The great schlep

I am not Jewish, but this kind of makes me wish I was. Though I am not sad I will never ever need to travel to Florida in my life.

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Bush on Diplomacy…don’t be a bully!

I took this quote from a recent BBC article about developments in the Russia/Georgia conflict.

President Bush has accused Russia of “bullying and intimidation”, saying it was an unacceptable “way to conduct foreign policy in the 21st Century”.

I don’t know enough about the nature of the conflict to take a side yet, and perhaps even if I did there would be no side to take. Yet, it seems as history reveals itself, our government usually sides with the country that benefits us the most at whatever expense to human life or suffering. And the nonsense is furthered as it “trickles” down to the middle and lower class through biased and well funded, middle school journalism. I hope our next president doesn’t assume every child was “left behind.” Perhaps Bush himself, in light of his own bad theology, should be in fear of being Left Behind.

Really, unacceptable? Woe to those who have eyes but do not see, have ears yet do not hear. And woe to those who condemn the very acts they promoted by being the prime example. Of these I am the worst I admit. God, please let the ironies of the world shake us from our slumber.

digging for dirt and finding some roots

Probably the biggest reason I haven’t blogged in a while is my lack of immersion in anything. So far this summer I’ve been in Bellingham. I went for a bike ride around western washington. Went to a music festival on orcas island. I played soccer and read a book about becoming a monk.

Work has been relatively slow lately and it has left me adequate time to think about what I do. Not so much why I do it, because helping people is always good, right? But what I do is, I am finding out, so plagued with double edged swords that some days render me useless, slumped in my desk chair in front of my donated flatscreen. I love who I work for and I even love how we do our work. But so often I hate the environment we do it in, the foreign aid environment. I would always like to think that organizations large or small working in other parts of the world have their constituent’s best interest in mind. But it seems we(Americans) are so far from taking off our glasses of opportunistic empire building that we can’t see the pain empire is causing. But as much as I hate the damage the “aid” of empires expanding their empire is doing I don’t know shit about it. So I have been letting a completely ignorant anger grow in me without knowing the fact. So I bought some books off recomendations of people who have experienced the “aid” of empires first hand.

1. the road to hell by Micheal Maren

2. the shock doctrine by Naomi Klein

3. confessions of an economic hitman by John Perkins

20 pages into “confessions” i am already feeling the anger grow.

But with this sort of anger always comes a sort of “fight or flight” response…except that flight isn’t really an option since it is an affront to humanity not just myself. So we are forced to fight, to take some sort of action. The response is simple, yet complicated.

I have begun constructing a theory of action which I am sure is not my own, new, or anything profound. But it involves removing oneself from active participation in economic systems that promote shitstorms while increasing involvement in social systems. Oh…does that make me a socialist? Maybe as I read I’ll describe what I mean by “shitstorms” in more detail.

But let me just say the situation of empire, foreign aid, and child sponsorship(maybe another post) is much worse than you think. But the response is, I think, much more beautiful than we imagined.

VANDU

Every year a university somewhere on the west coast hosts a large international health conference. This year it was at Simon Frasier University in Canada, this weekend. Apparently they either didn’t check the US calendar or didn’t want any americans to come since they decided to have it on Memorial Day weekend.  Last year there were over a thousand people at the conference at UW in Seattle and this year there were less than 300. This is not to say the quality of the speakers or presentations were less, but certainly much less inspired. Perhaps some of the participants got lost in dark woods that surround Simon Frasier or the confusing roads that always go in a circle no matter where you are. It was worse than finding your way around Evergreen State College which is clearly a better experience when you’re high. But it was worth the 1 of 3 days I actually attended and I am beginning to understand the beast that is conference planning and have definitely excluded that from possible careers for Jesse. That still leaves…well everything else.

But I didn’t want to just write a complaint, instead I want to highlight one issue that I had known about but became increasingly aware of at one of the seminars during the conference. Through the poetry of Bud Osborne and the activism of church communities and friends, the lower east side of Vancouver BC has brought the burdens and inequities of disease and poverty to our own backyards. The East Hastings district currently has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates IN THE WORLD reaching as high as 30-40%. The only other place you see this rate of infection is in Sub-Saharan Africa in regions of Zimbabwe, Western Kenya, and South Africa. Less than an hour from my home AIDS in what painfully resembles a leaper colony, is ravaging the native populations of that region. And if you are thinking well…they must receive treatment and must be able to live somewhat healthy lives. In East Hastings you are technically considered a senior citizen when you are 47. Life expectancy rates are between 10-15 years less than other non-native Canadians.

Two of the three presenters were academics showing graphs and numbers that merely provided quantitative evidence for what the third group of presenters proclaimed from first hand experience. This third group was from an organization called Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users(VANDU). This organization sets up (legally or not) safe needle exchange and injections sites for the thousands of injection drug users in East Hastings. Richard Utendale who is now the director of VANDU and works on many other projects is a recovering drug addict and has lived on the lower east side for over a decade.

There is certainly a difference between the AIDS epidemic in Vancouver and the one in Sub-Saharan Africa. The main mode of transmission is needle sharing instead of heterosexual sex. The populations impacted the most are minorities instead of…everyone. Yet we see the same causal relationships that determine likelihood of contraction. Non-white, poor, uneducated, and homeless. The most extreme factors being the first and the last. I could go into why, but I think we all can do the math.

So if you think AIDS is far away, think again. www.VANDU.org

his Holiness, Desmond Tutu, a panel discussion review(that rhymes!)

People review books, movies, albums, and other stuff we entertain ourselves with. So I thought I would review a recent panel discussion I attended.

Seeds of Compassion has managed to host one of the largest public free gatherings of world religious(all faiths) leaders probably anywhere. Over five days 2-300.000 people had the opportunity to engage questions of faith, violence, war, ignorance, media, etc. To what extent each individual considered and reflected on their own personal vestment, point of view, concern for these issues will only be evident in the coming years. But no 1 event can cause true repentance.

I only found out about this huge event a week or so before it actually occurred when I received a phone call from a friend who had tickets and had carefully (l would like to think) chosen who she thought would invest in the content being presented and discussed. I jumped on the chance to attend the final day of the conference/event where there would be a panel discussion with these people:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rob Bell, Sister Joan Chittister, Jasmit Singh Kochar, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Rabbi David Rosen, Pravrajika Vrajaprana, Roshi Joan Halifax, Sheikh Ahmed Tijani Ben Omar, Bishop Stephen Charleston, Linda Kavelin-Popov, Reverend Samuel B. McKinney, Doug Pagitt, Father William Treacy, Shelia Evans-Tranumn, Steven Shankman

and 2 kids, Ben and Uriah.

A couple days later I was also given a ticket to a much larger address by the Dalai Lama at Qwest Field the Saturday previous to the panel discussion. Tickets to all of these events were totally free accept for those people who think nothing is ever free and bought tickets from con-people on Craigslist. There were around 30,000 in attendance for the highly ceremonious and cheesy event which stood in painfully stark contrast to the brief unadorned speech and brutally honest responses of the Dalai Lama. Oh how we can miss the point so gloriously! I was excited for a more honest exchange between him and other world leaders who deserve as much attention and equally (i can imagine) despise it.

The panel discussion took place at UW’s basketball arena next to its football stadium. I grumbled on the way in as they announced their strict security measure of no bags or food. “Oh, so they can charge me $20 for a hot dog and bottled water?” We entered and there were box lunches on tables dispersed evenly throughout the building with attendants handing them out happily. “They are free!” They had to constantly remind everyone since nothing is free, ever! And if it is there are strings attached.

Anyway, my grumbling was humbled and I was well fed.

The 1st of 2 panel discussions began without too much ceremony. The long line of panelists sat in differing chairs depending on their importance. Kids on the outside in black metal framed chairs with little padding. The Dalai Lama in the center lounged in his bright red thickly padded reading chair. Everyone else sat in cream colored, well upholstered corner chairs…even Desmond Tutu. Between Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama(can I just call him Buddha its easier?) there was a table with water and tea. This meant that many of the other panelists who spoke had to be brought water when their throats became dry. The hierarchy of importance was obvious. Each member received a brief introduction accept for the kids on the edges of the panel who were merely introduced by their first name and also their age. Ben was 18 and Uriah was 12.

The questions placed before the panel were all extremely general and abstract which meant each member took the opportunity to give their impassioned speeches about peace, equality, and justice from their unique religious and political perspectives–each earning a hearty and well deserved applause. Ben and Uriah responded briefly, paraphrasing what they understood from the previous icon’s rhetorical outburst…no context for their audience to listen and no room for their originality to find expression. Also being on the edge, the margin meant they either had to speak first or last, meaning they had to either follow some of the worlds best minds and rhetoricians or respond first to a question not meant for them but the best minds and rhetoricians. The focus of the conference was, “teaching our youth compassion.” Here was what to me seemed like a lose lost situation for these young kids, amidst what was presented to be a great honor and privilege. Though they had for some reason that was never expressed to the audience, earned their way to this place, this stage, no one was actually there to hear what they had to say. It was about the Dalai Lama and his friends.

If its not obvious this was my main criticism of an otherwise amazing event. A conference about youth needs to actually make an effort to highlight youth despite the pillars of wisdom in attendance. There were many workshops and activities that did just this that i was unable to attend. I was just saddened that when it came time to actually follow something other than our normal idolatrous tendency, we failed.

Aside from this criticism, I was as beside myself as I ever get to see Desmond Tutu, Buddha, and others interact, but especially, Bishop and Buddha. They undid all of the pomp and circumstance that surrounded them. I knew it was coming but I longed to hear it. As leaders answered questions with answers that incorporated philosophy, politics, non-violence, and the fundamentals of their faith all with an intro, climax, and conclusion, some even with notes, Buddha responded once with “I don’t know” and then turned to Bishop and they laughed hysterically. That was why I came and why I left so pleased that I had. A leader in exile and a religious and political punching bag for warring and divided nations, both lead the arena in worshipful laughter not at anything, but because that is how joy is often expressed outwardly.

a not-so-distant need

Slum Doctor Programme is responding to the needs of those halfway across the world. We fulfill those needs by supporting those who have already responded locally(in their own regions of Kenya/Uganda) with appropriate and effective solutions. We are proud and honored to do so.

However, over and over we end up confronted with local needs and the shortfalls of our own society, our own leaders, our own social systems.

Last year SDP initiated a global AIDS education program addressing the local need for a global perspective. AIDS has been killing people for 30 years now all around the world. Yet, much of our education system has ignored the depth and the breadth of the suffering and destruction AIDS has caused.  So it has been our hope to reach out to our youth locally and begin a conversation about AIDS, not just what it means for them, but what it means for the world.

However, my personal experience in discussing AIDS with students has been mixed.  The naive zeal that I initially had for describing the horrors of poverty and disease in far away places has been burdened by the harsh realization that many of these young people face, to some degree, the same hardships in their own home.  Many of them are ignored, abused, sick, hungry, voiceless, and desperate.

These students usually identify themselves with an angry retort after our introduction. “Why should I care?”   From no other lips could this question be valid.  Tears come to my eyes when I am forced to agree.  Why should you care about someone so far away who is sick, when those in your home seem to care less about you.

I don’t think this is a reason for us to stop speaking to students about what we might think are “far away” problems. In fact I think its even more reason to introduce a world that is large, diverse, mysterious, and full of pain yet full of hope to young people. I imagine the kid whose home is completely broken and getting through the day is as far ahead as they can think as the one who nees the gobal perspective most. They need to know that the brokenness they are experience is 1. an experience held by much of the world and 2. not simply “the way the world is.”  They need to know that their parents or whoever their oppressor is, is but a thin wall blinding them from a world that doesn’t accept the way things are or seem to be.

So as I had to argue with one of my recent students,  “social studies IS important.”

bitter beer face

Ok, this might be a little in bad taste, but doesn’t this look like the dude from the bitter beer face commercials.  Please share your thoughts and reflections.

signs and things

For if those signs which the actors make in dancing were of force by nature, and not by the arrangement and agreement of men, the public crier would not in former times have announced to the people of Carthage, while the pantomime was dancing, what it was he meant to express,–a thing still remembered by many old men from whom we have frequently heard it.I And we may well believe this, because even now, if any one who is unaccustomed to such follies goes into the theatre, unless some one tells him what these movements mean, he will give his whole attention to them in vain. St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine Chapter 25)

The last post got me thinking about what it is exactly I want to do in life or maybe just on this blog so it makes you think I am doing it in life. St. Augustine once had a very long introspective dialogue with himself about what truly was and what were merely signs of things that truly were. Centuries later Jonathan Edwards(not the former presidential candidate) had a similar discussion(the Nature of True Virtue). And this same discussion was I believe the fundamental construction of the divinely inspired writings of those oft misrepresented and under appreciated prophets from 1000’s of years ago.

What exactly was this conversation of signs and things? I don’t rightly know, other than it was the attempt to identify those plays that humans performed around realities or things to convery either a reality (physical and meta) or a non-reality or a “emperor’s new clothes” type reality. Furthermore, this conversation sought to find the ways in which signs forced their way out through cultural, social, and political contexts unintentionally, though no less poignantly.

For example the previous post. The fact that all we have seen in the news of these two men has been smiles and shook hands despite the blood that surely drips and intermingles as they clasp and shake yet again, must be evidence that all is even further from the truth than we thought. (Don’t confuse signs with lies or things with truth and good) Which by employing that natural insight which I believe humans are so graciously endowed should they choose to accept and engage, is a classic sign of a true thing. The sign being the smile and the thing being the blood of the unjustly murdered. It seems that it is almost an identification of irony. The sign, that is what we see, and the thing, that is what we know is either the reality or what we know should be.

This is getting a little out of hand and I am a little out of practice since my liberal studies days. But I guess I want to be someone who can determine what in this world are signs and what are things even as each notion of reality shifts and reforms as the ocean’s tide rises and recedes breaking, filling, taking, and putting back those elements which cannot and will not be disposed of.

I think I get about a C+ for this post but maybe someone knows what I mean .

a sign of hope=pain

This photograph is the first time that these two men have been in the same picture without diplomatic, forced smiles. Perhaps their previous smiles were at the times when they disliked and dare I say hated each other most. I had to consider this out loud.

Raila Odinga and Moi Kibaki have been fighting for power for the last 2 months. They each represent groups of ethnic alliances that have been built up over centuries in Kenya and surrounding regions. The tensions that have been under the surface for just as long have now emerged like worms during a hard rain. This is nothing new for Africa. The DR Congo just on the other side of Lake Victoria is the location of the worst, most violent war since WWII where more people have died than Iraq, Darfur, and Rwanda combined. We don’t call it WWIII simply because white people aren’t dying. Yet nearly every super power in the world bears much of the blame for supporting, instigating, and not lifting a finger about the nearly 3.3 million dead or the thousands that die daily. But this is not what I want to talk about, just another atrocity that we ignore.

Anyway;

Consensus should be cause for celebration for smiles and hugging. True-and that is indeed what many Kenyans did as soon as the pen hit the paper. But for the leaders who were at the table representing the deep ethnic tensions that many expect to be resolved politically instead of violently, there is no jumping up and down to be done. I haven’t begun to understand the complexity of choreographing centuries of tribal conflict, a century of violent and extremely oppressive colonization, and then sudden independence into a harmonious, peaceful, productive, and modern society. All I can say is that it must be hard…really, really *&$&# hard.

Anytime I see a politician smile I cringe a little. I wonder if that’s what they mean. Listen to the fatigue in Barack Obama’s voice or the newly formed wrinkle’s on Hillary Clinton’s forehead. They are not enjoying themselves at this point, they are killing themselves to get to power. Their smile means nothing because no human can smile sincerely under that pressure. It is easier for me to imagine them weeping back stage for no other reason than sheer exhaustion than believe their smile is real in front of millions on TV.

That is why I am happy to see fatigue, burden, anger, sadness, resolve, and hope sautered onto their faces. Its about time we see some pain come from a discussion of peace instead of an experience of oppression. I believe that is the pain that some describe as “being refined like silver.”

More thoughts to come…

now more than ever

Kenya is in crisis, there is no question.  If AIDS, poverty, and corruption was not already enough the few who make the decisions in this small, young, nation have decided to walk down the same road so many other sub-Saharan African countries have in recent history.  Most of those nations are still floundering in the midst of social chaos and violence, where men fight for power and position and women carry everyone’s survival on their backs.  

 The diplomatic response to similar situations in Africa’s history has been one of many words and little action.  News reports appear each day of figure heads “denouncing” violence and “condemning” the ethnic atrocities taking place. Certainly there must be a dialogue among leaders concerning their constituencies, but it seems nothing ever actually happens.  They feign control by “meeting” while tires are burning and machetes are swinging.   Yes, this is the classic out cry of the socially conscious middle class white liberal(me).

 So what happens now? I’m upset…SO WHAT?

 I think now more than ever it is time to support work that is not simply a reaction, but is a determined long term commitment to encouraging societies that are capable of existing peacefully…not just passive aggressively like the Luos and Kikuyus of Kenya have for so long. 

If for some reason Bush is able to pass his “economic stimulus” package, than I think it would be amazing if people just signed their checks over to NGO’s committed to promoting peace and growth.  Sure it wouldn’t stimulate the corporate economy, but it might add a little meaning to our life, not only as individuals but as Americans…Eh?(i have canadian ancestors) I heard Bush proudly say “we should trust the Americans with their money.”  Well should we be trusted?