rasste, vereinigte ein kleiner runder Ball die geseltshaftliche entwicklung die geteilte Nation und lies zusammen Wachsen was zusammen gehorte.

There are some things in life which I find deeply moving, one being images of the Berlin Wall being overcome and people flooding across the border. In general I find images of people overcoming such artificial constraints to be really beautiful. Yesterday I went to the Newseaum in DC where they have a corner dedicated to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Of course, being America, we can't help but wrap it in a thick patriotic treacle; that Kennedy and Reagan were somehow more responsible for the fall of the wall than thousands who risked lives to undermine its symbolic power, and who literally tore it down with their hands. Even so, the images of the repression followed by images of people bursting forth and celebrating the reunification are powerful.

I have a personal connection to these images, not only because I have been to Berlin and seen where it all went down, or because I did some indepth research into the democratic transition in East Germany, but mainly because I am, in a sense, German. At least part of my identity is German. For example, walking around the monuments in DC, like the Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, has less effect on me than walking around the Reichstag or seeing the black, red, gold.

Anyway, back to my point. As I was looking at these images of people flooding across the check points in Berlin, and then later watching a film about the moments when Sport became a force for social change, I felt goosebumps. I felt like I was watching a great testimony to the Human Spirit and our ability to endure, to resist and to overcome. But, and there must be a 'but', I began to think about the paradox of these moments. They do not exist in a vacuum.

These profound moments in human history don't happen spontaneously, or 'just because'. Rather, they are a response to something terrible, like repression, war or racism. I realized the implications of one of the truths I hold to be self-evident, that all things in the world exists in a causal relationship with one-another; that the nature of ying and yang means happiness and pleasure are created from sadness and cruelty, and vice-versa. There is something inevitable about our lives in that system. It means we can only know good if we also know evil. The ying and yang on my shoulder began to burn a hole in me.

The cyclical view of human nature, supported by the highs and lows of our history, carries with it the disturbing possibility to justify an act of genocide or repression of free expression. If this is indeed human nature, if we are destined to continue moving through time in this fashion, then we must accept all parts of the human experience, including total evil. But how can we say that the actions of Hitler or Arkan are just part of life? It reduces the profound suffering these men created to just another passing moment in the march of history, from which there is ultimately nothing to learn.

I cannot accept this, yet how else can we define ourselves? To change the system, the paradigm, means what? A profound identity crisis? How does something exist without its counterpart? I scoffed at the idea that beauty can exist by itself, with out a concept of ugly. But now I understand the implications of that concept. If you believe beauty can exist in and of itself, then you are not caught in the inevitability of Human Nature; then you can be free of the confines of history and of the modern system, but how can you exist?

Experience is what defines me as a person. I know that I like blue because I don't like green (but would I like blue without some comparative reference?); that I like strawberries because they taste better fish (thus the good / bad paradigm); that I love you because I don't love others, etc... Thus, I see these profoundly beautiful moments in history as a response, a reaction, to the total evil which went before them. The evil, which paved the way for the good, is then part and parcel of the good. But that is as tragic as it is joyful. 

In chapter 48 of the Dao de Jing we find an articulation of this very same concept. The lines, which I am paraphrasing, arguing that the good has its roots in evil, and disaster is right behind good fortune. I read the Dao as a text for the individual rather than the collective, and thus I find encouragement in the knowledge that when things are aren't going well, there are better times ahead; it also forces me to be more conscious of when things are going well, because this too shall pass. The problem, and this is the raison d'etre of this text, is that we are not isolated, but rather that we live collectively and are interdependent. Thus, what applies to us as individuals, must also apply to the collective in some fashion. It is, as they say, inevitable.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

The kindness of others

I think we often miss the effects we have on other people, certainly I do, and their consequences. A few years ago, in collaboration with Brian, I worked to help a friend, Kay, get a officer position within the Model UN group. It wasn't a big deal to me, he was up to the task and a good guy.

Today Kay sent me one of the nicest messages I have ever received, and he is actively trying to get me a job in Maine.

Thanks Kay.

But this speaks to a bigger point I have been considering for a few weeks now. The idea of leaving somewhere in order to truly see what it is you have. I left Maine for 9 months and didn't honestly expect that I would return. Yet, as I look around for opportunities to make forward steps with my ambitions, I find that Maine is where I can do that.

Of course, it is always nice to be the one who returns with stories of strange lands and gets all the attention. That speaks to my fantasy of being Odysseus. But more importantly, it gives you perspective on what choices there are, and in a sense, you then have the power to make them, because you are more defined as a person. Sure, it causes a bit of stress, but as I see it, in the long run, you become more centered and able to focus on what you want.

Without knowing it, I have built up a nice little network of people who are becoming significant in the evolution of the Southern Maine community. I didn't see it before I left, but now that I went away and came back, I can see it. It's a nice thing.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Love in a time of Swine Flu

I sat in the bus station, waiting. A bus was on its way to take me on yet another journey into the unknown. Away from a comfortable place that I have become intimate with; a place with long winters and even longer summer days. Its the place that was my home for seven years, but that I never recognized as home. It is far away from the fast streets of Paris and the Bavarian Alps of my childhood. It is not a European place, nor a Serbian city on the Danube. As I sat waiting for the bus I thought of Bukowski:

when you think about how often
it all goes wrong
You begin to look at the walls
And stay inside
Because the streets are the
Same old movie.


Behind me Wolf Blitzer was discussing the Swine Flu crisis. People are calling for a closing of the border with Mexico. My throat felt tight. My heart rate, slightly elevated. I must be getting sick. They tell us not to get paranoid, not to buy into the fear, that it will be ok. But the news is built on sensationalism and it needs us to be afraid or we will stop listening. I felt dirty, like my hands were caked in layers of infectious grunge. I rubbed my eyes and wondered if my eyes would also now get diseased. Bukowski made his way back into my mind:

It is no wonder that
A wise man will
Climb a 10,000 foot mountain
And sit there waiting
And living off berry bush leaves


I wanted to be in the mountains. I had seen the ocean again for the first time in almost a year and I had missed it. I had also missed her. As the bus pulled up and we all made our way into the confined space they warned us to avoid, I thought about leaving. I thought about being a European in America, an American in Europe. I thought about how much I miss Munich and Paris. But most of all, I thought about her and coming back. Ten days more and Bukowski will be right.

Mountains are hard to climb.
The walls are your friends.
Learn your walls.

Monday, April 20, 2009

This concludes our broadcasts from the Continent

I wish to write something witty, or profound tonight, but I think it won't happen. Simply, it will be a brief and abstract reflection, utterly inadequate, on the profound experience of nine months back in Europe. 'Back' because Europe is where I spent 22 years of my life, and where I was formed. I am so intimately connected to this part of the world, and I love it because I feel that connection.

Yet, I have chosen, for many reasons, to make the US of A, the place I want to live. Of course, I may be offered a job in some strange place, and I may take the job, but when confronted with the question: where do you want to live? I tend to chose the US of A. This is not to say that I wouldn't want to live in the Italy (which has been a place I have dreamed of living for many years), the Balkans, or China. but when confronted with the reality, and as a dear friend recently said "if I wanted it hard enough, I would make it happen", I always chose the States.

In many ways, it was the return to Europe, after seven years in the US, that has made this clear to me. As I said, there are many place I would go, but the only place I can think of going "just because I want to" is the US of A (at least in the context of living somewhere). This is not meant to be some dedication to the American way, or a pledge of allegiance, because my feelings are not informed, entirely anyway, by patriotic duty, or love of the nation. I'm beyond that. Rather, I am returning to the place where I gained my sense of self; though I may, and will, always feel rather like a foreigner in the US. Maybe it is that 'foreigner' sensation which allows me to feel free in the US?

Qui sait? So fühle ich mich im Moment, aber das kann sich immer Enderen. Das soll auch nicht heißen das ich meine Freunde, Liebhaber, oder Erfahrungen vergessen werde. Sie sind alle ein teil von mir.

Dobro: ciao, tuss, au revoir, prietno, and see you soon.

"Good luck and good night" ~ E. R. Murrow

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Returning home, wherever that may be

I am back in Frankfurt, chez mon Frere. I am tired, slightly smelly from all the traveling over the last 48 hrs, and glad to have had the family time, but also glad it is behind me for now. It was great to also see friends, climb a few mountains, and drink a few Weissbier. While I cannot see myself settling in Germany, I am forever connected to the Bavarian soil. Ich bin in der Welt Zuhause, aber in Bayern da Heim.

In a few days I make a quiet return to the US of A. It will be refreshing to see Obama's mug greeting me, rather than G. W.'s, which is the face that has represented the US since 2001. Let's see what this trip brings...

I certainly hope it is the last international move for a long while. Time to make something happen.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Notes from a Trip Part III

~The Denouement~

The view from the bar on the 9th floor is virtually a 360 degree panorama of Prishtine (I am now using the Albanian spelling of the name because good luck finding a Serb in this city). At night, with the snow falling and lights twinkling, it looks nice and peaceful. But the paradox of this situation does not escape me: sitting at the highest point in the city, looking down, are westernized Kosovo Albanians and international staff, drinking and living well. We, and I say 'we' because I am just as guilty as them, live better than 90% of the country, we are exempt from many of the rules (which begs a debate on the validity of 'rule of law' when it only applies to some), and we have executive powers here.

As I stuffed salty peanuts into my mouth and drank German beer, I wondered if I was a modern colonist? Sure, I wasn't running slaves, and the work being done by the International Community was technically empowering the local population; in colonial times, the locals would have been used to extract wealth, which would have been sent back to the Father / Mother land. Today the set up is different, but I cannot help think that all roads still lead to Rome.

The international community entered Kosovo on a humanitarian mission, protecting local populations of Albanian nationals from Serbian aggressions. They succeeded, and then set about rebuilding the region, but not as a province of Serbia, rather as an independent state, with its own institutions. Now Prishtine offers many of the comforts of western life: fancy bars, Karaoke and bad cover bands (all singing in English), nice apartment buildings, casinos, prostitution and a thriving drug trade. 

As I pondered this, I was being grilled by an ethnically Turkish Kosovar woman. It was twenty questions, but I only really remember telling her that I was listening to a lot of Cake and Clash songs at the moment. I told her to look them up on Youtube, and she told me I would find work in Kosovo, that she never learned German even though she had dated a German guy for a few years. She insisted she loved the language and would still like to learn it. These less-than-subtle comments were not lost on me, and I began to urge D and A, the German contingent, to take me to dinner. They obliged, but not before I at least took the contact info of my new, ethnically Turkish Kosovar friend. It is the polite thing to do, after all.

We ended up at a fancy place with only international customers; no serbs, and Albanians were only featured as staff. Despite the fancy-ness of the place, the Maitre d'Hotel still greeted me with welcome man! Well, I was wearing a baseball hat. We ate well, drank even better, then went to A's apartment and crashed.

I awoke to a German Breakfast setup, and two middle-aged women staring at me: Der ist aber schone wach. Wilst du Kaffee order Tee? Tea, if you have it. 

The day was spent walking around Prishtine, in the snow, and sitting in a café called New York Bagel, which did serve bagels, or something resembling bagels. As we sat around, we slowly amalgamated internationals, all German speaking and didn't interact with locals until we needed more coffee, or went to the popular (with internationals) music shop Ginger (where the proprietor is Kosovo Albanian). There is not much more to say about Prishtine. The evening was spent with more internationals in a Japanese restaurant and western style bars. I drank a bit too much, then we went back to A's place and I crashed out.

~The Bridge that Divides~

I stood on the Albanian side of Mitrovica and looked across the Ibar. I felt like a voyeur, staring at a car crash, staring at the misery of other peoples lives from a safe distance. But my conception of what the bridge looked like was wrong. I guess I had only seen a few pictures from the height of the tensions, when the there was a military presence. Now the bridge is open, with only a few shifty Kosovo police keeping order. Despite the bridge being open, no-one uses it. Serbs don't want to be seen crossing to the Albanian part of town, and vise versa. So now it is just an empty bridge, symbolic of division rather than unity. It could come to mean something else, but as long as the society here is allowed to slowly segregate itself, then it will remain empty and divisive. A tragic reminder of a more peaceful time, and the failure of the international community to forge something sustainable, based on mutual respect between the ethnicities. But maybe that is as it should be, yet I cannot accept that segregation is any kind of a solution. Separate, after all, is never equal.

The remainder of the trip was un-eventful and the Mini, sans catalytic converter, held its own, no problem. But I did make a mental note of how ironic it was that D was responsible for monitoring the recycling program in her building at work, yet she was driving round without her catalytic converter.

As we passed into Mitrovica North, the villages took on a Serbian feeling, both in architecture and construction. We passed no more burnt homes nor any more monuments to the KLA martyrs. There were also no more flags, at least no more Albanian or Kosovo ones. I couldn't help but think that one day, Mitrovica north would one day be part of Serbia again. As we passed into Serbia again and began the final stretch home, we were both tired. Conversation dropped off, we listened to the Clash and Moondog, and I began to think about leaving Serbia, leaving the Balkans, and how things were going to turn out. I left Kosovo and all the misery behind me, preoccupied, once again, with my own situation.

Finally, the snow had stopped falling.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Notes from a Trip Part II


The fact that cell phones with Serbian networks don't work in Kosovo is symptomatic of the folly of the whole situation. Serbia wants to maintain the claim that Kosovo is still theirs, yet they won't allow their networks to function there, essentially forcing the local Serbian population to take the Kosovo carriers (which are using Monaco numbers, don't ask me why), as they are subject to Kosovo energy supplies (except in Mitrovica north, where Serbia provides well for the Serbian communities).

But we were lucky to break down at a gas station attended by an man who loved Germany and Germans. He had lived there for two years as a Gastarbeiter during the war, and earned enough to buy a small farm for his family. Wuppertal ist super! He now worked at the gas station and cared for a cow and tilled a bit of land. His life was clearly tough, but he managed.

After taking a look into the engine and cleaning off the spark-plugs, he couldn't seem to find the issue. Instead of abandoning us though, he ran across the street and called over a mechanic to take a closer look. This young man spent a good hour checking everything and concluded that the catalysator was blocked. As he was making his assessment, he handed out cigarettes, as is the custom in Albanian communities. Then, cigarette in mouth, he continued to work on the engine. I wondered to myself, how safe that really was.

While the mechanic managed to get the engine to start, he said we should not drive to Pristina / Prishtine because it could really f' the engine up. What to do? The kindly gas station attendant offer us his cell phone and we called D's friend, who's car was also at the mechanic! But she said she would go get it and come rescue us. We would just have to sit tight for an hour or so. With the falling temperature and darkness, this was a less than fun prospect.

Once again the man at the gas station showed his kindness and took us to the back room of the station, and lit the wood fire for us. For the next hour we sat there with him, talking about his time in Germany, the agriculture of Kosovo, and of course, relations with the Serb community. Wir sind alle Menchen. Wir mussen zusamen leben. He said he never discriminated against Serbs when they came to his business, but he did think they were the troublemakers in Kosovo. But he just wanted to leave that all behind and face the reality that they lived side-by-side. It was hard to tell how much of what he said was what he thought we, as Germans or Internationals, wanted to hear, and how much was his opinion. But I chose to take him at face value because I have no reason not to.

As the attendant was showing us pictures of his kids, his boss showed up. The man was gruff, old and broken. He sat next to me in the back room, rolling a cigarette, and he seemed so sad, so tired of life. He reiterated the sentiments of our friend, that people needed to get along, but Serbs were the issue at the moment. But he did it with such tragedy in his voice, that I could not help but wonder what all his eyes had seen growing up as an Albanian in Kosovo. I never found out because D's friend showed up to rescue us.

These two men had shared their space with two total strangers, and given me a valuable insight into how people were living here, at least on the Albanian side. It was clear that there were so many issues in Kosovo, and not all of them were the result of tensions between Serbs and Albanians. It seems there is a growing disappointment with the central government and the lack of progress in ten years of International administration. People were living hard lives and had only seen the top dogs get richer, but nothing much had trickled down. Then there is the issue of bad water management, lack of agricultural development despite good soil conditions and plenty of arable land, and finally Leute in Kosovo haben zu viele Kinder. Das ist ein Problem, aber ich glaube das ich Kinder haben muss. Aber nur zwei. Andere Leute haben mehr.

By now it was really cold and dark out. The mini was covered in snow, but D decided she had to try and drive it to Pristina / Prishtine anyway. So I got in the car with her friend and we drove slowly behind her all the way to the city. We made it all the way without further problems, I quickly made good friends with A, D's friend, and soon enough we were on the 9th floor of the OSCE Building, drinking with the international community, looking out over the city.

Not for a moment did the snow stop falling. Welcome to Prishtine.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Notes from a Trip Part 1

At 22.00 I got a text message from D. "Do you have a sleeping bag?" No, I don't, but I'll bring a blanket, I replied. My thoughts turned to the trip. Where was I going? I had visions of sleeping in the car surrounded by thousands of wild eyed locals and internationals. Better get some sleep now, I thought.

We set out at 0630 from Belgrade in a 1996 Mini; the morning was cold and the sky light grey. I was surprised at how many people were on their way to work at that time. More, it seemed, than at 0800, a much more civilized time to be stirring. Neither of us had checked the weather, and ultimately there would have been no good reason for it, our plans were set. We were going to Kosovo come hell or high water.

The E75 heading south is a flat, boring road passing through equally dull and flat country-side. We passed the time talking about work, D's job application, and going through her CD collection. The mini held its own well, and though I had to jam my wallet into a small gap in the dashboard to keep the stereo from disconnecting, we drove in relative comfort. Our musical influences for the drive ranged from Cake's Fashion Nugget and a Beastie Boys mix, to Bertold Brecht's Die Dreigroshenopa, and I ate a lot of kikiriki. Just past Nis the sky grew dark and snow began to fall; it wouldn't stop until we were in Mitrovica two days later.

While the road became more interesting as we passed into the Presevo valley, the journey was largely uneventful. We turned off the highway at Bujenovac and made for the border. The road leading to Kosovo was in bad shape and to hope for a snow plow was folly. Fortunately the ground was warm enough that most of the snow melted into slush, and anyway, there wasn't much chance of building up speed on these roads. We climbed steadily in the short distance between Bujenovac and the border. But it was enough so that had the feeling that we were passing into Moriea from Rivendale. I looked around for hobbits, but only saw stone faced Serbian Police officers. Crossing the 'administrative line' was rather painless, thanks in part to the Dip plates on the trusty mini. From there it is a short jaunt through the demilitarized zone to the Kosovo border. Again we passed with no hold up. The Kosovo guard, upon seeing D's Italian passport, remarked buona sera. Neither of us informed him that it was only 11.00.

Once inside Kosovo I felt like I was going somewhere I wasn't supposed to. As if my parents had forbidden me to go, but I snuck out and went anyway. The difference is also instantly tangible, not just because of how the villages are organized, but because of the massive international presence. In the 45 minuets it took us to get to Gnjilane from the border, we passed Italian Carabinari trucks, UN SUVs, and EULEX jeeps. In addition to this, D pointed out what the ethnic composition of each village was we passed. But in most cases, you could tell by the flags. The Serbian 'enclaves', generally set slightly back from the main road, had large Serbian flags hanging down over the entrance, while the Kosovo-Albanian villages were littered with Albanian and American flags. At times these two flags were attached, like conjoined twins. I wanted D to pull over so I could give a short speech about flag code (the conjoined American and Albanian flag being a major violation...), but after seeing some of the burned out Serbian homes, I thought better of it. But the reality was that there was total segregation, and nowhere did the two groups meet.

Our first top was the OSCE field office in Gnjilane, where D. used to work. I was amazed to find that the "field office" was almost the same size as the entire mission in Serbia, at least from the staff presence. Over coffee, pizza we had conversations with the transport director and a program assistant from Democratization. These two men sat at the same table, and conversed with one-another as if it was normal. One was Albanian, the other a Serb. They were right, it is totally normal for two people to have a conversation. It is only when you introduce nationality / identity as a factor meant to influence their interactions that you have problem.

We left the field office around 1430, passing UNMIK, Ukrainian KFOR, and US Military installations on the way out of town. Each warned that I would be instantly kidnapped if I took any photos, so I looked straight ahead and smiled. We made it half way to Pristina / Prishtine before needing to fill up on gas. Once the car was fueled, D got back in and turned the key and ... nothing. We were in the middle of nowhere, without functioning cell phones (because Serbian networks don't work in Kosovo) and now without a functioning car.

All around us the snow kept falling.