Say Something

The unofficial official motto of the Baldwin Scholars at Duke University is "Say Something". The story of this motto goes back to the very first Baldwin Scholars retreat. At this point and time, there was only one class of Baldwin Scholars and they had just been selected (Fall, 2004). Incidentally, this same class of amazing women just graduated this past spring (2008). To those who don't know much about this relatively new group, the Baldwins are basically a community of women on campus who are agents of change for the Duke women's experience. We are all leaders in different ways and work together as a group to address issues on campus. 18 of us per grade. Any female freshman at Duke can apply to be one.

In any case, it was during the first Baldwin retreat that our motto was coined. The Baldwins were roasting marshmallows over a fireplace. The fireplace was quite small so the 18 members of the inaugural class had to squeeze a bit in order to make room for everyone. Two particular Baldwins seemed to be fighting for the same piece of hot charcoal, marshmallows and skewers entangling as they competed for the same spot. Finally one of the two Baldwins turns to the other one and says something like (not a direct quote), "You gotta problem? Then Say Something about it. If you gotta problem, just Say Something." The story is now legendary and mythical in the minds of all the subsequent classes of Baldwin Scholars.

And thus the tradition of speaking up when you have something important to say was born. Simple yet profound.

While I was traveling this summer I came across a significant amount of messages, both in graffiti and non-graffiti form, and decided to document them with my camera. Public art is fascinating because you have absolutely no control over who sees it and how it is used. Your work is out there. Your message can be bold (like the one above) or subtle (like the one to the right).

The end already? Eh, its another beginning.

As was expected, my blog posts have dwindled towards the middle and end of the program. There have been complains, and I have heard them. Now that I am in Barcelona with free wireless internet waiting for my friend Candace to arrive, there is really no excuse for me to not update.

The SIT Switzerland program went off really well. I enjoyed being in Geneva and being able to have access to all of the resources that the UN and other organizations provided. The city allowed me to rest in some comfortable place between optimism and cynicism. The work that many organizations do is slow, but they are all persistent. Sometimes it seemed to me that everyone was running around in Geneva trying to get things done while the situation out in the field in Malaysia, US, or Colombia was remaining the same; at other times, the right combination of leadership and expertise lead to some real changes in development or post-conflict reconstruction.

What is certain is that I had some really cool conversations. I talked to a Cuban-American lawyer, a representative from the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, lawyers at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the chairperson of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries, and the head of the International Relations department at Webster University. These meetings weren't anything special. They were meetings set up by simply calling the individuals and asking if they had any time to talk to me about Private Military Firms, the eventual topic of my final paper. By far the best part of researching this topic was the one-on-one interviews I did with these folks. They were all extremely knowledgeable and approached the topic from different angles. People were willing to talk and discuss and share ideas. It was a pretty sweet intellectual atmosphere and I learned a lot just by listening. My topic was far too large for one paper, but the research process took me to loads of different places.

At one point, some of my colleague's meetings with various officials at the UN were canceled due to the indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Oh, I see, you have to cancel our little interview because you have to go deal with issues at the International Criminal Court? Oh ok, cool. No problem. I'll just wait...here...

You really do feel like you are in the thick of things.

Its funny because really, there are people all over the world screaming out various messages. I mean people who are really just screaming truth to power. Sometimes these messages get heard. Sometimes they are heard and ignored.

At one point on the plane from Geneva to Barcelona today this baby started wailing and suddenly all of the other babies on the plane chimed in and it was just this chorus of yells and screams. Ironically, it was just at that moment that the flight attendant was trying to give her little speech of all the safety rules. It made me laugh because it reminded me of all the people who are screaming truths while the people at the top, our world leaders, may not necessarily hear the messages and continue to give their speeches. This may be the slightly cynical side of me, but its hard to be in Geneva and work on issues that are going on around the world. I mean while you're surfing the web and looking out over Lac Leman (beautiful Lake Geneva) and the Mont Blanc (top of the Alps)...its a bit hard to think about the consequences of Private Military Firms.

Either way, Geneva is a beautiful place for world leaders to meet and I felt welcome (save for a few French language barrier issues) wherever I went. After the program I had the chance to travel with my family. They met up with me in Geneva and we went to Luzern, Interlaken, and Montreux. We took trips up mountains Pilatus, Titlis, and Jungfrau and then just enjoyed the lakeside in Montreux. There were tons of music festivals going on so there were always bands to listen to. We even went on a specific mission to find a few Sigg water bottles, the elite Nalgenes as I call them.

It was nice to see my family again and get a chance to travel outside of Geneva. The only other places I visited during the program were Lausanne and Lugano. Lugano was a good break from the French-speaking part in Geneva down to the Italian speaking part. The lake in Lugano was extremely beautiful and we had a couple of nice swims. The jazz festival gave us something to do at night. Several of the shop owners spoke Spanish, so I could communicate quite easily. It was probably the one and only time I ever translated for the other students on the program (almost everyone had a bit of French background except for me and my friend Rubyn). I savored it because we were only there for five days. Lugano, you restored some of my dignity and for that I thank you.

We had gone down to Lugano to learn about Swiss Italian NGOs but had the weekend free to travel as we wished. Three other students and I ventured down to Venice for the weekend which was an adventure itself. The last night we were there we just stored our bags at the train station and stayed out until our train left the next morning. Not only was this a mini-adventure in exploring every crevice of the city, but heck, it saved us a whole night's worth of hotel reservation money. Not sure if I would recommend this experience to anyone. If you go for it, then rest up the day before...that's all I'm saying.

So what now? This is the end of my Swiss traveling, though stories may crop up in blog posts to follow. As I mentioned before, I am now in Barcelona and will be traveling to Berlin, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Brussels before I head back to the US. The pictures in this post are of Lac Leman and Geneva. The soccer ball you see near the fountain is a result of the Euro Cup. The pictures were taken from Le Saleve, which is a mountaintop that can be reached by cable car. We also did a bit of hiking on the trails around the top and watched the paragliders take off.

Here is to one more week of adventures around Europe before I return to North Carolina.

-Rosh

Go Local

Police systems are tricky little buggers. Creating one already means that you will need to walk a fine line between what is "right" and what is "wrong". A friend and I struck up a conversation with someone at the train station this past weekend about this very situation. He commented that if you are in trouble, the police in Geneva are some of the most helpful people. But you would never want to be on their bad side. Switzerland has such a good reputation for saftey, he said, that they are extremely vigilant in looking out for the smallest of disturbances. This tension is only hightened during events such as the Euro cup.

My views on the results of this system is that you generally have a very safe public space. On the other hand, I wonder to what lengths the police are allowed to go to in order to protect this feeling of saftey.

Perceptions of the police system vary by country and even by populations within countries. So the question is: how do we promote just law and order without creating runaway police systems? The average citizen shouldn't need to carry around a pocketbook of rules of what police are and are not allowed to do. By the same token, police should not have to go to extreme measures in order to protect the general peace.

Maybe the system works in Switzerland because of the size of the country. Smaller community systems can agree on social norms and police themselves faster and better than larger systems. Police systems at the federal level (FBI, etc.) are out of touch with the average citizen. But everyone always knows what is going on in their local neighborhood.

So where is the ballance? How can we create safe spaces where conflict resolution means dialogue before handcuffs? One would think that humans would have figured this out by now. Yet we are so surprised when we find communities that have achieved real democratization.

Everybody talks about an increasingly globalized world, but I would propose thinking on a more local level. We need to think about how we can live locally in a sustainable and peaceful way without creating huge power systems at a federal level that are largely unchecked by their consituencies. Police system aside, it is a fact that Switzerland has not joined the EU because its voters opt to stay independent. The director of the SIT program mentioned that the Swiss vote 4 or 5 times a year. Furthermore, Bern cannot impose policies on any of the Cantons (states) without approval through direct voting. Perhaps there are faults to this system that I have not been able to fully explore, but it seems like a pretty good idea.

We need to keep creating systems that can call the populus the base of their power. Decisions should be made from the bottom, not the top. A top-heavy country may be able to go global as a powerful "influence" in world affairs, but this has never been successful in the long run. And with a resource bottleneck in our midst, going local is even more important. This is not to say we should not travel and interact beyond our borders. All it means is for us to spread power and governance to the local level.




On another note, the Geneva music festival was quite stunning. I listened to salsa, techno, and some type of drum-reggae (by far the best) all in one weekend. Also played some soccer by the lake and went for a swim afterwards. Took me a bit to get use to the semi-nude lawns by the lake but hey, to each his own. And, however detrimental to your body it may be, there is nothing better than the feeling of the sun, no? Actually, this point of semi-nude lawns relates quite well to the differences in openness between Europe and other parts of the world. My host mother and I had a small conversation about how Europeans do tend to dress more formally than Americans, but they keep significantly more intimate inter-personal relationships with aquaintences, even in the workplace. But that is a conversation for another time.

For the Euro cup: go Spain.


Rosh

Inaugurating Study Abroad

I arrived in Geneva on Monday June 9th for the School of International Training's (SIT) program in International Studies, Organizations, and Social Justice. Since then... I've understood that the town I live in--Mies--is pretty much a minuscule village that nobody would attempt to tour through. I've been erroneously fined 80 swiss francs for unknowingly sitting in first class (there is absolutely no difference) when they could have simply asked me to move. There have been soccer matches viewed on the large screen in Nyon (not bougie enough to be able to buy tickets) and saunters past the home of the Indian ambassador by accident. And finally, I have taken three French classes at a third grade level. If you want, I can give you a list of colors, numbers, fruits, jobs, and could count up to one thousand (the French AND Swiss ways). It is all quite exciting.

Many other events have, of course, filled my first two weeks in Geneva. I've been through about a week of lectures and briefings which have been very stimulating. Even after this short period of time, I have already had relevant and useful conversations about trade, carbon footprints, peacekeeping, the WTO, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and the differences between European and American politics.

Our program requires us to complete an independent study project for which I made a small excursion to the ICRC library. My topic is on the intersection of international law, public health, and torture. I found myself, two weeks into the program, sitting in a dark room at the ICRC watching a tape used by the US government in the 1970s that taught soldiers how to care for prisoners of war (POW) in a humane way. The video was obviously pertinent but also a bit superfluous. Think about the superfluous nature of "Tippy the Turtle: How to Survive a Nuclear Attack" from the 50s. If you haven't seen that video, please go here: http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=8126762 or google it in your own time. The POW video was shot in the jungles with the prisoners of war depicted as being of some type of Asian descent, an attempt to be in line with the contemporary conflict in Vietnam. It was both eerie and comical to look back at such a tape. An interesting point it brought up was the short time period in which a combatant, once captured, can turn into a harmless and unarmed person with POW status. I wonder how such a tape looks right now, in a time where the lines between combatant and civilian are extremely blurry in the first place.

Once I was a trained US soldier ready to battle the Vietcong, I ventured back out into daylight and took a few pictures of the UN headquarters and surrounding area. My camera is really not able to capture the vastness of the space Geneva is situated within, but I try my best. An even greater challenge was presented when we took a cable car up the mountains between France and Geneva. The view of Lake Geneva (Lac Lehman) was grand and we ate lunch while watching 20 or 30 parasailers take advantage of the clear skies. The hiking trails around the top of the mountain were worthy of a second and third visit. We only had enough heart and lung for one small descent and the subsequent ascent.

Other than the above events, I've spent a large amount of time with the other eleven students in our group as well as attempted several small conversations with Helene, my five-year-old homestay sister. The rest of my homestay family will disperse after dinner and she will look at me, take my hand, and lead me to play with something she is speedily describing in French. I won't completely understand until we actually begin to play but she could care less. We have already made matching collages of houses. These exercises are excellent for my French vocabulary. During the house collage activity, for instance, I learned that "pluie" meant rain because she sang it to herself as she indicated to me, quite clearly, the rain she was drawing on her collage. She is very patient. Never will I forget pluie.

So this post is both a bit chaotic and has no central point, but those are also characteristics of my first two weeks in Geneva. It is the first time I have been in a non-Hindi, Spanish, or English speaking place for an extended period of time. It is the first time I have been so exposed to an alternative world view of the political scene. Watch out American realists, Roshen is being armed with other ideologies to combat the power-centric approach to everything. It is also my first homestay experience. In a nutshell everything I am experiencing is raw, which is generally how I feel experiences should be. I wouldn't say my experience has been hard or taxing, but it has been a series of small and significant changes, including everything from class content and design to language to a more formal lifestyle.

In short, this is the first necessary post to inaugurate my study abroad experience. This weekend is the Geneva Music Festival so it shall be my next adventure!


Rosh

The One

Last Friday I went to Nice Price Books in Durham with my friend Karen. I came out 15 minutes later with a French-English dictionary, to be used on the aforementioned Swiss study abroad excursion, for $2.98. Sweeeet.

What ever happened to cozy used book stores? They friggin' rock. I mean, yes, there is no computerized system for speedy book location and there is even less of a chance you will be browsing by author, but used book stores retain a charm that Barnes and Noble will never touch. Take away the computers and all you are left with is you and the books, nothing in between. I think I am particularly attracted to this sense of rawness. An environment where you have to search for the book you have in mind but where the journey itself will expose you to a million new titles and authors on the way. A journey which can be dimly lit and often times allergy-inducing. A journey that begins with hair slicked back and jacket on but leads to being sprawled on the floor in your tank top sporting a chia pet look, mind and body pouring into a science fiction selection. A journey where you may have to leap over neatly stacked romance novels to get to Poe and end up finding Isabel Allende next to a picture biography of Marlon Brando. And after all the tears and sweat have been leached from your body, you finally stumble upon your gold treasure. That book that calls to you. The One.

How satisfactory is THAT.

You go home, prize in your hand, and pray for a rainy day so that you have reason to light a fire and curl up with The One. Every page you turn is a sweet reward for all of your hard work.

Come on, people, isn't this what life is all about? I mean let's be real here. Real life is not organized into isles. If it were, it would be boring. For all the hard work humans, myself included, do to get shelves arranged and ducks in a row, the universe tends to pull in a more chaotic direction. I say stop fighting the forces.

I guess this is all nice and groovy in an idealistic sense. But thinking it over as I type, who would be there for me the day before class when I need that Russian Lit book? Barnes and Noble. Who would be there when I forget a birthday and desperately needed a book, journal, and a felt tip pen to gift away? Barnes and Noble. Sigh.

Dear Nice Price Books,
Know that when I come to visit you, I come with an adventurous spirit. Barnes and/or Noble just can't yank at my inner core and essence the way you do. Our relationship is special; their relationship is strictly business. It just doesn't compare. You are The One to me. I reserve fire-side curl ups for you and only you.
Love,
Roshen


All in all, a reminder that having life at our fingertips is quite a privilege. Sometimes we forget what its like to really have to work. And, furthermore, what type of information and creation comes out of real sweat and labor. Thanks to Nice Price for reminding me that its well worth the reward. And p.s., thanks for organizing by subject to make the journey a bit easier.

Will to Meaning

I'm big on meaning. Dr. Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who talked about the "will to meaning", or man and womankind's search for meaning in their lives. This is, of course, is in opposition to other analytical standpoints: Freud's "will to pleasure" and Nietzsche's "will to power". Frankl's views seemed to be an accurate way to describe my mindset on observing life around me. So, in a nutshell, this blog is dedicated to my own will to meaning.

I'm about to embark on a bit of a journey to Geneva, Switzerland through a School of International Training (SIT) study abroad program. I do not know how to speak French, so that should be a learning experience itself. I'll be quite close to the UN and will hopefully get to meet with international actors and ponder international happenings. Usually the "will to meaning" is used to describe a personal will to a personal meaning, but I'd also like to think of it as searching for the meaning in things outside of ourselves. In the case of this excursion, I'll be studying the meaning of the happenings on this bouncy ball we call Earth.

The name of the game is not to be merely content with the surface of things. To realize there is a purpose to every action and every result. To realize that one action may seem to only affect one ring of people, but, in actuality, the ripples extend out much farther. Maybe it is beyond human capacity to grasp exactly how far, but its worth a try.

So here is to what should be a blog full of searching, pondering, and deciding upon things inside, outside, and beyond me!

Chow for now. If you have any suggestions of travel sights in Europe, send them my way pronto.