Refined Notes and Raw Sounds

Change of Venue

2009-10-18T21:33:00.004-04:00

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

:-)

Loza and Cigarettes

2009-10-16T01:40:00.004-04:00

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.
:-)

Welfare

2009-10-14T17:28:00.001-04:00

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.

To myself ~ a confession

2009-10-12T16:32:00.000-04:00

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.

On Love

2009-10-09T17:29:00.000-04:00

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

Soccer violence

2009-10-05T22:05:00.002-04:00

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

2009-10-05T10:52:00.001-04:00

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.

On Death

2009-09-28T15:51:00.003-04:00

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.

Think and Write...

2009-09-23T00:01:00.003-04:00

...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.

Soap box rant

2009-09-21T22:19:00.001-04:00

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.

I have no Home

2009-09-17T23:58:00.001-04:00

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?

A Day of Service 11.09.2009

2009-09-11T23:22:00.000-04:00

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.

Am I too cynical for this?

2009-08-13T19:32:00.001-04:00

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.

The day Fitzy saved Portland soccer...

2009-07-20T20:45:00.001-04:00

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...

Short Story

2009-07-17T09:39:00.000-04:00

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

Saying no to discrimination....

2009-07-15T23:20:00.002-04:00

...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...

2009-07-15T22:52:00.001-04:00

About a Film

2009-07-13T02:14:00.003-04:00

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...

Negotiations

2009-07-05T09:49:00.001-04:00

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.

Constant Gardner

2009-07-04T12:41:00.001-04:00

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.

Responsibility

2009-06-26T17:35:00.003-04:00

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...

PUSL News

2009-06-24T11:21:00.002-04:00

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...

A Blue Pill and Alcohol

2009-06-18T23:42:00.006-04:00

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.

Dreamland

2009-06-12T15:15:00.001-04:00

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.

PUSL News

2009-06-10T17:10:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

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.

Day in Moments

2009-06-09T12:07:00.001-04:00

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.

Three Men in Nature

2009-06-08T17:18:00.003-04:00

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.

The man in me

2009-05-31T17:19:00.001-04:00

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.

I Shall Be Released

2009-05-30T14:04:00.001-04:00

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.

501c What?

2009-05-25T18:35:00.002-04:00

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....!

You were supposed to dance and sing

2009-05-17T10:33:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-17T09:44:00.001-04:00

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?

East End (Slight Return)

2009-05-13T13:08:00.002-04:00

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.

Response

2009-05-09T10:23:00.002-04:00

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. "

The inevitability of Human Nature?

2009-05-08T10:13:00.005-04:00

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.

The kindness of others

2009-05-06T13:20:00.004-04:00

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.

Love in a time of Swine Flu

2009-05-02T13:15:00.000-04:00

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.

This concludes our broadcasts from the Continent

2009-04-20T16:43:00.004-04:00

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

Returning home, wherever that may be

2009-04-18T19:59:00.003-04:00

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.

Notes from a Trip Part III

2009-04-03T10:32:00.007-04:00

~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.

Notes from a Trip Part II

2009-03-28T07:33:00.005-04:00

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.

Notes from a Trip Part 1

2009-03-27T09:46:00.010-04:00

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.

Quote

2009-03-26T19:58:00.001-04:00

Here is a quote Treasury Secretary Geither:
"Our hope is that we can work with Europeans on a global framework, a global infrastructure which has appropriate global oversight, so we don't have a balkanized system at the global level, like we had at the national level," Mr. Geithner said.

Interesting use of ‘balkanized’... Brings to mind near / far away argument, that somehow we all understand the what the term “balkanized” implies, without actually knowing what it is. As K.E. Fleming argued, “the Balkans are both fully known and wholly unknowable... To Balkanize after all, means to divide; or fragment, along absurdly minute and definitionally obscure grounds.”

Balkans has truly become a metaphor for collapse, dysfunction and chaos when it is being used to such an absurd degree: as an explanation that the US financial system was in a mess he alludes to the collapse of the Former Yugoslavia. Incredibly derogatory towards the region in question, yet totally acceptable in mass media. In the language he uses, he suggests that the US and Europe (i.e. EU) work together to stop the ‘Balkans’ syndrome from harming the civilized order. Yet, is it not the ‘civilized’ (i.e. Non-balkanized) people which in fact created this “balkanized system”? How fitting is this as its own metaphor for the actual attitude of the West towards the Balkans, both historically and now?

The full article where I found the quote is in the Herald Tribune:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/26/business/regulate.php

24.03.1999 - 24.03.2009

2009-03-24T07:04:00.004-04:00

Today is the anniversary of the NATO bombing in Serbia. Ten years ago today NATO began its campaign against Milosevic.

At 12 pm the air raid siren went off and the people are now gathering all over the city. They are gathering in front of the bombed out buildings. Later there will be an anti-NATO rally in the central square.

Amalgamation

2009-03-23T05:39:00.005-04:00

St. Paddy's day in Belgrade at the Three Carrots, where the Guinness is really bad and over priced. A couple of guys were dissecting my nationality, and no answer was good enough, except that there was some Irish blood in me from my Gran. "Oh, that is to bad" they kept saying. On of them had been in the Balkans since things went south in the early 1990's. It's amazing how many internationals you meet, who are like this guy. Partly it is the work, I am sure, but there seems to also be something attractive about being in 'conflict' regions.

"It's the Wild West out here." He said this as if we were a million miles from 'civilization', not in the heart of Belgrade, a cosmopolitan city. When I think of Wild West, I think of Deadwood and Clint Eastwood, not Kneza Milosa or Boris Tadic. One might be forgiven for thinking that about Pristina and Kosovo, but Serbia? He listed things like the bad driving and danger of crossing the road as to why he thought this was the Wild West.

Aleks and I were talking about how to do what interests you in life, and still make a living. You have to bring the system to your interests, he said. We used the example of TKV, a local artist, who is doing great street art, and basically making some money doing what interests her. It's not so much that she created a demand, rather, she focused on what she liked to do and then found a way to sell her skill.

It is no easy thing to do, particularly for a social scientist, who can't do much with his hands, except tap on a key board! But I was thinking about this conversation again last night as I listened to Moondog. Moondog made his own music, his own instruments and his own clothing. He was fiercely independent from mainstream music and society, but he lived as he wanted. He is an example that you can do whatever you want, or, as Aleks put it, an example that being crazy is really beautiful.

Email exchange

2009-03-14T06:26:00.004-04:00

I sent out a farewell email to some of my closer friends at work and in Belgrade before leaving Friday. I noted how I had grown and changed, etc... and I illustrated this point with the adage that a person never steps in the same river twice, because both s/he and the river are changed... here is one of the replies I got:

"...that actually is empirically tested in quantum physics, where it's impossible to know the "true" location and speed of a given particle as our very own observation of said particle inevitably changes one or both of these sizes.

"Things evolve man, and we all evolve along with them. Nothing evolves alone, and the actual "measure" of such evolvement is given by the interaction with everything else. "

The long walk home...

2009-03-13T14:15:00.003-04:00

... as the fat lady sang.

Today I completed my work at the Mission and said farewell, or vidimo se, to all my colleagues. On Monday I go back in for a few hours to send a couple emails and go through the check out process, and then I will be officially done.

But today was really the "last day" at work. I think some people expected me to be sad, looking for emotion in my voice and face. Certainly I am going to miss the people at the office, many of them anyway. I will also miss the work, because even though I have some reservations about what is actually going on with "development" work (at least of the philosophical level), I did well, and I learned a great deal.

But sad is not the right word. I have grown a lot, learned a lot and experienced a lot; I have grown close to many of the people I have met through work and outside of work. In Belgrade I have been at my best and my worst, and I have been fortunate for all these experiences. In a sense, I am actually happy because I am aware of how much I have gained by being here.

There is undoubtably anxiety as I still don't have another job lined up yet, but I am not sad. I am thankful for all this.

For the love of God, tell me what to do!!

2009-03-12T13:28:00.002-04:00

I'm in another transition phase. After eight months in Serbia, it is certain that I am leaving at the end of the month. The question of "what's next," which is what everyone is asking me, is still unclear. Since this is not exactly an ideal time to enter the job market, and because I missed all the deadlines for getting into a graduate program or law school, I'm sort of treading water. Well, that is not entirely true, because I have the Roma paper to write and the ANS Conference to attend at the end of April. So my next weeks are well defined: writing and travelling. I suppose that isn't so bad. But it is the large black hole of unemployment in the post ANS period which is bearing down on me.

But what is the point of writing this? Simply that I find it interesting that I do not see the "freedom" (whatever that means) I currently have as a blessing, but rather as a curse. I mean, I am really free to go anywhere and do anything, yet all I want is for someone to come along and tell me what to do, to give me a job and define things for me. I remember a quote from my good friend Brian who said something like 'we want our freedom only so we can give it away to someone else.' I have to agree with that on many levels: personal and political. For me, thus on the personal level, I hate to be to confined and tied down by material things and jobs, yet when I experience that sensation of being so free, I run for cover and the 'safety' of belonging to something, and thus being tied down again, etc...

You can see this play out on a political level too. People were so eager to be 'free' of Bush, that they went and gave a huge mandate to Obama, rather than trying to reclaim the problems for themselves. Ok, maybe you can argue that in a democratic system the vote is essentially the individuals power to dictate how they think the problems need be addressed. But you can also say, particularly in the American two party system, there is very limited choice, and voting is just shifting power from one side to the other: thus freeing yourself of one party only to rush into the other one. I think this analysis is particularly relevant during the financial crisis (as it would have been following 9/11 also), where Americans are particularly frightened and looking for help. Obama really has a huge amount of power, because the citizens have given him a mandate, and no politician will seriously challenge him at the moment.

But we can also look at places like Kosovo and Montenegro and make a similar assessment. Both of them were so eager to get away from Serbia, thus in a sense freeing themselves of Belgrade. But both expressed immediate intentions to join the EU, thus giving up their sovereignty and adopting EU laws, practices and standards. In order to enter the EU, they must give up a significant amount of power to Brussels. In Kosovo, the situation is even more complex given the power of the EULEX, NATO et al. The international community essentially ruled by decree from 1999 until the declaration of independence in February, 2007, and today they still have control over virtually all the infrastructure and institutions, building them in the western image.

What this tells me is that we don't really like to be totally alone, that there is something of a heard mentality still in us, despite the supposed 'hyper individualism' of Western culture and globalization. I am free to go anywhere, yet to really do that would be to break from the group to which I belong, and renounce, to some degree, the desire to join another one. Just like with Kosovo and Montenegro, it is a precarious position to be in and can be very uncomfortable (because it is not the norm, and visibly sets you apart). Thus it drives me, and the Kosovars and Montenegrians, right back into the arms of another group, which can come in the form of a job, a relationship, a graduate program, EU membership, an ideology, etc...

On being sick

2009-03-01T02:32:00.003-05:00

For the last month (well, two months if I am honest...) I've been running myself into the ground for various reasons, and things have been getting much busier at work as we approached the crescendo of the Model OSCE Project (which is running today and tomorrow). But I have not be compensating by taking care of my physical and nutritional needs (and let's not even talk about emotional...). So, when I awoke on Friday morning, trembling, sweating, I thought, 'here we go. Payback.'

Sure enough: flu. As I careen towards the last two weeks of my internship, and the last four weeks in Serbia, and with no job prospects at all (yet) despite lots of attempts, and with no fixed place to go, or return to, I've been feeling low and mean. The flu, and my swollen tonsils, of which I am reminded every time I swallow, now seem to mirror the general malaises of my mental state. Perhaps it was because of this mental state that I was more susceptible? Or maybe it was just that I ran to long on empty, and thus on Friday, my body said enough.

In any case, I am on the mend, I didn't miss work, and I didn't take any significant drugs beyond aspirin to cure myself. This tells me that the old immune system is still in good shape. And now, as I feel good enough to go out again, I realize another added value of the occasional, non life threatening illness: I recover feeling better than before I got sick. The forced rest and added sleep was time for my mind and body to rebalance. For now, I feel lighter and don't feel so worried about what comes next.

I put my faith in the Dao and stop trying so hard.

Football Diplomacy

2009-02-15T10:04:00.003-05:00

Croatia's top football team, Dynamo Zagreb, announced it is organizing a "friendly" match in Pristina against a local Kosovo side, Trepca 89. According to balkaninsight.com, this match is part of Croatia's ongoing bilateral initiatives with Kosovo, with who they have "positive relations." This is, of course, the same Dynamo Zagreb that was involved in the famous 1990 clash with Red Star Belgrade, which was the prelude to the break up of Yugoslavia.

Belgrade hasn't shown much reaction yet, but it will obviously see this as a direct slight by their neighbors. It is not like Serbia and Croatia are exactly best friends, but this is a strong statement by Croatia. Football maybe only a sport in some eyes, but its global popularity and financial value make it much more than that. In this case, where Croatia is further legitimizing the independence of Kosovo by sending its best soccer team in, the game has political significance. Serbia does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, nor is it going to any time soon, and thus seeing its neighbor to the north make such a clear statement of its own, which is in direct opposition to Serbia, is a studs up diplomatic tackle.

What is the motivation for Croatia in all this?, would be the key question. Politically it is clear that Croatia is working hard to get a spot in the EU, and since 22 of the 27 EU states have recognized Kosovo, it is fairly clear that Croatia is following the trend (the same argument can be made for Montenegro and FYROM by the way). Croatia is gaining some bonus points by engaging with Kosovo on the civic level, as well as on the political and the economic. But I think one needs to look deeper than that as this is also a move to shore up internal support for the Nationalistic government currently in power in Croatia.

Croatia has benefited in the past from taking aim, literally and figuratively, at Serbia. Likewise, Serbia has done the same to Croatia and benefited as a result. During the 1990's the Tujman and Milosevic regimes were rather complementary in achieving their designs for the territory of Yugoslavia. Their vicious brands of Nationalism, Leftist in Serbia, and Rightist in Croatia, enabled them to mobilize their people to break free from Yugoslavia and from each other, and to make their claims over Bosnian territory. So while they were in direct conflict with each other, they were actually helping each other at the same time.

While the context is different now, and there is less perceivable benefit for Serbia in this, beyond what Carl Schmitt would argue is giving Serbia a clear enemy against which to define itself, Croatia can marginalize its own Serbian minority from the political and cultural sphere, keep the nationalists happy by poking Serbia in the eye, and please Europeans by being a nice brother to little Kosovo. This also serves the American agenda that, for very unclear reasons, seeks to keep Serbia down. Having regional actors, especially such 'clean' ones as Croatia (an image not at all justified) engaging with Kosovo only blosters the inevitability of its de jur status as a Nation-State.

So football has a clear political agenda here. It serves Croatia in sprucing up its image abroad and in securing support back home; it serves Kosovo because it gives legitimacy to the institutions (such as the Kosovo Football Federation) and the government itself; and it serves the Pro-Kosovo international community in legitimizing its bid for statehood.

Conversations With My Spam Mail

2009-02-08T08:19:00.003-05:00

or Why I Am Insecure

Between messages suggesting I buy a masters degree to strengthen my employability or get some pills to help relax me, my Spam Mail also screamed out at me: If there were only girls around, would you be ready?

Jesus! Would I be? I don't know. I should know though, right? I mean, it could happen that I am in a club one night and there are only women around me. It might happen that on that night I would be the only male who attempts to get into this club! And, my God, I have no idea what I would in that situation. I'm so f'ed!

Seconds later my Spam Mail casually asked Need Pain Killers? Get 'em here! Hmm, I have been feeling a of pain in my knee lately. My back is also often sore after work. Yeah, maybe some pain killers would be a good idea. They might help me relax a bit too, so I can get two birds with one stone... quick, I'll cancel my order for the Happiness medication you offered me last week.

But before I could act, the next question was being asked of me! Hey David, Over 10 million men made their women happy, and you? How did you know of my failings!! Quick order me what ever it is you are offering! I must make her happy.

The message is clear: I am an incomplete human, I am too tense, my Johnson is too small, I'm not employable, I'm unhappy, unable to give women what they want, and my wrist watch is not the latest knock off model. Basically, I'm totally uncool. But I'm glad I know now, I'm so thankful for Spam Mail for telling me this, and for offering me a solution to all my problems

I'm going to be happy at last...

Dreams and Moments as experience.

2009-02-07T12:21:00.002-05:00

I fell asleep on the couch watching Schalke 04 Vs Bremen. I dreamt I was playing in the match, but couldn't communicate properly with Rosenberg and didn't have an amazing game. He kept passing into empty space for me to run onto, but I always was going the wrong way.

...

Last night was a strange night. Your fucked if you perform. I don't perform for anyone he said, quiet serious. I defended my position well non the less.

Everything is a performance because we a but an amalgamation of experience and taught behavior. We are a unique combination of this, but we are created out of what came before us.

Never say anything about anyone you wouldn't want to say if they were next to you he said, quiet serious.

Day in Moments

2009-02-02T14:59:00.004-05:00

The morning was cold despite the weatherman's promise of warm weather. Well, solidarity with the UK I suppose.

But the day also had a strange start to it. He looked up at me as he raised himself from his seat. I wondered why he was getting up well before our stop. He was only half standing when he looked the other way towards Tito's grave and the trees beyond.

I was in those woods when the NATO bombing started he said, smiling.

Though the sun appeared briefly at the end of the day, it did little to warm things up. Nor, for that matter, did the Chairman (woman) in Office. She was glowing with power and money and her new position. I though she was beautiful, and more honest than I expected.

Personally I think their [Holland's] position is totally wrong she said, smiling.

The day ended as it began. Cold wind and a bus ride. But just before that I walked to the bus stop with him and we talked about the hidden power center of the institution we work for. I also said something about the foreign service. He snapped his head towards me.

The foreign service! You don't want to join the foreign service! he said, laughing.

On Happiness (revisited)

2009-02-02T14:06:00.002-05:00

...maybe 'part two' would be a better title...

In rereading the previous post I asked myself what it could mean to "be happiness"? I spent the whole entry arguing that we struggle to define happiness for ourselves, but I couldn't avoid suggesting the answer was simply to find happiness inside... Yet, what is it? Moreover, what does it mean to "be happiness"?

Here is what old Lao Tzu, in chapter 38, suggested:

It is because the most excellent do not strive to excel

That they are of the highest efficacy.

Thus according to Lao Tzu happiness, or anything for that matter, is actually only attainable when we don't forcefully attempt to obtain it. It is our attempt to define it which actually stops us from experiencing it, precisely because we are obsessed with achieving it. Perhaps it is not so different from John Lennon's line: life is what happens to you when you are busy making plans. Things never work out the way you planned, not matter how detailed your spreadsheet is. So to plan for 'it' is counter productive. Happiness is not a destination, not something to plan for, and it is not a future destination, subject to flight schedules or Gucci suits. It only exists in the present moment.

Or maybe it is more like those strange pictures where you can only see the shapes by un-focusing your eyes. When you stare at the page with your 'normal', rational vision/mind, then all you see is a bunch of spots of color. But when you when you let go of the normal method of digesting information, you reveal the actual meaning of the picture.

So the whole approach of trying to find your happiness is wrong, because you are already your own happiness, you just cannot see it because you are trying to hard. Of course, the danger here is that one might understand that we should just stop trying and everything will find its order. This is not totally correct, not in the economic and not in the political or social sense. We still need to be aware of our surroundings, we still have to make decisions and that always involves a degree of coersion. But we can do it in a way that is more balanced, that involves a critical self-awareness, and that doesn't essentialize any maxims or trends or medications.

Thus to be really objectless in one's desires is how one observes the mysteries of all things,

While really having desires is how observes their boundaries. (Chapter one)

On Happiness

2009-01-30T10:06:00.014-05:00

Foreword:
I thought to change the title of this entry to "David has a broken heart" because the questions in this entry are in part, provoked by this state of affairs. But ultimately the idea to write this entry came from an email exchange and a subsequent conversation with Momcilo, and thus I cannot take all the credit. I also want to add that I am becoming more and more convinced of the maxim "act locally". The evolution of my political person following 7 months in a large Multi-National is moving away from seeking global solutions (international diplomacy, etc.) and towards finding solutions in and from the communities where the issues originate.

What is happiness then? Like 'freedom', I fear it is one of those terms thrown around easily, and without clear definition. Where does it come from? Is it simply a good balance of chemicals in your brain? Or more philosophical, like a profound understanding of who you are and your place in the world?

I ask these questions because of a recent email exchange with a few different friends, but also because I sense that, myself included, there is a general unhappiness in the world, and thus we are all chasing this idea. But if we have trouble defining it, then what the hell are we chasing?

I could start by answering that part first: What are we chasing? Nothing, I would answer, because I think we are running away from unhappiness, more than we are chasing happiness. It's why so many are on some kind of Medication (legal and illegal). I believe that there are some legitimate uses for some of the medication used to get people out of depression, but it has become a bona fide industry for passifying the masses (as has the illegal drug 'industry'). We cannot chase something we struggle to define, as to do so would be to waste a lot of energy running in a thousand directions. In fact, as I think about it, that is exactly what the experience of running away from something, in this case unhappiness, is like. We simply scatter, not knowing where our refuge is, like a heard of wild beast.

Part of the problem in defining it, as I see things, is that there is no collective experience called 'happiness', nor should there be (please see The Invasion or Equilibrium for good explanations why). It is, I believe, a highly individual experience, even when part / all of the source (or the percieved source) of happiness is another individual. They will never be experiencing exactly the same as you. The level of diversity in people is simply to great for one single thing to be the definition, thus our objective, of happiness.

There is also danger in relying to much on external factors to define happiness. I can write this particular sentence, these particular thoughts, from personal (recent) experience. When happiness is not internal, there is great danger of losing that which makes you happy, because it is totally uncontrolable (this goes for people as much as it goes for pills). What happens then, when you lose the source? When you can no longer drink from the pool? Then you experience a terrifying sense of emptyness, which can drive a person to some extreme measures to fill the sudden void. But what if you have an internal sense of happiness? Not "I am happy because..." but rather, "I am happiness".

Don't get me wrong, losing something that made you feel good, that you enjoyed, will always be tough and will always be a negative experience, but if you are not defining yourself and your happiness by it, then it will be easily managable and overcome. Of course, we should not all become Narcissus, spending our lives staring into the pool, but we need to rely on ourselves and our knowledge of ourselves in becomeing happiness, more than we do now. We need to balance this relationship better.

We should also take a moment to acknowledge the insane standards we set for ourselves in trying to achieve happiness. Every day we watch movies and TV shows, we read magazines and book, and we listen to songs about happiness. In these media we are given ideas of how our lives should or could look, but don't. The characters in these situations and everything about them, is carefully designed to attract us. The problem is that they are not necessarily grounded in reality and the lifestyle they advertise is virtually unattainable. Thus, when we fail to achieve what we see everyday as desirable, it causes us stress, and makes us unhappy. But we don't need to feel this way, because really it is just someone's idea of happiness and since we'll never experience it, fuck it.

We should rather take stock of what we have, what we have achieved and how unimportant these imposed standards are. We don't have to be important in the public perception to be happy. Happiness is not linked to anything but feeling comfortable with yourself, which is primarily an internal experience. We do things of significance everyday.

This is, as everything in life, a work in progress. As I get to this point in the writing, I see I can go no further and answer the other questions I asked myself. I cannot because I don't know, or maybe I am not in the right frame-of-mind to do so. But I think it is important that I have at least posed the questions. I have given myself a little direction, I have released further internal tensions, and balanced myself a little.

Afterword:

"Maybe the important thing you are doing with your life is taking care of the cat. At least, from the cats perspective, one might come to that conclusion...

But seriously, I understand the need to do something 'important' with ones life. It is part of the reason I left Maine (both times actually). Certain experiences in the last 6 months have suggested to me that everything is important, well, lets say everything is significant. So, being single, a waitress and the proprietor of a cat, are as significant as taking over a small country (and in many ways much less stressful for everyone involved...)...

I find it extremely hard to get rid of the feeling that I am not doing anything important, that I won't amount to anything. I blame social pressure and hyper capitalism. We need to have constant progress and upward mobility in our lives, because that is what supports the continued growth of the economic system. So, the system subtly ingrains it into our identity. We are always reading about really important people, but never about Peter Petrovic the farmer. Why is his life less significant? It's not, it just doesn't fit the front cover of consumer culture developing in all corners of the globe."

On Language

2009-01-26T12:54:00.009-05:00

He sat down to write. What else was he going to do? Wanting to deceive them, or perhaps himself, of the true narrative, he wrote as if constructing a short story. This was to be a short story about a man in search of truth, in search of meaning in a world that often felt more alien than familiar. The search takes place under the brutal weight of jealousy and is colored by fear.

This man in the story wished to see himself as Diomedes, tearing into battle to fight Gods and heros, but truthfully he felt more like a small child, void of the appropriate faculties for dealing with hardship. But this was not what the story is about. It is about language. In the story, the man suddenly felt himself so very far away from all that was of comfort, disconnected from his family and, laboring along with a broken heart, he struggled to reconcile his decisions with his current predicament. But, feeling it was all too autobiographical, he, the writer, decided to write about language instead. Anyway, he was tired of feeling sorry for himself, knowing it only lead down a frightful road. So he wanted to make this more optimistic, even if it betrayed, to some degree, his true thoughts.

He endowed his character with experience in these matters. He, the character, had been living on the street where one goes to feel sorry for ones self. He had been living there only a short while this time, but had spent a few years there in the past. But though this man didn't control his own fate, which was, after all, the job of the writer, he knew he wouldn't be on this street for long. He knew how to manage his internal rust. He knew because he had been there before. On this street. In this place.

But experience alone, the writer thought, was not enough to guarantee survival. If anything, experience without a mechanism to understand that experience was worse than no experience at all. Imagine knowing what was happening to you, yet having no way to deal with it. The writer could think of nothing worse. Consequently, neither could his character. Sadly, they, the writer and the character, both had the feeling they knew someone like that. So what was it, that would make it different, more bearable this time round, wondered the character? To which the writer replied: language.

Last time he, the character had loved, loved and lost, he was totally inexperienced and didn't have any kind of guidance for dealing with these things. He had taken a few extreme measures to gain attention and to express his deep pain. He cut himself; nothing dangerous, though. Just enough to see a bit of blood, and to get the source of his misery to notice. He also medicated himself on a regular basis.

But that story was a cliche if ever there was one: young man suffers angst and goes on a years long self-pity binge until one day he decides to change things and be his own master. Anyway, a character is never his own master. That is the job of the writer. So instead he, the writer, focused on what was different now. Now he, the character, had language. He had learned, through friends, through his own travels, and through his intellectual mothers and fathers, to construct something out of this pain. He now spoke out about what he was going through, he put pen to paper and read books and watched movies to see how others dealt with it.

Though this made him, the character, a fairly selfish guy, something which he, the writer, despised, it was only a temporary narcissism. But what was it about language, mused the writer, through the character, that made this lost love more tolerable? For one thing, in the immediate, physical context, it meant that he, the character, would be able to formulate words to express his feelings, which acted as a release mechanism. Language was a sort of valve on his internal, emotional pressure cooker. It was a button he could press whenever things got to gloomy and his throat became constricted as a result.

Moreover, language allowed him to make meaning out of what he was experiencing. He could look back on memories and see where the source of the pain was; see which decisions had gotten him to this point; and he could see the correlation between cause and effect, helping him to see why something had happened. He didn't have to just sit there, cursing the writer for this injustice, as a martyr of his own pain. He could pick himself up and know why it happened and accept his own responsability. That, according to the writer, should be hailed as progress. Of course, it wasn't an instant remedy for how the character felt, but it was a remedy none-the-less.

Language did one more thing for him, the character. It made him more self-aware than he had ever been in the past. Language connected him to his identity and allowed him to find theories and other narratives, other characters and other writers, who could show him all the possible ways to move out of the neighborhood. Through language he could identify with experience, or perhaps, he could twist his experience to fit a narrative that offered some way forward. Language allowed him to deconstruct himself and then reconstruct himself however he felt it was appropriate. This process allowed him to inhabit this pain as an experience, as he would any other experience.

Language, the writer and the character thought: what a wonderful thing! With that, aware of his own language and ability to control it, the character climbed off the page and slaughtered the writer. What a narcissist!, he thought. Imagine taking up that much space to write about yourself and your pain. Imagine putting me, the character, through such a cliche ridden story, so full of gloom and doom! Bah! There must be more important things to write about.

So he sat down to write. After all, what else was he going to do?

Founding Myth

2009-01-22T17:17:00.003-05:00

Tonight, I undertook my first (first ever) interview for my research project for ASN. The interview was with Lola, director of a local NGO doing various projects with the Roma community. She told me this founding story. What follows is the exact transcript of our conversation, with some mood setting and clarifications of my own.

In the background, a young girl is playing with a blond, blue eyed, life size doll. She squeezes the dolls hand and a young German girls voice screeches "Wir sind die beste Freunde!" Everyone laughs. From time to time, over the next few hours, the doll would interrupt our dialogue, and we always acknowledged it with a smile and a chuckle.

"You can't imagine. Non-Roma students take interest in Roma culture... I was telling them a legend about why Roma were left India. This legend is about some Indian Princess. Uhm, they, uhm, Roma, I don't know the word in English for that? They have a pleme? When they are living together its calling?"

A community?

"Something like that yes. Roma community were there and some of Magicians told to the Indian that some army, big army, danger army, will come and will kill everyone, uh, every, uh King and all King relative. But the magicians said that army can do nothing to Roma community. So King decided to bring his one daughter, only one daughter, to the leader of, uhm, of settlement [laughter].

So, that leader has son, and his son and Kings daughter were growing up together like brother and sister, but in moment they were in love. So one part of community, uh, and mother of boy told him the truth, that Gana is not his real sister. So they decided to marry, and one part of community stand against Chan and Gana [the wider community was never enlightened to the fact that they were not brother and sister. Thus they were expelled because, in the eyes of the community, they were living in sin], and other was with them, so they decided to separate. And the part of community that was against them, told them to go somewhere, to leave India. So they left India.

And we are thinking that all of us are part of community who are trying to find real land for us."

Why did I chose this myth as a post? As Lola was telling me the story, I thought back to my Political Theory class, and how, in our discussion of Machiavelli, we focused a lot on his emphasis on keeping the founding myth central to the identity of a community. For Machiavelli, a community was kept strong through constant reversal back to the source of its creation. He understood the inevitability of corruption to any system, and argued that the only way to stay close to purity was through constantly reestablishing the myth as the center of your culture.

If the founding myth of Roma community is one of exiles in search of a land that doesn't actually exist, then their nomadic life style (which today, I will add, is more stereotype than truth) makes perfect sense. They defined themselves as a transient community in search of their new land, which has not been reached yet. To keep the identity of the community in tact, this myth, and life style, must be kept central.

Open letter to President Obama

2009-01-19T15:18:00.005-05:00

Your Excellency,

Though it is a few hours yet 'till your confirmation as the 44th President of the United States of America, allow me to congratulate you on your assuming of the Oval office. No matter what one holds as a personal opinion, this is a historical moment for our country. You have overcome great odds to achieve the highest political office of the land, and Americans have, on one level, overcome a history of profound racism to place you in that office.

I will be the first to admit that I am often cynical when it comes to the political process, to the realities at work in any political system based on a few people making decisions for the rest of us. But on this day I will not get on that soap box. I will instead just take the next few lines to call on you not to forget all the hope your campaign rode in on. And to remember:

REMEMBER the 50+ millions of Americans living without health insurance,

REMEMBER the other millions of Americans whose health insurance is more interested in profit than well being,

REMEMBER the level of greed displayed by our business community that provoked this massive, global, economic crisis,

REMEMBER all the Earthlings who now must stand in bread lines with no idea where the next paycheck is coming from or whether they will still have a roof over their heads at the end of the month,

REMEMBER all the Earthlings who are spending this cold winter with no roof over their heads and no food in their stomach,

REMEMBER all the Earthlings illegally imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay,

REMEMBER your own promise to seek some justice for these same Earthlings,

REMEMBER your promise to close down that place,

REMEMBER all the Earthlings who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan,

REMEMBER your own promises towards those parts of the world,

REMEMBER all the people who lost their lives in the Levant these last days,

REMEMBER they are all Earthlings and entitled to a dignity long denied them, irrespective of ideology,

REMEMBER that you are a public servant, and for the next 4 - 8 years, you work not for your own interests or enrichment, but for the people of the United States,

REMEMBER that you asked for this responsability and it remains yours until the end of your mandate, and even when things get tough, the buck stops with you,

REMEMBER all this, and

REMEMBER to be honest at all times.

Yours, in hope and friendship,

David A. Brown

Earthling

The Mac is Back

2009-01-17T20:10:00.004-05:00

...pretty sweeeeettttt....

On Joyce

2009-01-15T06:22:00.000-05:00

I had a fascinating discussion with MD last night on James Joyce. “I discovered him at a time in my life when I was unsatisfied with my situation.” This line stuck with me, for obvious reasons. As things feel heavy, and Serbia seems trapped under a permanent cloud, foggy with the temperature always around -2, I am struggling to keep things in perspective.

“I understood him right away and he was illuminating for me. It lifted me out of my depression.” I resolved to give Joyce a shot. I haven’t read him since 1997, when we were assigned Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. I have little memory of the book, as I never could find a way into it. Thus my reading of it was superficial. But now, I am more experienced, and my motivations, needs and desires are a bit different.

So why not? Maybe it is time to try again?

According to MD, Joyce wrote because he had to, not because he wanted to publish. He wrote for himself and in order to make sense of the world around him. We should all have this freedom… The challenge now? To find a source for these book in Serbia!

European Council Declaration on sport

2009-01-13T16:09:00.002-05:00

The European Council recognises the importance of the values attached to sport, which are essential to European society.

It stresses the need to take account of the specific characteristics of sport, over and above its economic dimension.

It welcomes the establishment of a constructive dialogue at the first European Sport Forum organised by the European Commission.

It calls for the strengthening of that dialogue with the International Olympic Committee and representatives of the world of sport, in particular on the question of combined sports training and education for young people.

60 minuets of immortality

2009-01-11T15:35:00.004-05:00

For a whole hour today I was free of all my chains. Momentarily I didn't think about her, I didn't think about my family, about Gaza, about my future or any of my nagging concerns. I transformed myself into Diomedes, spear in hand, and flew into battle to challenge Apollo on the shore of Troy.

I charged up and down the battle field, replicating the most beautiful passes and shots of past a present legends. I was di Steffano, then Shilton, then Matthaus, and finally Henry. I controlled myself, then I controlled others, I gave direction and then took direction. I focused on a single task, forcing myself to overcome my physical limitation, in the name of glory, victory and immortality.

I took to the field with the belief that I would win, that I would decide for myself and for others the outcome of this conflict. Everything else melted away, insignificant in the face of what was at hand.

I played football. It was glorious.

On Gaza

2009-01-10T11:29:00.003-05:00

I have been plagued with a strange guilt for having been unable, for the last three weeks to write about the horrifying conflict in Gaza. I, a student of political science, must have something to say? But it feels as though no-one with the ability to make a difference is even listening. Only the fringe voices appear to be speaking out: Moon, Kucinich, etc. I then reminded myself, difficult though it maybe, silence equals consent. If I don't write about this, about my interpretations, and my feelings on the conflict, then I am letting these events happen in my name. In short, I become complicit and responsible for the atrocities.

I sat in the cafe today, reading, and trying to think of a hook. How to get at the heart of this conflict? I began to wonder how I would, were he old enough, explain this to my nephew. I imagined myself writing this beautiful child a letter, trying to explain why we do the things we do to each other. Explain, not as an excuse or apology, in a way his innocence would understand, and not be devastated. A tall order, to be sure.

I might begin this letter by arguing that each earthling on this planet is unique and beautiful, and fundamentally we defy classification, stereotype and logic. We are, non of us, born with anger in our minds, nor are we born racists, sexists or facists. To paraphrase Rousseau, we are born free of all this, it is not 'till later that we put on those chains. The point being, all of the physical and mental borders that exist between earthlings are pure constructions. They are not natural, nor are they necessary for our survival. We are, in a manner of speaking, free to cross them anytime, we just have to be able to see the other side for what it is, simply another way of doing things.

But the inquisitive mind might ask, then why do they exist, these borders and prejudices? This is the difficult part to answer, and as a caveat, I remind you that I am also someone subject to these tendencies and constructions, thus my answer, sure to be incorrect in someone's mind, is but my experience, tainted by my own ideological lens. I believe the answer to this question lies in our notion of power and to some degree, our belief in religious dogma and nationalism. Power, to give woefully short definition, is the ability to impose yourself on someone else without the use of physical coercion (the point in which weapons are introduced, power becomes terror and violence). An individual or an idea is only powerful so long as you go along with them or it. There is nothing inherent about power, and it can be taken away at any moment. Our problem has been, historically, that we value power as an attribute in Men (I chose to add gender here fully aware of what it implies), not as something to be fearful of. We do not recognize the fact that in consenting to an individuals power, we are in fact giving up our own power to that person. We are saying, "I am willing to let you control my fate and make my decisions for me".

This is our choice to make, and we do not have to make it that way. We can say no any time, though it is the more, much more, difficult choice, and often leads to extreme forms of violence. As I mentioned above, the moment power employs weapons to ensure its hegemony, it is corrupted and becomes violence. Unfortunately, when power is threatened, the response tends to be a violent one. When people stand up and say no! power is threatened. In some sense, this is precisely what happened in 2006 when the people of Gaza rejected Fatah and elected Hamas. They were not voting for terrorism, not for the destruction of the Israeli state, but they were simply saying no to a corrupt government that was failing them. Of course, by voting for Hamas, they unfortunately simply shifted the power from one side to the other, rather than reclaiming it for themselves. Tragically Hamas has also exploited this position to further its own goals, rather than really serve the voters.

The question of religious dogma and nationalism is really just an extension of the ideas I suggested above. Religion and national identity give people a sense of belonging to something, but the consent of the people means Religion and Nationalism have power. In demanding allegiance they create the physical and mental borders that lie at the root of conflict. They create unity in opposition to difference. This means we define ourselves by what we are not: I am American because I am not Palestinian, French, Canadian or Russian, etc... Furthermore, to consent to this position of being American (for example) we simultaneously reject all other possible identities. Rejection is then a suggestion that these other experiences are some how less relevant, less good. Thus we are willing to go to war, to crush those who are different. In short, the power of religious and national identity is in its ability to convince us of its importance, superiority, territorial claim and power. We are meant to believe that we are not safe without such subscriptions: the unfaithful end up in hell, or as Canadian citizens!

So, to my dear nephew I would say, there is war in the Levant because both Israel and Hamas are afraid of losing their power, they are afraid of each other, and the way they can convince themselves to remain loyal, to their respective ideologies, is to directly confront the other, to prove that they are superior, and in the event of a defeat, they can play the victim card. I don't support Hamas, but I don't support Israel either. I support peace. I think war is unnatural and always unnecessary. The people of the Levant should do the same. They should reclaim their individual power, and realize, in doing so, they can co-exist. They are simply kept apart by artificial notions of power, faith and national identity. There is a choice, there is always a choice.

For the fact that there is always a choice, the situation is all the more tragic.

Conversation

2009-01-07T10:09:00.004-05:00

"... and then she said 'so you are defending yourselves?'"

What?

"No listen. At each point where the conflict was being explained to her, she was asking questions: trying to explore the point."

He stutters when he gets close to the point. I'd never noticed it before, but I think he has always done it. I'm at the kitchen window, smoking a cigarette, with A. He is telling me about a conversation between his professor and a friend of ours. Gaza is the huge elephant in the room and we are both watching too much news. Rakia is actively dampening my spirits even further.

We finish smoking and sit down at the table. I tell him I haven't been able to write about the conflict. I excuse myself by claiming fatigue: fatigue from hearing about Israelis assault Palestinians; fatigue from trying to figure out why this was happening.

"There is just too much information to digest. we can spend two hundred years studying this one conflict." he said.

Yeah, and how can you absorb anything, organize it and synthesize it in this context?

"you cannot. you just end up ignoring it."

Ignore it. Just like everyone else.

But this is how it has been for 2000 years in the Levant. In order to give one group of people 'their' land, you have to displace another. I'm fatigued by the seeming endlessness of the conflict. Hamas has a taste of power, and, to return to Schmitt's thesis, they defined themselves and rose to power in opposition to Israel. Their very existence is tied to continued conflict with Israel. So, what would happen if Israel did return to the original borders? Would the conflict end? Not likely. Hamas would then need to find a new reason to keep themselves and the Palestinians mobilized, and keep the votes coming in. They would then change the Mantra to "Europe is the one who fucked the Jews, why didn't they give up their land to compensate?"

But even if that did happen, and Israel was established in Bayern. There there would be Bavarian displaced peoples fighting the Jews, and imagine the Neo-Nazi movement in Germany. To give someone something, someone else has to lose it.

"And what about Roma? Should we just give them part of India? Why not?" His tone is ironic.

Yeah, imagine that.

The only light on in the apartment is the energy saving light bulb in the kitchen, where we are sitting. It seems to reflect our mood; or perhaps our mood reflects it? In any case, its not a nice light, it is too stark. We fall into silence for a moment. He is fidgeting, picking away at my laptop.

"You seem depressed?" he asks me.

At this point, I'm probably also just tired. I haven't slept well for days. But yes, I am. I didn't think it was going to hurt this much. I'm going to bed.

"oh, ok."

I crawl onto the couch in my room and slip under the blanket with History of the Present. I read about Ash's tour of seven Eastern Block cities. He is a fine writer and lays bare the, at times, silly divisions in this corner of the world. I fall asleep around 2 am.

Voice from Gaza

2009-01-06T16:47:00.003-05:00

This email was forwarded to me by a friend, and it is featured on the Al Jazeera website.

This is the fifth day of the Israeli military operation on Gaza called 'Cast Lead'. Horror and destruction is everywhere. There are things that are not well reported in the news, feelings!! I have three children, a daughter Nour who is 14, a son Adam who is 9 and another son Ali who is 3. We live in an area in Gaza city that used to be described 'safe'. Nowhere is safe anymore. My children cannot sleep and I cannot help them. The feelings of helplessness and guilt (which always accompanies your inability to protect or at least comfort your children) are stronger than those of fear and horror. My daughter was telling a journalist on the phone yesterday that she had never got the real support she sought from me whenever there was a shelling. I was shocked!! I felt so guilty because my daughter felt my fears. But is it not normal to be scared after all?! Adam is asthmatic and he uses a ventilator. Due to the stress and the pollution resulting from rubbles, he is getting more frequent asthma attacks and there is no electricity for his ventilator. Each time he has an attack, we have to put the generator on for him and then put it off. There is no enough fuel to keep the generator on and we have no idea till when this is going to continue. Ali has no idea what this is all about. All what he does is scream in fear whenever there is a bombing and when it is over, he uses his imagination to tell stories about 'qasef - bombing'. The kids do not sleep. We spend our days and nights in one single room with my sister in law and her daughter. You feel the stress and fear. You can see it on everyone's face.

Last night I was thinking about all this. I do not want anyone of my family to get hurt and I thought if anything should happen, I pray it happens to me and not my kids. Then I thought I do not want my kids to see me torn into pieces. The scenes on tv of people killed are so terrifying and I know what it means for children to see such thing. What I really want is for all this to end and for me and my kids to live just like anyone else in the world. I want to get rid of the feeling of guilt towards my kids. Was I mistaken to have kids in the first place? Do not I have the right to be a mother? But am I really doing a good mother's 'job' in being the source of comfort for my kids. I know it is not my fault but I knew also that I live in Gaza and Gaza has never been a healthy environment to raise children. Was I that selfish to think about my own feeling to want to be a mother and ignoring my expected failure to protect my kids?

On Writing

2009-01-04T16:00:00.007-05:00

On writing, and Human Alienation.

Why write? Tonight I'm dwelling on why I do this, why it is the one constant in my life? Currently this frame of mind is influenced by the Israeli incursion into Gaza (perpetually playing in the background via BBC), a recent viewing of the Reaganite film Field of Dreams, and a specific kind of loneliness that comes from the realization that the person you love has thrown you out with the bath water.

So why write? I write because I am; because I live; because I feel; because I love; because I desire; because I hate; and because I can. But what does that mean? I write because I see myself as a protagonist in the story of my life, and because every experience has meaning to it. Since life, specifically earthling life, is short in the context of this planet and universe, we have only a few opportunities to make something of significance out of our lives, to understand what our lives mean, and to give those who will come after us a chance to learn from us. Unlike Kevin Costner however, I am not seeking some reconciliation with my Dad, and unlike America, I am not seeking to (re)create a past that never actually existed.

Rather I want to make a life for myself that has a purpose. But this is not some drive to 'fit in' with the majority, or to create some kind of Utopian society; instead it is a completely personal quest. Most likely the only person who will benefit from this writing, and the sense created out of my experiences, is me. The process of writing, to me, is similar to cleaning up my room. The 'clutter' lying all around my floor is experience and information. Writing, like cleaning up, is the opportunity to organize these experiences in a way that makes them accessible and meaningful. I can order and catalogue my life, assign emotion and significance, so I show myself what I want and what I don't want.

Experience is like refined notes and raw sounds; it allows us to define and test the limits of our identity so that we can find the path most appealing and comforting to us. I fear this is something that most people do not do however (writing and synthesizing their experience), and as a result never get a good sense of why: why they do what they do. There is, of course, the other extreme, which is the one closer to my state-of-mind. That is, those who are committed to the possibility of finding significance and meaning from experience, ultimately never settle on their own identity, busy as they are being critical and engaged in the search for "what it all means". There is a very real danger in being so obsessed with the search, that you miss the meaning. Thus, it is equally important to have your own conclusions. These conclusions are personal, and can always be, and maybe should be, revised. Like everything else in life, these conclusions are contextual, and subject to change.

In truth, perhaps as the result of experience and influences, I also write because I find myself somewhat alienated from the world. It is an uncomfortable experience to be sure, to be alienated, and thus I try to counter it by seeking out things, activities, theories, and dogmas, which will help me stop feeling this way. But as much as the alienated individual is "unhappy", I think they are, more than a powerful politician or a rich tycoon, the earthlings who move us all forward. Maybe I say this because I feel myself as a kindred spirit, but I also think that artists and philosophers have done more good than all others (good in the 'greater good' sense, but I would credit kind individuals and teachers with doing much 'localized' good). Writing, in the context of what I have written above, is how I am trying to deal with my alienation from the rest of the world. I seeing it as that which helps me deal with everything, from the daily grid to the war in Gaza.

Writing is also a practical activity: if I never get paid for it, that is ok. I won't be tearing up some large acreage of my corn field to create my text, it only takes up a tiny portion of cyber-space. I can also do my writing any time I feel like it, thus it can be fit-in between activities that are economically beneficial; I can write on the train, during lunch, in the evening, early in the morning, and maybe during the quiet moments at work. I can write in public forums, or I can write privately. It is, as my dear friend Simon would say, cheap and cheerful.

There is no moral or ethical value system assigned to this experience, nor is there a judgment of where one will end up at the end of this journey. In one sense I am suggesting that we each have a unique path to follow, and we each must find the thing that makes us happy and fulfilled. Now, there is some ambiguity in such a statement, and means you might argue this justifies people following a path taht creates pain and suffering for others. Maybe someone finds fulfillment in going to war? I see the argument, but I reject it. As I said, I am not moralizing, and I am not suggesting that the path to fulfillment must fit within a certain moral or ethical code. But I would suggest that anyone who takes the time to explore their identity, to try on various masks, to critically view their most mundane and most extraordinary experiences, will rarely make violence a key part of their life. This type of self-exploration and discovery takes an open mind and a profound respect (maybe even love) for others. It takes a bit of courage, and willingness to interact with a huge diversity of people.

How then, after all that, can you still what to see harm come to the others? How can you, after witnessing the beautiful and the tragic, decide the tragic is better? I don't think you can. If you do, then you have not reached an understanding of yourself in the context of everything else.

Narcissism Day

2009-01-04T06:27:00.005-05:00

As I was trying to understand the orthodox holidays coming up in Serbia, a friend and I came up with the idea that I should convert to orthodox so that I can take advantage of these days. The 6th of January is Christmas Eve, and the 7th is the New Year, then the Orthodox also get their Slava, or Patron Saint day (which is another non-work day). So, the thinking was, I could convert to Orthodox today, and then I would get most of this coming week off, plus a Slava at some point. Then next December I could convert to being a catholic and take their Christmas dates off, then in January... you see the pattern.

But then I thought, what days off does an Atheist get? Being one myself (unless you count Daoism as a religion), of course I get all the christian holidays, because everyone in the west gets those. But is that really appropriate? What if I want to work those days? I mean, I should not be forced to participate in a religious festival that I do not believe in. Of course, there is the argument that Christmas is much more commercial now, and has become a tradition somewhat disconnected from its religious origin. Well, I agree that it is much more commercial now, but I think that religion is still very much entwined into it. For example, I know many people who only attend Church on Christmas and Easter; there are all the religious icons on the Christmas tree; in secular Germany, most people still put up a model of the manger in which Christ was born.

So, what is an atheist to do? We conceived that the atheist should get two days (at Christmas and at Easter) for self-worship. Call them Narcissism Days, and fill them with many unhealthy, carnal activities. In this way, much like the Christian/Orthodox holidays, they would still reflect our Pagan heritage; they would achieve the same function of getting us to channel this desire for chaos and sin into a few days each year; they would add to the diversity of human experience... and the spread of disease!

Well, on a more serious note, it does beg the question of how a culture, or religious community respects the alternative or minority religions and faiths. Certainly, no-one minds a day off, so I don't mean to suggest that the office shouldn't close on religious days, but maybe, if it is closing for one, then it should close for all? The alternative is that you allow people to chose whether they want to work or not. This, to some degree, is the practice at my place of employment: most of the Serbs were working over the Western Christmas (24th and 25th), but will off on the 6th and 7th. But my employer is also in an interesting position of being a non-Serbian organization, with a mix of people working for it. But I wonder if orthodox people in Germany can work the 24th and 25th of December and then take the 6th and 7th off (without using personal days)?

I do believe that this is starting to become the practice in a few businesses (I have heard as much from American businesses who employ Muslims), which is a good thing. Anyway, something to ponder I suppose.

Bombing your way to peace

2009-01-03T17:26:00.001-05:00

Being the New Year, I took time to clean house here. Cleaning out things seems to have a therapeutic nature, particularly at a time when other parts of your life begin to weigh heavy on the mind and soul. It is also worth noting that the apartment is at its cleanest since September. Well, on to other, more pressing matters.

"Refined notes..." is a reference to Chapter 2 of the Daodejing and speaks to the seeming contradictions in life, which in fact complement each other. The full poem is to the right of this post. Why chose this concept? It relates to the thesis I wrote for the USM Honors program in 2008 (which is also the raison d'etre of this blog), with the central paradox of an activity (soccer) which simultaneously unites and divides its participants. It relates to our lives, and the earthlings who are full of contradictions, like those working for large international organizations who support national self-determination; or those who leave their lovers and then feel regret and jealously when the lover moves on.

Serbia, my current home, is no exception to this paradox: a strong feeling of nationalism runs through this country, yet 70% of the population want Serbia be in the E.U. Serbia, where people have historically been looked down upon by Europeans, look down upon their minority cultures. These contradictions are not unique to Serbia however. All nations and states have these contradictions: In America, people drive SUV's to their environmental activism groups; Israel seeks peace by initiating war, for example.

As I see it, these contradictions are a complement in the sense that, without one, the other would not/could not exist. As we seek to understand the world, we need opposites to help define a thing. Of course, this begs a good number of questions: does this justify war? How can peace exist without war? How can we love without hate? Etc... The problem here is that it suggests we cannot move beyond such negative experiences as war, or violence. I won't pretend to have a cleaver answer to this conundrum. I will say that maybe we don't have to experience war, to desire and have peace; maybe it is enough that we know about it through history; that we have a concept of what it is. We can define peace (the absence of war, the non-violent coexistence of earthlings) because we know what war is. We can define love, because we know what hate is (this one is certainly a lot more tricky).

In any case, the entries of this blog will reflect the contradictions of the world as I experience them.

Sans titre

2009-01-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

As I said, welcome to the brand new world. It is January 1, a nice quiet day in Belgrade, cold, but not to much, and perfect for writing and thinking, and maybe reading from Tolkien later...

But I wish the news were better today, not just from the real world, but also from my universe. I woke up, sans geulle de bois, and promptly deleted all the music from Dan in my ITunes, by accident; then two thoroughly depressing emails were waiting in my inbox, leaving me with little inspiration and a big lump in my throat. So I took a long hot shower, had a shave and went for a two hour walk around town. Now, I am drinking Arabic Coffee with cardamon and Miso soup. Already the world is looking a bit happier. But my friends, take it from me, if you are going to send bad news to someone, try to avoid doing it on January 1!

I have given myself a good talking to, following Dylan's advice, and now I am focusing on the sage advice once given to me: all these feelings are part of you and your life; let them wash over you and feel them. These too, shall pass (paraphrased). Looking back over the last few weeks, it is clear that the 'events' affected me more than it should have, and has brought some self-doubt creeping back into my bones. I haven't been spinning like this for a good long while, and it is so uncomfortable. But equally, i am blessed now with experience, and have developed my writing into a vent for personal experience. I know that this too, shall pass.

The etymology of the word idiot, according to Aleks, comes from the Greek, and means: he or she who does not know. As we were talking about this last night, I thought that if it is true, that it has its origin in Greek, we are misusing the word. Well, I want to argue here that we are. Going back to Socrates and Plato the Greek, I am reminded that it was a virtue to know that one does not know. This is not to suggest that ignorance is bliss, only that with the understanding that all we 'know' is somehow subjective, can we have an open mind. What does it mean to be knowledgeable in a world so full of diversity that after thousands of years of living and seeking, we have yet to truly scratch the surface of the secrets of this universe?

Am I knowledgeable? I know a few things, but after almost 4 years of intensive study, reading, discourse and field experience, I am perpetually surprised by the subject of politics. I know that if I read a book a week for the rest of my life, on this subject, I will not exhaust all the knowledge out there. So, how can I claim to know? Particularly now, at this tender age? I cannot, and because I don't make such claims, I will always be open to more. This is part of the reason dialogue is so important.

In our world today, we seem to have the opposite impression of knowledge. It seems to me, there is an impression that there a few fundamental things to learn, which have an unshakable truth to them, and once you grasp these, then you have power and all that comes with that status. But it is not real, only perceived, and most likely, that knowledge will fail you at some point. If you rely too much on your expertise, you run a real danger of having it all collapse out from under you. But if you remain aware that there is always more to know, that truth and knowledge are never static things, you can always find solutions to a problem.

Plato and Socrates were not the first to suggest this though. We find similar lines in the Dao, where Lao Tzu suggests that knowing that one does not know, is knowing at its best.

Friends: I am an idiot.

One more for good measure

2008-12-31T06:04:00.000-05:00

Rob Hughes wrote recently that football must take care of its own. He was discussing the Icarus-like life of many stars of globalized football. Specifically, he mentions Gazza and Best as the fallen ones. Best died of alcoholism and Gazza may soon find a similar fate. I am mentioning this because, in part, I agree with Hughes, and in part, I think there is no true remedy.

Football, the sport and all those who control it, is responsible for those who make it their life, their source of income, and their identity. Football is attractive and alluring, it awakens passion, love and hate. As a little boy and an adult man, I have often dreamed of donning the shirt of FCB and running out with the lads, splitting the defense of the opposition with a deft pass, or stealing the last minuet winner. I wonder if I wouldn't give up everything to be endowed with good timing and golden legs? Of course, for most of us it is a fantasy to be indulged in as a fantasy.

But for many it becomes a reality. And one the individual is incorporated into the system of professional football, well, then the system carries some responsibility. Of course, all individuals have a choice at every given moment, but the system is responsible for its output: i.e. the players. While part of what is seductive about football is the physical contest, the other part is the glory. The glory today, as always I suppose, is fame and fortune. Soccer players are celebrities, fashion icons, goodwill ambassadors and movie stars. In short, they are brands.

This affords them much attention, wealth, luxury and excess. They are, in a sense, free of much of what keep the rest of us behind the desk, behaving in a moderate manner. But this is also where the danger lies, as in the case of Gazza and Best. Once you taste the sweet nectar of fortune and fame, who wants to go back? Some of us simply cannot handle that pressure and go mad. Soccer stars become drunks, criminals and megalomaniacs. And it is the sport and those behind the sport, which created this, thus they share the burden of responsibility. When Gazza gets wasted in a bar and gets in a fight, he is doing so, I would argue, because he needs the fight, the attention and the distraction.

But there is an even deeper problem here, one which is fundamental part of the sport itself (indeed, this is part of team sport in general). That flaw is the fact that football is at its essence a game of combat, of tactics and moves designed to crush the opponent. As such, it doesn't allow for understanding of the plight of the others, nor of the weak members of your own. It is highly aggressive and at times violent. This, in turn, is how the individuals within the sport are brought up, cultured, and expected to perform. In order to succeed, this becomes their life, and more often than not, it spills over into their private life: with violence, with drink, and with drugs. This is particularly acute in the post-career period, when the one thing you spent your life working on, is no-longer available to you, it is only natural that you also experience a loss of identity. Loss of identity, as we know from nationalism, always paves the way for violent counter-reaction.

But I also suggested that the sport cannot solve this problem, and I said so because it would mean introducing ideas, through counselling and adapted training methods, etc., that are antithetical to competition, professionalization, and war. For these types of individuals not to emerge, the focus on competition, besting, success, and glory would all have to be removed. An then? Well, then it just wouldn't be football anymore. Then there wouldn't be any Gerd Mullers, or Lionel Messis, there would be no games on TV, and at the World Cup, everyone would win.

Of course, what has been done, can be undone. That means that though the sport cannot ever avoid the creation of Icarus, it can help catch them on the way down, provide them with post career counseling, etc., what ever they need to not destroy themselves and their loved ones.

Change you can believe in!

2008-12-31T05:12:00.000-05:00

Half day at work and little to be done.

It is the turning of another year, the moment where, in our minds, the old is passing into history and the new is being dreamed up and born. For many of us, the year will be born in a violent, angry drunken rage, yet these hours seem to me better suited for reflection on what has passed, what is, and what will be.

We can take so many different approaches to the year's ending/beginning. Is it just another day in the seemingly endless cycle of days and nights, seasons and ages? Is it really the moment of renewal, when the leaves of the West are turned over and everyone gets a new start? Is it a global conspiracy by clubs and beer companies to raise their profits? Is it a mechanism of control where we throw off our chains for a night, fly into a savage rage, only to wake up with such a hang over that we resolve to be more in control (and dutifully put the chains back on)?

It is, in my eyes, all of these things and none of them. It is what it needs to be for each of us, and it has been many things for me over the 28 years of my life. At times a raging party to shed excess energy and cover insecurity over my future in a warm blanket of excess; at times a quiet evening, just another in a series that will continue until I die; at times an evening for self-imposed isolation meant to provide answers for what-ever it was I was searching. It has been a lonely night, and lively night, and a night to feel loved or in love. It has been forgettable and memorable. Some times it has dragged on, other times it was all over to quickly.

Tonight I will be in Belgrade, Serbia. Most likely the night will be some combination of the above: I will reflect on the moments past and those still to come, I will find quiet moments before heading out to join the party. At that point I will likely drink a bit to much, leaving me feeling a bit destabilized in the morning and with a promise to be more dignified and sober over the years to come.

But no matter where or with which friends I spend the evening, I know that I will think about how to structure the New Year. After all, I am a product of the Western ideology which has taught me to observe the New Year as a time to make resolutions, to focus my desire for self-improvement onto tomorrow, and to spend the night with friends. So now I ask myself, in honor of this tradition, what is this New Year going to mean for me? What will I do that is better than last year? How will I take control of the chaos and forge it into something meaningful (as if chaos had no meaning)?

Well, it is a hard one to answer, but try I must. My 'answers' will not appear here however, they will be scribbled down somewhere, or stored in my memory banks with a note to review again December 31st, 2009. Ultimately I do not take the ritual seriously, and I don't believe this is my chance at making change for the year ahead; rather I think change comes whenever you want it too. You just have to make a choice and work on it.

With that said, all that is left to say is Cheers! Cheers to 2008 and all that was part of that period of time; cheers to the people I interacted with; cheers to all the experiences I had; cheers to all the tears and laughs; cheers to all the death and life; cheers to good food, great music and long drinks; cheers to good football where ever it occurs...

... and cheers to you. Welcome to the brand new world, bienvenue en 2009

Face to Face with my Thesis

2008-12-17T01:24:00.000-05:00

I know the blog has taken on a life of its own, that it has strayed far from the original concept - a blog/log of my work on the topic of Football and Politics. While this may be true, I can say that the topic is never far from my thoughts, and from time to time, I see something or experience something, which brings home one or more of my fundamental arguments.

I had such an experience on Sunday. I was playing with my usual team. We had fun, we scored goals, we made good and bad passes, and we scuffed a lot of shots. But no-one got angry; well, apart from Marco, who got angry when "the ball hit me in the face for the second time, and the fat guy laughed." But apart from that we all had a great time, and as usual, I felt the tensions melt away.

One of the regulars on my team, a giant of a man, is, it turns out, a real live hooligan. He is that guy, who follows Svezda around the country (both the football and basketball team) and watches the game with the Delije. He also has a tattoo, which expresses his opinion of the police; and he is no fan. But this guy, for all that he is close to 7ft, is one of the happiest, nicest, gentle and well mannered people I have met. There is nothing about him and the way he presents himself, which would suggest violence and allegiance to a ultra-nationalist organization. More over, he really likes me, and likes speaking in English, which also doesn't fit the Serbian hooligan image.

Thus we see the contradiction, and one that is seen in many hooligan cultures. How can a nice, friendly man, like my team-mate, have such a fascination with, and participate in, such a violent community? As I said, he is not exceptional though. In the heyday of English hooliganism, there were many "respectable" citizens (doctors, lawyers, etc...) who were in the various firms around the country. I don't know where the answer to this lies, except to suggest that, in my team-mate, we witness the artificial nature, the constructed nature, of identity. It is this construction that allows two seemingly contradictory persona to co-exist in a single individual.

When I returned home, I switched on the TV and found myself watching Shalke Vs. Hoffenheim. The game was the final game of this first part of the season. I was, I must say, a bit shocked at how nasty the game was. There were endless fouls and fights, two red cards, and continuous yelling. All of this on the pitch, not in the stands, where you might expect it. As I was watching it, I though, how is it possible that a game, being broadcast live on TV, with professional players, in a stadium, with no less than 4 referees, be so dirty? There is so much regulation, and real consequences to the fouls and fighting. Yet, the game I had just played had no regulation at all, except for the honor system (self-regulation), and not once has there been a fight, and excessive foul, or verbal abuse.

Again, I don't have the answer, except to suggest it may be the fact that in the Bundesliga, they are playing for a prize, and their wages; while in the little bubble next to the basketball stadium, we are not. So, while my game restored my faith that the game can be a simple, fun game, as I watched the Shalke game, I was once more disappointed.

Not the 20.00 News...

2008-12-13T09:06:00.000-05:00

Digging in the Dirt

2008-12-13T07:10:00.000-05:00

Well, time to get my hands dirty. I just received the confirmation from Columbia Univ. that my proposed paper has been accepted. I'll be presenting a paper at ASN Convention 2009 on my Birthday. That means I am committed to being in NYC in the spring; I've always liked the City in the spring. The topic of my paper you ask?

"Roma's 'Gazella' Settlement in Belgrade: Between Nationalism and Globalism"

This will be my first conference presentation (unless you include Thinking Matters), and will be fun. But how to address this issue? It will be a combination of interviews with the Gazella inhabitants and Serbian (non-Roma) citizens, theoretical discourse, and a small project with the kids of Gazella. I'll be reaching back to some of the theories from my thesis and HON 299 class (Critical Multiculturalism, Performance Ethnography, Carl Schmitt, Balibar, Foucault, etc...).

From a while back:

Americans have no clear idea what a powerful force Nationalism can be, and how it can be a true barrier for equal access in so many parts of the World. National identity in the US is virtually non-existent, and is synonymous with citizenship. People in the US, by and large, are loyal to their state first, then to any ethnic affiliation they have. For the African-Americans and the South American-Americans this relationship is the most difficult, and these two communities are often the most distinct from the hegemonic "American-ness", yet if push came to a shove, if, to use Huntington's language for a moment, there were a clash of civilizations, then I believe their American identity would trump the day. As a result of this configuration, this loyalty to citizenship and state, it is possible to have multicultural communities live side-by-side.

This is a very different story in the rest of the world. Looking at this corner of the world, Serbia (and this can be applied to the wider Balkan peninsula), ethnicity is first, then citizenship. Even if you share a citizenship, you will likely split if there were tensions/conflict between your ethnicities. In Serbia, you have people claiming to be Serbs (in this case the ethnicity is determined by affiliation to the Orthodox Church, thus you can only be a Serb if you are Orthodox. A Jew or catholic could only be a Serbian Citizen), Croatians, Albanians, Bosnians, Bosniaks, Hungarians, Romanians, Vlachs, Roma, etc.

In all these cases, the ethnic affiliation is more primary over the citizenship. It is also the cause of significant discrimination for those not belonging to the Hegemon, which in the case of Serbia, is Serb ethnicity. I would argue, if there were conflict between Albania and Serbia, or Serbia and Croatia (both of which have occurred in the past), then the Serbian citizens who identified as Croatians or the Serbian citizens who identified as Albanians would side with their ethnic affiliation, not their passport.

I wrote this piece (it has been edited since) on the way home from visiting Councils for Inter-ethnic Relations in Vojvodina. I'm thinking now, however, that the exception to the rule is likely the Roma population. They are exceptional in many ways however, as there is no homeland they can claim, no geographical expression (historical or current) which they claim. Furthermore, they are persecuted in every corner of the world; they tend to be impoverished and; most of them are not registered in any formal manner. Thus, they are often 'invisible' persons.

US Media in Crisis

2008-12-09T17:39:00.000-05:00

The Times of India reported today that three of the largest papers in the US, were on the verge of failure: LA Times and Chicago Tribune are filing for bankruptcy, and the New York Times is refinancing its office building to keep the lights on...

Is this getting much media coverage in the US? When I google it, all I get is the one story in the Times of India.

Why Serbia Doesn't See Change in 'You Know Who'

2008-12-06T05:10:00.000-05:00

To be clear to all the Obama-ites out there, this entry is not a personal political statement, but rather a reflection of how his appointments are viewed from over here, on the fringe. So please don't send the Rightist Police after me...

~Vice President: Joe "I split up Yugoslavia" Biden

~Secretary of State: Hillary "I encouraged Bill to use NATO forces in Serbia" Clinton

~National Security Advisor: James "I used to Run NATO" Jones

~Defense Secretary: Robert "I was appointed by Bush" Gates

~Treasury Secretary: Timothy "I worked for the IMF" Geithner

~Commerce Secretary: Bill "I worked for Clinton" Richardson

~Chief of Staff: Rahm "I also worked for Clinton and I have brass balls" Emanuel

I am, of course having a bit of fun here. I don't know if these choices will end up being wise or not, and they may well be. I hope so. But irrespective, the opinion in Serbia of these individuals is less than choice. All of them, in some form, are associated with the Clinton era, the NATO bombing and Kosovo conflict, and in general, with the Washington establishment.

Thus, for Serbia, there will be little tangible change coming from the US after Jan. 20th. Naturally, Obama cannot ponder every single country when making these appointments, but he will have to expect that the choice he made, will send a negative message to quiet a few corners of the World.

History of Soccer in America

2008-11-29T09:39:00.000-05:00

Self-Ethnography

2008-11-29T08:16:00.000-05:00

Where am I now? What do I mean by that? Physically I am in my apartment in Belgrade, Serbia, in my 28th year, of the year 2008 in the western calender. I'm putting Bob Dylan CD's into my Itunes and revisiting them, with a bit of Ani thrown in for good measure.

Philosophically I am in a place of great decisions, biding my time to observe how the landscape arranges itself. What do I mean with landscape? The variety of options and possibilities, in terms of career and academic opportunities, that are being juggled by yours truly. What do I mean by career? The activity that will take most of my time over the course of the next 30 years of my life, and through which I will gain most of my income.

In this moment I am also feeling somewhat nostalgic, a product of Bob Dylan and that Nashville Skyline, but also because I have spent a good portion of the morning dismantling my old blog, and transcribing the old entries I valued. What do I mean by value? The entries that presented a coherent opinion on global event and trends, personal development and introspection, and entries that captured a specific moment in time and froze it in words.

I will spend a few years editing the 50 pages of entries I salvaged, and then think of doing something with it. It presents a glimps of my self-evolution (on multiple fronts) over the period of October 2005 - November 2007. But the reification of David A. Brown in not complete, and continues in this forum instead. Now somewhat more cautious with how the ink is spilt.

What do I mean more cautious? Careful and pragmatic with what is posted for public consumption, often with career possibilities in mind.

Fruska Gora

2008-11-23T07:05:00.000-05:00

Traveling with a couple friends last weekend, we stopped off at an Orthodox Monastery in Fruska Gora, not far from Novi Sad. The place was beautifully maintained with nice mosaics in the outer walls of the place. The church itself resembled an Austrian Catholic design in the yellow color and shape of its steeple. Subsequent conversations with a few of the other guests revealed that it was indeed of Austrian design, built during the Austro-Hungarian control of Vojvodina.

Behind the Monastery was a small path leading into the hills. We climbed for about 45 minuets, passing through fruit orchards, clusters of various types of trees, herds of sheep, and moments of total silence. It was thoroughly relaxing and pleasant.

Returning from the hills, we entered the Monastery, which was, as expected, calm and well kept. I find the Orthodox churches interesting for their lack of space to sit. It strikes me every time I enter one, and recently I asked a friend about it. She said that people just stand during the sermons. Men on the right, women on the left, the sermons don't last too long (up to about 45 minuets) making it manageable. Also, there is not the attendance ritual in the Orthodox tradition that you find in Catholicism. By that I mean people don't go every Sunday at a certain time. They can go any day of the week. Furthermore, the sermons consist of the monks gathering in the church to read, though it's much more like singing, from their sacred texts. Attending church is simply going during these times, standing and listening, crossing yourself at the (many) appropriate time(s) and at the end, going to the front to kiss the pictures of the saints.

As we left the church, one of my friends stopped to buy a small token from an old nun. She was selling various, religious type goods (candles, crosses, pictures...). My friend is American, the Nun is Serbian, so they struggled to communicate. She asked if he spoke German. He didn't, but I did, and we conducted business in German. Then she asked where we were from. I told her we were American. She threw her hands up in disgust: "ohh!" she said. "Ich spreche Deutsche aber kein English. English nicht wollen. NATO bomben!" In her eyes, we were the responsible party for what happened in 1999. For that reason, she didn't like our language, though she still sold her goods to my friend. Apparently out language wasn't welcome, but our money was ok.

None of us wanted to get drawn into a debate on this issue, nor would it have been appropriate. We thanked her and left, followed by her unflinching stare, and a look on her face that suggested she was bursting to tell us something; she remained quiet. She even followed us to the door and asked if we had questions about the church. We declined the offer.

As we left the church my friend asked me what she had said. I told him. "I thought so" he said. "Excuse me" said a man behind us. "Can I tell you something about the church?" he was a Serbian man with very good English. As we were pressed for time, we declined, but we all walked together to where our cars were parked. He and his wife were clearly interested in us, how we found this place, and why we were in Serbia. The fact that we were American had no negative impact on his interest in us. We left with an invitation to his Bakery in Zemun, following him as he guided us back to the Highway.

We drove back to BG to pick someone up from the Airport, which is right next to the airplane museum. The only museum in the world to host a shot down American Stealth Bomber. Shot down by the Serbians during the 1999 NATO bombing.

A footballing experience

2008-11-15T07:22:00.000-05:00

I played soccer on Thursday night with a group of lads from work, Serbs and Italians, and me. It was such a bad experience, and I won't be playing with them again. But it was also fascinating to be part of the experience. I was rotating every 10 minuets with Marco, so I was able to play and watch these middle aged guys get progressively more angry and aggressive as the hour bore on. I knew before the match ended that this would be my only appearance with this group.

You see, for me football is like a hobby. I take it seriously, I try to play well, I work hard, but it has to be relaxing and fun. If it is not, there is no point to it. I am 28, I will never be a pro, nor will I ever get much better than I am now (without serious training), so all I can hope for is to maintain my level, and have fun playing this beautiful game. This philosophy is not shared by the Thursday evening crew.

Granted, they play at a slightly higher level than me, but their attitude is so hyper aggressive, that no-one has any pleasure in playing. They spend most of the game yelling at each other every time a pass is miss hit, or every time a shot goes wide. I took a lot of abuse for my weak passing. If I was in training with Cvezda or Partizan, then I could understand the shouting. But guys, we are playing a 5-a-side match, we are all of us never going to be pro-players, so relax and enjoy it!

The yelling continued after the game. As all the men returned to the changing room they were arguing over the bad passes and missed opportunities. I never felt like it was going to get violent, but they were practically screaming at each other. What I found hilarious about all this was, that as these men were arguing vigorously, they were also getting naked in front of each other. They then all went into the shower, to wash down in front of each other, where the shouting continued. A great juxtaposition I must say.

What I take away from this, because if I take nothing away from this then the evening really was a waste, is that these men exposed the mechanism with-in team sports which can encourage domination, aggression and eventually violence. The desire for victory is so strong with these men that they are willing, even on such an insignificant occasion, to let themselves get angry at their friends for not finding the back of the net. It is the engagement in the activity of football that brings out this attitude and mental state.

Of course, I can only speculate why they get this way, but if I had to guess, I would say they feel a level of frustration in other parts of their lives. Football is the only moment they have to release physical energy, and as soon as the lid is off on this tension, it quickly boils over into aggression.

I have the exact opposite experience every Sunday with my team. We are relaxed before, during and after the game. We take shots from the most improbable angles, we miss hit passes all the time, yet no-one yells at us. In short, we have fun while we play because we have no pretensions about what we are on the pitch. We are a group of young guys who enjoy kicking a ball around. Period.

*******

I was meditating today and became aware of how all my thoughts were directed towards what I saw a missing from my life. Every thought started with 'I need' or 'I should' or 'I want'. I wasn't spending anytime thinking about what I have, what is now.

An amalgamation of mental capital...

2008-11-08T12:42:00.000-05:00

Now that the dust has settled, and I clearly need to move on and stop suggesting that a certain person might not have the effect everyone hopes he/she will have, I'll get back to business. I have a bunch of odds and ends to throw up here, stuff I jotted down in my notebook over the last month.

~Date: Unknown

There is always a lot of time to think and reflect when you are in a car full of Serbs, you can't understand what they are saying, and your not the one driving.

In this moment, as I am silent, life appears to me like a flock of birds in flight. I don't mean those migrating birds, flying in some organized pattern, with leaders and followers (though this presents another metaphor we could explore...), I mean those simply flying above a field or around a town. There is some basic reason for their flight, some objective governing and guiding their actions, but that is not how it appears to me.

Between the point of departure and the moment they attain their objective seems to be a series of acts of chaos, spontaneous choices and irrational movements. There appears to be no leader, no solid direction, and what little direction there is, shifts without rhyme or reason. I think our lives are somewhat like this no? Or at least, they can be.

Everything is constantly changing even as it appears to remain the same. We exert little to no control over life's course, and we are always, as Hunter S. Thompson once said, subject to the whims of the great magnet. For my context, I might say, subject to the way.

~Date: 30/10/2008

I should be more thankful for the rain. It is a blessed thing for all those who don't get enough. Yet when it fall here, we run away from it, cursing, as though it were some great evil.

Election Night Part II

2008-11-04T17:53:00.000-05:00

Right, something about the election. I have something of a cynical view of the Obama rally cry 'Hope' and 'Change', partly because I am not convinced that Obama wants what he tells us he wants, but also because I think as President, he won't be able to bring the change he promised. The system just won't take it.

I'm afraid that this will have a devastating effect on the American public, making them hopelessly cynical, angry and afraid. This reaction, if it happens, will open the door to an even more fierce brand of conservatism than the Bush years have given us. Obama has been brilliant at tapping social power, but he is treading on dangerous waters: the mob in ever susceptible to changes. If he succeed, or at least maintain the appearance of success, the mobilized mob will quickly become his nightmare.

My cynicism also makes me question whether a man who was put in the most powerful seat in the world, would really want to make changes that would limit and reduce that power.

Obama presents the US with a paradox: a victory for McCain will confirm the racist character of the American voter, yet a victory for Obama will, and I believe can, only result in huge disappointment for Americans who seem so caught up in Obamainia. A disappointment, which, in this collapsing economy, and polarizing world, will fast turn in to extremism. E, scolding me for my cynicism, said that the US doesn't need immediate results, but rather the ideas, and a break from the old order.

I don't understand why people think the president has so much power to make change? The office doesn't, it requires a lot of other people to go along and implement the initiative. Sure, Obama will have a lot of popular support going in, and I expect he will find a double majority in congress, but he is also going to e subject to the people who funded his 605 million dollar campaign. Ok, many of whom were lower and middle class, but he also took money from large companies, and they are not the kind that like to much change, and only a bit of hope.

But I do have hope: hope that I am wrong about Obama; hope that he will make the changes he talks about; hope he governs without self interest and with profound respect for the people who voted him in; I hope E is right, that the idea will be enough. Only time will tell.

Time for a cat nap.

Election Night

2008-11-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

Calm before the storm. It's almost 11 pm here, one more hour until NH and VA close their polls and we start to see results trickle in. I've been watching Champions League and hanging out with Aleks and Nico, determining that all we had in common was that our reason for being was to be there at that moment. I'm stocked up on junk food and waiting for the slaughter to start. So, to pass the time, I'll put down some thoughts, and stop hoping, quietly, that Ralph Nader wins the election.

I was re-reading some notes before sending off 5 pages of writings/confessions/reflections and thinking about my future here in the Balkans, thinking about how my ideas of this corner have changed through experience. I have to admit, that I held some real prejudice against Balkans people since my youth. These feelings were impressed upon me through friends and the relative poverty these Eastern Europeans lived in when they were in Germany.

They were the marginal elements of our town, living in the worst houses, wearing the cheapest clothes and riding the oldest bikes, and to us young kids, that seemed to put them below us in someway. They also never participated in our football games, and never attended our school. We were, for all intents and purposes, living segregated. The aggressive, at times violent behaviour of the immigrants, I understand now, was more related to their living conditions than any inherent character flaw.

At the time, this behaviour was just irrational to me. Of course, I felt that way because I didn't understand anything about them. My opinion is now different, and has been changing over the last years as a result of exposure and experience with this community/culture/people. Now I live in this part of the world, and I doubt it's a coincidence. I have of course met people who seemed to confirm my racism, but I did meet these types in the US also. For every one who has confirmed this feeling, I have meet two or three who have proved me wrong. As a result of opening myself to this, I now feel quiet comfortable here, in this culture, in this part of the world.

It's no worse than any other part of the World I have seen, and in some ways more interesting and open.

...and now for November!

2008-11-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

It's a big month if your name is Obama or McCain {or Langevin ;-) } I'll be up watching the returns as long as it seems relevant, but I think it might be a short night, unless of course the immigration issue explodes, but so far it seems like its too little to late for McCain. As Alex said, two days until we avoid a war with Iran...

I have a computer at home again. Its' nice, but for the last few weeks, I have been reading more, and today, I was online most of the day... yes, yes, it's a question of discipline, blah, blah. I was also writing by hand, and on real paper too! How novel.

Well, I had be constructive today, so this entry is my effort. I have a host of reading to do, and over the next month I'll post about Stara Planina, Halloween, and all the other things that occurred during this media blackout. Till then... peace

Once more for October!

2008-10-30T03:24:00.000-04:00

Il nous rest deux jour en Oktobre, donc j'ecrit un dernier text, dedier a ce mois manifique. Really, It has been a fantastic month, fantastique comme on dit, and I am always sad to see October go. While the changing of the leaves hasn't been spectacular in Belgrade, it has been in the rest of Serbia. I think the fact that we have had warm weather and little rain this month, has really made the colors pop. Stara Planina was stunning. The most untouched nature I have ever seen. But more on that another time...

Well, I have about four or five journal entries to post when I have time (they are all hand written) and hopefully that will be soon. A very generous friend is lending me her laptop for November and December. I'll be connected again! I mean, she is also doing it because I am doing grant research for her, but still, it is most kind.

Just a quick note on the film Body of Lies. Very disappointing as it relies on some awful ideological crap to justify some really nasty deaths. Only Russle Crowe was worth watching, doing a sort of 'G W Bush runs the CIA' routine. But the plot was weak - a strange sort of coming of age film for a CIA agent who has to murder a bunch of Arabs before he sees the 'light'. The one good line comes at the beginning of the film when the Jordanian head of Intelligence tells the Americans, torture doesn't work. After that, if your just looking for brutal action and violence, this is your film, but you won't find anything resembling a decent, honest debate about the state of American - Mid East relations.

R. Scott tried, I got the feeling, but fell short. There are those moments when the CIA is portrait as a big incapable organization, and the Arab intelligence service as sleek and effective, using 'homegrown' methods. But it's all overshadowed by this rather thick covering of patriotic treacle, and I guess most people will miss these finer points.

So tonight I'll be off to see Bangkok Dangerous, a hard boiled Nic Cage thriller. At least I am not hoping this one will tackle serious geopolitical themes... ;-)

R.I.P Macbook Jun '07 - October '08

2008-10-14T11:20:00.000-04:00

Yeah, no more lap top...rotten. Means that if I want to write in the blog, I have to stay late at the office... a rather uninspiring atmosphere... So, it's going to be quiet in this space for a while, but my paper notebook will be filling up, and one day I'm start posting again...

Until then...

A few notes from Meeting with Prof. Duhašek:

Read Arendt "life of the mind"
On my question of whether those with knowledge also have political responsibility, her answer was emphatically yes!

~Even for fringe elements there is responsibility. If there is no sense of political responsibility in all elements of society, then there should be...
~If this sense of responsibility is not created, then there is always a chance that evil can return;
~The responsibility needs to be integrated into the very fundamentals of citizenship.
~Serbian Media never listed Karađič's crimes after his arrest;
~Responsibility can be easily displaced unless it is imposed;
~Women in black - take idea of "Not in my Name" to all corners of society;
~Victim mentality never allows for a dealing with the past. You have to think also about the ways in which your own political community has hurt others and your responsibility for that hurt;
~It's my responsibility to see how I have hurt others, not how others have hurt me; that is their responsibility...

...Interesting stuff.

email exchange

2008-10-03T12:17:00.000-04:00

There is so much to write these days, but I am finding myself fairly tired at the end of every day. Its the type of tired where inspiration is low and all you want to do is sit on the couch and watch TV. I remember feeling that way a lot in California. Well, I'll catch up with everything over time, for now, because I don't want to totally ignore the Wall Street crash, here is an email exchange with a former professor.

My email:

As for Wall street, I seem to agree most with Nader when he calls the whole financial system a global casino. I feel fairly conflicted, because somehow I don't want them to get the bail-out from the very pockets of the people they have been taking advantage of for so long. Yet, if there is no bail-out, what happens then? What happens to the US, and the Global economy? Total meltdown could have terrifying geo-political consequences.

I guess, in the end, I would say give them the bailout but with significant regulation. However, you cannot legislate in good behavior, and I guess the system will spend the next 50 years trying to undo these regulations, like it did after the 1930s. So, regulation alone is not an answer. There is a more fundamental issue of greed and a disconnection from responsibility which needs addressing; and how you do that...

I just read an article in the nation by Greider. In case you haven't already seen it:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/greider2

Professors response:

Check out Kucinich's web site and the article by Paul Craig Roberts (Oct.3-5) on the Counterpunch site. The only approach that has a chance to be successful is one that addresses the problem from the bottom up. If people are working, and if their house payments are lowered by re financing them at reasonable interest rates (or at values that can be sustained over the long run), then people will be able to pay most of their debts on time and the financial system, on the whole, will remain solvent.

The rub in the financial sector, however, is similar to what Greider discussed in the SE Asian crisis: When the financial sector is uncertain of profits they withdraw their funds and starve the real economy. The government can address this liquidity problem by injecting funds, not to the main finance center banks (who will hold on to it to cover their speculative losses), but instead to local banks and credit unions who will lend it to local customers.

None of this will stop some contraction of the real economy as we adjust to the difference between what the capitalists imagined they could squeeze out from folks around the world and what people were actually able to produce for them; and as borrowers (individual, corporate and government) adjust their consumption to come into balance with what they can actually pay for over the longer term. Count on a real decline (with price and currency rate adjustments) of between 10 and 20%. No fun at all.

Reflections on Political Responsibility

2008-09-29T16:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I could be writing about the stock-market I guess, but really, I just don't have much to say about it. It's not a shock to me; the financial market is a big, global casino and like at any good casino, poor Jane and Joe who are hoping for the a roll of the dice to change their lives, are getting fucked in a bad way. I'm sorry for them. That's it.

I would much rather write a short entry in response to, or in reflection on, an article written by Serbian political scientist Dasa Duhacek on the role of individual and collective responsibility in Serbian. She is making her analysis of the events of the 1991-1999 period through the lens of Hanna Arendt's thesis of responsibility. In essence Arendt, and subsequently Duhacek, argue that it is the responsibility of the individual for crimes committed in their name, by their political representatives, elected or not.

As Duhacek suggests, "No leader, no hierarchical structure can stand without the support of a plurality of individuals..." Thus it is suggested that anyone who participates in an unjust system, who does not actively oppose or declare their "disloyalty" is responsible for all acts carried out by the system. Arendt's most famous work on the subject is, of course, Eichmann in Jerusalem.

As I read Duhacek's text, and the parallels she draws to Serbian society, I found myself in agreement, nodding my head in a somber, scholarly fashion at the appropriate moments. But a question jumped out at me half way through: what about knowledge? I wondered what the role of knowledge was in relation to individual responsibility? I know that for myself, knowledge is precisely what makes me responsible for what is carried out by my government (as I have not done much to oppose it or declare myself disloyal...). Yet, can we say the same about individuals who, for one reason or another, have never been educated to construct such critical thoughts of the political system under which they live?

I thought of these question in the Serbian context. There is a significant gap in wealth between Belgrade and the rest of the country, and again between the region of Vojvodina and Central and South Serbia. As a result, educational centers such as top academies and Universities tend to be clustered in Belgrade and Vojvodina (with a few minor exceptions). Thus it is also logical to conclude that there is a difference in level, strength, and access of education also.

So, can we say that a person, to poor to move to Belgrade and attend university, where they would acquire the same critical analysis skills I posses, is also responsible? What about agricultural communities? There lives are focused on the production of food, there academic education is secondary to the agricultural one. What is their relationship to responsibility?

My question, finally, is simply, what responsibility does an individual have, who has no knowledge, and therefore no ability or tools with which to critically asses their lives as political, towards the actions of the state?

Luckily, I will have the occasion to ask Dasa Duhacek herself tomorrow. Stay tuned...

It came to me at 2 am...

2008-09-28T07:52:00.000-04:00

“Degenerates, degenerate. You'll turn into monkeys!”

The above quote was taken from an interview with Slavoj Zizek. It is called Zizek on Vegetarianism and can be found on youtube.com. I am mentioning this because since my arrival in Serbia I have chosen to follow a vegetarian diet.

The reasons for this conversion are interesting, to me at least. In part I am doing this to test myself, to see how much meat is a habit, and how deeply it is ingrained in human culture. Serbia is particularly meat orientated and not always open minded towards new ideas or identities, adding to the challenge. A fellow (Serbian) vegetarian shared the story of a time when he was offered some food, which he refused due to the meat content. The food pusher, however, protested that there was no meet in the dish. Only noodles and chicken.

The question here is whether I eat meat because my body needs it, or simply because that is how I was brought up, with the societies around me (including the educational system) telling me I need proteins (which I do) and that I get that from eating meat (which is true), but not telling me where else I can get it. I have also learned that the process of digesting animal proteins, turning them into something my body can use, takes a huge amount of energy, and thus is not particularly efficient, particularly in relation to the proteins derived from non-meat sources, which are already in a form our body can use.

I have also chosen to abstain from eating meat due to conditions suffered by the animals born and raised for human use and consumption. Not only do their lives amount to a miserable torture, but also, the waste produced is an environmental disaster. The waste created by thousands of cows, or pigs or chickens living in a tiny geographical area generally gets dumped into nearby water supplies, and contains all sorts of bacteria that should not be there. This water is then eventually consumed by other earthlings, making them sick, and spreading disease.

I think it also symbolizes our detachment from the natural world in which we have no choice but to inhabit anyway. Our subjugation of animals is but another level of power games and crude domination. The fact that meat is not a necessity for living a healthy comfortable life means this treatment of other earthlings is also not needed. As such, I am doing my best not to participate in this system.

Anyone interested in a deeply disturbing hour long documentary should watch “Earthlings”, you can google it and watch it for free on google video.

It has been interesting to observe my own willingness to admit my vegetarianism. Thus far I have been cautious to admit it, and I find myself, particularly in company where I fear a hostile reaction, minimizing its significance, or shying away from admission to not eating meat. What is this symbolic of? A fear of being the outsider? Or not wanting to challenge the norm (which is to eat meat)? Both I guess. Being a minority is never an easy thing, as the rest of society considers you a fringe element, as different, even if they are not overtly hostile towards you.

Ok, maybe being a vegitarian is not as serious as being an ethnic minority, but the mechanism of social marginalization is the same. If you don't fit in somehow, people like to question and make fun of you. I doubt I will ever be beaten up because I like veggies more than meat, but I can still feel unwelcome, like there is something wrong with me for my lifestyle. On some level that is just as brutal as being beaten up, because it make me feel pshycologically inferior or not normal.

It's an ongoing process for now, and a learning experience. At least I can say I haven’t had any meat for more than two months now, and I feel fine. No different from when I did consume beef, pork, or chicken (wait, that’s not meat…). I guess meat is not essential to our survival, and while I am suddenly growing hair in strange places, at least I am not a monkey yet.

e-dialogue

2008-09-23T14:51:00.000-04:00

The text below is a response to an email from a good friend in Maine. She was emailing me about my entry "Odds and Ends" in which I discussed my reaction to an interaction with a man in the street. My friend question whether the response was truly racist, or was it not more classist?

"To answer your question, re: "odds and ends", I tend to think of racism as being another term for discrimination, which can take place in many contexts (class, skin color, gender, etc.) so you are right to recognize a classist element to situation (what are you, a Marxist or something!! ;)). There is a huge financial gulf between myself and the Roma communities of the world and my prejudice towards this man is a general discrimination. I think I tended to focus on the ethnicity issue simply because it was the most obvious signifier for my response to this man.

I also know that as I was growing up in Paris, which has a significant Roma population, I was feed the stereotype of Roma as "Gypsies and thieves". Of course, this is just as much a classist mentality as a racist one.

What it ultimately boils down to is a fear of what is different from yourself, because in so many aspects of our childhood socialization process we are taught to discriminate against difference, against otherness (what ever form it takes). This was, in some way, the point I tried to make in my thesis, that by introducing team mentality and segregation through team colors, soccer (or any team sport) is encouraging a rigid, discriminatory ideology, and the physical (violent) element only enhances this type of hierarchy.

Certainly, the situation I found myself in vis-a-vis the Roma man could have happened anywhere, and it was not entirely his skin color that triggered my response. It was a combination of signifiers that made my mind assign him with the label of 'other'."

From Slavoj...

2008-09-20T15:25:00.000-04:00

Defining moments

2008-09-18T15:14:00.001-04:00

Well, September doesn't look like it's going to break records on this blog, in terms of entries anyway. Between the sudden increase in workload, starting Serbian class, and a brief sejourn from home Internet connectivity (unpaid bills will do that to you, E said) have made for less than inspired evenings. But all is well here.

Over in Serbian politics, I think September will be a record month however. The implosion of the Radical party alone has the country shocked. Nikolic's split with the Radicals is as shocking as it would be if suddenly Hilary Clinton left the dems and started her own party. The Radicals (SRS) are arguably the single most popular party in Serbia, and the only reason they aren't in power is because no-one wants to coalition with them, and currently the Democrats (DS) have a fairly solid coalition with the Socialists (SPS) and some of the smaller progressive parties (like LDP and G-17).

The fact that Nikolic, who wasn't even the leader of the party, could single handedly tear it in two, virtually overnight, is amazing. Furthermore, he has already established a new party (Forward Serbia) and co-opted a significant portion of the SRS MPs. Its as if he was planning this all along... I have to say, I do find it ironic that the issue that triggered Nikolic's departure was the ratification of the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) by Serbian Parliament. This issue, a key step in eventual EU integration, should be a no brainer for a nationalist: no way should they support it! But there was support within SRS for signing it, most notably by Nikolic. He even publicly announced the SRS would support it. Then Seselj, calling long distance from Holland, said: au contraire mon ami, SRS will not support this!

Nikolic left the party on the spot, and the SRS MPs boycotted the vote, and Serbian Parliament ratified the SAA. Briliant stuff. As A said, looks like the radicals are just going where the money is. It made me think for a moment, in a way, maybe this is exactly what democracy does, it tempers views, bringing everyone toward the middle. The middle is where the largest pot of votes and cash are.

The other significant event thus far in September are the developments in getting the Serbia's case on Kosovo heard by the ICJ (today the GA added it to their agenda: big score for Vuk!).

Odds and Ends

2008-09-08T15:10:00.000-04:00

Travel clearly is good for the writer in me. I am glad to say that August was the second busiest month, in terms of entries, on this blog. :)

I was confronted by my own deeply repressed racism the other day. It was the day where I was wandering around suburban Beograd, searching for my dentist. I was going round in circles, 30 minuets late when a Roma man, who was going through the trash and extracting the recyclable materials, called me over. In my frustration, and embarrassment at being totally clueless about where I was going, I wanted to ignore him, but I didn't. I went over and he started rattling off in Serbian, and I didn't understand anything. Eventually we figured out what the other was trying to do, and he managed to give me directions (albeit to the wrong dentist). But as he was talking to me, I noticed that I was keeping a certain distance from him and that I had my hand over my wallet in my back pocket. I had done these things subconsciously, but I felt awful once I realized what was going on.

This man had reached out and tried to help me the best he could, and my immediate reaction to him was to condemn him as a thief. It made me think back to HON 299, because I think, in some way, this is the very learned reaction, totally artificial, that Dusan was trying to get us to recognize was part of us. The critical multiculturalist in me has now exposed the deeply subconscious suspicions of otherness, embodied by this Roma man. Now I am aware of this mechanism and hope that I can deal with it in future encounters with the other.

Hmm, is it racist of me to even describe the man by (what I am assuming) is his ethnic origin? I ask this because it feels like I am not looking past his ethnicity if I continue to use it for my social cues. Rather than being a "Roma" man, maybe he is just a man.

Email from abroad

2008-09-05T14:22:00.000-04:00

"One thing struck me about your thesis and your bibliography (this is me don't forget) and that is how are you tying gender into all this? For instance - something struck me about the football game ( and the same thing hits me again and again when listening to the news, looking at captions under pictures and soon). You talk about the number of "people" in the stadium and the"fans".

I've put those words in inverted commas because I wonder what those collective nouns are hiding - where they "people" or were they men with a few women? Were they fans or again where they actually men who happened to be fans? If you think about the way collective nouns are used in reporting events, especially from societies where men predominate - they hide lots of things...."

This is the second time in two weeks this topic has come up re:my thesis. Its true, when I look at my bibliography, that I have defined everything from a masculine point of view, and thus made assumptions about the subjects of my discourse. The only female writer I can say had an impact on my thinking is Silvia Federici (Caliban and the Witch), but she didn't get a nod in the actual text.

It is clear that I need to take these issues into consideration. When looking over my main theoretical arguments, particularly in relation to discrimination, gender has a significant aspect to contribute. Hmm, that sounds like I am belittling it. No, what I mean is that I cannot exclude it from the discourse; I cannot pick and choose.

To my critics, I say Merci; this is an ongoing body of work and mental evolution for me, and you are contributing to its shape. Weiter so...

blogging before bed

2008-09-02T13:50:00.000-04:00

What a day. Long. At work at 810 am to prepare for the morning department meeting, then a long (longer than it needed to be) meeting, and then into the dentist chair. I have one cavity, and otherwise perfect teeth. But the cavity is now plugged, and my teeth are shiny again.

Why write about this? Well, two years ago I went to the dentists in the US, Aspen Dental, and had a check up and a cleaning. They charged $60 for the cleaning, and then the dentist tried to tell me I needed 4 (four) minor fillings. I was surprised, but when they told me the total for the four fillings would be around $1000 dollars, I was devastated. No way I could afford that. So, I just brushed like a crazy man, and didn't get the fillings.

How surprised was I today when my Serbian dentists told me my teeth were in great shape, bar the one small cavity. I certainly didn't need 4 fillings. So, I was pleased, of course, but also in-sensed at the fact that I was almost scammed by this dental chain. How ironic that I was saved by poverty. By the way, one filling in Serbia cost $35 dollars, not $250. Even if I didn't have dental coverage, I would still be able to afford it.

Yesterday I wrote about the experience in the Red Star stadium, and today I thought some more about it. I conceptualized the "North Curve" as a kind of law-free zone, where there is basically a state of anarchy, and in which you can do anything you want. Into this zone, no figures of legal authority dare set foot, at least not until things get so bad that the riot forces are called in.

Some one asked me today if the three kids smoking pot could have done the same in the US? I said no, certainly not in that context. Not so openly and blatantly, right in front of the security forces. In the US, those kids would have been busted for sure. But the stadium culture is also different, less violent and anarchistic, as the average US sports fan is a more law abiding person than a Serbian soccer fan.

Hello September...

2008-09-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

Sunday was perfect. A football match followed by a football match. First stop was the Red Star game at Svezda stadium. The match was very poorly attended, I estimate about 5,000 people, but it was like being one step away from my thesis. The people in the stadium, at least the ones in the section where we were (North Curve, Red Star section), were only a generation away from their predecessors who went to Zagreb in 1991, who followed Arkan to the front line, and who fought in Vukovar.

Watching the leader of the firm stand on his bench and pump up the crowd, and seeing the many young (by young, I mean 10-15) I felt I was literally witnessing the moment of where the ideology was being transfered and propagated. It was both devastating and fascinating at the same time. The singing went, as the game deteriorated for Red Star, from encouraging support from the fans no matter what, to calling for the coaches head to threatening the players by telling them they were going to break into the training ground and beat them up.

But the most telling moment came as the game ended. The firm, en mass moved towards the very front rows of the north curve. They did this to call the players to come to them over. It was not an aggressive move, yet before they even got all the way down, the riot police appeared out of no where and formed a barrier along the fence. It seemed to me an unnecessary move on their part, and is actually what provoked the most violent behavior of the evening when the Delijer began to actually launch the flares and at the cops. This in turn provoked a small stamped of people out of the stadium, I guess out of fear of what may happen. But that was also where it ended, and slowly the crowed dispersed.

During the match I watched three young boys smoke a joint in plain sight. They were not even hiding it from the security forces right on the other side of the fence. It made me think of something DB said a few weeks ago as we discussed the situation over the Karadzic riot. It appears as if the cops are a little less committed to the rule of law, than the hooligans are to chaos. Maybe it's a stretch to make the connection here, but the kids stood in plain sight breaking the law, the security force, clearly recognizing what was going on, did nothing. He just watched.

email to a friend

2008-08-31T06:03:00.000-04:00

"Dear Xxxxxx,

Glad to see the convention went well. How was it from the front row? Lots of interesting jockeying going on in the race these days. Its particularly interesting to see it all from a Serbian perspective. I can tell you that Joe Biden is one unpopular man in this country! Wow. The media here are slamming Obama for his choice. I guess they still harbor bad feelings over Biden's involvement in the Balkans conflict.

But, they are no great supporters of McCain here either. I think in general, Serbs tend to think American Political power is to great and is used in ways it shouldn't. Of course, I find this fairly ironic considering Serbia's own recent political history, and the power of the Nationalists here. But then, it's always easier to criticize others. It seems this is one of Serbia's major problems, and why it is always in danger of reverting to nationalism and totalitarianism: Serbs don't face their own problems. They just blame everyone else for them.

Anyway... Send me your impressions of the convention. I am following the developments in the campaigns with much eagerness these days. It should be a good race, with a good result at the end."

Off in the distance, behind me, Edith is singing her heart out.

2008-08-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

The political sanctions made Milosevic, he said.

At last, I am finding satisfaction of my intellectual curiosity and want of, what I consider profound conversation. MD is sitting in his office, casually slouched in his chair wearing his usual black jeans and white shirt, going into details over how the western sanctions essentially backfired and enabled Serbia's decline into austere nationalism.

In the 1960s we lived as westerners did. Rock music, I wanted to look like James Dean, I read James Joyce and Faulkner, he continued. But what is important is that MD doesn't want to make the mistake most Serbs make when looking at themselves in the mirror. He doesn't want to export blame onto to someone else.

We are like children in this sense, he suggests. Always blaming others for our misfortune, never recognizing that we are partners in this situation. He calls it self purification, but it seems to me that it is only skin deep, and doesn't lead to any change. Rather the result is in fact a worsening of ones psychological situation. Neither MD or I think that the Serb is totally to blame, that every actor in this theatrical performance we call geo-politics shares the blame. But as long as blame is being externalized, then the Serb remains a victim, and thus a prisoner, of their situation.

Take the paradox of the SRS party (the Radicals) who are fighting hard against EU encroachment in Serbia. Their support for the Pro-Karadzic rallies is case in point - they tell Serbs that Tadic (Tadic Juda!) is going to destroy Serbia by handing it over to those pesky Europeans. What they offer as an alternative is trully the paradox of paradox: A nationalist Serbia in league with its Russian Brothers. Slavic solidarity, though it has never existed historically, is the order of the day. Do they really not see that they are mearly trading one hegemon for another, and that they will still not be in control of their own house?

The conclusion is that this political rhetoric is just another way to justify political movements, and to gain power; it has neigh to do with a desire for Serb freedom or an improvement of life for the ordinary Serb. I ask if maybe this is not the signs of a dying party; a last ditch attempt to regain power? My colleagues at work all think that Serbia is on the European path, from which it will never stray. MD shruggs, and I agree with that sentiment. Who knows?

In the 1980s we all saw Serbia's future as a Western one, part of Europe. No-one could even imagine Milosevic back then, he said. History is never absolute, and always finds ways to shift gears.

Further reflections on a changing society

2008-08-26T15:08:00.000-04:00

Serbia, the Serbian man: such complex constructs of history, time, religion, porno, and handbags. Yes, male handbags, or as the Serbian man likes to call them, Pederuca. You will recognize in the first part of that word 'pede', which is French is slang for homosexual. Thus these handbags a basically fag bags. But these are not items worn by the gay community, rather, they are high fashion among the hetero community. Yet they retain the title of Pederuca within the mainstream; a sort of recognition of the homo-erotic nature of this highly chauvinist male culture.

Thus the Serbian man can recognize his fag-ness without having to confront his own repressed desire to try 'it', even if only once. But it also serves as a way for the men to try and dominate each other (as if that isn't homo erotic), by making fun of each others Pederuca. I can hear them now: "nice pederuca, what, are you a fa***t?" Its similar to how American baseball players like to slap each others asses, or how high school jocks do the "sack whack." Alternatively of course, one might conclude that this is in fact a sign of how secure the Serbian man is, in his sexuality. Maybe, but if he is, then why is he so afraid of Homosexuals?

Serbia is on many levels a very intolerant society, including towards differing ethnicity, skin color, gender, and sexual preference (unless you are two hot lesbians making out in public, then they love it). I am no expert in these issues, but I remember reading somewhere that we (earthlings) have a tendency to strike out at things we don't know, or understand. In the modern era that has evolved into what we call discrimination (racism, sexism, nationalism, patriotism, etc). It's all still based on fear in any case. So if the Serbian man is so safe with the knowledge that he really only wants to be with women, then why the hate?

The 'Out' Serbian Gay community is very small as a result, and it is fairly intimidated by everyone else. As a result of my flatmate, A., being gay, I have met a lot of the gay community here in Belgrade, thus I have this insight. The hate that this community feels is the product of the mainstream ideology not being entirely sure of its own identity, seeing in the "alternative" lifestyle a challenger. For what ever reason (I blame religious indoctrination, and recommend Caliban and the Witch to anyone who disagrees) this paradigm exists, it is symbolic of an ideological struggle and, more significantly in my opinion, a shifting society. With Serbia becoming a more open place welcoming in a growing number of tourists, western rapprochement, and with a growing gay community, the ideology is necessarily changing also. Even though ideology has never been a stable thing, the majority always try and make it so, in an attempt to stay on top, and react with violence when it is challenged, clinging to symbols of their ideology (i.e. the Orthodox Church).

Don't believe me? Go down to the Church next to the small Roma pre-school for the Gazela kids, and ask the Clergy why they are building a wall on top of the wall. Surly they won't tell you it's because they can't stand the thought of Roma being given a chance. Or you could ask a Serbian man if his Pederuca doesn't make him feel...a bit gay.