Sharp Focus

edu usa

2011-03-20T23:30:00.001-07:00

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Festive Madness in Delhi

2010-11-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

This is Anne, walking down the streets of a Delhi bazaar, yards away from our home, just a day before the lights/sound festival Deepawali.We navigated the streets as firecrackers blew away our ear drums and lights glittered the shops and homes.And the business rolled the bazaar economy with some poignant faces as well ..But overall a full fun w..a..l..k !

The page of my daily diary dated Aug.26th 2006

2010-08-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

This is a re-production of one page of my daily diary. The page of 26th Aug.2006. I am convinced that if diarists are paid anything, anywhere in the world, I will not starve. I read somewhere, sometime that a “personal narrative in a public domain has “its” own dynamics”. My English then, was, as it is today. Weak. So I didn’t understand this too well and that put a full stop of my agreeing to it or not.

Over all these days, I made a lot of friends and one of them is Rapidex book (google it! ), with the help of which I now understand it and wants to see “its” dynamics. So I am putting a personal narrative in a public domain. Keen, restless and hungry for the feedback that you may send at your own risk: For, I may respond..!!

Aug 26.2006

My Room

Mughal Aps.

Zakir Nagar.

New Delhi India

A long day, indeed! My bike is growing younger day by day and I am enjoying it km by km. Ever since I have studied about camera in my post-graduation, I have started thinking a lot about it… “If I had a camera ready, I would have taken the shot of guy sleeping on the edge of the loaded -rickety truck, pacing fast on a buzzing crowded ring road of Delhi while I am on my way to meet a friend in greater noida on this new toll bridge, where these robbers are robbing us of eight rupees/one way in the broad daylight, with the help of some Japanese who are not seen around but are collecting the toll….” “And if I had a camera, I would have taken picture of Ammijaan, now that she is sleeping, still wearing her old worn-out specs she loves dearly because daddy bought it.Wrincles on her forehead worries me because she’s yet to attend Gudia’s and Pappu bhai’s marriage, become my wife’s mother-in-law and grandmother of at least half a dozen, assuming our Govt’s DTC(Delhi Transport Corporation) bus- sonnet “ Hum do.Humare do..”(hindi meaning- We two.Our two) Infact, the very thought of the camera while I am riding a bike, with the headphones plugged into my ears , and wire fixed at the other end of my cell phone’s fm radio at full-volume, converts me into a camera with damn good lenses and no focus ring.

Now I look at the big luxurious Sita Travels bus ahead of me...some 100 meters ahead. My eyes takes long shot (LS), and abruptly zooms-in on to the iron bar, ordering “Keep distance” fitted at the rear of it, my hand turns the throttle and bike dollys-in…Now I am just 3 feet away with the two words in sharp focus in a CU. I tilt up to take a low-angle shot of few human heads with variety of hair-style. MCU. There‘s a traffic signal ahead. I can’t see it. I know it. The throttle turns back, allowing the bus to move ahead and I am back to the long shot. Well, I forgot to mention a couple of cut-aways in the rear- view mirror of this middle aged man approaching me on his Bajaj scooty and this red old Maruti 800 overtaking taking me from left. I stay on a LS as the road is abandoned but slowing I am approaching a flyover to switch to a tilt-up LS , almost immediately reaching the peak and start climbing down, in a high angle tilt-down shot… The journey goes on for another 16 kms and I continue to jump from one shot to another until my phone rings, music goes off and there’s “jump”. No cut yet… I met Jasvinder and spent time in his newly bought house. I liked the door. I like open doors and closed windows with people having no-hot- head and no-cold- heart. I was not lucky to get it all today though, except the open-door. So I spent fifteen minutes in collecting my notes and in swallowing the cold coffee, without sugar and single- toned milk amids hot heads and cold hearts.

Now, I was on my way to Sarai, a research project that offered me a year long fellowship to study fast food chain's workers and its culture. Today’s presentation’s third day and mine’ first. But I am glad even today, there would be breaks filled with good tea & crispy biscuits. I will also have sexuality, post-modernism, colonial history, work culture and many such painful terrains after which we would arrive at dinner…There’s surely nothing like free lunch and free dinner either… I liked the food.( as I always do), and noticed few little kids who came with their parents and loitered around, in innocence, adding a kind of ventilation to this space which is, by now, full, with people doing serious and deep work on the terrains I mentioned above. May God bless the sensitive writers and the victims of those whose writings I found, kilometers long and millimeters deep.. In the midst of all the conversation, beer, chicken, paneer tikkas and beverages someone, with a pat on my back, told me something that took me back to AIIMS, a premier hospital in Delhi.

It was 25th Feb. 2005. Wednesday.11am. 7th floor. C-7 ward. I was sitting in the corridor watching my daddy lying on the bed, equipped with all the possible medical gadgets and surrounded by restless, and reportedly, meritorious doctors. The time on the big circular white wall-clock, with a layer of dust on its glasses, was exactly 11.02 am. In the next 20 minutes, daddy would make his final departure. I some how sensed it. I loved daddy dearly and I know he loved this place, his workplace, dearly too. But at that moment I hated it. So I moved and sat at the door few yards away. All the memories I had of him, was scanning through my mind as if I was now a scanner. I wanted to do some thing because I knew I was not ,and that I didn’t want daddy to leave. In my helplessness, I looked up and found an old man gazing at me. He asked me if I could take him to the stiching room. I found some thing to do. So I stood up and took him to the concerned unit. He said he was in hurry because he had to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife, to which I thought of my Ammi at home, unaware, unknown... I managed to enquire about her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was victim of Alzheimer’s disease. While we were standing, the doctor called him. He had his stiches removed and asked me if I could help him get an auto. I agreed and went down with him. On my way, I kept thinking about daddy, on that white hospital- bed and Ammi at home ,and unintentionally asked him if his wife would be worried if he was a bit late.. He replied she no longer knows who he was and that she had not recognized him in five years.. I was taken aback, again, and asked, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?” He smiled, patted my hand and said, “Son, she doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.” He left. I saw his auto leaving with those familiar words: Keep Distance. When I returned to C-7, daddy had indeed kept a distance. My sister was crying inconsolably. Daddy was no more. But the lesson that I learnt from the old man, didn’t let me cry. I wanted to, though. But I knew that true love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be and will not be. If only we could prevent our mind from thinking like a camera, like a scanner, like a human being..Sometimes, life would be so much easier..

It’s the new day and has rendered one digit on the calendar useless…Will return with life’s new day’s menu. Welcome Aug 27,2006.

Zaini missing Anni

2010-07-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

And this is my other niece Zaini in Delhi missing her aunt Anni in the US.;)

Safia take 1

2010-07-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is my niece facing the her first shot!

The Journey of my Ford Fellowship from rural India to Appalachian America

2010-07-01T02:43:00.001-07:00

Documenting my Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program experience – the beginning, the journey, the challenges, the achievements, the reflections.

My IFP journey began in a rather unusual way. I landed at the Ohio airport with an injured foot and went straight to the hospital, where I spent the first week. Historic American elections that eventually gave America its first black president and a strong hope to the rest of the world, was on going. Major debate was on healthcare and the two presidential candidates were constantly debating their views on health. As I watched all of these debates on a television installed in my hospital room, health was echoing at a different level in my own psyche. The health insurance provided by the IFP covered almost all my medical expenses, which I must admit, according my standards in India were outrageous. That explained to be, the concerns Obama was raising throughout his campaign. In many ways, it seemed to me that he(Obama) was debating for me too. After three days in the hospital, I was able to walk around and met several patients in that hospital in Columbus, one of the biggest and commercially vibrant cities of America. Most of these patients were old and women and were rarely visited by anyone, friends or family members. They lived in loneliness and sickness. The next three days in the hospital gave me a serious insight of a highly individualistic society of which I was going to be a part of for the coming two years; coming two crucial years. This experience of isolation, capitalistic mindset and the tendency that measures everything prepared me for the life outside of the hospital, a privileged place that remained unaffordable to as many as 47 million of its citizenry.
I almost immediately changed by mode to tune myself to this new environment. From these initial days in the hospital, I realized how strongly supported I was with the Ford Fellowship.

The Beginnings

As I reached the college campus, first on a wheel chair and later walking on clutches around a hilly campus which often reminded me of Shimla (a hill station in northern India), I experienced a strong sense of diversity. People of all color and ages, students and faculty, students who also worked and faculty who also prayed and went shopping with us, community members who visited our library, farmers who were also authors and peace activists and so on. The beginnings were the most powerful moments of my entire IFP experience. I instantly made friends with many community members, who were community gardeners and organic farmers at the Athens farmers market that I frequently visited. It is through these friendships that I was introduced to the Appalachian America, a developing region of a developed nation that shared almost all of its socio-economic characteristics with rural India I grew up in. A region that remained invisible and hidden to the rest of the world perhaps due to the glitter and show that so strongly dominated the sound and images of the hustling bustling New York City and Las Vegas in the media that reached millions like me rendering Appalachia and its life almost nonexistent and mysteriously unknown. At that moment I knew I had a lot to explore and gather, and tell the untold stories.
Appalachian experience has a strong impact on me and like an explorer I was immersed in its life and people writing papers, doing participatory observations and taking courses that gave me academic insight of the economically suppressed but culturally rich region.

The Journey

As a ford fellow I was strongly invested in the campus life. The fact that I was externally funded by IFP and did not have to work to support my studies made me feel privileged, on one hand and more responsible on the other. My other friends were not just studying and doing assignments that I was doing but they were also working to support their studies. At times it made me feel ‘less than them’, at other times, guilty and yet at other moments I felt a stronger sense of ‘how much more can I do’ given my higher incentives, as a Ford Fellow on campus. These mixed feelings gave me more energy and constantly pushed me to challenge my own power to achieve things. I started getting involved and invested both academically and practically, with classmates and professors and with community members and other college campuses. Soon enough I was representing my class to the center’s Executive Director during monthly meetings, briefing him about the class going-ons and student’s aspirations and gaps. This representation was extended for the second year as well. In the second year I also represented my entire program as the Senator at the Graduate Student Senate that met weekly to discuss the administrative roles and responsibilities, new acts, funding etc that can potentially help students. This was my first tryst with the student’s politics in America. It enriched me and sharpened my political understanding of how a campus is run and what larger role can it play in the social change movement. One writer who writings inspired me most during this time was Howard Zinn. Sadly, I also witnessed his sad demise during my time in the US.

In addition to this, I also served as the Communication Chair of the Muslim Student Association, representing 25 global nationalities from Asia, Africa, Middle East and North America at several university and community platforms. As a Secretary of the Ford Foundation Students’ Association and as member of UNICEF and Save the Children student bodies on campus I made several efforts to help build a safer and healthy word for children.

Overall, these experiences, encounters, and travels that came along gave me more than what I expected from an academic program at Ohio University. The roles I took, travels I made and academic work that I produced collectively built my personality and integrated it with the citizenry of the new country I visited for the first time. So much so that one of its member citizens became a lifelong friend, as my wife and decided to come with me to India and live here, to contribute towards it social development, working with me in the areas of social conflict resolution, social entrepreneurship and curriculum development. This relationship is a result of a shared vision that intends to build a world of social justice led by grassroots leadership and governed by participatory pedagogies. As I reflect, I could not have asked for more!

The Challenges

It took me some time to understand the dynamics of a new society which was almost entirely different from my past experience. Socially, politically, technologically and economically, I was dealing with a new system at all fronts. One of the major challenges was to make friends and alliances in a way that it not only serves a personal goal of networking and leisure but also builds a strategic partnership that would help fulfill my fellowship goal of bringing resources back to India and directing them to its development. Cultural subtleties were to be learnt and the social language was to acquired. It took time. But with relevant readings and persistent listening it happened. Another challenge was to constantly engage outside of academia while working with it. Writing papers, reading texts and reflecting on in-class experiences, while at the same time going out and experiencing, in very practical terms, the lives of the people, their challenges, their work, their aspirations, struggles and visions. Striking a balance between academic excellence and practical wisdom and using both to each other’s advantage was a good challenge to take on. It again came from reading, listening and travelling. It also came from becoming technology savvy- learning tools in the library, labs and resources like community library available outside of the campus, and building alliances with civic organizations working on grassroots issues. Besides, engaging in conversations and discussions with classmates and students from other programs to learn from their experiences and work always remained a priority and a challenge given the tight academic timeline. The main challenge was to become a public intellectual both on-campus and outside of it and contribute to the immediate society during the period of studentship. Building networks and creating engagements that can be extended at a global level with relevance to the Indian development scenario was another challenge on priority.

The Achievements and Reflections

One of my major achievements is the working relationships I built with my professors and friends across the world through on-campus, in community and in-class interactions. A relationship that will engage me in several global developmental issues for the rest of my life in a way that will affect India, my home country in a positive way. As I reflect, I realize much of it happened due to my listening and reading skills that were developed in India .What also helped was the grassroots experiences and the knowledge of Indian social context and grassroots dynamics on which I could speak confidently, given my training and exposure in India, while engaging with contemporary texts on technology and globalization. I was constantly able to connect with my institutions and organizations in my home country to bring their latest perspective and challenges in the classroom and juxtapose them with theories studied in the class. This interconnectivity of realities and theories was a unique experience and an extraordinary experience in terms of experiential learning and my small contribution to the educational system that I was a part of in the US.
As I returned to India, I bring with me not only the new knowledge I acquired but also the expertise of the people I met and built relationships with,thus bringing-in a strategic leverage to the Indian social development-potential.

I intend to consolidate my networks through building new collaborations and developing new projects using new technology to continue working for the educational and health reforms I conceived at the time of writing my IFP application.
I am confident that I will achieve more than I envisioned and will go beyond my initial to-do-draft that I wrote as a part of my return-India plan presentation at IFP orientation two years ago .I consider this my achievement.

I owe all my achievements to the support I got from the IFP and its many incentives, together with the encouragement and the timely guidance that came from the IFP team in New Delhi and New York. I am thankful to IFP teams, and will endeavor to translate my gratitude into those actions and values for which IFP stands for; Social Justice and Social Change, through all my work, now on.

Work journey

2010-05-30T00:28:00.001-07:00

Work journey

2010-05-30T00:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOnIp3K0IwU

Work journey

2010-05-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

IFP conference@ Ohio University: Leadership via Fellowship

2010-04-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

The glimpse of young people passionately engaging in issue of social justice is always a very positive glimpse. It not only produces hope but also creates an environment of converting this hope into actions.
Ford Foundation International Fellowship Program’s 3 day conference with a theme to ‘Cultivate Leadership for Social Change’ held in rural Appalachia provided one such glimpse, where IFP fellows from eight American universities representing ten nationalities gathered at Ohio University which hosted the conference between March 25 and March 28 2010.
Established in 1804 Ohio University was just the right campus for such an event. Its vibrant campus with a mix of Victorian and Modern architecture, rich international student community and diverse community interactions makes it a creative hub for student-community to intellectually engage with one another and work on the most pressing social issues that our world is facing today.
The conference agenda was both enriching and entertaining. And it began right at the Columbus airport, which was the point of arrival for all participants. Conversations started amongst fellows, amongst IFP officials who flew from New York, and soon enough amongst the two as well. As everyone boarded the Ohio University Bus, with its giant green Bobcat mascot printed across it, these conversations became the background music while the bus navigated the bright sunny Appalachian visuals through the 90 minute journey from the airport to the Athens campus.
The program began at Salaam, a pan Arabian restaurant on Court Street, campus’s downtown area, where everyone gathered for the dinner. This was the ice breaking session where everybody shared each other’s history, work and culture. As we ate together, fellows from Uganda dressed in their traditional attire danced and rest of us joined them in cheers with rhythmic clapping and humming. Soon enough the Ohio University IFP fellows came forward and added to the environment by a collective dance performance, dedicated to all participants, and then the Chinese fellow’s solo singing performance and a solo poem recitation by an Indonesian. While all of this was underway, the constants flashes of cameras lighten up the ambience and the conversations continued.
Second day of conference was 27th March and everyone was a friend to everyone by now. Well, pretty much. That set the stage of this day, which was full of introductions, discussions and Q& A sessions. After the initial welcome of the participants by the Ohio University’s Ford Fellows Association and the video address by Joan Dassin, Executive Director of International fellowships Funds, followed by the remarks from Krista McCallum, Director of Ohio University International Students and Faculty Services, the conference marched into the keynote address by Dr.Judith Millesen, Associate Professor of political Science and Fellow Faculty at Ohio University. Her work and words on social justice leadership was inspiring and provided the fellows with fresh perspectives of an academician and a practitioner of social change.
This was followed by the panel discussion moderated by Dr.Haley Duschinski, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Panel members came from diverse background and brought in grassroots experiences that are required to translate methodologies into social change actions. Mara Giglio from Appalachian Peace and Justice Network, Carol Kuhre from Rural Action and Leslie Schaller from ACEnet shared the rare insights of working at a grassroots level to develop social change movements through basic human devices such as listening, participatory approaches and conflict resolution through peer mediation.
This panel was uniquely successful in its presentation and fascinating in its discussions because it avoided all the abstract and academic notions of social change and emphasized on the real issues in a very real terms. This, we call, hitting the nail in the coffin!
The panel also really synergized the participants with new enthusiasm and urgency. This was clearly reflected in the next post- lunch session, where fellows organized themselves in small groups to brainstorm and share their thoughts on topics such as Poverty and health ,education, gender and equality issues, which are plaguing the humanity across the globe.
It was these small group- discussions that brought forth, the distinction between issues which are important and which are urgent, concerns that are global and that are local, and solutions that need national perspective and those that transcend nationalities and need universal addressal. It is from these discussions that Ohio Declaration, a document of ‘actions to be taken by fellows’ emerged in a very powerful way; all groups sat together and reflected on their life experiences, discussions and social realities in all its political, economic and cultural context to know the problems and come with solutions. Ohio declaration was thus created!
The day progressed with a new session called ‘Connecting to your IFP community’ that provided a chance to all fellows to know how best they can network with each other and contribute toward the global social change movement. Blogs, video conferences, new media platforms like Facebook and other ways of communication such as telecommunication text messaging was explored. Remarks by IFP officials including Senior Program Officer, Tammy Langan, Communication Officer, Diana Whitten and the Grant Administrator, Barbara Wanasek, further emphasized the crucial communications and protocol issues. This emphasis resulted in an immediate networking as fellows connected with each other though Facebook and emails after this face to face communication. New blogs in future and new communication platforms using new media technologies will go a long way to keep the fellows connected and build the social justice caravan.
In its final stages, the conference’s destination was what is popularly known in Athens, The Ridges, a beautiful historical space situated on the top of the hill with Kennedy Museum of Art. Dr.Pam Benoit, Executive Vice President and Provost, Ohio University and Dr.Weinberg, Director of Ohio University Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs addressed the fellows with inspiring examples of political and social change.
Yet again, emphasizing the power of individual actions backed by the collective solidarity for the sustainable social change.
As the fellows returned from The Ridges, it was time to conclude, and say good bye to each other, only with a hopeful new beginnings with each other and on issues we feel strongly for .And what better way to come together and have group photos as a memento of the conference!
The conference ended on a note of solidarity and camaraderie .As our bus moved back to the Columbus airport, we were no longer a bunch of fellows; we were a family members who were to meet again. And again, as we were bonded by the same desires and restlessness of a social change.

Inconnectivity

2010-03-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

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Navigating-Life: My Portfolio

2009-05-13T15:26:00.000-07:00

This is my work with spaces and people in rural and urban India.It includes my encounters with different cultures, development sites and issues offering immense challenges with which I navigated life.

Inside Control Room: Where lies the truth?

2009-05-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

Control Room showed the human cost of Iraq war both to and of the Iraqi people, and to and of the American soldiers. This was the most speculator part of the film. Some of the most elusive footage, interviews and the daily working of the media at the site of conflict were probably never seen before. Director Jehane Noujaim navigation of the mediascape at the war torn Iraq, Al Jazeera’s newsroom and the Production Control Room, the actual site of news production and broadcasting, while the workers were covering the live images of the bombing of Iraq by the American and the Coalition Army was deeply focused on the realities and power of media. At the same time it also demonstrated how media can be used and abused for political purposes. Control Room shows the story of Al Jazeera’s, the Qatar based news-channel that showed the images , sound and texts of the war to the people. Such images were most profound for the American people and indeed most threatening for the US government under Bush administration. Wounded American soldiers, dying and bleeding Marines and all of such images that showed Americans being hurt was strategically hidden from the Bush administration from its people, to justify the War on civilian Iraq as a war for Liberation of Iraqi people and War by Americans as they stand for the “need of the hour” .Control Room breaks many myths that Bush Administration created through media. Most blatant amongst those were through images of Iraqi civilian casualties which were caused by American troops, attack on media personnel, and wounded American soldiers. Even more blatant was the story of Josh Rushing who was heading the Media unit of the Central Command and spoke eloquently in the film to show his support of the US and the coalition troops and his true belief that Iraq was a potential threat. Throughout the film, the US Marine was advocating the US and coalition of its action with his frank and candid interview with a former BBC employee and presently Al Jazeera's, Hassan Ibrahim. However, according to Josh’s web site (http://joshrushing.com/Bio.html) and other online resources, Pentagon ordered Josh not to give any more interviews. Josh left the US army and according to his web site he now works with Al-Jazeera English. He also wrote a book called “Mission Al-Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World”

In the story of Josh, both as we see him in Control Room and his subsequent decision to leave the US army and join Al Jazeera, what is emphasized is that no news is complete until we see what is shown to us in the light of what is not shown to us. Control Room shows what we rarely see in the so called news channels who not only shows fiction as facts but even construct news to further the political agendas and maintain status-quo. Control Room reveals how this happens. As we see the Al Jazeera’s images of wounded soldiers and civilian’s casualties in Iraq, we hear George Bush preaching to the American public with soothing words, “I expect POWs to be treated humanely, just as we are treating the prisoners we have captured humanely”. Such juxtaposition of political rhetoric and the images of the ground realities instantly separates the chaff from the wheat for it audiences. It sharpens the images that the embedded journalism has created, that of the enslaved-media, in the hands of the establishment, and at the same time, as a senior producer of Al-Jazeera Samir Khader says while looking at the wounded civilians bodies covered by its channel, “I’m supposed to call this incitement? I call this true journalism, the only true journalism in the world” thus referring to a truthful-media characterized by courage and guts.

Samir’s strong sense of journalism with adherence to objectivity and balance is also reflected in a scene where he expresses his dissatisfaction towards the choice of the interviewee, an American who criticizes America for attacking Iraq only for oil, by a co worker, for the lack of balance. Samir is seen to be looking for balance while there is none as he himself seems to have confessed as he says “the only true journalism” in the above context. We see another example of an angry journalist, Hassan Ibrahim, when he hears Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld accusing Al Jazeera's interviews with US POWs as violation of the Geneva Conventions. "What about Guantanamo Bay?" , "What about the Iraqi prisoners on American TV?", he repeatedly questions, thus sharpening the blurred lines of what we see in what is shown and what we not see in what is not shown.

Control Room uses such juxtaposition to make a very strong point; it shows how media is used as tool to sell a war to an audience, who can only see what is shown to them and will believe what is made believable to them. In its intense navigation of the site of war, conflict, media-workplaces and the testimonies of the media workers, Control Room makes a revelation-like impact to those who are glued to the beliefs of notions and fictions that are bombarded on them through the propagandist media controlled by the state. At the same time Control Room also shows the conflict of media workers as they perform their journalist duties under extreme conditions. The conflict of responsibility of work and responsibility of family is best reflected, yet again in the words of another Al Jazeera’s employee who says, “Despite everything he wishes for his children to have a future in the United States, and that he himself would work for Fox”.

In its revelation about the working of the media machinery,, focusing on centers run by the state-establishments such as the Central Command and at the same time channels such as Al Jazeera, Control Room tells a powerful story of a weapon called Media which is used to hide realities and construct non- realities by the former while at the same time, as a weapon used to reveal the truth and deconstruct non -realities through elusive and disturbing but factual audio-visual narratives.

A case of Hole in the wall: India 1999

2009-05-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

This case study is from India. This was done by an Indian It company called NIIT (National Institute of information technology).As an experiment, this was immensely successful one and it took a form of a joint venture between NIIT and International Finance Corporation. This joint venture is now known as Hole-in-the-Wall Education Ltd (HiWEL).
As an experiment, it was started by Sugata Mitra, a computer engineer and founder of the Hole in the Wall, in New Delhi. In 1999, he with his colleagues dug a hole in the wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi and the NIIT office where Mitra worked. A highly powerful computer with interest connectivity was installed. A hidden camera was also installed to film the activity around the area. The experiment observed that the slum kids started playing around with the computer and in the process learnt the how to use a new technology, go online, work with an unknown language, English and most importantly how to teach others what they have learnt.
In the following years the experiment was replicated in many other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The Hole-in-the-Wall project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."
According to Linux Journal, "Education-as-usual assumes that kids are empty vessels who need to be sat down in a room and filled with curricular content. Dr. Mitra's experiments prove that wrong."
This experiment reflects Paulo Freire’s Educational Pedagogy where self-learning and creativity is emphasized and not the “Banking system” of the top-down-classroom set up.
This experiment demonstrated that children can self-instruct in the absence of any supervision. Presence of curiosity and peer-interest is all it required. This experiment also demonstrated the self-organization amongst children who haven’t had any formal education, and their ability to self-learn a new technology, a new language and a new way of exploring things.
In other words, this experiment provided an effective alternative to the conventional primary education methodologies practiced, not so successfully in India. The significance of this experiment becomes high considering the results of the experiment in which students not only started learning the application of a new technology like that of a PC but also learnt new words of a foreign language, English through browsing. The interviews of the students showed that sheer sense of exploration and curiosity motivated them to learn about new websites where we could learn the meaning of the unknown words they explored on the PC while browsing. Hence the experiment not only provided an effective learning platform, it also worked to narrow the huge digital divide.
A small sample sized survey demonstrated that more remote a area in terms of geography or socio-economic access, lower the quality of education. Therefore the experiment was conducted to serve the remote areas. Besides the experiment observed that there was no co relation between the quality of education and factors such as lack of infrastructure, size of the classrooms, lack of electricity and so on. But it observed that teachers in remote schools wanted to move outside of these areas into more urbane and metropolitan areas. This meant that teachers are not motivated enough to teach where they were teaching and that probably caused the lower levels of education.
This experiment was carried out in many parts of India, which is characterized by multi ethnicity, multi linguistic, and diversity in geography, socio economic conditions and races.
In all places the results were similar. Within minutes, children figured out how to point and click. By the end of the day they were browsing. With access and opportunity, the children quickly taught themselves the rudiments of computer literacy. It was observed that children in addition to playing games on the PC, they regularly visited news sites and used tools such the paint tool for drawing.
After the first set of successful experiments, this educational way was used with special emphasis on girl-child in rural communities. Computer kiosks were installed with special efforts to encourage girls to use them. This was immensely successful as well, as girls, given the permission and opportunity rushed to explore and learn trough computers.
The experiment was mostly conduced in slums and marginalized neighborhoods where primary education could not reach or could not work, for whatever reasons.
One of the fascinating aspect of the experiment was the way slum children negotiated with an unknown language, English, in which the computer applications were written. They were unable to pronounce the words correctly but made the correct usage of the words on the computer screen by continuously playing with it and watching the results. This reflects the building of theory through practice in the adaptation of participatory methodology.
Children called the cursor, sui, which in hindi means needle and they didn't call the hourglass symbol the hourglass because they had never seen an hourglass before. They called it the damru, which is Shiva's drum (Hindu god of Creation) as it looked bit like that.
According to the founder of this experiment, "If cyberspace is considered a place, then there are people who are already in it, and people who are not in it ... I think the hole in the wall gives us a method to create a door, if you like, through which large numbers of children can rush into this new arena. When that happens, it will have changed our society forever."
Critique of the case study
Hole in the wall as an educational methodology used a communicative tool like a personal computer and its applications to solve a very basic but a major social problem in the developing world. In this case study, access of communication and its tools have created a revolutionary way to reach and serve the unserved.
The case demonstrated a use of participatory methodology and Freirian pedagogy, which emphasized on creativity, self organization and curiosity as important tools of learning. It demonstrated that remoteness, both in terms of geography and socio economic conditions affects the quality of education. This remoteness was being looked at one of the major reasons of lack of penetration of education, a major social void particularly amongst the marginalized communities and its children. This experiment, by the way of a computer and internet, provided filler for such a void. What worked for this case is the nature of children to play and in the process learn. Computers acted like a good toy for them and it provoked them to fiddle round with it.Thus arousing their curiosity about what it does. Secondly, absence of any supervision from any adults at the site of learning also helped them to self organize and self instruct. This gave them confidence and created sustainability in their tendency to learn. Learning was not only acquired but was also replicated as children taught one another , what they learned themselves. This led to diffusion of education and easily overcame the problems of absence of good teachers or retention of good teachers, infrastructure and maintenance of infrastructure in rural India’s educational landscape. I think the strength of the case is that it depended on the ability of the marginalized community to learn and gain from the opportunity made available to them. Simplicity of the experiment and its exhaustive documentation through filming also helped t o understand the dynamics of the marginalized community, its adaptation of a new technology as an educational tool, learning curve of the communities, challenges they faced and the dyamics of their learning.
This experiment however seemed to be dependent on the group dynamics. In other words, for the experiment to work the way it did, it was important that children came in groups at the site of the PC-internet, and learnt together. In the absence of the group, individual children would not be able to learn because the experiment depended on peer interest and group learning. I view it as both, an advantage and a disadvantage. Advantage because this promotes team -leaning amongst the children and encourages to them not only to learn but also continuously teach and share their learning. This builds educational solidarity. Disadvantage, however, is that child tend to learn from others what others teach him/her. This may not necessarily be of what they are interested in and would want to pick Also, it is possible that the first child who approaches the PC kiosk, learns certain things and then teaches to other what he has learned, thus spreading his perspective of that learning .Thus narrowing the scope of other learning available. But at the same time, I believe that such an disadvantage can be easily overcome by more collaborative attempts like that of attaching a formal learning session at the site. This session can be facilitated by children themselves. This would not only build leadership but would also enhance the purposefulness of the learning in a given context. Since this experiment is carried our mostly in marginalized areas, I would recommend that there are also attempts to reach out to the adults of the area which are not the target audience of the experiment. In fact adults are prevented to be at the site of PC-internet kiosks by way of physical low-ceiling installed at the site under which only children of certain height can stand and use the machine. I think by taking into loop the adults, it will help to deepen the impact of this experiment. Adults are an important component of any community especially in relation to children-development. In many cases, adults control children’s mobility and their engagements. It will, therefore be useful to not only have adults included in this experiment by way of sharing existing tools with them but also make new additions in the experiment to cater the needs of the community and its adults.
Also this experiment is primarily intends to support the primary education amongst the marginalized groups. It is therefore also needed that a long term vision of the education is embedded in the experiment. What happens when children of the community learn enough of the computers being installed? What next? Educational needs are dynamics and therefore how can this system be made dynamics? Also, it is needed to co-relate the learning through computer with the change in socio-economic conditions of the community and know the results. Other support systems such as connecting the children to higher schools once they have acquired the primary goals of education, availability of jobs and creation of bridges to such jobs for the marginalized, chalking out the need of specific learning and expected results and making it known to the rural communities are some of the very important aspects to truly empower the communities.
Hole- in- the- wall started as an effective and creative way to impart education but its potentially can only be fully realized if it receives the necessary support system both from the non-government agencies and government programs operational in the communities. Also it needs a constant focus to ensure that through education rural communities reach a socio-economic change and get empowered. Merely imparting education in the absence of other support system may pose a risk of educational tool like this acting like a video game which could amuse but not empower.

Blogging the Diversity

2009-05-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

Blogging is a new- wave of expression. It has given common people the global reach. It has brought the common narratives of daily life to an uncommon global cyberspace. It clearly transcends time and space; an investment banker on the Wall Street may write about his idea of a new Hollywood flick whereas a distant Bollywood director may share his experiences of new faith. In no time millions of across the world would read, react and ponder over these ideas and in no time, the writers will have the feedback of what they wrote. This is the power of this new tool calling blogging. It is giving not just giving the voice to the people to reach other people across the globe, it is also now increasingly becoming institutionalized. Some of the major organizations now have blogs. Any major website will seem incomplete without a well written, well fed and well read blog.
One of the beauties of blogging is that it can nurture a wide variety of themes and topics. It can be as professional as journalism with deep insight and understanding and at the same time it may look purely fun-content meant to amuse people. Yet both of such content can attract millions and can be extremely popular.
In this paper I will analyze two blogs in greater details. Both are entirely different in their content but to some extent they are expected to share their target audience.One blog is called Think progress (www.thinkprogress.org) and the other is Stuff White People Like(http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/)

Think Progress
As a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund(CAPAF), this blog intends to provide a platform to advance progressive ideas and policies. This blog gained popularity in terms of its credibility in the recent times. It has been voted as the Best Liberal blog in 2006 in the Weblog awards and was also chosen as an Official Honoree in 2009 Webby awards. The Sidney Hillman foundation has also awarded it as the Best blog of 2008 giving it the Award for the Journalism Excellence
The blog has an activist’s tone, as it “fights” for the following themes:
• Social and economic justice
• Healthy communities
• Media accountability
• Global and domestic security
• Public corruption
• Incompetent establishment
• Corporate malfeasance
• Radical right wing agenda
These themes are listed under the stub “what we are fighting for”. It is clear that the blog has adopted an activist’s tone. The rest of the blog, under different sections categorized according to the different themes listed above, speaks about each of the themes vis-a-vis the government policies, reader’s feedback and expert’s opinion on it. Each member of the editorial team has a well-written, crispy biography, starting from Harvard educated Editor-in-Chief to “The New York Times, CNN, NBC Nightly News, and The Drudge Report” researcher. This adds certain degree of credibility as it makes the writer’s background absolutely clear with the team he or she is working with.
Also the blog is always focused on policies and ideas relating to the 8 themes mentioned and therefore its perspective never appears ambiguous. It regularly reports on government’s policies, its flaws, its strengths and its general reception in the public. A regular way of doing this is through quoting the White house and through putting the video of the concerned politicians and policymakers. Very often there are also interviews of the concerned officer on the relevant theme being discussed. This keep s the content of the blog very focused and provides an opportunity of journalistic balance and objectivity by inviting reader’s comments, reference to other website and videos.
In addition to the regular news on the 8 listed themes, it also a detailed report that reader can subscribe to. This detailed report is published regularly and varies from topic to topic. The present report is on clean energy. One of the striking features of the blog is that it invites “news tip” from the readers. If readers have any news that they want to share, they can send it through a box-space with their email and name. This is a clear and simple use of Citizen’s journalism, which adds a unique interactivity and reader’s participation in the content- range. Another feature on the blog is that of the most-popular-topics. This enables readers to know which the most-read news items are, thus one can see which topics are mostly picked by the readers. This further complimented by other options such as Most Linked , Most Commented, Most Emailed with the option of reading news in the 24 hours, Last Week and Last Month. The later is an achieving system while the former is a way to measure the reader’s interest on different yardsticks such as comments, emails etc.
Besides the blog also list several other external links that speak about government policies and international affairs through its drop down stub “blog roll” while at the same time clearly showing links to other affiliated websites such as The Wonk Room.
Content of the blog and its design and interactivity is most likely to be appealing for people in Development sector, Non-government organizations, Advocacy groups and activists. The wide variety of them is just apt even for students of Social Sciences and Political Sciences particularly students of graduate studies. The depth of analysis, issues and news is diversified and rigorous. It provides good balance by listing the different point of views and also making it clear the way readers perceive this news. It therefore makes it systematic for the readers to navigate the blog and pick and choose the content of their interests.
Some of the advertisements on the blog are that of telecommunication companies like AT&T. This looks relevant because it is expected that a great of deal of the blogs readers are working and are expected to be a regular user of cell phones. However, the advertisement box is clearly marked and that makes the blog look very clean without distractions. The 8 themes have colors and all news attached to each theme has similar colors. This makes the whole blog very easy to read and pick the news items according to ones interest. The use of you tube video and the editorial comments on it makes it really handy to differentiate between what is being said by the government and what is the stand of the blog’s editorial. Together they present a balanced look, readers can, of course, add their comments, which is always easier when the source and the initial comment is available right on the blog where there is comment space.
The choice of colors, mostly primary colors is also simple yet striking. It avoids any distraction and the focuses the readers more and more on the content and on the form of the blog. But somber look of the blog does facilitate the readers’ concentration and navigation. Besides, paid advertisement space, the blog also has a separate link for donations.
The serious content, in the journalism terms can be categorized as hard news, which is well presented and well balanced. The debate on the weather blogs are an alternative to journalism or not, seems to be ending with the professional look and journalistic credibility that Think Progress is gaining. A Journalisticc award further enhances its credibility and its ability of a journalistic voice through blogging. The editorial team also adds to its richness and insightful analysis of the subject through its experience and wide exposure to journalism practice.
Stuff white people like
In stark contrast to the previous blog, this blog is “soft news”. It basically lists some of the major things that white people like. It is a one- person view and hence is extremely subjective, and not so credible. But this blog has gained immense popularity, not because of its credibility but probably because of its entertainment fun value. It is listed as no 11 blog on Technorati and has already got over 30 million hits. The beginning of this blog is rather interesting and its success unexpected. This is what the writer of the blog says about how the blog and came into being in the interview posted on the blog:
My friend Myles Valentine and I were talking over IM about the TV show The Wire. Myles said he didn’t trust any white people who did not watch the show. Somehow we ended up talking about what they were doing instead of watching it and we came up with answers like “yoga,” “plays,” “getting divorced,” and “therapy.” I thought it was a funny idea for a blog and signed up for one at wordpress.com and just started writing.
On being asked if she expected it to be so popular, the writer answered, “No. I started it with the hopes that maybe 10 of my friends would read it. I never expected it to be read by this many people.
This explains the power of media and blogging as one of its tools.
The tone of the blog is humorous and funny and yet it sounds factual at times. The home page of the blog candidly confesses, “This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like. They are pretty predictable.”
In the answering the question “ what white people like”, the blog enlists over 125 “stuff” like Netflix, Bob Marley, yoga, Having two last names, Religion their parents don’t belong to , Not having a TV and Difficult breakups in addition to many others. It is clear that the writer is using humor to write the daily narratives of life most likely in a Western country. The target audience is mostly likely to be students of Cultural studies, International students in campus and of course the white population.
The blog is extremely smart in raising revenues. It has relevant advertisement according to each blog posting. So the blog posting on Netflix had Netflix advertisements, being posed by Google whereas, the posting on Travelling has some travel agents whose advertisements were posted. This enables reaching a very targeted audience according to the content being provided on the web page.
The blog’s design is really easy to navigate with a book with the same title as the blog. It has a “full lists of what white people like” stub with posts, comment and search box. The design is simple and avoids any crowded look. It auotmativ\cally directs the readers to the posts being posted. The advertisements space is also limited and strategically located in small rectangular boxes to avoid any distractions. The templates have ay youthful pictures in bright colors such as organic food, dogs and natures’ shots. Mostly these pictures are the themes on which the posting are written on.

Conclusion
Both the above blogs are focused on different audience groups. These two sets of audiences may have been located in the same regions, the US and Europe, being the two most likely regions, yet their content is so different. Tone of language, design, readers participating and other factors also substantially different but blogging as a tool is common, and that underlines the power of blogging. It can handle such diversified content in the same form. This is revolutionary. The convergence of words, pictures videos and sound has never been so powerfully used in such a diversified content range. The resulting interactivity also makes it possible to adapt itself to the taste and nature of other readers, whose demographic information can be easily found put, given the online tools available to locate the reader’s location etc. This adaptability is the backbone of blogging. It can reach many audiences at the same time and yet remain focused on its core content.
Blogging will continue to mainstream the content and form that has not been able to reach the global audience due to the binding, rigid informational structures, which are now melting. In blogging, the global audience has found a global tool to reach the global demography. The stories, arts and culture, which were once considered distant and whose amalgamation with other popular forms, was perceived unlikely is now meeting its audience in all colors and textures, using a common connecting thread called blogging.

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Muscial Hip-hop: In Dissonance & Harmony

2009-05-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

Human experiences are a matter of every passing second. Such experiences are expressed in many forms. Music is one of the most popular forms in which the human experience is manifested.
Historically, it is a common knowledge that music is used by some of the great revolutionaries like Che Guevara for political purposes, Gandhi for social movements and even now special jingles are used by armed forces across the world to keep the cadets motivated, soldiers inspired and general public interested to join the force in solidarity.
In I love Hip Hop in Morocco, hip-hop as a genre of music was seen as a tool to express free speech, love for music and solidarity. Whereas in Dissonance and Harmony, music was seen as an expression of freedom under oppressive regime/occupation, it can be seen as a language that breaks the barriers of monotony of life as just being romantic-content and verbose form. As one artist says,” Music should be used to convey the society not just love all the time.”, we see that music is perceived as communicating the silence, communicating the horrors of war and turmoil and the urge to break out and “go away”. In both films, however, it is apparent that music and lyrics are perceived by the artists as something that can soothe, and fill the void, both individual and collective. Both films not only narrated the story of the artist’s journey to a Hip hop festival or to a distant city of Los Angeles, but films also narrated the conflicts within which each of the artists had to negotiate every day.
The only woman rapper in I love Hip Hop in Morocco doesn’t only wants to express her ideas of freedom and individuality through rap, but she also has to negotiate with her family, society and her gender. In Morocco, where hip-hop or any kind of music is not in a popular traditional culture, she is trying to be a part of hip-hop festival performing with other male singers to the public. Her family is supportive but the society at large isn’t. Members of another group Fnaire, chooses not to use certain words like “fuck’ which they perceived as not being a part of their language/culture. But hip-top itself is not part of their culture too. But hip-hop is their craft and they use it to self-express. Self expression is indeed a part of their faith and culture. But the form is problematic. And hence, intense negotiation.

DJ Key, another artist abandoned his work in architecture to follow his dream of hip-hop. This is yet another site of conflict between the pursuit of livelihood and the pursuit of dream and passion. In the midst of this conflict and negotiation, what emerges is an unlikely music in the form of a hip-hop concert in the midst of an uncertain audience and an nonsupporting general societal fabric.
The groups in I love Hip-hop in Morocco expresses it desires and love for the free speech through “ rebellion” social form of expression, perceived as Western ans alien, while at the same time remaining deeply rooted to their culture, faith and families. This can be seen as a conflict between the form and the content; what the artist is expressing may get a receptive audience in a Moroccan society. So the content has a social space and “social ears” but the form, the hip-hop, is apparently too alien/anti-culture/anti-faith and unacceptable and hence we see a lack of “social eye” for this. Also, the logistical support for the artist came from an American filmmaker and the American Embassy. However, all of the support was internally raised i.e., within Morocco. The other film we saw was different on this account.
Besides, while I love Hip-hop in Morocco is an attempt by rap artists to perform in their own country and create a free speech space for themselves, Dissonance and Harmony was set in a different site; War torn Iraq, highly politically volatile Egypt, Lebanon and Jordon. The artists from these countries are in the midst of physical ruin, social isolation and under their own government’s embargo on their artistic expression. An Iraqi guitar player was banned from the television, is one such blunt example of social exclusion of artistic expression in their own nation, which was torn apart by external forces as a result of international politics. In such circumstances, their art was affected with the economy, local culture, polity and general day-to-day life’s mobility. To worsen things, the globalised media created stereotypes that completely made these artists of the Arab countries almost inconceivable in the minds of the world specially the American audience, who could only imagine an Arab with a gun and nota a guitar or a violin. This documentary therefore can be seen as a bridge-builder, between the artists of the Arab world representing their Eastern societies and the artists of America and American audience representing their Western societies. Thus the film clearly tries to break the “perceived conflict” that is created by the popular media especially the news media in the minds of the Western audience.
In both films however we see that “Americans’ are trying to popularize music, Hip-hop in Morocco and other forms such rap in the Arab countries. This can still be read as cultural imperialism, by few if not many. For, in both cases, music was the focus and the major theme of the film’s narration. Whereas many will agree that music is not the major theme in a Muslim mind in a Muslim society. It is in fact a matter of debate and controversy. It is true that music doesn’t have a language and it therefore, transcends culture in many ways yet themes such family norms, prayers, social justice, charity and community are themes which would probably be more receptive in the Muslim world and its societies.
In Dissonance and Harmony I also observed a kind of “fascination” for the west specially the US in the language and affirmations of the Arab artists.(Can we understand this also as a produce of the popular media as it created Islamophobic images and sound..?)Their desire to come to the US and perform and make space for the Arab artistic expression in the minds of an American audience was remarkable. But it would have been more remarkable if their attempts to make a favorable artistic-image were directed to their resisting governments I particular and societies in general. Clearly for this the logistical support was not available. What was indeed available was a support system to come to Los Angeles, and do a show for the American audience. This can be viewed as conflicting but justified given the resistance from the authorities to the music as an artistic form of expression in the Arab culture in general.

Hard Focus Hard Realities:Chasing the Peace

2009-04-22T01:42:00.000-07:00

Islam means peace. All its prophets including Abraham, Jesus and the last one, Muhammad propagated peace and social justice. Amongst its first revealed words of Quran are “Read” and “Pen”. Yet in the recent times of Islamophobia, all of these have been attacked. Islam is attacked for being a violent religion; terms like “fundamentalist” and “Islamic terrorism” are widely accepted as a standard terms used especially for “radical” Muslims in one part of the world or the other. Cartoons of the last prophet of Islam, a religion practiced by almost 1.5 billion people across the globe, have been depicted in the most objectionable way by a mainstream newspaper of a developed nation. The Quran is being termed as some kind of terror-text by movies like Fitna, produced by a Member of Parliament of yet another developed nation and recently a movie called Obsession, copies of which were slipped into thousands of newspaper across the US during the recent election time, was an attempt to propagate hate-speech against the fastest growing faith on earth.

In addition to all this, in our class-screening of Real Bad Arabs, what struck me was the sheer number of biased representations that were made against the Arab world in the Hollywood movies. Through these movies, the fears and observations of Edward Said in Orientalism were reinforced. We see Muslims, especially the young Muslims as angry, yelling, out-of-control, threatening, holding guns and knives draped in Yasser-Arafat-style- checks-scarf. They are shown as villains and in almost all the movies, they are showed to be killed in vast numbers, emphasizing and underlining the fact that they are too many in number and hence are a bigger threat. Edward Said, in his monumental work, Orientalism, has observed how the West especially the US has perceived the strange-looking Arabs with their strange-culture and strange- space as threat. Their different culture, instead of being perceived as a part of the diversity in cultures of the world, was being perceived as a “threateningly-different other”. This lens, through which Europe and America sees the Middle East as a threatening , backward, uncivilized, barbaric people, culture and space, all of which must be “fixed” in order to restore and retain their own freedom and peace was being termed as Orientalism, by Said.

These lenses were evident in the films that were featured in the documentary that we saw. Two of the most striking features were the representation of Muslim-youth, as being angry and aggressive, and women being suppressed and being objectified as mere sensual-objects like belle dancers.

The text Islamophobia shows a veiled woman as one of the symbols of Islam. The film also reinforces the same image as one of the images of Islam. Women are showed in Islamic veiled as oppressed or are shown as sensual-objects as belle dancers, being used by men, clad in traditional Arab dress. To my mind, this is mere stereotyping of a region with over 250 million people with different traditions, cultures and history. The practice of Muslim women covering their head with a scarf is a common practice .However, what is uncommon is the form in which the head is covered. This covering is variable across Middle East depending on the local culture and traditions. However, this differentiation is not seen in the images that appear in the documentary. The image being showed in the book as symbol is an image of a woman, who covers her full face with a black cloth with only eyes visible, is a deliberately selected image, which does not represent the whole of Middle East. Such a form of hijab is mostly visible only in a few countries like that of Saudi Arabia India and Pakistan. It is shocking how a generalized image of Arab Muslim women is represented.

The media is clearly biased on the factual representations. It strategically “failed” to inform its viewers the fact that until 18^th century the worse kind of oppression was given to the women of Europe; Britain legally allowed its men to sell-off their women like a commodity whereas Swiss law legally allowed its men to have 50% legal share over their wives’ salary. And in the United States, voting rights to women were recent phenomenon and so was the right to acquire or buy property. Or, for that matter, even use their maiden name after marriage, without the husband’s permission. Furthermore, the closest to which a woman came, in terms of acquiring a political office in the US was in the recent elections when Sarah Palin was nominated by the Republicans as its candidate for the Vice Presidentship. Sadly enough, party lost the elections and the dream of seeing the first woman Vice-President, after over 200 years of feminist movement was instantly killed.

On the contrary, Pakistan, a Muslim dominated country had an Oxford-educated, woman-head, Benazir Bhutto, being democratically elected, not once but twice; Bangladesh, again a Muslim dominated country was headed by two different women namely Khalida Zia and Sheikh Hasina; Turkey had its Vice-PM as a woman and Iran had a women Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Abidi. Even historically speaking, the first Muslim person was a woman called Khadija, who was a working woman almost 1500 years ago, who gave a trade-contract to Prophet Muhammad, married him after being widowed twice and herself initiating a marriage proposal with him. Khadija was also the first women to wear the veil almost 15 centuries ago and demonstrate all the traits of a successful, modern, working woman. Yet in the long discourses and study of veil in the 21^st century her portrait is missing. The whole architecture of the literature available on veil or hijab is completely devoid of the first woman, who practiced veil for the first time in history, and from whom all the discourses must start. All such work, therefore are manifested in unfairness and are unfit for any rigorous, academic investigation or any serious study.

Another misrepresentation in the Real Bad Arabs that struck me was that of Muslim men. They were shown as aggressors, violent and armed at all times. In the Hollywood movies like True Lies and Sleeper Cell, they are being shown as ruthless armed terrorists, who can strike anyone, anywhere. Even more biased are the news media reports like that of a Oklahoma City Attack, which claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured and is considered as the largest terrorist attack on American soil in history before the September 11 attacks. It also remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history. Within few minutes of attacks, the whole media machinery starting pointing fingers on some Middle eastern youth as the culprits behind the attack without doing any systematic investigation showing any kind of journalistic rigor. At the end of it all, it was found that the attack was carried-out by a local American, who grew-up in the same city and had connections with militia.

Such images and incidents only underline the ulterior motives and hidden agendas when it comes to representation of Arab people in general and Arab-youth in particular. The images of youth in the Hollywood movies being perpetrators of violence is in complete opposition to the fact that in the recent times, most of the Muslim regions such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Gaza are under armed-conflict, mostly initiated by the West. Victims of these global-conflicts are mostly civilians, who are overwhelmingly Muslims, mostly children and youth. And, therefore, what we see in the movie-images are the actual victims, who are shown as perpetrators.

Edward Said's observation in Orientalism that such misrepresentation is intentional is crucial. To have such representation in the media and creating threat in the minds and hearts of people especially American people to justify huge military budgets and military aid to countries like Israel, which is responsible for the longest illegal occupation, according to the UN charter, seems intentional and the smell of greed of critical resources like oil can be felt. Such suspicions become more profound considering the strong corporate lobby in Washington DC for the production of oil and related products. A film like Syriana highlights such strong linkages and exposes the hidden agendas. Besides, works of John Pilger such as Palestine is still an issue and Fiske’s Palestine, Propaganda and the Promised Land are other monumental journalistic work which shows how Israel is funded by the US to torture civilians, especially the youth of Palestine to strengthen the state of Israel through illegal prosecution and occupation.

Furthermore, the representations that we see in the Hollywood films featured in the Real Bad Arabs can be seen as an extension of political propaganda tactic and to project Muslims as evil- villains, who can only be controlled by violence and hence it is justified to use violence to control them, as they pose a serious threat to the “civilized” world. In my view, not only are such representations dangerous for the world–peace but I think it also kills the potential of peaceful co-existence between several cultures. For, it only strengthens and supports Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilization that instills fear and justifies violence against an unknown, unexplored, distant culture, probably just because it has precious resources and because it stands on, and practices its own culture, which may appear “different and strange” to the West.

In the midst of such misrepresentation John Pilger’s definition of Journalists as “not merely the messengers but also the people who understand the message and its hidden agendas” appear like a savior. It calls for courage and an insider’s insight for the truth to prevail. It is clearly not enough to switch to one television news channel and perceive as it as the window of the world. What is required is to go beyond what is shown and what is not shown, and read what is written and understand it in the light of what is not written. That will reflect the true nature of the news and real agendas of the News makers. Same is true for the so called Hollywood films, which, in reality works as propaganda and PR tactics in which defense personnel modifies scripts, builds characters and writes screenplays to change the public-perception of reality thus instilling a new- constructed reality. This is done for various reasons, most of which are political including boosting military- recruitment and propagating hate against the unknown, unexplored, different “threat”. Thus, in the end, perpetually marginalizing the future of peace and cross-cultural co-existence.

Inside the American cultural-laboratory: Where the pain meets the Doctor, the Hindi and the Slumdog.

2009-02-25T21:55:00.000-08:00

It was an unusually bright sunny day in Athens, Ohio when I was sitting outside the laundry, waiting for my clothes to dry. I haven’t had enough sleep the previous night and the sun-rays, after the long period of continuous snowing, were rather intoxicating. I had assignments to finish. One of them was this very assignment; to write the field notes of a situational observation. And outside this huge laundry, where students came with bucket full clothes, I noticed a strange pattern; that all buckets were blue and that all of them were painfully heavy and that the carriers of the buckets, mostly the students, had to stretch their body really hard to be able to make it to the washing machines. They all struggled against the gravity and the weight of the bucket. Another strange pattern that was quite apparent was the presence of at least one book on the top of the dirty clothes, which did not look as dirty to me as the bucket itself, with brown and green mud-like marks on almost all buckets I noticed. Another observation that I invariably noticed was that the book was never read! People came with the book and the clothes, put the clothes in the machine and started talking on the their multi-colored, jazzy looking cell phones, while the book they brought along, peacefully lying on their laps or in their now empty bucket. I just wondered why add the weight of the book which is never to be read and pain the body?

Anyway, in the midst of this “patternful” laundry, I started writing my assignment from the notes I took while observing a meeting of undergraduate students with a local NGO representative, a few hours ago. Suddenly, I felt a stroke of pain in my left molar-tooth. I recalled that the pain had been there for quite some time and that I had been ignoring it. But this time it was not only sudden, it was sharp. So I decided to see a doctor. On my way, up the hill to the heath center, I decided to observe the heath center and write about it instead of the undergraduate meeting. So as a patient at the health center, I converted myself into an observer as well. As a patient, I think during my observation, I was also a participant in some ways.
So I reached the heath centre and pulled the door open. The door was rustic and made a big sound, which was equally rustic. The board hanging cautioned “No pets please”, which was reassuring that I am not in veterinary clinic! Within a span of 3 seconds, there was another rustic door which made another rustic sound. It seemed to me that these doors are some kind of a declaration of the clinic-staff for the arrival of the patients saying “You are here again, damn it?”. And on my way back, the door seemed to be saying, “Don’t you dare show up again, you sick people!!”.With those loud noises and my perceived meaning of them, I entered.

As I entered, I noticed a huge array of people, again, like in the laundry, mostly students. And yet again, like the clothes never looked dirty, none of these, supposedly patients, did not look sick at all. They were all reading business and entertainment magazines which were very decoratively kept on the shelves. Some of them were talking on phones and yet another set of people were only staring at the first two set of people I mentioned! Later I realized it is this last category of people which actually look ill at least in some ways; they looked lazy, tired, their eyes were drowsy and so on. But let me not run ahead of my discoveries. I entered the gate and went to the reception only to find a male receptionist. After many years of going to places with a Reception, this was clearly a break. I hadn’t seen a male receptionist in many years. And in this case, a white male receptionist was really exotic and rare. But these things do not matter if you have a terrible toothache. And therefore I immediately came out of my observer’s mode, and became a patient. I went to the reception and shared my shooting pain with the receptionist thinking he would stand up and rush me to the doctor. But he looked at me and in a matter- of- factly, routine manner asked, “ Are you a student?” and before I could answer ,he directed me to the computers, installed behind me which was his front asking me to fill-in the details. His 100% flat face which did not react at all to my shooting pain convinced me why we have more women receptionists across the globe than men; for a simple reason; they react at least to a shooting toothache!

With one hand on my left cheek, I turned and went to the computer to fill-in the details. I was happy to find “toothache” as one of the “reason to visit” option. It was soothing. After I filled in the details, I tried to go back to the receptionist but he as I took the first step towards him, he popped up and said, “ Sit there!” directing me to a bunch of chairs, which were already occupied by people I described above.

I went away from him and stood against one of the corners of the hall. I waited for another 5 minutes during which I heard the receptionist yelling people’s name and also the nurses in blue trousers and blue jacket coming in from the other direction and also yelling names. “Blue is certainly the color of the day”, I thought while being in a toothache- blues. Almost after 15 minutes, I heard one name being repeated yelled by the receptionist and no one was showing up. The name was yelled at least 5 times, piercing the silence of the pin-drop silent hall. The hall was really silent. The only sound that registered in my mind, besides this yelling, was the sound of the pain pounding my tooth!

After repeatedly yelling the same name several times, the receptionist picked up another name and then another. “Ricky!”, “Michael!”, “Sophia!”, “Martin!” and so on. My pain was now at its peak and reluctantly, I went to the reception to try my fate one more time. “I will go home and gargle with lukewarm water with salt in it, if he doesn’t take me to the doctor this time”, I told myself while heading the cream-colored desk where he sat. As I went to him and tried to convince him of my emergency-like situation if not fully 9/11- types- emergency, he punched in few details on his computer and almost ferociously looked at me to say, “Where were you?”. I said I was here. He irritatedly said he called my name several times, to which I enquired, “Which name?” ,to which he responded, with full confidence, “ Your name, Saied!” , pronouncing the name with a heavy American accent with all the force on the last “ed”. That was a mispronunciation. And that wasn’t the name my parent gave me 26 years ago. So it wasn’t wrong on my part not to respond to anything that was not pronounced Syed, my first name that he chose to pick or at least something close to it like Saeed, Said and so on. But with the pain already bothering me, I simply apologized and requested to send me to the doctor now. I also urged him to call me with my last name which was much easier to pronounce and I think it cannot be mispronounced, no matter how lyrical one tries to be with it.

To my surprise, I was told to wait. Again. And I did, against the same corner of the wall. But this time in almost 4 minutes, a woman with a stethoscope around her long neck and blue jacket came and yelled my name; correctly enough probably because she used my last name. I immediately stood up and went with her. She smiled and I tried to smile back but couldn’t. The pain blocked the smile completely. She took me to a room with a computer, three chairs and a table with lots chocolate cookies on it. Asking me to sit and she went out. I was alone with those cookies. I picked one to eat but realized I shouldn’t, given my toothache. So I grabbed some 10 of those cookies and stocked the inner pocked of my blue (yet again!!) coat. This, I did as a kind of a small revenge on the clinic that hasn’t treated me at all in the last 55 minutes now!! But in a few minutes, fortunately, the woman, who I thought was doctor because of her possession of a stethoscope, which, in my country, only doctors carry, returned, with another elderly woman. As I discovered they were both nurses. And one, who brought me to this room, was a trainee nurse. Now we all three sat there. The elderly nurse asked the trainee, loud enough and I could hear, to ask me, “What’s your student –ID?”

I waited for the trainee to ask me so that I could answer. She did ask and I did answer. And she punched that in to the computer. Then the elderly woman asked the trainee to ask me, “How are you doing today?”I again heard it but again waited for the trainee to ask. And when she did ask, I answered by lying and saying that I was “fine”. And yet gain the elderly woman asked the trainee to ask me, “What’s the problem that I have?”.This time I did not wait and looking straight into the eyes of the elderly woman I said, “I have terrible toothache and would really appreciate if you can do something about it!”.The elderly nurse looked at me and then calmly looked at the trainee winking with both eyes. The trainee smiled and started punching “that detail’ in to the computer. By now I understood that this was a training session going in progress and not my treatment may or may not be one of its manifestations. I prayed for it being one! After punching for over 3 minutes the trainee nurse asked to follow her. I did. As we walked down the corridor of the clinic for some 50 seconds, we came across a table. I saw one young man in his early twenties sitting. He looked weak and sleepy. But he sat straight on the table occupying only 30% of the table space. The trainee without looking at the table or me or the person on the table, directed me to sit while she slipped my file into the room on my left through an opening in the middle of the door. Without uttering any other word, she moved away from me and almost faded-out in the corridor. I was finishing almost 1 hour in the clinic with my terrible toothache only accelerating every minute while I was being engaged in all sorts of so called, medical- procedures of the health clinic.

Helplessly and by now, hopelessly, I waited for the doctor’s call. Another 15 minutes of silence passed during which the person beside me barely moved. He sat straight demonstrating some kind if a military regimentation in sitting position. I tried sitting like him for a few minutes but soon gave up. “There is no need for another pain”, I soothed myself, almost couching into the table with my fingers running through my oily hair and finally resting on my somewhat-sweaty neck.

And then, the door opened, a name was called. It was “Mike!”. I heard it clearly but by now I could not take any chances and I did not want to take any chances! So, I stood up while the person beside me also standing with me, hinting enough that he was Mike, I still asked him his name while both of us entered the doctor’s room. As we took the first few steps inside the doctor’s room, he said, clearly shockingly, “I AM Mike!!”. I said, “OK” and came out of the room.
After another 10-12 minutes, Mike came out. My name wasn’t called yet and I wondered painfully, “Lunch time??No??”.Thankfully, it wasn’t. I WAS called-in, again by the name which wasn’t mine! But I knew “it” was me. For, there was no one else waiting.

And there I was, finally sitting face- to-face with a doctor who would just give me a painkiller. But I again, I am rushing.

The doctor, like everyone else till now, was very calm-looking. And as humanely as possible, in that shooting pain, I hated it. But this time, I managed to smile and sit on the chair as the doctor directed me. The chair was at least 7 feet away from the doctor. This was an overwhelmingly long patient-doctor distance for me. I had to listen hard to the singing accent. Back home, this distance was never more than 2 feet! I took another deep breath and decided to continue the internal “struggle” with patience.

I did not want the doctor to ask me how I was and how my day was and all of that protocol questions so I went ahead and started speaking: Hi doctor! I have been ok for the last 6 months ever since I came from India. But since this morning I am having a terrible toothache and would appreciate if you can please do some thing it.
The doctor looked little bugged at my decision to speak first without being asked anything. After few seconds, which he utilized to utter a long “hmm..mm”, he started by asking a question and then another question and then another:

“Where is the pain? I wondered where else can a toothache? Heart? Kidney?
I politely said, “My tooth”.
“Which side?”
Left.
“At the end?”
Yes, the very end!
“ For how long?”
Since morning!!
“What kind of pain..is it bleeding?”
And, on and on…

“If only he sees my tooth, he would know all the answers in just one go. That’s what the doctors back home would do. See and not ask!” I thought to myself. So I went-on to suggest if “he would like to see my tooth please. That might help”. After another long “hmm..mm” he said, “Sure”. I spell that “sure” with only one “r”, but as he pronounced that word, I could hear at least five of them!

And then, he continued, “ theek ho.” .Those are Hindi words. He found out from my records that I am from India and assumed that I understand Hindi despite coming from a country, housing 1/6th of the world population and having at least 17 official languages, with 1.5 billion people speaking and understanding not more than one or two languages, one of which is mostly English!
“ Theek hai”, I corrected him and he nodded with a receptive smile. Those words mean “ok”

Anyway, he directed me to another room and told me to sit on a bed-like table. I almost jumped in excitement. He told me if I would stretch my mouth open and use my index finger to point where the pain is. But before he told me that, I had already done it. There I was, stretching my cheeks from inside, so that he could see clearly. But alas! He couldn’t! He pulled himself back and said, “It too dark there. I can’t see.”. I suggested using a lamp, which was safely parked next to the bed-like table. He said we could use it but it has a hot-light.

I responded with courage, “No problem sir. Please use it”. He agreed after deciding to keep the lamp little away from my face because the lamp had a hot-bulb radiating hot rays and not the cool florescent light, which normally are used in such cases. He again uttered “ theek ho”, but almost immediately correcting himself .. “oh o..theek hai.”, followed by his, now standard smile. He kept looking for over 3 minutes and then switched off the lamp, which was a hint to me that he was done. Then he pulled himself back and asked to come back to his room and again directed me to sit on the “distant” chair. I did without a choice. And then he started explaining to me what all he discovered in my mouth. Worse still, his explanations were so “medically jargoned” that I couldn’t believe my mouth was so “full of those alien and scary stuff”. While he was still speaking, I interrupted and asked, “So.. Sir what’s the treatment please?”. But without answering my question he went on and said few other things I heard but did not listen to at all. But after that he said, “It’s normal.”

I did not understand what he was referring to; the stuff in my mouth, his habit of not answering the questions, his pathological urge to tell everything.

Or, my pain?
Or, something else?

I knew my pain wasn’t normal, because it was shooting! And I didn’t care what else was what!! So I simply agreed with a nod to his telling me, “ Its normal.”
Finally I asked him if there’s any treatment for what I came here for. And for the first time in the last one decade (well YES, that’s what I felt at that moment!!) someone said that word; Prescription!! But again followed by three more Hindi words in lyrical accent: Elaaj hai na!, meaning “ Indeed, there is a treatment!”

I normally like non-native Hindi speakers, speak or try to speak Hindi to me but for some reasons this was an exception. Every demonstration that this doctor made of showing-off his knowledge of few phrases of Hindi that he learnt from his son who was in India for a few days, was the most annoying moment for me in that clinic on that day. And probably, as I now recall, anywhere, any time in my whole lifetime!

Finally, he handed over an A-4 prescription sheet to me and said I have to take these medicines twice a day for two weeks. As I said “ok” in a concluding tone while standing up holding my left cheek, he yet again demonstrated his knowledge of lyrical, accented Hindi, uttering this: Slumdog Millionaire dhekhee?”
Meaning, “Did you see Slumdog Millionaire?”

I had seen this film which was weaved around a story in India, almost three months ago, but to avoid any further conversation and gulp the painkillers he prescribed, as soon as possible, I said “No, not yet”. And he suddenly was delighted to find an opportunity to share the film he had seen the previous night!
“This is about “Moom-bai city”, he began, referring to a financial Indian city called Mumbai.
“Terrible life, you know. I was thinking it would a musical Indian film with dance and pleasant story but I was very disturbed.. you should watch and see..and ..and..”
“Does it really happen? “ Have you been to Moom-bai” “ My son was working there last year and he..”

I stood up, painfully smiling and interrupted, “Sir, I will watch this film for you. I have a class now.. Where would I get the medicines?..
While saying those last few words, I was almost out of his room leaving him behind me saying, “there’s a pharmacy out there behind the reception..Straight.. Left..Right..”
And the words faded out behind me, as I rushed out through the corridors.
I found the pharmacy and stood there. The pain of the tooth wasn’t as prominent now as the pain of my recent memories.

In the midst of those memories, I saw Mike, standing just at the pharmacy counter right in front of me; No movement at all. Militarily, straight as ever. I closed my eyes for few seconds, waiting for him to turn to me so that I could give him a farewell smile. But before my few seconds could pass, I heard an accented, melodious “ Yesss.. pleeease!”. I was finally getting the painkiller for the pain that was almost fully treated by the experiential richness of my graduate program’s Observation-assignment.

Everything was Normal.

Forging Progressive Education

2008-11-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

Conclusion

The working dynamics and its purposes of the Gulen movement conclude that such a movement is not only addressing the student-education but is also addressing all members of the society who are interested in resolving their issues. It does that by providing them with a deeper understanding of human psyche, desires and aspirations of peace and co- existence. At the same time, this movement also addresses those people who are not interested in keeping aside the differences due to their ignorance and lack of vision. It does it by educating them with the renewed vision and understanding using the tools of dialogue and tolerance. In the movement there are inherent characteristics of ‘humanization’ and the avoidance of ‘dehumanization’ (Freire, P. 2000) through the inclusion of worldly factors being meshed with morality and ethics.

In its dynamics, it is evident that the way the movement operates, it avoids questioning the status quo by not confronting the State stand, but at the same time it also completely questions and demolishes the status quo manifested in the decades of ongoing conflicts and lack of understanding between civilizations, cultures and religions. This is the uniqueness of the movement, which ,on one hand offers a special kind of apparent irony while on the other, breaks that irony by it dynamics of results .One can also see an element of ‘quietness’ in the movement because of its deliberate choice of non- confronting stand and spiritual aspects. This is quite opposed to the Freirian notions, which clearly differentiates the ideas of the oppressed and the oppressors and questions the status quo, being created by the ‘oppressors’ for their own benefits and at the cost of the oppressed (Freire, P. 2000).Gulen movement seems to be borrowing the concept of a ‘dialogue’ that Freire writes about but at the same time deliberately excludes the exact notion of status-quo in the Freirian theory. Interestingly, the Gulen movement adopts the ‘culture of silence’ (Freire, P. 2000) for the sake of empowering the un-empowered by channelizing all its energies into the education rather than in the fight for the education. The clear differentiation between teaching and education and clear emphasis on mutual learning between student and teachers, however clearly matches with Freire’s ‘problem solving education process.’

It is also interesting to note that Gulen community functions without particularly classifying the environment of it working into two separate conflicting groups which Freire so strongly classifies as the ‘oppressor’ and the oppressor’.

In the dynamics of the Gulen movement what is seen is the complete exclusion of the potential ‘oppressor (Freire. P, 2000 ) such as the State, by a strategic agreement with it and thereby working on and working with the fighting communities who are both, oppressed, because of the belligerent behavior of the other and at the same being ‘oppressed’ due to their belligerent behavior towards the other. The movement however achieves and buys peace between the conflicting parties with the use of a ‘dialogue’ which is an integral part of the Freirian theory. Thus on one front, Gulen movement runs parallel with the Freirian movement without having to meet each other’s viewpoint, whereas on the other hands it clearly overlaps with its belief of ‘dialogue’.

One can also see the complete absence of ‘banking system of education’ in the Gulen movement, which uses its energies not only to let student learn from teachers but also to let teachers learn from students ,as well as from the constantly changing teaching environment.

The movement’s emphasis on the joy in the learning- process echoes with the experiences of Bell Hooks who experienced ‘classrooms as a place of sheer joy” (Hooks. B, 1994). The fact that Gulen schools embrace learners from a diverse religious, ethnic, class, and cultural background and foster social virtues such as respect, co-operation and tolerance to integrate its learners into pluralist, democratic society shows a dialectally opposite scenario, when seen with the experiences of Bell Hooks who enjoyed ‘Black schools’ as emancipating while tolerated ‘White schools as ‘prisons’(Hooks. B, 1994)

The broad inclusion of community as a family and the fact that the members of the community played an active role, not only as the beneficiaries of the movements but also as the active players of the movement itself, takes the movement very close to Myles Horton’s conceptualization and later construction of the Highlander School (Horton, M., 1990).Both Schools, Gulen’s and Horton’s, achieved its results by educating the members of the society by tools of sharing.

In order to address the masses with effective communication the ownership of media houses, foundations, trusts and other such organizational structures by of the Gulen community strengthens Myles Horton’s realization that ‘as individuals we are powerfulness but when we become organization, we become powerful”. (Horton. M, 1990)

Using the vales of dialogue and cooperation the Gulen movement is able to create and maintain a truly dynamic educational fabric, in many of its forms. These forms are schools, colleges and universities. They also include the unification of diversified communities and individuals through a common thread of compassion and love for each other’s diversity and acknowledgement of each other’s commonality. Also the secular structure of the Gulen schools has helped to create a balance between the individual’s needs as well as the collective needs of the society in which the individuals dwell. The constant emphasis of the movement to build the individual character and therefore the character of a collective society through universal moral values, prepares the new generation to become useful and constructive citizens of a more humane society, which is the purpose of a true education and a dream of the true educator.

Education of Gulen movement

2008-11-23T00:25:00.000-08:00

Educational perspective and functions of the movement

The movement understands education broadly as a tool to bring a change for a peaceful coexistence. It regards ignorance, poverty, and internal schism as the greatest enemies of the human civilization and believes that only knowledge, work-capital and unification can help it overcome these. It acknowledges ignorance as the main source of all evils and uses education to struggle against it. The most visible manifestation of the struggle of the movement against ignorance are the schools being opened by the Gulen community across the globe .These schools which are in many forms, such educational dormitories, universities and conventional schools such Chartered schools in the United States, intends to pin down ignorance through education, poverty through work and internal schism and separatism through unity, dialogue, and tolerance. It regards education as the most effective tool for all kinds of paralyzed system whether social or political.
Gulen, as an educator believes that modern secular schools have been unsuccessful in freeing themselves from the pre- conceived notions and prejudices of the modern theology. He also believes that, the so called traditional schools have lacked the intellectual pace to cope up the ever increasing complicated concepts of science and technology and the challenges they pose. Both these institutions have therefore failed the test of changing times and developing the required flexibility with the new world’s vision.

The movement, therefore, believed in the integration of strengths of traditional education with modern educational system. For this , the movement believes, there is a need to mainstream the youth and help them rise above the present system of education, which only ‘informs’ them and keeps them devoid of absorbing the true education. The movement tries to establish a perfect balance. (Michel, T. 2003)
“With a balanced education learners can become agents of positive change; but if they do not have ideals, and are only taught marketable skills, they will add to the crises of the society. Intellectuals seem to prefer "the spiritually impoverished and technologically obsessed modern culture to a traditional cul tural foundation that grew in sophistication and subtlety over the centuries" (Michel, T. 2003).

Such a balance requires a holistic training, not only of the students in an educating atmosphere, but also of the teachers. But such trainings, movement believes, cannot be provided to nurture new learning environments unless there is new training environment.

According to Gulen, “Teacher training is essential; not only in methodology, but also in nurturing the whole person. Teachers should lead by example; otherwise they cannot hope to reform others. In order to bring others to the path of traveling to a better world, they must purify their inner worlds of hatred, rancor, and jealousy, and adorn their outer world with all kinds of virtues" (Michel, T. 2003)

Thus, teachers have to combine the study of science with character development. Success must be measured by scientific progress and moral progress. Material advancement without morality will destroy humanity.
It therefore proposes the following principles for all its educational institutions:

1) Dialogue and tolerance
2) Self-sacrifice
3) Avoidance of political and ideological conflict
4) Taking action on a positive and harmonious way
5) Taking responsibility
6) To give with no expectation of praise or reward. For example a person should be in the first line to give and the last row to receive any reward or thanks.
7) Humbleness.

Some of the basic educational pillars of the movement are the its emphasis of reading and listening ,which are extensively taught in all the institutions, relationships between the students and the teachers, which requires the presence of ethos such truth, respect and dignity, and highly ethical standards ,being attached with the schools working as well as the teachers employed.

The movement strictly differentiates between education and teaching. It holds that not all teachers are educators and therefore all teaching does not necessarily lead to education. It considers teaching as more superficial, and technical whereas education to be deeper, more meaningful and holistic activity.

In order to ensure true education, schools are defined as “a laboratory that offers an elixir that can prevent or heal the ills of life. Those who have the knowledge and wisdom to prepare and administer it are the teachers. A school is a place of learning about everything related to this life and the next. (Ibid, I. 2008). And that “a good school is not a building where only theoretical information is given but an institution or a laboratory where students are prepared for life. (Ibid, I. 2008).

The movement strongly believes that science and technology alone cannot explain the meaning and the purpose of human life. They are however facilitative the process of finding meanings and deveoping the broader purpose and aims of life. It also believes that science and technology must be used in the proper way to be beneficial for the humanity and if they are controlled by unjust and irresponsible people they a can in fact cause immense harm to the mankind. In the light of these believes, one can analyze the recent incidents of human miseries such as the Hiroshima –Nagasaki bombing, Worlds Wars, Worldwide conflict for resources such as oil and gas, abject poverty and inequality between communities, individuals and nations, and its ever increasing ills such as increasing suicide rates, diminishing heath care, rampant fatal dieses such as HIV/AIDs and cancer, human trafficking, child labor and many other avoidable human pains and suffering emanating from the vested interests of the few nations or individuals. Global problems such as environmental pollution and emergence of corruption and greed at local level further strengthen the above point.

In order to channelize all its energies to address the contemporary issues, through harmony and amicable ways rather than any confrontations’ with state or other interests groups, most of the Gulen schools follow national curriculum but what makes their education unique is the inclusion and rigorous emphasis on vales such as spirituality, idealism,good morals, scientific and technological progress as well as lessons on trades and crafts in the elementary level. Other vales such as reflection, thinking, active reading an listening skills, and mutual respect for the co fellows also remain at the very core of the conscious- teaching and learning processes.

These schools also take into account the specific qualities of teachers such as true dedication to education as tool for a social change and not just a mechanism to make a living, ability to inspire others with the conviction of this dedication. In most cases teachers are expected to be frugal; they are not permitted, or encouraged, to live in expensive apartments, drive expensive cars, and wear expensive clothes. It is believed that such extravagances could blemish the image of the school and damage the trust of the funders. However, teachers do not live in poverty; they earn a decent salary, receive hospital care and obtain a pension upon retirement. Also teachers are regularly transferred from one place to another place, with significantly different culture and sub-culture. This is expected to bring, the new inherent learning that comes to the new students with the new teacher, and hence more enriched learning atmosphere. It is also expected that with such practices the students will develop abilities to learn from different people while teachers will sharpen their abilities to absorb into a new teaching atmosphere and adapt to its intricacies. This practice however is practiced despite acknowledging its pitfalls such as the instability in the teaching structure that it brings along; the new teacher takes time to settle in a new place while new students take time to settle with new teacher and by the time both of them begin to understand each other’s attitudes and ways, which normally take 4 to 5 years, the teachers are transferred again. This instability, however, contains the potential to nurture, both in students and in teachers, the immunity to the fear of the ‘new’ and ‘unknown’. Thus, bringing along the experiential richness of the old, mingling with the new.
In the same context, movement believes that:

“For the ideal of love to live in schools, there must be a shift away from the school as a factory in which teachers view students as objectives rather than human beings, a factory in which knowledge is produced rather than character constructed. Instead, there must be a move toward schools and educators who not only have a mastery of their subjects but who also care for their students and seek their welfare past the ringing of the bell.” (Huebner, 1999)
With this belief the movement's activities within any community start by first making personal contacts with the individuals in that community. In other words, the movements’ vision enters the new community through an exiting human representation and shares that vision with the new individuals of the new community. Once this inter personal relationship is established between the party of the movement and the party of the community, the two become one and together they discuss the necessity of dialogue and the terms of education is then formed with mutual understanding. The resulting manifestation then takes the form of schools and educational institutions which carry the common vision, and act as the media of tolerance and dialogue to raise more people to join the movement.

In order to promote the holistic vision of education the movement also works on several fronts and with several communities, which it considers to be a part of its educational-family. It includes business networks and financial institutions that is it owns and that is backed by sixteen other partners, Its vast array of media outlets including a scientific monthly, an environment-related magazine, a theological journal, a weekly magazine, a daily newspaper, a TV station and an FM radio station. Besides the movement is supported by a powerful association of businessmen, which includes over 2000 businessmen and merchants, who support the educational activities by not only providing funding and logistical support but by also running the schools. The infrastructure support of the movement’s family includes universities and colleges, high schools, dormitories, summer camps, and over 100 foundations. All of these institutions are organized and are run by the people who are given roles on the basis of trust, obedience and duty to the community. These people are essentially businessmen, teachers, journalists, and students. Thus it is evident that the movement threads the member of the society as the member of a family. In such an environment the students are not only equipped with skills and knowledge necessary for their future careers but they also prepare them for the broader leadership roles that they may perform to construct a society that is expected to give importance to jobs, work, technology and consumerism while keeping the metaphysics of education above all.

The impact of this prioritization of worldly and spiritual values can be seen in the way the movement has played a key role in bringing or at least maintaining peace in conflict areas with a challenging and belligerent demography, such as Bosnia, Northern Iraq, Afghanistan and Philippines. In each of these areas the movement has established cordial relations with its tolerant, faith based, but not faith limited educational ways, to bring fighting communities together and build peace between them by emphasizing on their communities.

In Bosnia, the fighting communities were the Muslim Bosnians, Christian Serbs and Christian Croats. Despite their common ethic identity and culture coming from their common Yogoslovanin background, these communities have been involved, for over a decade in ethics conflicts. They differed on their nationalistic aspirations and religious differences.

The case of Northern Iraq was no different. The communities involved were Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turcoman, Shiites and Assyrian Christians. They again engaged in violent conflicts resulting from the differences of their religious beliefs and practices. Similar is the case with Afghanistan with ethic groups such as Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimak, Baluchi, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Nuristani and Pamiri who had different political affiliations and ideology despite sharing common religious beliefs. Due to their differences, they were unable to identify and acknowledge their common beliefs and thus were unable to come to common terns of mutual respect and reconciliation. Finally Philippines which offers a different case of different religious groups such as Muslims and Christians, who had different locations in terms of demography and who tried to control each other with their respective political structure and nationalist ideologies.

In all of the above theses cases, the result was the same; Wars, conflicts and clashes. Gulen community with their schools in all of these played a key role of bringing the Christian and Muslims student together in a peaceful atmosphere, thus demonstrating a and creating a platform for dialogue between communities. The result of the dialogue was the strengthened understanding between communities, mutual acknowledgment of differences and the newly inspired will to work on commonalities, to resolve existing issues. The Gulen community led to the decrease of violent conflicts and it was seen that the conflicting communities either refused to take part in new conflicts or continue the existing ones or both

The Journey and Work of Gulen Movment

2008-11-23T00:23:00.001-08:00

Abstract

21ST century is clearly one of the most turbulent times of the human history; wars, famine, diseases, riots, ethnic violence and all such kinds of disasters, both human and natural have been witnessed. But one thing that surpassed all disasters is the clash between of civilizations and religions. The result of such multiple clashes has caused immense loss, both to human lives and human spirit. Both have been severely wounded. In order to heal the pain, many attempts have been made in the past, while many are still are ongoing. Gulen movement is one such attempt which uses education as a tool to bring social change in the form a bride between the clashing parties. This is done by building schools, propagating dialogue and tolerance and indeed tolerant- dialogue. This paper explores the movement; its brief history, its methods, its dynamics and the values it stands for.

Introduction

This paper looks at Gulen movement as a way to create a culture of reconciliation on a world scale using Education as a tool. The movement started in Turkey by Fethullah Gulen and gradually spread across 90 countries of the world. Tolerance and dialogue are among the most basic and broad dynamics of this movement. It intends to build brides of peace between religion and civilization through interfaith dialogue. The movement believes that international relations of past empires were founded on conflict and war. Different civilizations emphasized more on their differences rather than their commonalities and remained distanced, separated by thick walls of individual identities of politics, ideology and religion. This led to the conflict and the lack of dialogue.

However with new technology and phenomenon like that of globalization, which has made world a global village, there is a possibility of creating a missing link through dialogue and social pluralism. Gulen movement intends to provide this missing link by building schools across the world especially in the areas of conflict, where there is an increased need of understanding between different cultures and faiths, given their ethno-religiously fractured societies. This movement works with civil societies, which are formed by the informed citizens from voluntary, government and non government organizations. The role that the movement plays is that of bringing the actors of civil societies together, unite and organize them for common goals, thus removing the differences of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and creating the solidarity of ‘we’. The movement believes that absence of education, dialogue and tolerance is the reason of all conflicts and under-development. Through its unifying dynamics, the movement envisions societies with idealistic and patriotic members, who share common values with their counterparts with different ethno-religious backgrounds. These values are mainly dialogue, tolerance and individual perfection, all of which can be achieved through education. This vision of the movement and it enables it to communicate with a wide range of communities and cultures across the world to unite on the principles of peace and cooperation.
History, Sociology and Politics of the Movement

As an educational movement, Gulen movement started in early 80’s under the leadership of an sufi educator Fethullah Gulen who is a Turkish and lives in the United States. His attempts to bring science and religion together began in early 70’s, where the emphasis was on the scientific discourses of religion and how one religion can co exist, peacefully with many others. Since then, the movement evolved from building a religious community to building a global educational system that leads to integration into the modern world. While trying to achieve its goals, the movement avoids any kind of confrontation with the State. In fact by consciously understanding the State-centric political culture, the movement builds strong ties with the state to build and expand its social base. But at the same time it also maintains a distance from a particular party especially the ones with political nature or affiliations, or those in power. In this context Gulen, as a leader argues,

“We do not support any ruling party just because it is in power. There are ways in which they come in power and leave it. We need to control the ways and doors that play a key to walk to power. We should respect the government and express our opposition as is done in the most developed, western countries”. (Gulen, F. 2004)
From this statement it is clear that the movement is impressed if not inspired by the western political system. It is however also clear the movement does not have political inspirations .In fact, movement's strict avoidance from politics and from being politicized makes it able to communicate communities that are radically distant from each other on the political spectrum”.

The movement communicates with these different communities through a wide array of outlets that it owns and which it uses for educational purposes. This includes its own newspaper, television channel and a radio station .In addition, it distributes video and audio tapes. To promote the movements’ views and its beliefs, the followers have also set-up a wide range of organizations in Turkey, where the movement made it origins. It includes the Turkish Teachers' Foundation, which publishes academic journals and organizes national and international symposiums, panel discussions, and conferences. Another foundation, the Journalists' and Writers' Foundation, works towards bringing together the intellectuals possessing different worldviews and inviting them to speak on issues such as dialogue among civilizations.

The Gulen community owns and runs about 100 schools in Turkey. Followers of Gulen movement have also founded more than 200 schools around the world from Tanzania to China, but mostly in the Turkic republics. The movement also founded more than 500 places of learning in 90 countries including Uzbekistan, South Africa, Iraq, Palestine, Philippines, Pakistan, Albania, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

And finally..

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This analysis of No Logo and The Corporation will clearly show that media can be used to manipulate behaviors and the vulnerable members of the society. This is demonstrated in both films. In No Logo, Naomi’s research shows that branding is used as tool to ‘create’ unwanted desires and life styles. And people give in to it. In the corporation, Dr. Susan Linn, Professor of Psychiatry, Baker Children's Centre and Critic of the Nag Factor study and of exploiting children's developmental vulnerabilities, states that nagging of the children’ is being used by the marketers to push sales and make profits despite it being unethical. The representative of the Nag factor Study admits that she is ‘not sure’ of the ethics but felt that the campaign works. In both these instances it is clear that products of globalization such as media and concepts like branding and marketing campaigns are used to influence people against their wills. They are manipulated. Therefore it may be argued that the same tools are also used to produce slavery, which is characterized by the ‘absence of willingness’ of the subject. In one of the scenes of No Logo Naomi states that greater choices is a facade that branding creates; On the contrary it has not only lessen the choice but has also diminished the quality of work. Thus in essence creating a situation of desperation amongst the customers who become vulnerable and at the same time are put on a kind of assembly line where they see and think according to the branding missions. We therefore see that with branding people are controlled; their choices and their behavior are controlled. This again, is a symptom of slavery. Further, while talking about the mass production and mass transportation, No Logo observes that previously, in the market place, the customers personally knew and identified with the farmers. And therefore there was a communication taking place at the point of purchase. With mass production and mass transportation, the products, being manufactured at far-off places were sold in malls and stores and this took the communication away. Thus, creating a kind of ‘alienation’ amongst customers and farmers. It should be noted that alienation is also one of the tools which is used by the slave masters for the process of enslavement. Another factor that facilitates slavery is the control of solidarity amongst the groups( slaves).In No Logo, we see that in many cases multinationals do not allow unionization of the workers and keep them under extreme repressive working conditions to control their ‘groupings or solidarity’ and prevent any kind of resulting ‘reaction’. In spite of such observation and its similarity with slave-phenomenon, the reference of slavery in the film was not made. Although the film does narrate the experiences of workers who work for almost 24 hours in a shift without any breaks, are not allowed to go home, sleep under sewing machines, their work places being guarded by physical guards and high fences; all of which shows the physical control of the workers from the outer world, atypical slavery practice.

Also, in the film Naomi explicitly speaks about the women workers who were being hired by multinationals; these women worked under repressive regimes being mentioned above. More importantly ‘No Logo’ expose the recruitment process of these women which showed that they were not from the neighboring places and came from places which were 6to 7 hours away from the work place. The analysis of this clearly shows that this was done to control them with repression were young women as opposed to young men who are expected to have a greater tendency to rebel against the repression being inflicted. However inspite of such observations of physical and mental control by the organizations, the film did not draw any parallel, of these observations, with slavery which is exercised in the same fashion and using the same operating mechanism of control of threat to vulnerabilities. In fact the film categorically mentions that multinationals are competing with each other in terms of who abuse their workers more, and therefore who exercise more control for greater profits. A clear direct link to this is the slave master’s case, who also keeps the slave under inhuman conditions to squeeze the best out of him/her, while at the same time nullifying all kinds of potential reactions by force and violence. No logo also clearly talks about the financial institutions like the World Bank and International Monitory Fund. These big organizations support the business- cause on the assumption that anything good for these businesses would also be good for all. This, the film consider, as an assault on the democracy because it takes away the freedom of choices of people at large who are forced to make their choices same as that of the big corporations. This leads us to other key characteristics of slavery which is control of the masses by a few.

Big corporations supported by the IMF and the World Bank are able to force their opinions, choices and decisions on the majority of the nations of the world without any consultation with them what so ever. In essence, enslaving them, through the most undemocratic institutionalized, financial, global support systems. This is true to slavery also where slaves are sold and resold to slave masters, who are in complete organization with each other to ensure that they are able to exercise their terms on the slaves. However this aspect is completely ignored in the film. Globalized concepts like Mcjobs (Ritzer) offer no security, no respect, no benefits and no control over work, workplaces, or work timing. All of these are also the core characteristics of slavery system in which the democracy of the people is taken. No logo acknowledges that democracy is being hijacked by the barding mechanism but it does not refer to the resultant slavery situation amongst the workers across the globe.

The second film ‘The Corporation’ specifically talks about and shows the working on corporations, primarily the multinationals working across the global demography. The film begins to shadow that corporations are all pervasive and that they influence and exercise power over lives thus creating lack of public control and more of power concentration in the hand so privatized organizations and individuals. The film features 40 corporate insiders and critics including stalwarts like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman, Howard Zinn, Vandana Shiva and Michael Moore. In the very beginning of the film, corporations are compared with an eagle which is prepared to strike. In another scene they are compared with a monster, which is shown to be squeezing a person almost to death. This shows a violent analogy. And therefore the use of violence by the corporations can be perceived by the visual narrative. Historically speaking the film says that corporations, as form ownership, came into being 1712 out of industrial revolution and those wars created massive scope for corporations. In the light of this we can understand that the very origins of corporations were based on the opportunistic attitude while the profits remains at the core, they try to exercise power. It is also interesting that in the film while tracing the origins of the corporation, the films informs us that after the 14 amendment which was meant to protect the newly freed slaves, corporate lawyers cunningly presented corporations as persons and therefore like all humans being could enjoy rights similar to a person. Interestingly between 1890 and 1910 there were 307 cases filed under the 14 amendment. Out of these, 288 were corporations and mere 10 were African Americans. This is a clear testimony of how corporations have historically used not only scientific inventions, discoveries but also laws for their own benefits. While the film makes this clear, it do not say anything about the potential emergence of modern slavery due to the character of corporations. It is, however, quite clear with the narrative of the film that such a potential does exist and is indeed being realized by the big corporations across the world. This was further strengthened in the film, by the fact that the corporations are considered as a ‘legal person’ without morals or conscience. Corporations remain responsible to their stockholders, which are the owners and not to the ‘stakeholders’ like the general public(Noam Chomsky, The corporation) .It can therefore be assumed that corporations as the film suggest are responsible to only a few and therefore takes all it decisions according the good of the these few. Can this not mean the use slavery if need be, through force, manipulations of laws and scientific technology. I think it can .with amble evidence available for this, this film also ignores the link of corporation and the exercise of slavery. The film also refers to the concept of externalities which means avoidance of any major responsibilities on the part of corporations’ like worker's unions, factory accidents, compensations and so on. Companies want to avoid these externalities. This is done through a very systemic institutionalization of organizations such as Manpower who supply labor to other organizations. The responsibility of labor in such cases do not lie on the organizations on companies like manpower who tale workers and labors at all levels, from lower to managerial , on their pay rolls. This relates to the mechanism of slavery too where the slave master is unwilling to nurture the slave or providing any compensation other than making use of its labor abilities without any accountability, moral or otherwise.

The corporation like No Logo also travels to some of the most oppressive workplace across the globe and exposes the realities of ruthless and inhumane conditions in which workers are force to work while remaining underpaid or unpaid and economically exploited through fear and violence. The Corporation in fact runs a parallel narrative in which it identifies certain traits of a psychopath and shows how they are present in the corporations of the globalized world. The diagnostic checklist was used to measure the mental disorders (drawn from World Health Organization) in The Corporation, thereby personifying the corporations. The result was this: Corporations, as persons, act like psychopaths with the following characteristics:

1. Callous unconcern for the feelings of others. In other words exploitative
2. Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
3. Reckless safeguard to safety of others.
4. Deceitfulness- repeated lying and conning of others for profits.
5. Capacity to inexperience guilt.
6. Failure to conform to social norms, with respect to lawful behaviors.

All of these characteristics are further complimented by other instances in the film like the practice of despotism by the corporations, involvement of IBM with Nazi government, provision of tax holidays by several government o corporations thus ripping poor of the basic facilities that government can provide through tax revenues, production of cancer epidemic by chemical industries and the use same chemical being produced by the corporation on people and farms during Vietnam War. In essence the film made clear that corporations are ruthless and despotic. They are also degrading environment, air and water and thus creating ill heath on mass scale. This in turn produces diseases but because corporations control the business of medical treatment through privatized hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, they control and hike the price of healthcare. This takes us back to the situation of creation of economic exploitation and also facilitating the emergence of slavery which finds fertility in such exploitative, poverty stricken situation. Historically understanding slavery and the way it changed and re emerged will help us understand the role that these global corporations play, not only in the creation but also the sustainability of slavery especially in the developing nations which are highly controlled by global financial hours like IMF and the World Bank. The film further shows a campaign in which, 100 of the world’s biggest corporate were being classified as criminals and were fined in the tunes for 500millon dollars for causing environmental and tax violations. These corporations includes name such as Pfizer, a drug company, GE, IBM, Roche. Exxon, Sears and others.In the light of these facts one also sees, in the film, that these corporations are quite aware of the violations that they cause and choose to look at it a business decision as long as the cost of compliance is higher than the cost of penalty, they continue to violate. All this is because the bottom-line is profits. While this is true, can the possibility of using slavery (because it also brings profits) be ruled out by the corporation given their ruthless and monstrous character? I do not think it can be because the fact have clearly shown that the mechanism which run these corporations are inherently enslaving and do produce slavery. The film does not, however, take this vantage point into account. It does make it clear that in their individual roles, mangers of corporations may be noble and kind, but in their institutional role, they are monstrous , producing ‘generational tyranny’. And therefore all possibilities should be taken into account with the exclusion of slavery.

In one of the interviews in the film (The Corporation) a commodity trader explains how the devastation of 9/11 was being looked upon as an opportunity for the gold holding clients. Thus again we see highly globalized economy where stocks and commodities are traded not only creates wealth but creates immune to human feelings and the ability to see opportunity where there is pain and suffering. This again is the most visible characteristic of classical form of slavery and is so highly manifested in our global systems. As one of the interviewees, Noam Chomsky speaks of privatization as a result of globalization, as process of taking over of public institutions by an unaccountable attorney. This means that schools, hospitals , road constructions , bridge building medicine, education , restaurants and many other institutions which have a direct bearing on the public’s life are now taken over by the private individuals, and are used not to benefit the people at large but to bring profit only to the few. This obviously is not possible unless there is exploitation of the masses by these few. As result of this exploitation the situations of economic inequality are created, human vulnerability is strengthened and the grounds of slavery are prepared. With new concepts such public relations, advertising, perception management which are highly scientific tools, the demands of insignificant products and services like fashion are created by boosting created-wants and created- desires for increased consumption. This leads to’ manufacturing consent’ (Chomsky).Such practices can create horrendous situations like the one anticipated in the film; two-third of the world will not have drinking water by 2025.

Support of oppressive regimes by global financial institutions as in the case of Indonesia where a military’s dictator was supported by the World Bank and the IMF in order to acquire Indonesian markets( john Pilger the new rulers of the world) will only make things worse and will provide favorable grounds for problems like slavery to re-emerge and prevail. What does this mean? I think it means increasingly high level of exploitations in the hand of multinational corporations to create enslavement for the want of more profits.It is ample clear that the globalized economy has also created globalized poverty and this, in turn has produced globalized slavery, a new form of slavery which is an inherent endowment of the process of globalization. The analysis of the facts produced by these two cases studies in addition to other work that I studied and research, it is quite clear that the rules and actors of slavery have changed; the slave masters are no longer remote individuals working within small physical boundaries controlling handful of slaves but they the globalized multinationals and white- nations of the west, operating at a vast scale controlling and enslaving millions with the use of modern technology, media and the process of institutionalization which is a part of larger process of modernization, enslaving the vast majority of ‘blank and brown’ people including women and children of the east. To complete the broader analysis of this paper it becomes necessary to answer the following questions while carefully looking at the present analysis, history and emergence of slavery and also the acts and actors of the prices of globalization to be able understand fully and therefore study more systematically, the relationship between silvery and globalizations:

1. How has slavery graduated from ‘one man or a small group of men enslaving another man or a small group of men’ to grand scale where one nation enslaves another nation, or one corporations enslaves another nation, or one nation or a group of nations together with one or corporations enslave another nation or a group of nation, or both

2. In this graduation of slavery what role does globalization plays; directly and indirectly?

3 Who are the national and international beneficiary if national and international
slavery that is being talked about in the paper?

4. What characteristics would a nation-slave master demonstrate and are these nation-master slaves not present today in the west?

5. What characteristics would a nation-slave demonstrate and are these nation-slaves not present today in the East?

6. What facilitates such new equations?

It is only in the light of these questions that the chapter of modern slavery be fully understood as it would take into account the nature of national and international political policies, funding, socio-economic conditions and over all fabric of human civilization, with it vast and varying interests amongst its member groups and individuals.

How's that?

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In order to analyze the linkages between the globalization and the slavery, I used the case study method to textually analyze the two major documentaries namely No Logo and The Corporation. Both these documentaries have addressed the issues of globalization and its impact I chose these two particular cases because these are amongst the two most successful works in the recent times in terms of their impact, reach and range. Also the fact that they used a documentary genre to address globalization, which itself is a popular form, encouraged me to pick these cases. I was particularly conscious of the fact that despite being so popularly anti-globalization stands, both these work did not address slavery and therefore, I chose to study, in greater details, to do an in depth study.

‘No Logo’ features Naomi Klein, an award winning Canadian journalist and activist. ‘The Corporation’ also features her with many other corporate insiders and world renowned intellectuals and researchers. I therefore saw ‘No Logo’ echoing many popular, intellectual voices featured in The Corporation and vice verca.While looking into these two films, I noted the themes, visual characterization, narration, scenes and instances of interviews which were reflective of globalization and its impact. I then related these themes and their underlying concepts with slavery, as I understood and defined in the paper, both with contemporary and historical perspectives, to analyze how the later, despite stark similarities in the operationalization , the two were not interlinked and seen as second being the manifestation of the first.

In the final analysis I parallely looked at and compared the characteristics of slavery and that of globalization to see how the first is facilitated, produced and sustained by the second.

What is and what is not?

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There is a vast literature both on slavery and globalization. However mostly both these are being dealt separately and are rarely interlinked. Same is true for audio visuals in documentary genres. Both “No Logo and “The Corporation” takes the stand of an anti-globalization campaign and view globalization as more evil than good. “No Logo” looks at branding, which itself is a highly globalized term, as production and not as mere promotional tool. In fact, it takes into its domain, the practice of advertising. The film which is based on a book by the same name argues that branding makes the product or a service secondary while placing the image or the idea in the minds of the customer as primary. It further discusses how branding has taken ways the sense of public and has placed high level of control in the choices that customers make today. This is done through systematic bombarding of messages through different media. This has taken the public’s freedom to maintain public spaces and sustain public institutions like public libraries. As a result of this highly controlling communicative mechanism called branding, global economy has disengaged itself from human rights and environmental concerns. The corporation works on a different level. It sees corporate a global force that controls the global resources. And hence the most visible between No Logo and the corporation is that the first’s theme is an intangible process called branding whereas the second’s theme is an entity which exist with all physical tangibles , and it’s called the corporation. First theme, however, is the need of the second. Both films looked at globalization as a process and its two evil products. But they excluded slavery. Another work that took the similar anti-globalization stand was John Pilger’s book called Globalization: The New Rulers of the World. This book draws lot from an audio-visual by the same title –Globalization: The new rulers of the world, written and directed by John Pilger.

Both, the book and the documentary investigates how control is being used by financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank to gain new markets in Indonesia at the cost of creating immense exploitation, economic, political and social, through extending support to a violent regime being headed by an oppressive dictator. As a result of this oppression and an unfair deal between an oppressing head of the head and the oppressing financial institutions, the result was the people working under extreme conditions. Conditions such as 40 degrees workplace temperature, 36- hour shifts with no breaks, income almost 50% of the legal minimum
wage without any rules or regulations. Despite all such investigations, neither the book nor the corresponding audio visual related such oppression and its slave-like results with slavery. It completely excluded the notion of slavery.

Two monumental works of Kevin Bales, one of which was translated into an audio visual, are probably the only reliable and extensive work that connects globalization and its manifestations in slavery. The book Disposable People (and an article extracted from it called Expendable people, both by Kevin Bales), which was also used as the basis of the audio visual documentary called Slavery; The Global Investigation traces the role of globalization in slavery. Additionally, the other two books by Kevin Bales, New Slavery 2000 and Ending Slavery: How we free today’s slaves, 2007, explores slavery in the new globalized world. However in the description thereof, despite fine investigation and analysis of slavery, the author restricted the presence of slavery in its “one person enslaves another one” form. It almost excludes the possibility that one nation or a group of nations can use all the tools of slavery to enslave another nation or a group of nations. Undoubtedly, the work of Kevin Bales has provided a new insight into the world of globalization by navigating the threats of slavery but it did not investigate the role of one state as an individual, trying to enslave another state. This was the void that I recognized and if, indeed this void is proven to exist, it would require a new investigative study to look at state(s) as an ‘institutionalized slave master’ trying to enslave another institutionalized state.

George Ritzer’s the McDonaldization of the Society provides the basic framework to understand the application of Max Weber’s theory of rationalization and how it could be used to exercise control by the use of an assembly line and mechanisms of bureaucracy. Ritzer argued that that corporations like McDonalds’ homogenized the systems thereby building simple models with higher efficiency, effectiveness, lower costs, higher profits and minimal liabilities. All of these are also the characteristics of a modern day slavery, which is deliberately and strategically being used by the organizations that Ritzer mentions in his work.( including, but not limited to McDonalds’ and Ford Motors) Slavery also involves the employment of similar tools to achieve results that Ritzer mentions like high efficiency, least liability and instant disposability. I, therefore, found the exclusion of slavery amongst the grossly negative manifestations of globalization which was not recognized. However, wherever it was, like in the case of Kevin Bales’s work, it was only seen as ‘one to one’ and not as ‘group’ (nation or corporation) to ‘group’ (nation or corporation)

Globalization and Slavery.

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Looking at the differences between the two,the parallels between the process of globalization and slavery can be drawn. Globalization has all the above characteristics of a new form of slavery; in the globalized markets it is the not the ownership but the control that work. Be it through direct or indirect ways of tariff, embargos or through policies privatization, control-mechanism remains at the core. The costs are always kept low through mass production and mass transportation. The profits are outrageously high due this. More than often there is surplus due to 'created’ needs, wants and desires through advertisement, perception management techniques, branding and public relations. The relationship between the customer/ employees and seller/ employer is kept to short term. This is done through highly concentrated ownership of organizations and resources. And finally with high mobility, information bombardment and media, the ethic differences have become futile. The relationship between globalization and slavery also becomes clear if we see the circumstances and conditions in which slavery exists and by seeing the role of globalization towards the creation or facilitation of such circumstances. One of the first facilitating factors of slavery is poverty and economic exploitation. Use or support of violence, unfair means, and sense of control, alienation and lack of concern of feelings are some others. It is not difficult to understand that globalization has created and is continuously increasing eh gap between the poor and the rich. In fact today bill gates is bigger than entire continent of Africa, general motors’ is bigger than Denmark and ford motors is bigger south Africa.(John Pilger, The mew rulers of the world).This has concentrated the financial resources in too few a hands and thus there is exploitation, inequity and eventually conditions of poverty. Thus, in essence, facilitating slavery. Through the mechanism of institution such as world bank, IMF and GATT, farmers and peasant across third world are forced to grow cash crops and are also forced to compete with the highly subsidized agribusinesses of the US, Europe and Canada. All this is done on the most unfair conditions which are created by the architecture of globalization. Through patents and intellectuals right, vast majority of workers in developing word are unable to utilize their skills and are thus forced to move towards cities where they join the urban poverty, ultimately becoming the labor force. This immense mobility of the labor from the villages to the cities leads to excess labor and thus lower wages and again the condition of poverty which harbingers slavery. And those who do not move towards city are forced to compete with multinationals of the US and Europe and thus sell for far less than they afford. Further with mechanisms practiced by the IMF and the World Bank such as de-valuation being forced upon developing or underdeveloped nations, the net result of exchange is this:
Poor farmer pays more (with devalued currency) to buy from MNC’s whereas MNC pays less (with overvalued currency) to buy form the farmer and make huge profits by selling in their own markets.
Most world- economic statistics demonstrate the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. But more recently statistics states that 200 biggest corporations control the 25% of the world wealth (John Pilger, 2007, The New Rulers of the World). And that 500 richest people’s income is more than 416 million people of the world (Duncan Green, From Poverty to Power
2008).
All theses drastic inequalities have forced people to abandon their traditional abandon traditional occupations to try to meet the ever-changing demands of a new and growing labor market. More often, unsuccessfully so and thus eventually being exploited in the hands of power to become powerless-slaves.

Now and Then?

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The drastic increase increase in the world population has increased the potential of slavery and this has resulted in “in a dramatic example of supply and demand of slaves’. (Kevin Bales, Disposable People). Due to this increased supply, the value of slaves has come down. This has also changed the way slaves are used.
The fact that people can be treated as ‘use and throw”, the new form of slavery become less and less permanent. It is, therefore, just not profitable to keep slaves after their immediate use. And hence they are they are treated like Mcjobs(George Ritzer, 1996, The McDonaldization of Society) where usage is time bound and time periods are extremely flexible(flexi hours).The time of enslavement varied from business to business, or trade to trade. A crop grown in a particular month would enclave only for that season. In the 19th century slavery this was not the case. Slaves were owned by the masters and masters were responsible for the upkeep, they were kept even when the work was “done”. Slaves were kept in order to ensure that they live up the time enslavement so as to recover the coat and also to produce more slaves. It was expensive to buy new adult slaves and so cheaper to have new slaves through the old slave’s family. In fact in many cases especially with African American cases of slavery, slaves were ripped off their family names and their’ master’s sir name would become their sir name. This would help to identify the owner of the slaves. This was also one of the ways to kill the identity of slaves and alienate them. Today, no slaveholder wants to spend money supporting useless infants. Keeping the dynamics of old and new slavery following differences can be seen in old and modern slavery:

Old Forms of Slavery New Forms of Slavery

1.Legal ownership asserted
1.Legal ownership avoided

2.High purchase cost

2.Very low purchase cost

3.Low profits
3.Very high profits

4.Shortage of potential slaves
4.Surplus of potential slaves

5.Long-term relationship
5.Short-term relationship

6.Slaves maintained
6.Slaves disposable

7.Ethnic differences important
7.Ethnic differences less important

(Kevin Bales, 1999, Disposable people)

Slave Shopping?

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Free The Slaves claims that in Mali a young adult slave can be sold for as low as US$ 40, while in Thailand a young HIV free female slave can be sold for US$ 1000 to work in a brothel (Kevin Bales, Disposable People). Slavery is also taking place in parts of Africa, South Asia and the Middle East (http://www.anti-slaverysociety.org/slavery.htm, Does Slavery Still Exist, Anti Slavery Society.Retrieved on Nov 2 2008). The Middle East Quarterly reports that slavery has taken a form of epidemic in Sudan (http://www.meforum.org/article/449, The Middle East Quarterly. Retrieved on Nov. 2 2008). Chinese government had released 570 people who were enslaved in brick manufacturing in the months of June and July of the year 2007(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6902459.stm,conviction in China Slave Trials. Retrieved on Nov. 3 2008).Out of these people 69 were children(http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-06/15/content_894802.htm, China Daily. Retrieved on Nov 3 2008).Additionally an estimated of 600,000 men , women and children which form 205 of the population of Mauritania were used as bonded slaves.(http://www.saiia.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=635:mauritani amadeslaveryillegallastmonth&catid=62:governance-a-aprm-opinion&Itemid=159, Mauritina Made Slavery Illegal Last Month. Retrieved on Nov. 7 2008).In Nigeria the scene is no different. It is found that 800,000 thousand people are enslaved, a whopping 8% of the population.( http://abcnews.go.com/International/Story?id=813618&page=1, The Shackles of Slavery in Niger. Retrieved on Nov. 4 2008).
Similarly the traces of slavery are found in places like Central Africa, Ivory Coast, India, Pakistan, Burma and Iraq

Slavery NOW!

2008-11-15T14:07:00.001-08:00

The best account of modern slavery is given by Professor Kevin Bales in his award winning book called The Disposable People: Slavery in the Age of Globalization, where he argues that “ once officially abolished slavery was transformed: adopted as an illicit enterprise , it has mirrored changes in the general economy. No longer viewed as property, people today are seen merely as disposable inputs into production”.Kevin Bales, who is the president of Free the Slaves, defines slavery as “The complete control of a person for economic exploitation by violence or the threat of violence”. Taking this definition into account, Bales’s “best estimate of the number of slaves in the world today is 27 million. Where are all these slaves? An estimated 15 to 20 million are bonded laborers in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. The remainder is concentrated in Southeast Asia, Northern and Western Africa, and parts of South America, though slavery can be found in almost every country in the world including the United States, Japan, and many European countries. Today's total slave population is greater than the population of Canada and nearly five times greater than the population of Israel.”Some other estimates however place the number of slaves in the range of 200 million. These slaves are engaged in work such carper weaving, sex trade, cocoa farming, carpets, fireworks, jewellery, metal goods, steel (made with slave produced charcoal), and foods such as grains, rice and sugar are exported directly to North America and Europe after being produced using slave labor. Presence of slavery in the industry keeps wages low and increases the profits of the manufacturers. The ongoing campaigns such American Anti- Slavery Group, Anti -Slavery International, Free the Slaves and Anti- Slavery Society are enough to speak volumes about this evil and its presence in the ‘modern’ world we are living in. According to the research of Kevin Bales, who is the world's leading expert on Modern slavery and President of Free the slaves, which is the US sister organization of Anti- Slavery International (the world’s oldest human rights organization), classifies slavery into three forms:
“Chattel Slavery is the form closest to old slavery. A person is captured, born, or sold into permanent servitude, and ownership is often asserted. The slave's children are normally treated as property as well and can be sold by the slaveholder. Occasionally, these slaves are kept as items of conspicuous consumption. This form is most often found in Northern and Western Africa and some Arab countries, but represents a small proportion of slaves in the modern world.”
“Debt Bondage is the most common form of slavery in the world. A person pledges him or herself against a loan of money, but the length and nature of the service is undefined, and the labor does not diminish the original debt.2 The debt can be passed down to subsequent generations, thus enslaving offspring, while 'defaulting' can be punished by seizing or selling children into further debt bonds. Ownership is not normally asserted, but there is complete physical control of the laborer. Debt bondage is most common in South Asia.”
“Contract Slavery illustrates how new forms of slavery are hidden within the framework of modern labor relations. Contracts are offered which guarantee employment, perhaps in a workshop or factory, but when the workers are taken to their place of employment they discover that they have instead been taken into slavery. The contract is used as an enticement to trick the
person. It is also a way of making the slavery appears legitimate if necessary; and, if legal questions arise, the contract is produced. While ownership is not asserted, the slave is under threat of violence, has no freedom of movement and is paid nothing. This is the most rapidly growing form. of slavery, and perhaps the second largest form today. Contract slavery is most often found in Southeast Asia, Brazil, some Arab states and some parts of South Asia.”
(Kevin Bales, 1999, Disposable People)

History of slavery ?

2008-11-15T14:06:00.001-08:00

Slavery has been the part of some of the major civilizations such as ancient Egypt, Akkadian Empire, Ancient Greece, Ancient Persia and Rome. The records can be traced as early as 1760 BC. With the expansion of Roman Republic huge populations were converted into slaves thus creating a vast pool of slaves. These slaves came from wide demography including Greeks, Berbers, Germans, Briton, Jews and Arabs. Slaves were used not only as labors but were also used for the purposes of amusements like gladiators and sex slaves. It is recorded that by the end of republican era, slavery had become a vital economic pillar in the wealth of Rome. In the 15 century Europe colonialism of Africa further brought and strengthened slavery. In fact the maritime town of Lagos, Portugal was the first slave market created in Portugal for the sale of imported African Slaves. During the middle 16th century the focus of European trade in African slaves shifted from import to Europe to slave transport directly to tropical colonies in Americas. Slaves were also exchanged for gold in the African slave market. Subsequently the slavery spread across Spain, Brazil and Arab world. In fact all the 13 American colonies had legitimatized slavery and the profits that came from these slaves were huge. Same was the case of profits of the slave trade and of the West Indian plantations which amounted to 5% of the British economy at the time of industrial revolution. Historians say the Arab slave trade lasted more than millennium. Ibn Battuta told several times that he was given or purchased slaves. Some historians estimate that between 11 and 18 million black African slaves crossed the Red sea, Indian ocean and Sahara desert from 650 AD to 1900 AD, or more than the 9.4 to 12 million Africans brought to the Americas. According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. (http://www.dl.ket.org/latinlit/mores/slaves/, Slavery, retrieved on Nov. 4 2008)

Globalization NOW!

2008-11-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

The post World war II globalization has usually been a work of businessmen, economists and politicians. These groups recognized the cost of protectionism and declining global economic integration. The work of these groups collectively lead to the Bretton Woods Conference and the formation of many institutions which would oversee the process of globalization, work for the growth of economies of the world as well as the crisis situation of the world. Some of these institutions are the World Bank, International Monitory Fund. It also resulted in agreements such as GATT (General Agreement on Trade and Tariff ) which was a combination of agreements to wash restrictions and make way for free trade. This was done through removal or reduction of tariffs, capital controls, transportation costs, subsidies for local businesses, creations of free trade zones and through the mechanism of patents and intellectual rights.
The most visible manifestations of globalization can be measured in three terms which are economic, social and political. Economic manifestations are the movements of goods and services from one nation to another by multinationals, mobility of global workforce, Technology and capital across nations. The social manifestation could be seen in the cultural globalization where western style, thoughts and ideas threatened the indigenous culture, diversity and sub cultures while at the same western lifestyles of clothing, food habits, education system language preferences and so on were adopted across the world. The political globalization is easily seen in the way nations like the USA and Europe influenced the local policies, issues and national programs of developing nations. Recent war on terror after 9/11 is another manifestation of political globalization as it affected the foreign and economic policies, markets and global alliance-interests amongst the nations of the world. It also globally affected the price of basic commodities such oil and gas across the world.
The effects of modern globalization were multi fold and multi dimensional. Its affects were industrial, economic, financial, informational, political, linguistic, social, legal and ethical. No aspect of human life across the world is left unaffected by globalization. While these effects produced many advantages like easy access to information, low technology and cheap products and services, it also produced many evils. Some of which, like loss of local diversity, individuality, and uniqueness of local culture and sub- culture, environmental degradation, pollution, death or extinction of many species of flora and fauna, besides others, are more visible and measurable while other evils remain hidden and under the shadow of the advantages.
One of these evils is the emergence of slavery which globalization creates, facilitates and nurtures.

History of globalization?

2008-11-15T14:02:00.000-08:00

Economists have been using the term globalization since 1980s while social scientists have been using it since 1960s but the term has gain momentum in its more common usage only in the late 80s and early 90s. However the early forms of globalization existed during Roman Empire, the Parthian empire, with silk route in china and also during mogul empire.However ,globalization as a business proposition came into being with the established of British east India company , which is often termed as the first multinational corporation in the early 16th century with its counterparts in Portugal and Netherland. The credit of first era of globalization goes to the 19th century because this period demonstrated a lot of investment in trade between the European imperialist powers, its colonies and later the United States. It was also during this period that sub Saharan Africa and the island pacific were incorporated in to the world system. This period however began to come to an end with the First World War.

What is Globalization?

2008-11-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

Globalization in its simple definition can be defined as the system which moves the local to other part(s)of the globe thus making it global. According to Wikipedia it “is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process of blending or homogenization by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, socio-cultural and political forces. Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technologyIn essence the practical manifestation of the process of globalization is:
1. Multinational corporations
2. International and national mobility of human recourses, products and services
3. Easy Access to global communication through new, modern and in expensive technology
of media, internet and telecommunication
4. International laws
5. International trade and human rights agreements
6. Standardization of choices in terms of global tastes and global ideas
7. Diminishing importance of nations and increasing relevance and control of organizations
which can operate transnational?

Slavery: Under the Banner of Globalization

2008-11-15T13:57:00.000-08:00

Let me argue how globalization creates modern day slavery.By analyzing two of the most successful anti-globalization video documentaries (No Logo and The Corporation) in recent times. I argue that globalization has taken slavery to a new height where not only a person can be enslaved by another but nations and corporations can enslave a substantial population of the world. By drawing from the contents of these films, I note how, despite being anti- globalization, both of these documentaries exclude the notion of slavery in their narrative. I also study modern slavery and globalization as the “new ruler “drawing from the work of Kevin bales and john Pilger respectively. My aim is to identify how, in the shadow of globalization, slavery is created and sustained by the global systems of economics, mobility, control and exploitation and also how these systems are rarely called a slavery-system despite having substantially visible characteristic of slavery in their mechanisms and in their results. It is my observation that people still have the notion of late19^th century slavery in mind and therefore are unable to see its new forms and manifestations. This paper will explore these forms and manifestation in a way that they can seen as globalized slavery, an expensive and all pervasive product of globalization.

Establishing a New- business to eradicate the Old-poverty

2008-10-21T22:17:00.001-07:00

It has rightly been said that beginnings are the manifestations of the ends. This book is a potential beginning of a new kind of business with a new way of thinking.

In the 21^st century one thing that is most visible is globalization and one thing that is having an effect on our lives, probably more than anything else is its manifestations. It has impacted every aspect of human life; communication, travel, conversations, thinking processes, work, work places, work choices, technology and the list is unending. This book by Nobel peace prize (2006) winner Muhammad Yunus explores the possibility of how a new genre of business called Social business has the potential to eradicate poverty with the support of all the new ways that globalization has produced. The book is full of first hand experiences of the author and Grameen bank, an organization author co-founded and that shared the Nobel Prize with him in 2006. These experiences which flow in the form of intense and fascinating anecdotes, at times looks like a travelogue of the author. And this is clearly the USP of the book. Yunus’s experiences travels from rural Bangladesh to ultra urban cities of the United States and Paris. The book speaks shares his conversations with, one hand, the CEO of one of the largest multinationals of the world and on the other with a humble borrower of 10 dollars or less in a small village of Bangladesh. The experiential richness of the author and his organization, which is based on optimism and trust in human capabilities more than any other thing, is really the strength of this book. Besides critically analyzing the world situation today in terms of economics, politics and the diverse interventions, the author not only informs the reader of the present dichotomies of time and conflicts of resources but also teaches the reader to dream, and dream big. It encourages generosity, objectivity and goodness in the way we look at the destitute anywhere in the world and understand their situations. It tells the reader to go beyond what may have long been considered as ‘obvious’; the poor are poor because of their own actions. Yunus strongly argues that the “poverty is not caused by poor” (Yunus, Ashoka Changemaker video) alone but by the systems that the non- poor have created for them. By doing this he, almost in a revolutionary jest, puts the onus of fighting poverty with all means available, on everyone; policymakers, corporates, governments, non-governments, media, law enforcing agencies, research organizations and also the poor.

In essence, the author’s belief is: We all have created the situation of poverty and we all have to fight it to save its victims (the poor).This is a collective responsibility and it needs a collective effort. (Yunus, Ashoka video)

In his argument of creating a collective to fight poverty, Yunus redefines the way business is thought of in its conventional sense, with the primary objective being maximization of profits. In doing so he also suggests a new kind of business called the Social Business. According to him Social businesses would be a conscious based as opposed to skills-based, which is the case of modern profit –maximizing business enterprises. This new way of doing social business will use all the ‘goods’ of capitalism and would avoid all the ‘bads’ of capitalism. ‘Goods’ according to him may include the modern technology, media, promotional methods to reach masses, internet and education while ‘bads’ that may be avoided are exorbitant pricing policies, selfish profit making tendencies at the cost environment degradation, ostentation in the production and packaging, production of unhealthy products and services , and economic and social suppression of the weak by the strong. This is the thesis of the author, which he terms as ‘Robinhood style of doing business’, in which he emphasis the creation of social business which will use all the modern ways of business management, business technology and business models .But it will also differ in few fundamental ways; there will a clear differentiation between the poor and non-poor while extending products and services to them in terms of pricing policies, content- designing, production and distribution. The products and services would be designed to fulfill specific needs of the poor of a particular geographical location or those in a particular socio-economic need. However, borrowing the principles and management techniques of modern business enterprise, these products and services would also be made available for sale to those who are not poor and can afford a normal price (market price).This will make the social business unique, viable and self sustaining.

In terms of the communication technique the author suggests a strong community- participatory approach in the whole process of planning, producing, promoting and distributing the social business’s products and services leading to the creations of employment opportunities at the local level while at the same time boosting the local economy and self-confidence of the members in their own ability of actively creating opportunities for themselves by running social businesses rather than passively waiting for the opportunities to be created for them. Credit-practices of Grameen Bank where beggars were given small loans to buy groceries and sell them while they beg door and door, besides other practices such as working with poor women to provide loans for establishing telecommunication services as a business avenue without any collateral, and with a huge multinational corporate like Dannone to create a healthy Yogurt for the poor children, are truly innovative practices which have multiple impact on the society in general and the poor who are beneficiaries of such practices, in particular. On one hand, such practices create work for the poor and make them self reliant and on the other, it also infuses trust and confidence, which they lack most, in the deprived communities of developing world. As a result of this a new kind of solidarity is built. This opens new avenues of hope and brotherhood, amongst the community- members. With such multi-level communication efforts, the results are not only visible in terms of economic development but it also leads to mental and psyocogical development, which is necessary to fight a curse like poverty in all its innumerable forms.

Author’s detailed description of how rural women, children and men were involved in the process of designing and launching successfully, a dairy product by a multinational like Danone in collaboration with a grassroots organization like Grameen also breaks many stereotypes of ‘incompatibility in collaboration between a highly professional, profit making company based in the modern west and that of a people-based, non-profit based in the rural east. This sends a very powerful message of untapped, potential collaborations between thousands of other non- government organizations working at grassroots and that of private business enterprises working only for profit, to create a broader wellbeing of the humans, guarding them both from man-made as well as miseries. This message can set a paradigm shift in the way inter- sectoral collaborations are perceived across the world. The recognition of certain ‘economic blinds spots’ such as entrepreneurship is only for ‘some’ and self employment is ‘special’ as opposed to being a natural way of making a life are also eye opening with a metaphorical example of bonsai tree which grows big if planted in a big base, a field or grows small if planted in a small base, a pot. Also the description of the Sixteen decisions of Grameen bank, to work with the poor, mentioned in the book provides a rare insight of an organization and an individual with a vision to address small things to bring big sustainable results in the long terms for the most needy. It also raises an important issue of human resource management and practices for the optimal results.

The author’s extension of the meaning of ‘development’ from being mere reference to campaigns, practices and theories to that of a mission of turning on the ‘energy of creativity’ of each person and not just get materialized results delivered is thought provoking. It takes into account the human nature with all its complexities; need of appreciation, dignity, respect and urge to achieve rather than receive. This provides a fresh and scientific ways to relook at the contemporary development practices and question them on the parameters which are more humane rather than just being quantitative or qualitative.

At a personal level while reading this work I felt that the author made a strong case in suggesting ways to fight and overcome poverty. Author’s personal experiences of working in some of the most toughest socio-economic working-terrains and times, and yet creating a highly successful enterprise (Grameen Bank and family enterprises), running successfully in Bangladesh and with its training impact across the world, with some of the path breaking interventions and unprecedented results further strengthens the author’s outrageously hopeful, simple and yet strategic and logical outlook towards creating a world without poverty. I feel encouraged and excited in reading his ideas. It certainly gives me hope and sets a strong example of modern-yet- grass rooted model to work with poor while making use all the modern facilities. I also found the depth and breadth of author’s experiences, opinions and discussions ranging from national and international agencies, like United nations, Association like SAARC and the new roles that they can take, government machineries and how they can be employed into more innovative ways to produce more creative and relevant results. All such discussions and references looked perfectly cohesive in his line of arguments to promote social business and how social business can play a pivotal role in the modern endeavors to eradicate poverty.

However with all the optimist enthusiasm, strategic collaborations and practical examples and suggestions with which the author puts forward the idea of social businesses, I found a range is issues which remains unaddressed. These issues are important to be able to fully achieve the intended results. One of these issues is the absence of clear ways in which a social business will come into being. From what the author says a social business requires a combination of grass root experiences and awareness of grass root realities while at the same time , it also requires modern infrastructure and human resource to address these realities in some positive way. In the book such an example is seen in the collaboration between Grameen bank and Dannone. However it is very clear that such collaboration would remain one in thousand if not in a million, in the absence of any norm that will facilitate such collaboration. The fact that the author was surprised( he reconfirmed and repeated his question to ensure that his idea to form an alliance for social business, a non-profit maximizing business is correctly understood and interpreted) when Danone agreed to work with Grameen to form a social business. This ‘surprise’ clearly reflects the present indifferent attitude of profit making big business houses who own the financial resources as well as the trained human resources , who can carry out the research and establish the infrastructural facilities to run a social business. If the author, being a co-founder of a bank as big as Grameen with a whole family of group of companies attached to it and with a tag of Winner of Nobel Peace Prize, had to ‘surprisingly’ reassure an agreement of a multinational for a social business, it cannot be easily assumed that subsequent collaborations between other non-profits and profit making firms would be an easy task. We would probably need to set systemic norms to bring such development-corporate alliances to produce social business projects. The book did not help me in understanding any such process of norm setting and its dynamics. Also the dilemma of grass root organizations to negotiate with rich corporates or to give in to their ‘selfish’ demands, to acquire finance, needs more elaboration. It is not enough to expect all corporates to invest only for ‘the good on a no loss basis social business’ which author describes. One of my observations in the book in relation to author’s experiences is that he seems to have enjoyed several luxuries (one being a Nobel peace winner, second being a co-founder of large bank) while ensuring that the rights decisions in terms of research, production and distribution are taken, which are first in favor of the poor before it fulfils any other objective. Such luxuries may not be available to small grass root organizations who want to convert themselves into social business.

Despite all theses weaknesses I still believe that the thesis of the author and the idea of a social business that he is trying to promote through his writings and work is a good idea. For it takes into account the human being’s deepest urge to serve and do good and not just live for one’s own self and gather materialistic assets. Humans are naturally yearning beings and this characteristic takes their imagination beyond the tangibles to which the modern, conventional business is restricted. The spirit of social business can provide a spark which can lighten the natural human-enterprising potential to go to new paradigms of development. Idea of social- business, with gradual development and with use of scientific research, managerial practices and community participation, can take off to act as a new tool to fight poverty and empower marginalized community. I shares this hope in the book and do believe that social business can define the future of capitalism. I also believe that the inclusion of concepts of social entrepreneurship and social business as regular courses and programs in universities and colleges would go a long way in creating a more informed awareness to develop the social businesses which the author is extending as an alternative way of developing marginalized communities.

Memories of India: Capitalist's way.

2008-10-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

After a long day i sat outside my home which is in front of a public laundry. Dirty linens are washed here.and even dried. All in one dollar and 30 minutes! I often sit in these stairs which end on a main street called the Stewart Street. People come and go.Some make an eye contact with me and with others, I make an eye contact.There is a difference between the two.Infact many differences.But let me rush ahead.I am on a street!
While I sat and saw America and Americans,coming and going; walking and driving, I saw, not only the movement of people but also of money.Those who drove into the laundry, would park their cars and insert few cents into a small pole to ensure that their cars are not towed. This is mechanized parking.
To wash and dry clothes, these laundry machines would need a dollar.Without this, they would not wash clothes.Nor would they dry.They would also make you wait.While you wait, your cell phone might ring.Or, you might choose to ring some one's cell phone.Either way, you would pay and so would be the person at the other end.
The tumbler of the washing machine roles, and with it roles the capitalist economy.In the midst of this circulation, I realized that my right hand slipped into the left pocket of my cotton shirt.And it picked something; a soft tender texture,crushed and weak but some thing I could not avoid. It was an image of Gandhi.But more than that, the base of the image that contained that image; a currency note.It made me remember India.
Memories of my country are always fond but this one was different.It seemed I remembered the birth of my nation through a currency note.
Memories were blurred and as the eyes focused, I saw a capitalist's view..

I saw children!!

2008-10-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

I recognize spaces by the sound they make.Or do not make.Silence yells! I heard it yelling in United States where i arrived with an injured foot.

Reading Pedagogy

2008-09-29T23:32:00.000-07:00

I read Pedagogy Of the Oppressed(POO) by Paulo Freire twice. Once some 3 years ago, while I was working almost 15 hours a day for a broadcasting TV news station and second now as a new graduate student from India in OU for my opted course, Education for Social Change. Both reading experiences were very different considering my own experiences and my situations. But in both cases this book offered tremendous appeal in terms of provoking me to go beyond the words and expressions I was reading and the circumstances I was living in and living with. Clearly the first reading offered me the luxury of just going to the next- page without fully grasping or even trying my best to grasp the words of the author. But with this second reading I did not allow myself this luxury. This reading was more profound and 'tiring', and in many ways it acted like a thread to my own personal experiences of rural India where I have lived, of media where I was employed and several readings on development that have been a part of my regular readings.POO has not been an easy reading. Because it offered multiplicity of expressions and ideas it spoke about. To me it transcended the national boundaries and the concerns of people across the world in general, the third-world' where i come from , in particular. This is true at least to the best of my understating keeping the popularity of the book as well as the career of the author after the publication of the book.

The experience of reading POO took me back, and very often, in fact after reading every 10-12 pages I had to keep the book aside to 'contextualize' what the author is saying in my own work field experiences, my own country's history of colonization and my observations of India immersed in poverty but yet so apparently decorated by ideas of globalization with its most visible manifestations in the glittery malls, multiplexes and its McDonalds and Pizza huts.I must say that in the absence of my own observations and their contextualization, this book would have offered nothing more an "interesting" book with profound language of English expressions and poor-people/nations narrative.

The more I read the POO, the more I contextualized and the more I contextualized the more pages I had to turn back and contextualize yet more.The concepts, people , expressions and words in the book like oppression ,oppressed, oppressor cultural invasion, culture of silence, freedom, peasants, solidarity, choices, intervention, thinking, critical thinking, liberation , education and many more are the words that do not have a literal meaning in the book itself, as I understand and it depends on the reader's past/present/futuristic experiences how one understands these expressions, to not only understand the authors point of view but also to take a stand of one's own on what one reads. And then to move in a particular direction with a sense of conviction in the decision that is taken.Broadly speaking, my understanding is that the POO aims to let the reader understand the environment in which the world is set with its dynamics and rules, both said and unsaid. It also tries to move, (by virtue of this understanding of the environment and inherent intentions of the various players in it), the people from the state of ignorance to higher levels of critical, social and political awareness. In the very gist,this book seems to "educate to enlighten to act". The author does this by explaining the different models, (both pro and anti oppressed) of leadership and its clear working dynamics.The book begins by talking about the oppressors and the oppressed in their set of complexities. Oppressors being the people who exercise authority over others for the sake of their selfish 'good' while oppressed are the ones who remain under such authority. The book explains the dynamics of the two groups in fine details. Fear of freedom is strategically instilled in the minds of the oppressed by the oppressors while oppressed remains under the culture of silence i,e indifference. The effect of this is that the oppressed begin to develop a fear of being free and also the fear of punishment of trying to be 'free', thus in effect remaining silent. In the midst of the mass of oppressed, this phenomena takes the form of a culture- of silence. And therefore the behavior of the oppressed remained completely prescribed. Meaning they remain controlled, sometimes knowingly with the fear and at other times due to their developed 'silent' tendency, to toe the line of the oppressor, following the guidelines set 'for' them 'by' others.The author believes that such a situation can be broken only by a conscious force of realization. For freedom is achieved by conquest and not as gift. As I contextualized it, I went back to the tales I heard from my grandfather ( and also from what I read later in my readings of history of Indian freedom struggle) about the British colonization in India: the communal riots, the differences amongst the freedom fighters vis a via their ideological methods of achieving freedom. Despite many ideologies ( but primarily armed /'violent" by people like Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose and that of unarmed/ non-violent by people like Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave) the objective was to achieve freedom, with deliberate interventions ,as the freedom was not going to come as a gift. But this phenomena of differences in the situation of common crisis is not India-specific, this was true probably for all the colonies across the globe that had fought their battle to win over the external force which forcibly took over their freedom. This further collaborates with the author’s saying that it the oppressed who would have to lead the process of humanization (restoring freedom and liberation of humanity from all kind s of tyranny but in this content tyranny by an external enemy- British, for e.g, in case of India)The oppressors would always tend maintain a status quo because it is ‘their' situation which they have created to favor their aims and objectives and aspirations. The oppressed on the contrary have to task to break this cast being created by oppressors to domesticate them. The work of the oppressed leadership is not only to have the strong yearn to have "their own" freedom but also to create such a yearn in their comrades too. But the author also observes the tendency of the oppressed to remain under the fear of freedom and thus unable to rise and meet the demands necessary to achieve freedom and thus remaining secure in their state of unfreedom.I again contextualized it in my own environment both in free and dependent India. During pre-independent India, there were Indians who served the British troops and fought for them on their behalf in the second world war expecting the British to gift them freedom in return to this favor instead of fighting on their fronts and taking away what originally belonged to them; their freedom. In today’s India I see it differently but with similar manifestations. Despite being the oldest and largest democracy in the world, the Indian foreign policy still depends substantially if not fully, on the decisions taken or not taken by the West. The results of it are quite apparent in its several manifestations; in the midst of stinkingly abject poverty of agriculture-based India, its government is busy working and promoting the city-centric westerm icons of develoment; malls, flyovers, huge cinema complexes, metro stations, colorful traffic signals and the list is unending. This is in clear opposition to developing the villages,where over 70% of the Indian population resides and which produces the major chunk of all food supplies consumed within the country and that also that is exported. This I see as the fear to change things and remaining prescribed by what others have dictated (Read the western slogans of industrialization, mass production, liberalization and globalization).The authors almost in the spirit of a revolutio asks the oppressed to choose between the choices; to remain one or divided, solidarity or alienation, prescription or choices, being spectator or actor, speaking out or remaining silent.

And concludes that these are the dilemma of the oppressed and that education must take this into account. The oppressed have to learn to act as hosts thus taking their decisions based on their own realities rather than merely toeing other’s plan. The author also suggests that the oppressed have to discover that both they and the oppressors are the manifestations of the dehumanization (that I understand as all processes that are against human dignity and which intend to treat humans with anything less than humanity for selfish motives or hidden agendas) because to dehumanize is as much a process of dehumanization as that of being dehumanized.The author also talks about the leadership roles that education has. But more particularly the methodologies of the educational processes, both political and social. If there are flaws or biases in the educational systems or/and its intention then it would only become a tool for more oppression at the hands of oppressors( like elite, governments, corporate, industrialists etc).Under oppressive education, critical intervention by the oppressed( students, persons, factory workers, electoral masses etc) is a threat to the oppressors as the oppressors want the oppressed to be completely submerged in the situation created by the oppressor and not to think of ways to change or replace it. Therefore any education that is liberating in nature has to be an initiative of the oppressed and not the oppressors. For the oppressor, an educational system aims to achieve political power and not liberation. The POO is therefore, the authors says, is the pedagogy in two stages; in first the oppressed unveil the oppression, recognize it and then transform it, thus making it liberating, and in the second phase lets this liberation be enjoyed by all men, Thereby universalizing it by cutting all barriers that may stop the liberation to reach the masses in general without any restrictions, intrinsic or extrinsic.The nature of the oppressed and their behavior is clearly an important aspect which the author touches upon when he says that the oppressed never initiate violence. By this what seems to mean to me, is that the fact that oppressed are ‘oppressed' means they are already the victims of violence, of one kind or the other, and therefore highlighting the pre- existence of violence. And thus the only choice that the oppressed have is to counter this violence. However when they do so in the same terms of functionality, they are instantly termed as violent, barbaric, wicked and ferocious by the oppressors.This observation of the authors helps me to contextualize two situations; the present Muslim identify- crisis and the identity of the Indian freedom fighters who took to arms for their independence. Let me explain the second situation first. British took to all ways to control the Indian freedom revolution including the acts of violence by the armed police inflicting extreme violence on the masses at places as sacred as places of worship and killing innocent civilians including children and women. But when such an act was countered by a group of Indian freedom fighters with their arms and bullet, they were instantly turned into terrorists and extremists. And media was used as a tool for the propagation for this propaganda. Similarly in the first situation; after the 9/11 the identity of the Muslims has changed (has been ‘charged' if I may use the term) drastically. They are now terrorists and the terms like Islamic (Islam being the religion of Muslims) terrorism, or Islamic- radicals have taken standard connotations to refer to the terrorists, anti -nationals, criminals, and so on. The violence like that of 9/11 existed before 9/11 as well , in fact perhaps more severe in my own country with several decades of violence in one state ,Kashmir alone. And then Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine, Ireland and the list is unending yet again. It is only when America is attacked that the "global’ war against terrorism started and suddenly we stared to hear on televisions and radio sets and in the editorials about the new (presumably new) threat of 'violence inflicted by one set of "barbaric, wicked and ferocious" individuals and organizations".

(It also connects me to an old saying back home: If an animal eats the man, it becomes a barbaric beast while if the man eats the beast, remains fashionably Non-vegetarian!)

Next, the author explores the situation where oppressed have liberated themselves from all kinds of oppression. In such a situation how would oppressors feel? They would now feel oppressed because their tendency to oppress is no longer satisfied and the situation where they could suppress no longer exists. And they are not used to such a situation where they are not subjects (those who take decisions "for ' others) and where they are unable to reduce others to objects ( for whom the decisions are taken) .

Further the author’s terming of teacher- student educational set up as banking system is interesting .He explains that the e banking concept of education is where teachers like depositors deposit their learning to the students and students like depository accept that learning-deposits. In such a system students are the takers and teachers are the givers. Teachers only teach. And students only get taught.It is assumed that teachers are meant to teach and have all the material while students are meant to learn as they are devoid of any material whatsoever. Students are encouraged not to question and accept their learning as mere receiving objects. In such a system the students are restricted to ask , explore, invent and/or use their creative powers to create anything new and thus maintaining the educational status quo. This , the author observes, enhances and strengthens the agenda; an agenda set by the people who want to oppress the systems by building a society on ‘their’ terms promoting their selfish motives as opposed to the terms which can potentially lead to a “better’ world with new avenues for all. This system of education anaesthetizes its ‘learners’ with pre-conceived notions and presets value- system. The author parallel juxtaposes such a system with another kind of educational system which he calls problem- solving system where students and teachers learn from each other and the process remains two ways.

A true communication takes place between students and teachers and they exchange places; students learning from teachers, their experiences and teachers learning from students their experiences, thus both remaining teacher and student at the same time. In this system students are encouraged to think and critically analyze what they read or hear and thus becoming critical thinkers contributing towards new knowledge and fresh pursuits.

This leads the author to emphasize on dialogue, which is a way to achieve the true sense of investigation and inquiry and not just the flow of information from one source to another. This sense of investigation should be free from all kinds of fear or pressure to reach any pre-destined destination or conclusions. The practice of reading several newspapers reporting on the same issue to students and asking them to think and analyze why the same issue is being reported differently by different journalist can be one of the ways of problem- solving system as it would allow the students to think out-of-box and explore the new dimensions of the same issue and try to get into the minds of different people and thus enhancing their insights and understanding of the human mind. This process is participatory and not exclusive to any category of people and it therefore frees and takes the human mind to new paradigms.
Explaining this new way of education, the author talks about the new leadership- models as well. These models probably are the result of such a kind of educational system. Reflection and action are the two important aspects of this leadership-model which will not only promote problem- solving education but will itself emerge from such a system.

The emphasis is on the fact that “leaders’ alone must not remain ‘thinkers’ and masses as ‘doers' but instead both should participate in the broader areas of decision making and issues explorations and together should they think and do. Leaders however have to be responsible and act as coordinators and directors of the educational content in participation with people. This will be a revolutionary process. And in such a process even those who were oppressed or are oppressed should get the participation and in their participation as subjects they must realize that they themselves are the subjects of transformation and they have to play an active role to change or transform the present realities which are also theirs. In other words, they have to know that they are working for themselves.

A dialogue as way of communication works at the very core of the systems. It is different from a military coup, as the author explains, where a set of leaders as ‘representatives decides for the masses what is good and bad for them assuming that they know what is to be done for the people without actually allowing them to participate in the process of state-policy building.
In the revolutionary educational system the relations are cordial between the leaders and the people. Leaders speak with their people as equals, discussing their thoughts, frankly, their achievements, mistakes, miscalculations and difficulties. In others word s leaders of this system think “with” people for people as opposed to thinking only for people without being with them (this is the practice of the dominant elites, who act as “masters” with a purpose to enclave). Revolutionary process builds solidarity in camaraderie to liberate. In such a system we cannot say that some people liberate some else but rather the men in communion liberate each other. In the process of oppression however it is possible that some one oppresses some else.

The author also speaks about the tools, both at the hands of those who intend to promote problem-solving methods and those with oppressive mentality. One of the tools being identified by the author is science and technology which is used by oppressors to reduce others to mere objects while revolutionaries use it towards the process of humanization.
Speaking in a particular context I see the use of science and technology for making nuclear warfare for external aggression by one country on another as oppressive whereas the use of same nuclear resources to create alternative ways of energy to create better and healthy environment as revolutionary.

The use of dialogue results in dialogical ways whereas restricting dialogue results in anti dialogical ways. The former uses all its recourses and tools at its command to liberate and coperate whereas the latter uses tools like conquest, manipulation, media, government bureaucracy, cultural invasion and policy of divide and rule to dehumanize and arrest true liberation. This is particularly visible in countries like East Timor, Nepal, Pakistan, and India where political establishments are fully or at least partially anti-dialogical vis-a-vis its people's aspirations. In these countries and of course many others it is the dominant elites being supported by power houses like government and industries who organize themselves for ruling the people instead of organizing themselves with people to build a nation-state.

POO is clearly a work which differentiates between what is empowering and what is enslaving and in unveiling the intentions behind the apparent generosity that can be a mere eye washer. As a reader I felt convinced and enjoyed the author’s ideas which I found conceptually strong and deeply people-rooted. However as a practitioner of media, research and academics I felt a sense of irony/dichotomy in the given text. The text is seemingly written for the welfare of the oppressed but it seems to have been written in a language which would most likely be understood by the people in the positions of oppressors..Would they understand that they are dehumanized by virtue of being an oppressor? The answer probably lies in the words of the author himself where he says that 'oppressors to join solidarity with oppressed.. “ For that they have to reborn..”