I have been waiting for someone to speak in an even-handed way to the pros and cons of the KONY 2012 video, which so many of us have had to respond to with a complex mix of feelings. Thank you, Liz Grover, for passing this on to us. Thank you, Laura Peterson, for taking the time to sort through your heart and your experiences and share your thoughts with us: Kony 2012 – My 2 Cents | Hands to Hearts.
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“Never Again,” an Apropos Motto in a Climate Increasingly Hostile to Roma
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"We are NOT the problem; we HAVE a problem. You won't solve anything with racism.
Think about it and stop racism."
(Czech anti-racism ad campaign poster)
Two generations have not yet passed since ninety percent of Czech Roma, and between a half million and two million European Roma in total perished at the hands of the Nazis in The Great Devouring, or Porrajmos, the Romani word for the Holocaust. Roma, also known by the pejorative term “Gypsies,” make up the largest minority in Europe today with some 10 to 12 million members. Roma face fierce discrimination in accessing employment, education, health care, and public and social services. In spite of repetitious cases of racist violence and hate speech targeting Roma, the community continues its struggle for human rights all across the continent.
Two years ago I paid my homage to those who died in Auschwitz and Hodonín u Kunštátu, a Czech concentration camp for Roma. “Tensions in society are heightening. Perhaps the time will come again when we are sent away to designated areas,” were the words of the priest leading the commemoration service.
Today, many in the Romani community echo these fears, afraid for their safety since numerous neo-Nazi-led marches have been taking place periodically across the country, and several arson attacks at Romani residences have been perpetrated by white supremacists. Racial tensions have been growing more intense with the media printing negative stereotypes, inventing damaging reports and spreading fabricated accounts blaming criminal acts on members of the Romani community.
In mid-February, the director of the European Roma Rights Center, testified that violence against the Roma is on the rise at a hearing in Washington DC held by the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (US Helsinki Commission).
In the Czech Republic, where I was born and raised, a study on extremism commissioned by the Czech Interior Ministry states that there are currently about 4,000 militant neo-Nazi activists in the country. Experts warn that violent crimes committed by neo-Nazis against Romani people will likely rise. The risk of race wars in some regions of the country, specifically between gangs of white Czechs and groups of ethnic Roma, looms large, experts say.
Today’s white supremacist movement is pan-European (with strong German and Italian influences), and international (namely US-inspired). Since the years 2008 and 2009 the movement has become more radicalized and organizationally sophisticated in the Czech Republic, becoming more visible in the streets and infiltrating the political scene.
In Hungary, an armed militia group has been patrolling and terrorizing a Romani village. This following a series of racially motivated murders.
“Gypsy criminality” is one of the most prevalent anti-Roma stereotypes. It permeates all parts of central European life—and can be found as commonly in the media as the local pub. The Roma are also said to abuse welfare and to not want to work. The World Bank just showed the former was absolutely untrue in Slovakia. The latter is a also a damaging myth held by the white majority. These stereotypes are all the more exaggerated in light of the economic downturn and the scarcity thinking the crisis triggers in the white majority.
What are the solutions? Many rights groups are pushing for economic betterment in the form of job creation and training. Organizations are active in producing independent media with a human rights bent, as well as waging campaigns pressuring mainstream media outlets to be accountable and responsible in their reporting. Key are also positive opportunities for cross-ethnic social interactions and education. Those aware must remain vigilant and spread the word about the threat of extremism that exists in European societies. We must never again permit another Great Devouring.
The Hidden Yemeni Beauty
Open a new window now and google “Socotra” – one of the most beautiful islands I’ve been to. Socotri people are not only as hospitable as the mainland people but also very open.
Seeing me approaching with a male tour guide, this girl in the picture stood up to her feet, came rushing to stop us on the road and started talking with both her hands and her body. She then wanted to send my tour guide back to the camp site so she could invite me home. Later on my tour guide told me he was actually……well,…scared. He has realized that with the revolution girls have turned somewhat less conservative. He has never seen someone that open before.
After months of traveling in the Middle East, I have learned that the black veil can easily mislead our opinions. Until now I still can not get used to the fact that all my Yemeni girl friends came to visit me like a big shadow devoid of identity. The moment they step inside, black abayas are taken off and they turn out to be very modern young people with perfect English. They know the lines of most MTV hits, they sometimes swear like a rapper, dance like Beyoncé and at the same time they can engage in serious debates and discussion of the most sensitive topics such as homosexuality and prostitution. The youth that started the revolution in Yemen may look like oppressed women according to Western perceptions, but they are exceptionally brave. Look at what they have achieved: A transition to new power without violence – the only peaceful Arab spring so far in the region.
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Thank you for following me here on the Cultural Detective blog! I am a proud member of this team, and co-author of Cultural Detective Vietnam. I am in the midst of a journey that traces the path of Islam, from its origins as it spread outward around our planet. You can follow my journey daily in Facebook or via my blog.
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This year’s theme is “Leadership Across the Great Divides: Bridging Cultures, Contexts, and Complexities.”
A great theme for Cultural Detectives to contribute their expertise and share this wonderful tool to leaders globally! If you are interested in contributing you’ll need to act fast as call for proposals will close March 15th!
The 14th Annual International Leadership Association Conference will be held in Denver, October 24-27, 2012.
The ILA seeks proposal submissions that represent the best contemporary thinking about leadership from a diverse range of leadership scholars, practitioners, educators, program directors, consultants, students, and other leaders and leadership professionals. I know there are MANY of you out there that fit this description!
I invite you to visit this section of the ILA website to learn more and to submit.
Hello Fellow Cultural Detectives!
Just a quick introduction as this is my first blog post! I manage business development for the Cultural Detective Series and have been working with the team for seven years now. It’s such a wonderful product and group to be associated with and to represent. I hope to periodically blog about my experiences working with the new and experienced users of the CD materials:
- what have they learned?
- what can they teach us? and
- how can we continue to spread these effective communication tools throughout the world to ultimately connect people and improve relationships!
I’ll do my best to inform you as we launch new products, and update sales and marketing tools that you can work with to champion the use of CD within your organization. I’ll also incorporate information about partner relationships and organizations outside of CD that you might want to consider for your continued development in the intercultural leadership space. I look forward to building a relationship with you and growing in our cross-cultural development together! Feel free to reach out to me via this blog or directly through email or phone. We can all use this blog to Get A Clue and become effective detectives!
International Women’s Day
Women hold up half the sky, according to Mao Tse-Tung. In many families and communities, women seem to hold up much more than half. And many times women do it for less pay, with less education, or from behind the scenes.
Today is International Women’s Day, and we at Cultural Detective would like to applaud women everywhere, thank them for raising us, for teaching us, and for collaborating with us.
The issues we highlight on March 8 vary by location. They can include access to clean water, education, or the right to vote; ending domestic violence and genital mutilation; advocating for equal pay, better child care, or peace. This year we would like to share with you a preview of an upcoming movie, entitled “Petals in the Dust: India’s Missing Girls,” which will explore the reasons behind “gendercide” in India, the killing of over 7000 baby girls each year. Thanks to Joe Lurie for sharing this with us. The movie is scheduled to be released in December.
Movie Review: The Separation of Nader va Simin (Iran)
The media attention on Israel’s potential response to Iran’s nuclear activity has piqued my interest to learn a bit more about Iranian culture. Last week our family watched a most incredible film that I felt provided so much insight, so I asked my very good friend, Cultural Detective certified facilitator Pari Namazie, what she thought about what I had learned and seen.
I trust you’ll all enjoy her insights as much as I have. It would seem that this film could be an excellent learning tool for those working with Iranians.
Pari joon, thank you for sharing your insights with us!
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They were proud moments for us Iranians when Asghar Farhadi received the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, as well as the Golden Globe and the Golden Bear of Berlinale, for his film A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin).
The film, which talks about a divorce between Nader and Simin, has two main underlying themes: responsibility and truth. Though one initially thinks the film is about a divorce case, Farhadi cleverly weaves many layers of Iranian society into his film, including power, religion, truth, gender, family, and social class. The points which stuck out most when I watched the film were:
The role of women: Iran is governed by Islamic law. The society is patriarchal and the laws between men and women unequal. Although the foreign media might portray Iranian women as weak and dominated by men, the reality of the matter was captured well in Farhadi’s film, which showed Simin wanting to leave Iran with her daughter, as she believed it was not an environment for a child to grow up in. When her husband refused to immigrate with her (due to his father’s condition), she then insisted on divorce and moved into her parents’ home. It also showed a more religious woman taking fate into her own hands looking for a job, despite the fact that in her family the breadwinner was undoubtedly her husband. Any one who has visited Iran will know the strength of character and conviction of its women.
Truth: The film beautifully portrayed the search for truth in the Iranian culture: from the court, to Termeh (the daughter) asking her father if he knew Razieh (the helper) was pregnant when he pushed her out of the house, to Razieh swearing on the Koran that Nader’s pushing her caused her miscarriage — if she swore on the Koran and it were untrue, then she would condemn her daughter’s future and fate. These behaviors show one of the strongest elements in Iranian culture: the search for truth.
Religion: Beautiful to see how Farhadi craftfully showed the secular and religious segments of society, how they came together respectful of one another, and yet also their existing tensions. Nader and Simin are more secular and Razieh and her family, religious. On one occasion Razieh called her religious authority to ask if it was permitted by Islam to work with an elderly old man, who was not related to her and where she would have to wash and change him.
Responsibility and Family: The relationship and responsibility towards family from the younger to the older generation. In the opening scene at the family court, Nader tells the judge that he cannot immigrate with Simin as he has an elderly father suffering with Alzheimer’s and can not leave him. Other scenes show Nader’s commitment to his father and his relationship with his daughter Termeh. Although he is under many pressures he still maintains his attentive concentration towards Termeh’s studies and taking care of his father, the two main priorities in his life.
Farhadi competently shows the different viewpoints of all the actors, without taking sides, and lets the audience reflect on the circumstances and situations. This film is a must-see if you have not yet!
Book Review: How Maps Change Things
by Ward L. Kaiser, published by the New Internationalist and ODT Maps, 2012.
Free download through March 31 for Cultural Detectives
Anyone looking to develop a new class or training program to improve intercultural competence? This just-released book, How Maps Change Things: A conversation about the maps we choose and the world we want, could be the basis of one terrific learning journey! I highlighted something on nearly every one of its 188 pages. I learned so much, on so many different yet related topics, that I now have five or six threads of learning and discovery I want to pursue!
At first glance you might think this is a book about maps. Then you read on page six that it is about
“… how we shape and use maps and how they in turn shape us. It’s about how we see the world and how we therefore understand our place in it.”
So you start to hope that How Maps Change Things could teach us to be careful whether we label a certain body of water the “Arabian Gulf” or the “Persian Gulf,” or color-code parts of Kashmir as Indian or Pakistani, but it goes way beyond that.
“Because such maps encourage the feeling that some areas are home to movers and shakers while others shelter mere pawns.” — page 74
Mr. Kaiser, the author, is a big fan of equal-area projection maps such as the Peters, as most in the global diversity and inclusion field are, and points out how maps such as the Mercator aren’t good for much other than navigation. But in addition to showing us how maps can be used to perpetuate bias, he shows us how maps can also be used to promote perspective shifting, equity, and social justice:
“Through internalizing many ways to see the world we may even develop openness to other people’s points of view and greater self-awareness.”
— page 164
“What if people all over the world threatened by, well, you name it – logging, commercial development, polluting factories, hydrofracking chemicals in drinking water, say – what if they could all see maps as tools of analysis and action? …
How about a map to make clear where the hazardous electronic wastes of the developed world get dumped …
Bring together maps, available technology, human creativity, and people’s willingness to take a stand and you’ve got a powerful recipe for changing events.” — page 176
For these reasons and others this volume will be useful to interculturalists and those interested in diversity, sustainability, and social action.
The author premises that maps are tools that serve a purpose.
“Maps are verbs. They may seem to be tactile objects, documents we can handle or fold – nouns – but don’t be fooled. In persuasively framing questions and selectively supplying answers they act; they initiate; they function as agents.” — page 15
To illustrate this point he shares some terrific stories: one about the role of maps in a territorial dispute between First Nations people and the Canadian government (pages 35-39); another about how a map can skew our view of a country as a source of oil or as a residence of people and families (pages 8-17); and a third showing how a map was used to get one county to pay for a highway interchange that served another county (pages 34-35). There is a chapter about the connection between maps and faith/values (chapter 10 page 141), and how maps are used for disease control and health (page 170), as well as for crime prevention (page 173), a topic of special interest lately with concerns of profiling and ethnic bias.
The book is written in a lively, accessible style, though it gets heavier and slower toward the end; ironically, the final chapters are where Mr. Kaiser’s true passion seems to lie. It contains several embedded learning exercises (e.g., page 121) and interesting conversations such as how indigenous North Americans mapped (page 40). Via this latter conversation, he shows that the “culture” of map-makers is not universal. This, to me, is a hugely important point. Too many people believe their area of professional practice is culture-neutral or universal when, in fact, even science is culturally relative (as well as discipline-relative!).
One of the pleasures of reading How Maps Change Things is that it contains quite a few valuable “hidden” gems. One of my favorites: as the author discusses the huge socio-economic gap in our world, variously referred to by such inadequate (or judgment-laden) terms as North-South, 1st/3rd world, Developed/Developing nations, and Viable/Failed states, he provides in the footnotes a list of experts from diverse political persuasions and walks of life who share a consensus on the absolute need to bridge this gap (pages 138-139).
Through March 31 our friends at ODT Maps, the publisher, are offering this ebook FREE to our Cultural Detective community. I urge you to take advantage of this offer and help the author get this book put to good use!
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Maps are tools, and can be purposed to perpetuate bias or to help us to create a better world. Cultural Detective has long been passionate about maps as learning tools. Way back in December of 2005 we dedicated an entire edition of our Cultural Detective e-news to maps (including 3 articles of activities and curricular ideas and a quiz), relying in large part on the expertise and generosity of our friends at ODT Maps.
It included: Using Physical Maps to Transform Mental Maps; 8 Map Activities for Intercultural Learning; a World Map Detective quiz; Training with Map Power; and a free offer (a Mecca-centered Azimuthal map, a Peters Projection map, and a Population Map) from our friends at ODT Maps.
Bob Abramms at ODT has a wealth of books, DVDs, globes, puzzles, games, props, and world maps for different purposes — terrific training material for intercultural and global diversity and inclusion professionals. If you’re not familiar with his great stuff, be sure to check it out.
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Despite the fact that on February 29, lawmakers in St. Petersburg Russia voted to ban speech, reading, writing or debate on anything “gay” (still needs the governor’s signature), despite the fact that gay acts are illegal in many countries, there has been progress made on LGBT issues over the past year.
If you haven’t already seen this image, we’re pleased to let you know that this homecoming photo of a U.S. Marine caught in a passionate lip-lock with his boyfriend has gone viral on the internet. It seems to have been originally uploaded to Facebook’s Gay Marines group., and has been met with mostly positive response.
Then this morning came another homecoming kiss photo, this one from Seattle.
Congratulations to all happy lovers out there in the world! May we all learn to respect and include one another, and have the fortitude to continue the journey.
The Cultural Detective LGBT is an incredibly powerful tool for building understanding, respect and inclusion in our communities and our workplaces. Written by an international team of authors, it includes five Values Lenses and 14 critical incidents. Please put it to good use and help us make our world a more equitable and inclusive place!
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