For the past 5 months, my life has totally and irrevocably changed. I passed the point of no return. I changed myself, I changed everything. And I'm grateful to God for allowing me to do so. Last year, around this date, I had just received the confirmation of acceptance to this Master's Programme. One year later, NOW, I'm living my dream. THANK YOU! Thank you for all I've learned and for all I am about to learn. I've had my chance and I'm grateful for it...I won't lose it and I'll make the VERY BEST of it. That's my promise.
I was thinking the other day about what I learned in these past 5 months. About the so many ways in which I've grown and changed.
In these past months:
* I learned not only that I can live in a student campus, share everything and have less than 20 minutes of privacy per day, but that I actually enjoy it. It's like having a biiig family, with lots of brothers and sisters, something that I -as an only child- never had. Now I truly understand what "student-life" means, what having a party every day of the week means, what talking about everything and nothing until 4 o'clock in the morning means(Gwen Stefani's song is so appropriate for my nights there :) ), but also about hard work and solidarity. About balancing fun and studying.
* I learned that I can truly be independent. Actually, I feel like I've coined a totally Diana-meaning of the word "independent". Last week I was talking with my friends in an English Pub and the topic of traveling came about. One of my friends was telling me about wanting to visit more places when we'll be in Switzerland and I just embraced the idea. She said something that took me by surprise and made me realize something that I hadn't before. She was like "I love to travel, but I just cannot picture myself being as independent as you, although I want to". It surprised me to hear it and it gave me food for thought. I know that I'm independent, it's just that I've always viewed it as something normal, even more since I'm living abroad and I can travel anywhere I like within hours. For my colleagues and for the other people I know, though, it's something completely special. The fact that I can travel alone, go spend weekends in another country or in another city and just enjoy visiting, without having a boyfriend or anybody to come with me and "protect" me...this is something hard for them to understand. For me it feels natural, and now that I realized it, I'm actually quite proud of it. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy seeing the world with a person that I love, it's just that the two are completely different things. I will have my time of exploring the world with my loved one. At the moment I'm exploring it with the most important person in my life - myself. And that's the best character-building experience one could possibly have.
* In the past 5 months, I've visited on my own HOLLAND (all major cities, didn't miss one. I feel like Holland is almost like a second home to me now), BELGIUM (Brussels and Bruges), LUXEMBOURG, GERMANY (Koln and Bonn), ENGLAND (London, Warwick, Stratford, Dover, Windsor, Bath, Oxford, York), SCOTLAND (Edinburgh), IRELAND (Dublin), NORTHERN IRELAND (Belfast). I've lived between airplanes, airports and suitcases. Moreover, I had mornings in which I had been studying all night and was too tired to wake up so, due to oversleeping, I now am able to dress myself from head to toe, put on make-up and actually look quite ravisihing (yap, I'm modest) in 5 minutes. It's like in the army, only with Moschino instead of uniform and Jimmy Choo instead of military-boots :))
*I realized that I can truly take care of myself. And do it the right way. I can do my cooking, my laundry-washing, my cleaning. Everything. Including the grocery-store-shopping (imagine huge bags of mineral water, bread, fruits, meat and all types of groceries transported by lil' ol' me on FOOT, on the cobblestone streets of Leiden, without having a car or anybody to lend a hand. By the time I got to London I was already used to it, so it didn't seem weird at all :) ).
*I totally changed my style. My way of dressing has known a total transformation. Although I fancy the same type of feminine and girlie clothes, I'm much more aware of what suits me and what doesn't, of what I feel comfortable and uncomfortable in, of what flatters me more, of what I want to convey through my way of dressing. I'm much more stylish and confident now, and even more DARING. I've created a style of my own and it's not the average-taken-from-Vogue type, it's something tailored to my own personality and creativity.
I know exactly what I want in terms of fashion. If before I used to beat it around the bush when it came to deciding between two items, now it only takes 30 seconds. I know exactly what is for me and what's not. Moreover, I've grown more and more convinced that quality matters more than anything. If before I could have been swept away by a nice trendy-design and just think "Oh, it's not great, but it's fashionable", now I'm totally selective. I prefer buying one Chanel that I would look absolutely gorgeous and impeccable in now and 10 years from now, than 20 high-street brands that will last for less than one season and then will end up at the bottom of my closet. No, I'm not being snobbish, I swear. It's just that I realized it's a way of pampering myself. I've fallen in love with cashmere and silk, I absolutely adore them. And yes...I prefer fewer and better!
* I CAN FLIRT! Yes. That part of my brain responsible for flirting, the one that I thought was either numb or inexistent, it's there alright. I just needed to loosen up a bit more, to know exactly what I'm looking for, to be less rigid and less tense about it. I was always a lousy flirter...well...not anymore :). Although I'm as selective as I ever was and probably my Prince Charming will have to be somewhere pretty close to perfect...I discovered that flirting is quite an enjoyable pass-time.
*I can move my butt around - pardon my French - and I'm no longer glued to the seat of my car, like I was in Bucharest. At home, I would have barely moved from the car to the places that I needed to go to, even if the distances were small. I was so comfortable with the idea of being a couch potato. Well here...I walk a lot and I love it. In Leiden I used to walk 7 km a day (no exaggeration), here I walk less than that but definitely 2-3 km. And it's great.
*I hate junk food. If in Romania it would have tempted me, now it's a total no-no. You wouldn't see me entering a McDonalds or BurgerKing in a billion years! I'm a totally Sushi-girl, I love Thai food and Chinese! (Yummy). Nevertheless, when I'm going home for Christmas, I will go back to my first and only love - SARMALE! (D E L I C I O U S)
*I can take care of myself through one of the lousiest-most-dreadful colds known to mankind. At home, I would have had my mother to pamper me and cook me hot chicken soup, for my body and soul. Here...I only have two strips of antibiotics, paracetamol and...an iron will. And it's more than enough. Yo, viruses...bring it on!
*Margaritas aren't that bad. In Romania I would've never drank. Anything. Ever. Probably the largest amount of alcohol for me would have been 2 glasses of champagne for New Year's. As a one-time event, that is. Don't get me wrong, I still don't drink a lot and I don't like the idea of drinking as a sport. Nevertheless, I've discovered that social drinking is moderate and agreeable sometimes. If before I would have been like "NO! NO Alcohol!", now I'm more like "I'll just have a Strawberry Margarita and that's all for the night". For my friends whom are used to downing glass after glass, my attitude is somewhere between completely odd and unacceptable, but I laid down the rules quite carefully: I drink socially, but not more than a glass or two(tops). I enjoy my sober presence much more than my drunken presence (whom I fortunately not know and hope to never do). But it's a change from my old "hate-the-alcohol-concept". P.S. Cointreau is great.
*I realized what my true calling is. I've realized what I really want. I've realized that in order to get where you want, you simply have to...open your eyes and dream. Daydream! It's the first step towards getting where you belong.
*I'm juggling with two master-programmes at the same time. My master here and the one I still have to finish in Romania. I've worked in parallel on my papers and on my dissertation for my other Masters. Sometimes it feels like a handful. But most of the times it feels like "Girl Power" :)
*I've learned that hard work goes a long way. My professors here appreciated me because of my passion and dedication. You know how incredible it is to have people that you're looking up to in admiration coming to you and saying "Your work is exceptional" (and I quote). It's one of the greatest feelings of achievement one can experience. It's indescribable.
*I've learned that fighting for one's beliefs implies being "uncomfortable" and even taking the risk of being resented and hated. Like my friend Cynnetta says it, I "made the NATO guy cry". And I did it alright. I had a NATO official (that has probably experienced more IR and diplomacy than I ever did) ripping his hair off and almost wanting to slap me. In my book, that's a sign that I'm on the right track. I asked a question that he probably still resents me for...I know that for him I'm still that "f***in Romanian who couldn't keep her mouth shut". However, I was right...that is why he resented and attacked me. And the victory tasted even sweeter as he was forced to admit that I was right. It was something that I truly believed in. In justice. This is why I simply don't care whom I "bother" with my inquisitive mind...As far as I'm concerned, he could have me on his black list. I'm going to speak my mind any time, anywhere, with ANYONE. Full stop.
* I gained so many new friends that I will always treasure and keep in touch with. People from whom I learned a lot. From all over the world. Aside from my American colleagues, I now have people that are dear to me from Canada, Montenegro, Holland, Croatia, Austria, Nigeria, Ecuador...
*I did away with all my "toxic friendships". Yes, I've had quite a few of those. What is a toxic friendship? In my case for example, it's the friendship with a person who's constantly negative and instead of rejoicing and feeling happy for your accomplishments is rather on the other end of the stick and endorses a "What's so great in that"-attitude. If it were just a staple of character or a friendly advice when you're sidetracking, I would totally accept it, but when it's obviously out of spite and envy, I'd much rather press "delete" and just keep the good memories I've had with that person. I've banned from my life all the people who used to harm me and I finally managed to do it because I was detached enough to understand the mere harm they were doing. I just said "No More". No more alleged-friend-who-lies-to-me, no more You-re-never-good-enough kind of friend, no more Oh-you-re-like-my-sister-but-I-can-totally-stab-you-in-the-back kind of friend. No more pretending. Thank you, it's been good. Moving on!
*I've learned that a person can break your heart into infinitesimally small pieces, but it cannot break YOU, until YOU allow him to. This year, I've fallen in and out of love 2 times and I've learned a huge lesson - sometimes you get hurt by people that you would least expect. I had the biggest disappointment of my life and nonetheless, every day of my life I will be grateful for it, although at its moment it felt absolutely crushing. It was one of the priceless lessons that life has given me and I'm saying it with all my heart, I never felt it more true than I feel it now.
When you recover after a broken heart, somewhere deep inside you feel the need of being "saved". I did too. I needed the prince in shining armor to come and rescue me, teach me to believe in love again, to show me that not all men are total jerks that lead double lives and lie in your face. Well...I got my prince alright, he was the knight on the white horse in anybody's book. He was my prince...until he proved to be my worst nightmare. I wish these were just "ways of saying". They're not. Nobody deserves to go through that, NOBODY, not even one's worst enemies, believe me.
Nevertheless, not only I don't spite him, but I'm grateful for his presence in my life. Although he put me through hell and I never want to see or hear of him ever again, I've never felt stronger than I felt after that dreadful period passed. Before it happened, I never thought I could live through something like that. I always thought it would just crush me, that I will never bounce back. Well...I did. And I'm stronger than I ever was. And maybe I needed that nightmare in order to awake to a beautiful reality and realize that I don't NEED a savior. That I don't NEED someone to come and sweep me away and teach me to believe in love. I WANT love, yes, but there's a difference between NEEDING and WANTING. In the past, I had needed someone to save me...and it was all wrong. I needed the prince, to come and chase away the image of the villain, of the one who had broken my heart. Only the "prince" proved to be an even greater villain. Now I've come to realize that I'm the only one to "save" myself, to make peace with the past, to let go. This is why now I can truly love again. Sometimes you offer affection to people who don't deserve it nor know how to handle it. It's not your fault...the greatest thing in this world is about GIVING so you should never feel sorry. What goes around comes back around.
*I fell in love with the musicals and theatrical life of London. Actually, I kinda fell in love with London itself. It's so...ME, I felt like home there. And thanks to my experience abroad, I came to know artists and music that I hadn't known before. Now I listen to TRAVIS (just listen to "Why does it always rain" and "Love will come through"), MANIC STREET PREACHERS ("If you tolerate this(your children will be next)" - social manifesto), LOREENA MCKENNIT ("Santiago" and the entire album Nights in Alhambra), MICHAEL BUBLE (Frank Sinatra meets Dean Martin and Jazz) and...of course...my lifetime-love KATIE MELUA (the most amazing artist, versatile, sensitive...when listening to her songs I sometimes feel she's depicting MY LIFE).
*There are a few small things that started growing on me in a way I would have never pictured it before. Small things that you barely notice, yet which start to add up and change you more than you think. The Haagen-Daasz vanilla-and-cookies ice cream in the middle of the winter season (unconceivable for me before), the Dutch "FlowerBomb" perfume by Viktor&Rolf (that you can only find in Holland) for me...whom never fancied anything but Chanel Mademoiselle (that I still love!), eating Nachos and Tex-Mex food (God...that's so NOT good for one's figure, but it's delicious), speaking loud (like Americans do...oops).
*I fulfilled some dreams and had some great experiences such as:
-Seeing a live football game (Queens Park Rangers vs. Hull City) in London. It was great! (Gooo QPR! )
-Going to the Christmas Concert at the Royal Albert Hall (one of the most beautiful musical experiences I've ever had)
-Seeing the world on my own (you know Dido's song "Hunter"? The chorus goes like this "Wanna be a hunter again/Wanna see the world alone again/Take a chance on life again..."...that's how I felt)
-Dressing-up for my first Halloween-ever as "Female Harry Potter" (not Hermione, thank you very much, but FEMALE HARRY POTTER...:))) It was a blast)
-"Living" in the library for one week...:)), while working on my IR paper. Did you know you can actually live on chips and Dr.Pepper? (do NOT try that at home! :) )
-Hearing Milan Milutinovic's trial in the Hague (the former president of Serbia, tried for War Crimes) - world-shattering experience.
-Being at the ICC, ICJ, ICTY, NATO and EU Parliament. Being a member of the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs. I'm thankful for these amazing opportunities!
*
Ending this looong posting, I can just say that I've found my "Hymn". Before I got here, my theme-song was "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson. Well..I've broken away. I've spread my wings...I can fly now. And I needed a new song. Without even looking for one, I found this song that I love. It's from the soundtrack of a musical called WICKED. I love it...it's so deep and symbolic. If some of you are a bit disconcerted about the new-attitude Diana, the one that emerges from the words of this blog, just listen to this song. You'll understand...
DEFYING GRAVITY
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap
It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down...
I'm through accepting limits
'Cuz someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change
But 'till I try, I'll never know
Too long I've been afraid of losing love,
I guess I've lost...
Well, if that's love
It comes at much too high a cost!
I'd sooner fly
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity
And you can't pull me down...
So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky
As someone told me lately -
Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly
And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me -
Tell them how I
Am defying gravity!
I'm flying high
Defying gravity!
And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_3q01qx7o
miercuri, 19 decembrie 2007
marți, 18 decembrie 2007
My dreams are awake...to the sound of music
I confess...I fall in love easily when it comes to music. I always discover new artists and new songs that I like and let myself be carried away by them. I think music is the most wonderful expression of our feelings, it's the gift made by God to rejoice in when we're happy and find soothing of the soul in when we're sad.
Lately, I've fallen in love with so many songs that when I turn my iPod on the choice is overwhelmingly hard. Since I live in London I've been going to so many musicals that it's now hard to imagine my life without them. Musicals are a WAY OF LIFE. Indeed...it's all about the joy of singing, about expressing everything from loathing to love through songs...about feeling your soul vibrate along with the stories presented to you on stage. And this is something I had never experienced before.
Here are some of the musicals I've seen in London:
AVENUE Q - quite an original musical, with singing, dancing and...tadadam...puppeteer-work. I've never been into Muppets and Sesame Street so I was quite biased at first, thinking that it will be just one more boring show for kids. Well NO. It was one of the greatest and funniest shows I've ever watched. It's incredible how those actors could sing and maneuver the puppets...it looked like true magic. GREAT, GREAT SHOW.
My favorite song from this musical (although most of the songs are funny and cheerful, this is the only sad one and I liked it because it's amazingly true and deep).
There's a fine, fine line (sang by the character Kate-Monster)
There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.
There's a fine, fine line between love
...and a waste of time.
There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
...and a waste of your time.
And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...
Oh...
There's a fine, fine line between together and...not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...
Cause there's a fine, fine line between love
...and a waste of time...
WICKED
The untold story of the witches of Oz. Based on "The Wizard of Oz", it recreates the untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West. An incredible musical! Just like Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver's Travels, which are thought to be children's books but there are so deep and meaningful...WICKED is not a play for kids. Not in the least. It's something that you have to watch and hear with the heart and the mind, not only with the eyes and ears. The characters are incredibly real, real people...with ups and downs, with happiness and sorrow...the narrative is so true and so well-anchored in everyday life, although it's about princes and princesses. It's about the perceptions that make up our lives, about fitting in and sticking out of the crowd, about being accepted or not, about following a dream and being crushed to pieces by people. It's an amazing experience, indeed.
Two of my favorite songs are "I'm not that girl" (about finding love and knowing that it's not for you...)and "No good deed"(an incredible song...so deep, so symbolic, about the way our actions are seen by people, about the way the balance between the good and the bad is tipped by...again, perceptions).
"I'm not that girl..." (sang by character Elphaba)
Hands touch, eyes meet
Sudden silence, sudden heat
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl
He could be "THAT" boy
But I'm not "THAT" girl...
Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are
Don't remember that rush of joy
He could be "THAT" boy
I'm not "THAT" girl...
Ev'ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in
Blithe smile, lithe limb
She who's winsome, she wins him
Gold hair with a gentle curl
That's the girl he chose
And Heaven knows
I'm not that girl...
Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl.
NO GOOD DEED (Sang by character Elphaba)
No good deed goes unpunished
No act of charity goes unresented
No good deed goes unpunished
That's my new creed...
My road of good intentions
Led where such roads always lead
No good deed
Goes unpunished!
Nessa!
Doctor Dillamond!
Fiyero!
Fiyero!!
One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
If that's all good deeds are
Maybe that's the reason why
No good deed goes unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
No good deed goes unpunished
Sure, I meant well -
Well, look at what well-meant did:
All right, enough - so be it
So be it, then:
Let all Oz be agreed
I'm wicked through and through
Since I can not succeed
Fiyero, saving you
I promise no good deed
Will I attempt to do again
Ever again
No good deed
Will I do again!
LES MISERABLES
Comments are useless. It's the timeless story of Victor Hugo, made into a musical. The longest running musical in the world. Beautiful songs, superb acting, a setting that vividly recreates the French Revolution. GREAT! Also very deep in terms of the ideas conveyed by the plot. It goes beyond Hugo's work and extrapolates the social class differences after the French Revolution. It SO reminded me of the world we live in now...of the people who are now personalities and persons to look up to...people who have no depth, only a superficial and attractive outside.
MARY POPPINS
An exceptional musical. From all points of view. All these wonderful actors flawlessly singing and dancing for 3 hours, LIVE! Amazing special effects, with Mary Poppins floating over the public attached to almost invisible strings, Bert singing and DANCING on the ceiling (no joke!). I would even dare to say that some of the special effects were better than those from the actual movie. No flaws, no flat-singing, no wrong step. PERFECT.
My favorite songs are "Feed the birds"(classic one) and "Anything can happen if you , let it". In that theater hall I couldn't help not thinking of my childhood...of how much I adored Mary Poppins-the movie. Of how I had dreams of seeing all the wonderful places in which Jane and Michael were going with Mary Poppins. Well...guess what? I'm in London now and watching the Mary Poppins musical. Those of you who say it's not true that "anything can happen if you let it..."...I dare you! Bring it on! :)
Also, I've had a moving experience at St.Paul's Cathedral, because I had always pictured that place related to the old lady in Mary Poppins, selling packs of crumbs for birds. There was no lady there...however there were a lot of pigeons and even in the church, there was one poor pigeon who had a hurt leg and was living inside St.Paul's. He would sit on the bench with you, while you were praying, looking at you with his gentle eyes. It really touched me. If divine signs exists, and I know they do...this was definitely one of them.
Anything can happen if you let it
Anything can happen if you let it
Sometimes things are difficult but you can bet it
Doesn't have to be so
Changes can be made
You can move a mountain if you use a larger spade
Anything can happen, it's a marvel
You can be a butterfly
Or just stay larval
Stretch your mind beyond fantastic
Dreams are made of strong elastic
Take some sound advice and don't forget it
Anything can happen if you let it
Will soon seem certain
Thought at first it may sound clownish
See the world more upside-downish
Turn it on its head then pirouette it
If you reach for the stars
All you get are the stars
But we've found a whole new spin
If you reach for the heavens
You get the stars thrown in
Anything can happen if you let it
Life is out there waiting so go and get it
Grab it by the collar, seize it by the scruff
Once you've started living life you just can't get enough
Anything can happen, it's official
You can choose the super or the superficial
Sally forth the way we're steering
Obstacles start disappearing
Go and chase your dreams you won't regret it
Anything can happen
(Anything can happen)
Anything can happen
Anything can happen
If you let it!
JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TEHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT
Based on the biblical story of Joseph, who is Abraham's favorite son and whom is sold as a slave by his envious brothers. However, the story is only the background and the pretext for superb music, composed by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Special effects, jokes, dancing, music...and a beautiful idea...of pursuing one's dream, no matter what.
My favorite song: "Close every door to me" (sang by Joseph, in prison)
Close every door to me...
Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Do what you want with me,
Hate me and laugh at me
Darken my daytime
And torture my night
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world...
Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone!
For I know I shall find
My own peace of mind
For I have been promised
A land of my own
Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Just give me a number
Instead of my name
Forget all about me
And let me decay
I do not matter,
I'm only one person
Destroy me completely
Then throw me away...
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world
Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone
For we know we shall find
Our own peace of mind
For we have been promised
A land of our own
MAMMA MIA
Based on the songs of ABBA (a group that I always loved and always will). The show is amazing! I wasn't expecting that much when I went, but it's totally worth its fame. Actually, they are presently turning it into a Hollywood movie, starring Meryl Streep. The story is hilarious, the songs are INCREDIBLY fitted into the plot, one would swear they were written for "MAMMA MIA-the musical". Basically, Sophie is the main character. She's lived with her mother for her entire life and never knew her father. Now she's getting married and her biggest dream is having her father give her away at her wedding. She secretly reads her mother's diary and she figures out that 3 men can be her possible dads. So...she sends all three of them invitations to her wedding, hoping that she will find out who her real dad is. The situations deriving from it are hilarious and in the end...somebody else will end up tying the knot. Wonderful musical, great songs, GREAT dancing and...most of all...FUNNNY!!!!
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
The classic story of the most famous musical ever written. One of the finest pieces of work ever composed. That says it all!
And plays:
THE MOUSETRAP - The longest running PLAY in the world, based on Agatha Christie's police story. Great suspense, twists and turns of the plot...a totally unexpected ending. GREAT!
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
At the National Theatre, a very modern adaptation of Shakespeare's work, starring ZOE WANAMAKER (for Harry Potter fans, among whom I don't include myself, she is one of the teachers at Hogwarts). Exquisite actress and very nice play. I'm not too fond of Shakespeare's comedies, I like the dramas more, but it was nice.
Moreover, on Saturday I've been to the Royal Albert Hall, at the WHITE CHRISTMAS CONCERT. One of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had. Christmas carols, people singing along with the choir and the soloists (incredible singers, all of them). GREAT!
While living here, I've also gotten to know and love singers such as Michael Buble (he is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Think Jazz + Dean Martin + Frank Sinatra...and you got Michael Buble), Travis (search on YouTube "Why does it always rain on me", "Sing", "Love will come through" or any other of their songs), Manic Street Preachers (Welsh group, their songs are profoundly social, they sing about the world and about people, as they really are. My favorite song is "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next". Look it up on YouTube, it's worthwhile), Loreena McKennitt(Irish and amazing).
Everything revolves around music here, for me... My title (taken from The Sound of Music) reflects that...cause my dreams are really awake to the sound of music.
Lately, I've fallen in love with so many songs that when I turn my iPod on the choice is overwhelmingly hard. Since I live in London I've been going to so many musicals that it's now hard to imagine my life without them. Musicals are a WAY OF LIFE. Indeed...it's all about the joy of singing, about expressing everything from loathing to love through songs...about feeling your soul vibrate along with the stories presented to you on stage. And this is something I had never experienced before.
Here are some of the musicals I've seen in London:
AVENUE Q - quite an original musical, with singing, dancing and...tadadam...puppeteer-work. I've never been into Muppets and Sesame Street so I was quite biased at first, thinking that it will be just one more boring show for kids. Well NO. It was one of the greatest and funniest shows I've ever watched. It's incredible how those actors could sing and maneuver the puppets...it looked like true magic. GREAT, GREAT SHOW.
My favorite song from this musical (although most of the songs are funny and cheerful, this is the only sad one and I liked it because it's amazingly true and deep).
There's a fine, fine line (sang by the character Kate-Monster)
There's a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend;
There's a fine, fine line between reality and pretend;
And you never know 'til you reach the top if it was worth the uphill climb.
There's a fine, fine line between love
...and a waste of time.
There's a fine, fine line between a fairy tale and a lie;
And there's a fine, fine line between "You're wonderful" and "Goodbye."
I guess if someone doesn't love you back it isn't such a crime,
But there's a fine, fine line between love
...and a waste of your time.
And I don't have the time to waste on you anymore.
I don't think that you even know what you're looking for.
For my own sanity, I've got to close the door
And walk away...
Oh...
There's a fine, fine line between together and...not
And there's a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what you got.
You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime...
Cause there's a fine, fine line between love
...and a waste of time...
WICKED
The untold story of the witches of Oz. Based on "The Wizard of Oz", it recreates the untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West. An incredible musical! Just like Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver's Travels, which are thought to be children's books but there are so deep and meaningful...WICKED is not a play for kids. Not in the least. It's something that you have to watch and hear with the heart and the mind, not only with the eyes and ears. The characters are incredibly real, real people...with ups and downs, with happiness and sorrow...the narrative is so true and so well-anchored in everyday life, although it's about princes and princesses. It's about the perceptions that make up our lives, about fitting in and sticking out of the crowd, about being accepted or not, about following a dream and being crushed to pieces by people. It's an amazing experience, indeed.
Two of my favorite songs are "I'm not that girl" (about finding love and knowing that it's not for you...)and "No good deed"(an incredible song...so deep, so symbolic, about the way our actions are seen by people, about the way the balance between the good and the bad is tipped by...again, perceptions).
"I'm not that girl..." (sang by character Elphaba)
Hands touch, eyes meet
Sudden silence, sudden heat
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl
He could be "THAT" boy
But I'm not "THAT" girl...
Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are
Don't remember that rush of joy
He could be "THAT" boy
I'm not "THAT" girl...
Ev'ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in
Blithe smile, lithe limb
She who's winsome, she wins him
Gold hair with a gentle curl
That's the girl he chose
And Heaven knows
I'm not that girl...
Don't wish, don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl.
NO GOOD DEED (Sang by character Elphaba)
No good deed goes unpunished
No act of charity goes unresented
No good deed goes unpunished
That's my new creed...
My road of good intentions
Led where such roads always lead
No good deed
Goes unpunished!
Nessa!
Doctor Dillamond!
Fiyero!
Fiyero!!
One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention:
Was I really seeking good
Or just seeking attention?
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice-cold eye?
If that's all good deeds are
Maybe that's the reason why
No good deed goes unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
No good deed goes unpunished
Sure, I meant well -
Well, look at what well-meant did:
All right, enough - so be it
So be it, then:
Let all Oz be agreed
I'm wicked through and through
Since I can not succeed
Fiyero, saving you
I promise no good deed
Will I attempt to do again
Ever again
No good deed
Will I do again!
LES MISERABLES
Comments are useless. It's the timeless story of Victor Hugo, made into a musical. The longest running musical in the world. Beautiful songs, superb acting, a setting that vividly recreates the French Revolution. GREAT! Also very deep in terms of the ideas conveyed by the plot. It goes beyond Hugo's work and extrapolates the social class differences after the French Revolution. It SO reminded me of the world we live in now...of the people who are now personalities and persons to look up to...people who have no depth, only a superficial and attractive outside.
MARY POPPINS
An exceptional musical. From all points of view. All these wonderful actors flawlessly singing and dancing for 3 hours, LIVE! Amazing special effects, with Mary Poppins floating over the public attached to almost invisible strings, Bert singing and DANCING on the ceiling (no joke!). I would even dare to say that some of the special effects were better than those from the actual movie. No flaws, no flat-singing, no wrong step. PERFECT.
My favorite songs are "Feed the birds"(classic one) and "Anything can happen if you , let it". In that theater hall I couldn't help not thinking of my childhood...of how much I adored Mary Poppins-the movie. Of how I had dreams of seeing all the wonderful places in which Jane and Michael were going with Mary Poppins. Well...guess what? I'm in London now and watching the Mary Poppins musical. Those of you who say it's not true that "anything can happen if you let it..."...I dare you! Bring it on! :)
Also, I've had a moving experience at St.Paul's Cathedral, because I had always pictured that place related to the old lady in Mary Poppins, selling packs of crumbs for birds. There was no lady there...however there were a lot of pigeons and even in the church, there was one poor pigeon who had a hurt leg and was living inside St.Paul's. He would sit on the bench with you, while you were praying, looking at you with his gentle eyes. It really touched me. If divine signs exists, and I know they do...this was definitely one of them.
Anything can happen if you let it
Anything can happen if you let it
Sometimes things are difficult but you can bet it
Doesn't have to be so
Changes can be made
You can move a mountain if you use a larger spade
Anything can happen, it's a marvel
You can be a butterfly
Or just stay larval
Stretch your mind beyond fantastic
Dreams are made of strong elastic
Take some sound advice and don't forget it
Anything can happen if you let it
Will soon seem certain
Thought at first it may sound clownish
See the world more upside-downish
Turn it on its head then pirouette it
If you reach for the stars
All you get are the stars
But we've found a whole new spin
If you reach for the heavens
You get the stars thrown in
Anything can happen if you let it
Life is out there waiting so go and get it
Grab it by the collar, seize it by the scruff
Once you've started living life you just can't get enough
Anything can happen, it's official
You can choose the super or the superficial
Sally forth the way we're steering
Obstacles start disappearing
Go and chase your dreams you won't regret it
Anything can happen
(Anything can happen)
Anything can happen
Anything can happen
If you let it!
JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TEHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT
Based on the biblical story of Joseph, who is Abraham's favorite son and whom is sold as a slave by his envious brothers. However, the story is only the background and the pretext for superb music, composed by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Special effects, jokes, dancing, music...and a beautiful idea...of pursuing one's dream, no matter what.
My favorite song: "Close every door to me" (sang by Joseph, in prison)
Close every door to me...
Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Do what you want with me,
Hate me and laugh at me
Darken my daytime
And torture my night
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world...
Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone!
For I know I shall find
My own peace of mind
For I have been promised
A land of my own
Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Just give me a number
Instead of my name
Forget all about me
And let me decay
I do not matter,
I'm only one person
Destroy me completely
Then throw me away...
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world
Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone
For we know we shall find
Our own peace of mind
For we have been promised
A land of our own
MAMMA MIA
Based on the songs of ABBA (a group that I always loved and always will). The show is amazing! I wasn't expecting that much when I went, but it's totally worth its fame. Actually, they are presently turning it into a Hollywood movie, starring Meryl Streep. The story is hilarious, the songs are INCREDIBLY fitted into the plot, one would swear they were written for "MAMMA MIA-the musical". Basically, Sophie is the main character. She's lived with her mother for her entire life and never knew her father. Now she's getting married and her biggest dream is having her father give her away at her wedding. She secretly reads her mother's diary and she figures out that 3 men can be her possible dads. So...she sends all three of them invitations to her wedding, hoping that she will find out who her real dad is. The situations deriving from it are hilarious and in the end...somebody else will end up tying the knot. Wonderful musical, great songs, GREAT dancing and...most of all...FUNNNY!!!!
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
The classic story of the most famous musical ever written. One of the finest pieces of work ever composed. That says it all!
And plays:
THE MOUSETRAP - The longest running PLAY in the world, based on Agatha Christie's police story. Great suspense, twists and turns of the plot...a totally unexpected ending. GREAT!
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
At the National Theatre, a very modern adaptation of Shakespeare's work, starring ZOE WANAMAKER (for Harry Potter fans, among whom I don't include myself, she is one of the teachers at Hogwarts). Exquisite actress and very nice play. I'm not too fond of Shakespeare's comedies, I like the dramas more, but it was nice.
Moreover, on Saturday I've been to the Royal Albert Hall, at the WHITE CHRISTMAS CONCERT. One of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had. Christmas carols, people singing along with the choir and the soloists (incredible singers, all of them). GREAT!
While living here, I've also gotten to know and love singers such as Michael Buble (he is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Think Jazz + Dean Martin + Frank Sinatra...and you got Michael Buble), Travis (search on YouTube "Why does it always rain on me", "Sing", "Love will come through" or any other of their songs), Manic Street Preachers (Welsh group, their songs are profoundly social, they sing about the world and about people, as they really are. My favorite song is "If you tolerate this, then your children will be next". Look it up on YouTube, it's worthwhile), Loreena McKennitt(Irish and amazing).
Everything revolves around music here, for me... My title (taken from The Sound of Music) reflects that...cause my dreams are really awake to the sound of music.
miercuri, 14 noiembrie 2007
Let there be peace...
Last week we had at Regent's College an interesting and deeply moving event with bereaved families from the Palestinian and Israeli side. Two speakers - one from the Israeli side, Robi Damelin and one from the Palestinian one - Ali Abu Awwad.
Were I to summarize the meeting with Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad in just one sentence, I would say that it was probably the most remarkable lesson on peace and philosophy of life that I ever experienced. Even before attending the event, I was expecting it to be a moving moment that would leave room for thought, but I can say it was even more striking than I had imagined it to be. It’s not every day that one gets to sit face to face with people for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict is not merely a page in a history book, but an intrinsic part of their existence, people whose lives will never be the same because of that very war that most of us analyze and write papers on in a detached way.
The Israeli speaker, Robi Damelin, lost her son David in the conflict. It was a touching moment to hear her read aloud the letter that she had sent to the family of the sniper who killed her son; even though it probably wasn’t the first time she was reading it in front of an audience, I could sense her voice trembling at times, as if it were just about to break into tears. It takes not only a tremendous courage but also an immense empathy to be able to forgive the person who has deprived you from the thing that meant the most in your life. Sitting in that room and listening to her reading the letter, I couldn’t help not wondering if, in her place, I would have been strong enough to do that, to ask for reconciliation with the person that I would probably have been humanly entitled to despise. I still don’t know the answer to that question and I hope with all my heart to never be forced to find it.
As a person who is an outsider to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, hearing about Israeli children who have never met nor talked to a Palestinian in their lives definitely comes as a shock. After reading about the conflict, hearing about it on the news and even writing papers on it, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that these two peoples are each fighting an “invisible” and “abstract” enemy. Just like Robi Damelin convincingly expressed it “For most of the Israeli and the Palestinians there is no face on the other side”.
This is the true narrative that nobody can see, the one that is taking place on a daily basis, beyond the closed curtains of the negotiations and intents of peace agreements. Listening to Robi talking about the way Israeli and Palestinian children never even get to meet each other, I could truly understand why this conflict is still ongoing. Even if peace was signed at international level, it would still take a significant amount of time until people would get to understand and accept each other, simply because at the human level they don’t have any idea what the other side is all about.
Most of the bad things in the history of mankind have come from our fear of the unknown, leading us into destroying others for fear of not being destroyed ourselves. So I cannot help but wonder, how can anyone preach about reconciliation and peace in the Middle East when these two peoples that have co-existed there for more than half a century now still don’t have a minimum knowledge of each other at the individual level?
When in college, I remember reading extensively about the Holocaust and what the Jewish people had to go through. I visited museums of the Holocaust throughout the world and I even have friends whose relatives have lived those dark times. Nevertheless, there was no other moment I could figure out with so much clarity the whole psychology of the Jewish people than the moment I listened to Rubi Damelin talking about her childhood. If at the beginning I was surprised to see how much empathy she was showing for the people on the other side although her son had been killed by one of them, after hearing her speak about her childhood in Germany, I completely understood.
She is one living proof of the fact that a little bit of empathy can go a long way, it can bring lifelong enemies together and make them try to understand each other for maybe the first time. And I also understood the “psychology of fear” that the Jewish people still have entrenched in them, a fear that Robi Damelin experienced herself and therefore can recognize in the people from the other side.
To Palestinians, Hebrew is the despised “language of the occupier”, just like German was the despised language for the Jewish people in the Second World War. One who has experienced a drama can understand another drama. And this is what makes Robi Damelin such an extraordinarily courageous person. However, what can now seem as an admirable and outstanding way of thinking to those from the outside probably took an immense amount of effort from her part. Getting over the death of your own flesh and blood and being able to understand the pain of the people that you deem guilty for his death…that cannot possibly happen overnight. Nevertheless, I truly admire her for reaching the point in which she can identify herself with someone else’s pain, instead of judging it. It takes not only audacity, but also an enormous generosity and will of helping others and ending this painful war.
Even if I am lucky enough to have never experienced anything similar, I could truly relate to her story merely by understanding her philosophy of life. When something as awful as losing a loved one happens, especially in the given circumstances, the first feeling than one experiences is utter anger. Then comes sorrow and eventually, after an endlessly long amount of time, comes the feeling of letting go, but not in terms of forgetting nor renouncing justice, but simply no longer feeling a victim. For most people who have ever lived dramas, letting go of the feeling of being a victim is probably the hardest thing to do, above all because anger and victimhood go together. As long as you carry anger inside of you, you remain stuck in the state of victimhood.
Having this as an anchor point, it is easier to understand from the broader perspective of IR that the peace in the Middle East is not just a question of a cease-fire or of an international truce. People have to make peace with their own feelings and sorrows and to understand the dramas on the other side in order to live together in a peaceful way. Just like the Jewish people carry inside them the same fear they experienced in the times of Holocaust, the Palestinians have the inborn fear of Israel and of all it stands for, because most of them come from refugee-families, just like Ali Abu Awwad.
Their outlook on the people from the other side is influenced by their personal dramas, by their feeling of homelessness and confusion and of not belonging anywhere, of feeling uprooted from their very birth. It’s their personal dramas that add up to the point in which hatred is born. That is why, in my opinion, more people like Robi Damelin and Ali Abud Awwad are necessary in order to make the change happen, people who can go to all the effort of understanding one another and not viewing each other as enemies but merely as people united in a mutual cause – attaining peace.
If Robi Damelin is definitely a courageous and generous woman, Ali Abu Awwad is a just as daring human being, since he was capable of letting go of his past in Intifada, of his bitter childhood in which his mother was repeatedly arrested for being a political leader and even of the death of his brother in the hands of the Israeli. Robi showed tremendous courage in turning her personal tragedy into an engine for helping other people and preventing other similar dramas, while Ali showed just as much courage in turning from a jailed militant who used to fancy violence as a way of solving things into a warden of peace and a fighter for reconciliation.
Beyond the personal tragedies which brought them together, it is that inner strength and capacity of changing themselves and reassessing their fears and their feelings that makes Robi and Ali get along and fight together for their cause. They might come from different sides of the conflict, but they are both of one kind – they are people who chose to be fighters instead of victims and chose, as Robi put it “to sit around a table and talk instead of seating by a grave and cry…”.
Each of them could have turned his personal tragedy into a reason for hating the people on the other side even more; instead of that, they decided to identify themselves with the misfortunes of the people who harmed them and to look beyond what meets the eye. To look for the internal reasons that make people react in a certain way. Just like Robi, instead of pointing to the other side and saying that the enemy comes from there and has to be destroyed, Ali chose to look for peace, to make sure that nobody would go through what him and his family have gone through.
Extrapolating from their two personal tragedies into general IR and leaving aside the guilt and hatred that nourish the conflict from both the Israeli and the Palestinian side, the conflict between the two peoples has one more decisive partaker – the rest of the world. Just like Ali pointed out, as much as other states would try to help the two sides solve the clash, the division of the world into a “Pro Palestinian” and “Pro Israeli” one is not only not going to lead to a positive outcome but will fuel the conflict even more.
On an international level, all states have a more-or-less straightforward position in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but their approach is mainly directed onto the idea of having a “positive” character and a “negative” one respectively; their mere narrative is built in such a way that a solution would have to lead to a win-lose rather than to a win-win situation. The pro-Palestinian embark from the start on the foundation that the Israeli are at guilt and they have to be defeated, while the pro-Israeli start on the premise that Palestinians carry the guilt and that they are the ones who must surrender their fight. In a divided world, peace is unattainable and utterly impossible, as each side awaits the other side’s defeat. This is why Ali’s words are indeed wise, as they have that wisdom that only sorrow and the experience of pain can give one: “Peace is something to work for, not to wait for…”.
After listening to both Rubi and Ali, I share their opinion that peace has to come from both sides and crystallize into a mutual agreement that would provide each of the two peoples with the dignity of ending a chapter and starting a new one, of peace and reconciliation. This is why the agreement should be seen as a compromise, not as the action of the strong imposing on the weak. In fact, nothing should be forced on any of the sides, as any imposition would just defeat its rightful purpose of installing peace.
The best way of expressing the difference between attaining peace and imposing it is by making use of the example of Hebron, where the Israeli reached the point in which they had to put bars on people’s houses, so that they wouldn’t throw stones at the occupiers. In the absence of true peace and will of both peoples, this is what an international agreement with equal; it would be merely the band aid trying to protect a not yet healed wound. It would be the formal and fully-diplomatic way of preventing people from throwing stones, but not the way to do away with the inner tensions that drew those people into stoning their occupiers. No peace can be attained if the solutions only aim at the consequences and not at the causes of people’s actions.
Overall, after hearing Rubi and Ali talking about their projects, about the one-day of hunger strike weekly and after watching “Encounter Point” again on YouTube, I just sat and thought about everything that was said. If one had asked my opinion on the peace perspectives in the Middle East just a couple of months ago, I confess that I would have been skeptical. But after meeting both Rubi and Ali, I truly think that there is a way. It’s just a question of choice and a question of people fighting for the same goal. Just like Robi said in the trailer of “Encounter Point” - “You have only two ways – to seek revenge, hate and continue the same cycle or to try to do something about it”. To that, I would just add what A.J. Muste, the famous pacifist leader used to say - “There is no way to peace, as peace itself is the way”.
P.S. If you are interested in the process for peace in the Middle East, watch the 7-minute trailer of Encounter Point, in which you will also see the two people that I have written about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiZ7vlRf8aI
Were I to summarize the meeting with Robi Damelin and Ali Abu Awwad in just one sentence, I would say that it was probably the most remarkable lesson on peace and philosophy of life that I ever experienced. Even before attending the event, I was expecting it to be a moving moment that would leave room for thought, but I can say it was even more striking than I had imagined it to be. It’s not every day that one gets to sit face to face with people for whom the Arab-Israeli conflict is not merely a page in a history book, but an intrinsic part of their existence, people whose lives will never be the same because of that very war that most of us analyze and write papers on in a detached way.
The Israeli speaker, Robi Damelin, lost her son David in the conflict. It was a touching moment to hear her read aloud the letter that she had sent to the family of the sniper who killed her son; even though it probably wasn’t the first time she was reading it in front of an audience, I could sense her voice trembling at times, as if it were just about to break into tears. It takes not only a tremendous courage but also an immense empathy to be able to forgive the person who has deprived you from the thing that meant the most in your life. Sitting in that room and listening to her reading the letter, I couldn’t help not wondering if, in her place, I would have been strong enough to do that, to ask for reconciliation with the person that I would probably have been humanly entitled to despise. I still don’t know the answer to that question and I hope with all my heart to never be forced to find it.
As a person who is an outsider to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, hearing about Israeli children who have never met nor talked to a Palestinian in their lives definitely comes as a shock. After reading about the conflict, hearing about it on the news and even writing papers on it, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that these two peoples are each fighting an “invisible” and “abstract” enemy. Just like Robi Damelin convincingly expressed it “For most of the Israeli and the Palestinians there is no face on the other side”.
This is the true narrative that nobody can see, the one that is taking place on a daily basis, beyond the closed curtains of the negotiations and intents of peace agreements. Listening to Robi talking about the way Israeli and Palestinian children never even get to meet each other, I could truly understand why this conflict is still ongoing. Even if peace was signed at international level, it would still take a significant amount of time until people would get to understand and accept each other, simply because at the human level they don’t have any idea what the other side is all about.
Most of the bad things in the history of mankind have come from our fear of the unknown, leading us into destroying others for fear of not being destroyed ourselves. So I cannot help but wonder, how can anyone preach about reconciliation and peace in the Middle East when these two peoples that have co-existed there for more than half a century now still don’t have a minimum knowledge of each other at the individual level?
When in college, I remember reading extensively about the Holocaust and what the Jewish people had to go through. I visited museums of the Holocaust throughout the world and I even have friends whose relatives have lived those dark times. Nevertheless, there was no other moment I could figure out with so much clarity the whole psychology of the Jewish people than the moment I listened to Rubi Damelin talking about her childhood. If at the beginning I was surprised to see how much empathy she was showing for the people on the other side although her son had been killed by one of them, after hearing her speak about her childhood in Germany, I completely understood.
She is one living proof of the fact that a little bit of empathy can go a long way, it can bring lifelong enemies together and make them try to understand each other for maybe the first time. And I also understood the “psychology of fear” that the Jewish people still have entrenched in them, a fear that Robi Damelin experienced herself and therefore can recognize in the people from the other side.
To Palestinians, Hebrew is the despised “language of the occupier”, just like German was the despised language for the Jewish people in the Second World War. One who has experienced a drama can understand another drama. And this is what makes Robi Damelin such an extraordinarily courageous person. However, what can now seem as an admirable and outstanding way of thinking to those from the outside probably took an immense amount of effort from her part. Getting over the death of your own flesh and blood and being able to understand the pain of the people that you deem guilty for his death…that cannot possibly happen overnight. Nevertheless, I truly admire her for reaching the point in which she can identify herself with someone else’s pain, instead of judging it. It takes not only audacity, but also an enormous generosity and will of helping others and ending this painful war.
Even if I am lucky enough to have never experienced anything similar, I could truly relate to her story merely by understanding her philosophy of life. When something as awful as losing a loved one happens, especially in the given circumstances, the first feeling than one experiences is utter anger. Then comes sorrow and eventually, after an endlessly long amount of time, comes the feeling of letting go, but not in terms of forgetting nor renouncing justice, but simply no longer feeling a victim. For most people who have ever lived dramas, letting go of the feeling of being a victim is probably the hardest thing to do, above all because anger and victimhood go together. As long as you carry anger inside of you, you remain stuck in the state of victimhood.
Having this as an anchor point, it is easier to understand from the broader perspective of IR that the peace in the Middle East is not just a question of a cease-fire or of an international truce. People have to make peace with their own feelings and sorrows and to understand the dramas on the other side in order to live together in a peaceful way. Just like the Jewish people carry inside them the same fear they experienced in the times of Holocaust, the Palestinians have the inborn fear of Israel and of all it stands for, because most of them come from refugee-families, just like Ali Abu Awwad.
Their outlook on the people from the other side is influenced by their personal dramas, by their feeling of homelessness and confusion and of not belonging anywhere, of feeling uprooted from their very birth. It’s their personal dramas that add up to the point in which hatred is born. That is why, in my opinion, more people like Robi Damelin and Ali Abud Awwad are necessary in order to make the change happen, people who can go to all the effort of understanding one another and not viewing each other as enemies but merely as people united in a mutual cause – attaining peace.
If Robi Damelin is definitely a courageous and generous woman, Ali Abu Awwad is a just as daring human being, since he was capable of letting go of his past in Intifada, of his bitter childhood in which his mother was repeatedly arrested for being a political leader and even of the death of his brother in the hands of the Israeli. Robi showed tremendous courage in turning her personal tragedy into an engine for helping other people and preventing other similar dramas, while Ali showed just as much courage in turning from a jailed militant who used to fancy violence as a way of solving things into a warden of peace and a fighter for reconciliation.
Beyond the personal tragedies which brought them together, it is that inner strength and capacity of changing themselves and reassessing their fears and their feelings that makes Robi and Ali get along and fight together for their cause. They might come from different sides of the conflict, but they are both of one kind – they are people who chose to be fighters instead of victims and chose, as Robi put it “to sit around a table and talk instead of seating by a grave and cry…”.
Each of them could have turned his personal tragedy into a reason for hating the people on the other side even more; instead of that, they decided to identify themselves with the misfortunes of the people who harmed them and to look beyond what meets the eye. To look for the internal reasons that make people react in a certain way. Just like Robi, instead of pointing to the other side and saying that the enemy comes from there and has to be destroyed, Ali chose to look for peace, to make sure that nobody would go through what him and his family have gone through.
Extrapolating from their two personal tragedies into general IR and leaving aside the guilt and hatred that nourish the conflict from both the Israeli and the Palestinian side, the conflict between the two peoples has one more decisive partaker – the rest of the world. Just like Ali pointed out, as much as other states would try to help the two sides solve the clash, the division of the world into a “Pro Palestinian” and “Pro Israeli” one is not only not going to lead to a positive outcome but will fuel the conflict even more.
On an international level, all states have a more-or-less straightforward position in relation to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but their approach is mainly directed onto the idea of having a “positive” character and a “negative” one respectively; their mere narrative is built in such a way that a solution would have to lead to a win-lose rather than to a win-win situation. The pro-Palestinian embark from the start on the foundation that the Israeli are at guilt and they have to be defeated, while the pro-Israeli start on the premise that Palestinians carry the guilt and that they are the ones who must surrender their fight. In a divided world, peace is unattainable and utterly impossible, as each side awaits the other side’s defeat. This is why Ali’s words are indeed wise, as they have that wisdom that only sorrow and the experience of pain can give one: “Peace is something to work for, not to wait for…”.
After listening to both Rubi and Ali, I share their opinion that peace has to come from both sides and crystallize into a mutual agreement that would provide each of the two peoples with the dignity of ending a chapter and starting a new one, of peace and reconciliation. This is why the agreement should be seen as a compromise, not as the action of the strong imposing on the weak. In fact, nothing should be forced on any of the sides, as any imposition would just defeat its rightful purpose of installing peace.
The best way of expressing the difference between attaining peace and imposing it is by making use of the example of Hebron, where the Israeli reached the point in which they had to put bars on people’s houses, so that they wouldn’t throw stones at the occupiers. In the absence of true peace and will of both peoples, this is what an international agreement with equal; it would be merely the band aid trying to protect a not yet healed wound. It would be the formal and fully-diplomatic way of preventing people from throwing stones, but not the way to do away with the inner tensions that drew those people into stoning their occupiers. No peace can be attained if the solutions only aim at the consequences and not at the causes of people’s actions.
Overall, after hearing Rubi and Ali talking about their projects, about the one-day of hunger strike weekly and after watching “Encounter Point” again on YouTube, I just sat and thought about everything that was said. If one had asked my opinion on the peace perspectives in the Middle East just a couple of months ago, I confess that I would have been skeptical. But after meeting both Rubi and Ali, I truly think that there is a way. It’s just a question of choice and a question of people fighting for the same goal. Just like Robi said in the trailer of “Encounter Point” - “You have only two ways – to seek revenge, hate and continue the same cycle or to try to do something about it”. To that, I would just add what A.J. Muste, the famous pacifist leader used to say - “There is no way to peace, as peace itself is the way”.
P.S. If you are interested in the process for peace in the Middle East, watch the 7-minute trailer of Encounter Point, in which you will also see the two people that I have written about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiZ7vlRf8aI
sâmbătă, 10 noiembrie 2007
A girl's inborn right to curls...
Sometimes you need to go around the world and back to find your true self and understand what you're all about. To reassess your feelings and motivations in life, to realize what you want from the others and from yourself, to reconsider your expectations or, quite the contrary, to set them even higher up.
And also, sometimes you can find simple answers to over-complicated questions such as "What am I looking for?", "What do I really want?". You can find them simply floating around you and waiting for you to bring them into your conscientious thought, you can find them while you're reading books or listening to other people speaking...and sometimes you can even find them looking into the mirror and trying to realize what the person looking back at you is really all about.
For as long as I can remember, I've "disapproved" of my curls. I know it's a stiff and formal term, but I don't want to use the word "hate". Cause it wasn't really that bad (although in bad hair days I've used the H word quite a few times...). I always wanted my hair to be straight, probably reminiscing from the Barbie dolls that I used to play with when I was little and who all had shiny straight hair. Probably from the cover of the magazines that I read as a teenager that all claimed straight hair as the no.1 sex-appeal-feature for the opposite sex.
And probably from my own feeling of over-complicating things... I'm not going to lie...I'm no picnic for a guy. I'm actually quite a handful. I'm opinionated, stubborn, I dream big dreams, I know what I want and how to get it...I can be quite a shaky ground for a guy. And probably this is one of the reasons that drove me into considering that my curly hair was over-complicating things even more. There is an episode "Sex and the city"(possibly my favorite episode) in which Mr.Big, the love of Carrie's life, decides to leave her and marry the spiritless and boring Natascha.
Sitting with her friends, Carrie remembers the movie "The way we were" with Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, in which Hubbell(Robert Redford) leaves Katie(Barbra Streisand) because she's complicated and she has wild curly hair...and marries a "simpler" girl, dull and straight-haired. Following that thought, in the end of the episode, Carrie asks Mr.Big who has just gotten married to Natascha ,,Why wasn't I the one? Just so that I know". And he just answers "I don't know...it all got so complicated". Which makes Carrie thing again about Hubbell and Katie and to realize that she's "Katie". That the world is made of two types of women - "Katies" and "Simple girls".
That episode is probably my favorite. It has so much truth in it and so much sadness at the same time. When Carrie looks at Mr.Big driving away in his limousine, with his newly-wedded wife, she just concludes that "Maybe some women are just not meant to be tamed.Maybe they need to run free until they meet someone just as wild to run with...".
Every time I watch that episode, I feel "Katie" too. I'm the complicated Katie, with wild curly hair, the one who's a handful for a man, who makes things incredibly complicated...The one to which men prefer "simpler" girls, with straight hair... Everything in life is about curls. Curls imply mistery, ambiguity, surprise, unknown. On the other hand, straight hair is easy to figure out, it's straightforward, it's "comfortable". And what do men want the most? Something easy, comfortable and cosy...
I've had my times when I wanted to be "comfortable", to be a "simple" girl, to be the one that "Mr.Big" would drive away in a limousine with and fade away into the sunset. As career-driven as I've always been, as stubborn and well-spoken...when it came to love, deep inside I've unconsciously wanted to fit the profile of the "simple girl", the one "Mr.Big" and "Hubbell" end up with...Not the one that watches them bitterly driving away. And I haven't succeeded in doing that. I never did.
And you know what? That's perfectly fine. Probably for the first time in my life...that's just fine. Because for the first time I've realized that I don't and cannot possibly be a "simple girl". That no matter how straight I can get my hair to be, deep inside I'll still be a "Katie". I'll still be the complicated, want-it-all Katie. And I'll still be searching for that man who would chose me instead of the simple straight-haired girl...For that man who would chose the hard way out, not the easy way. The one who would have enough courage and manhood to "tame" Katie. To discover what "Katie" is all about, what incredibly loving soul lies underneath her complicated image.
There are people who haven't even known the "wild curly haired" Diana. I've been doing my hair straight for as far as I can remember or, if not straight, just slightly wavy...just hinting at curliness but not admitting it for fear of complication. I even laugh at remembering that a couple of years ago I accidentally ran into one of my ex-boyfriends on the street and it was one of the almost unique days in which I had my hair curled as it naturally is. While we talked, he kept staring at me in a way that I had probably never seen him stare before, not even when we were a couple. In the end, he just almost-whispered something like "I don't know how to put it but you kinda look...radiant. You look...hm...great...".
Any girl knows that there's nothing as reassuring as a compliment from one of your ex-es. It's the best type of ego-boost you could ever find. However, while I was walking away (yes, I must admit, with my ego substantially tickled) it just struck me. In all the months that we dated, he had never seen me with my hair loose. All that time, he had dated the "simple girl". And...incredibly enough...he seemed to like "Katie" better. In the relationship with him, I had always tried to "keep it simple", not to complicate things, not to implicate too much of the real me. Looking back now, I realize that the poor guy never dated ME. He didn't know anything about me, about my dreams, about my way of seeing life. He had dated the girl that I was trying to be at that time, at only 19 years old. He dated the "Simple girl wannabe", the one who thought that love comes at a price. At the price of changing yourself and moulding yourself into a person worth-loving. That 19-year-old girl just couldn't understand that a "Katie" could never become a "simple girl". For as much as she would try to.
At that point, I didn't have the full revelation. I couldn't drive myself into believing that someone would just love me for...me. Not because I ever lacked self-esteem nor self-confidence, but simply because...I always kept my eyes wide open and saw what was going on around me. I saw what boys my age were choosing. I saw the kind of girl that they wanted for themselves. And when you're 19, you don't always think about the philosophy of life and about being loved for who you are. There are lonely days in which you just want to feel loved. Full stop. There are days in which you realize that you're too much of a handful for people to handle. That you're intimidating guys and driving them away. And then you try to change yourself, you try to "fake it"...whether it's about your dreams, your irony, your stubbornness or just your curls.
Now, however...I found myself looking in the mirror and missing "Katie". Being here for all these months really made me realize that "Katies" are hard to find. That the world is full of "simple girls" and that the wheel does turn. That deep inside "simple girls" would just die to be "Katies". It's been a week since I'm sporting my curls. I don't know how nor when I started being the "Wild curly haired" Diana again. I just know that I did. And I also know that I'm never going back to the "simple girl wannabe". Never. It may sound silly, but I feel free...I feel that, for the first time in my life possibly, I really WANT to be 100% true to myself. I don't want to fake anything. I don't want to fake straight hair, I don't want to fake impressions, I don't want to fake relationships.
And the fact is...I truly am a "Katie". I want it all. I want to get my big career and revolution the world...or at least a part of it :). I want LOVE. "Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other-love", not lame and spiritless love. I want that love that can move mountains, not that love that is too "comfortably numb" to move even an inch. And you know what? I deserve it. I CAN handle it, I'm not afraid of it anymore. I'm not afraid of what the man in my life will think of me nor of whether he will want a "simpler" girl. If he wants the simpler girl, than he is definitely not "my man". And if he's not...I will just continue to run free. Until I meet someone just as wild to run with.
And also, sometimes you can find simple answers to over-complicated questions such as "What am I looking for?", "What do I really want?". You can find them simply floating around you and waiting for you to bring them into your conscientious thought, you can find them while you're reading books or listening to other people speaking...and sometimes you can even find them looking into the mirror and trying to realize what the person looking back at you is really all about.
For as long as I can remember, I've "disapproved" of my curls. I know it's a stiff and formal term, but I don't want to use the word "hate". Cause it wasn't really that bad (although in bad hair days I've used the H word quite a few times...). I always wanted my hair to be straight, probably reminiscing from the Barbie dolls that I used to play with when I was little and who all had shiny straight hair. Probably from the cover of the magazines that I read as a teenager that all claimed straight hair as the no.1 sex-appeal-feature for the opposite sex.
And probably from my own feeling of over-complicating things... I'm not going to lie...I'm no picnic for a guy. I'm actually quite a handful. I'm opinionated, stubborn, I dream big dreams, I know what I want and how to get it...I can be quite a shaky ground for a guy. And probably this is one of the reasons that drove me into considering that my curly hair was over-complicating things even more. There is an episode "Sex and the city"(possibly my favorite episode) in which Mr.Big, the love of Carrie's life, decides to leave her and marry the spiritless and boring Natascha.
Sitting with her friends, Carrie remembers the movie "The way we were" with Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, in which Hubbell(Robert Redford) leaves Katie(Barbra Streisand) because she's complicated and she has wild curly hair...and marries a "simpler" girl, dull and straight-haired. Following that thought, in the end of the episode, Carrie asks Mr.Big who has just gotten married to Natascha ,,Why wasn't I the one? Just so that I know". And he just answers "I don't know...it all got so complicated". Which makes Carrie thing again about Hubbell and Katie and to realize that she's "Katie". That the world is made of two types of women - "Katies" and "Simple girls".
That episode is probably my favorite. It has so much truth in it and so much sadness at the same time. When Carrie looks at Mr.Big driving away in his limousine, with his newly-wedded wife, she just concludes that "Maybe some women are just not meant to be tamed.Maybe they need to run free until they meet someone just as wild to run with...".
Every time I watch that episode, I feel "Katie" too. I'm the complicated Katie, with wild curly hair, the one who's a handful for a man, who makes things incredibly complicated...The one to which men prefer "simpler" girls, with straight hair... Everything in life is about curls. Curls imply mistery, ambiguity, surprise, unknown. On the other hand, straight hair is easy to figure out, it's straightforward, it's "comfortable". And what do men want the most? Something easy, comfortable and cosy...
I've had my times when I wanted to be "comfortable", to be a "simple" girl, to be the one that "Mr.Big" would drive away in a limousine with and fade away into the sunset. As career-driven as I've always been, as stubborn and well-spoken...when it came to love, deep inside I've unconsciously wanted to fit the profile of the "simple girl", the one "Mr.Big" and "Hubbell" end up with...Not the one that watches them bitterly driving away. And I haven't succeeded in doing that. I never did.
And you know what? That's perfectly fine. Probably for the first time in my life...that's just fine. Because for the first time I've realized that I don't and cannot possibly be a "simple girl". That no matter how straight I can get my hair to be, deep inside I'll still be a "Katie". I'll still be the complicated, want-it-all Katie. And I'll still be searching for that man who would chose me instead of the simple straight-haired girl...For that man who would chose the hard way out, not the easy way. The one who would have enough courage and manhood to "tame" Katie. To discover what "Katie" is all about, what incredibly loving soul lies underneath her complicated image.
There are people who haven't even known the "wild curly haired" Diana. I've been doing my hair straight for as far as I can remember or, if not straight, just slightly wavy...just hinting at curliness but not admitting it for fear of complication. I even laugh at remembering that a couple of years ago I accidentally ran into one of my ex-boyfriends on the street and it was one of the almost unique days in which I had my hair curled as it naturally is. While we talked, he kept staring at me in a way that I had probably never seen him stare before, not even when we were a couple. In the end, he just almost-whispered something like "I don't know how to put it but you kinda look...radiant. You look...hm...great...".
Any girl knows that there's nothing as reassuring as a compliment from one of your ex-es. It's the best type of ego-boost you could ever find. However, while I was walking away (yes, I must admit, with my ego substantially tickled) it just struck me. In all the months that we dated, he had never seen me with my hair loose. All that time, he had dated the "simple girl". And...incredibly enough...he seemed to like "Katie" better. In the relationship with him, I had always tried to "keep it simple", not to complicate things, not to implicate too much of the real me. Looking back now, I realize that the poor guy never dated ME. He didn't know anything about me, about my dreams, about my way of seeing life. He had dated the girl that I was trying to be at that time, at only 19 years old. He dated the "Simple girl wannabe", the one who thought that love comes at a price. At the price of changing yourself and moulding yourself into a person worth-loving. That 19-year-old girl just couldn't understand that a "Katie" could never become a "simple girl". For as much as she would try to.
At that point, I didn't have the full revelation. I couldn't drive myself into believing that someone would just love me for...me. Not because I ever lacked self-esteem nor self-confidence, but simply because...I always kept my eyes wide open and saw what was going on around me. I saw what boys my age were choosing. I saw the kind of girl that they wanted for themselves. And when you're 19, you don't always think about the philosophy of life and about being loved for who you are. There are lonely days in which you just want to feel loved. Full stop. There are days in which you realize that you're too much of a handful for people to handle. That you're intimidating guys and driving them away. And then you try to change yourself, you try to "fake it"...whether it's about your dreams, your irony, your stubbornness or just your curls.
Now, however...I found myself looking in the mirror and missing "Katie". Being here for all these months really made me realize that "Katies" are hard to find. That the world is full of "simple girls" and that the wheel does turn. That deep inside "simple girls" would just die to be "Katies". It's been a week since I'm sporting my curls. I don't know how nor when I started being the "Wild curly haired" Diana again. I just know that I did. And I also know that I'm never going back to the "simple girl wannabe". Never. It may sound silly, but I feel free...I feel that, for the first time in my life possibly, I really WANT to be 100% true to myself. I don't want to fake anything. I don't want to fake straight hair, I don't want to fake impressions, I don't want to fake relationships.
And the fact is...I truly am a "Katie". I want it all. I want to get my big career and revolution the world...or at least a part of it :). I want LOVE. "Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other-love", not lame and spiritless love. I want that love that can move mountains, not that love that is too "comfortably numb" to move even an inch. And you know what? I deserve it. I CAN handle it, I'm not afraid of it anymore. I'm not afraid of what the man in my life will think of me nor of whether he will want a "simpler" girl. If he wants the simpler girl, than he is definitely not "my man". And if he's not...I will just continue to run free. Until I meet someone just as wild to run with.
miercuri, 7 noiembrie 2007
"Always blame the Americans..."
...cause even when you're wrong, you're right..." said the main character in a 1969 Costas Gavras movie. And indeed...why is America viewed so badly worldwide?
The first Chatham House(Royal Institute of International Affairs) event that I attended had an intriguing title that left room for both interpretation and analysis: “What is America doing to improve its image abroad?”. After months spent as a grad student of an American university, I was truly interested in finding out an answer to this question, or at least hearing what a “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy” such as the speaker Colleen Graffy had to say on the matter.
I will have to admit that I was somewhat biased in my conceptions about the US when I embarked on this Master Program and most of my outlook on what America stands for and on American values and ways of doing things has known significant changes due to the insight that I’ve had for the past three months. Hearing Colleen Graffy speak about encouraging young people from Europe and all over the world to study in American universities or come with study abroad programs in order to discover US from the inside and not through stereotyping and prejudicial thinking really made me think of myself and my former perspective on things.
First of all, from my point of view, the most interesting element of the conference was the analysis of the concept of Public Diplomacy, a new and interesting term that would at a first glance be deemed illegitimate by scholars because of the mere association of “diplomacy” with the word “public”. Diplomacy was never supposed to be public; it was always seen as an art of establishing and maintaining international relations through the intercession of diplomats, people who would negotiate crucial aspects of the inter-state relations in a totally non-confrontational way. Before being endorsed by politicians and government people, treaties and important papers were always analyzed by diplomats, which gradually placed into the public mindset the idea of diplomats as people who are usually not seen, but who help orchestrate the official actions of a country.
However, in our times diplomacy is a process that no longer takes place exclusively “behind the curtains”, but has actually become a public action. Our speaker, Ms.Graffy, stressed this aspect at the beginning of her presentation on America’s image abroad and underlined the role of “public diplomacy” as an art of communicating a country’s values and messages to peoples in other places of the world. As she interestingly formulated it, thanks to public diplomacy “people can disagree with the United States without being anti-American”.
Public diplomacy was heavily used during the Cold War as a way of getting messages thorough, from the Western World onto the Eastern European peoples who were constantly subjected to the Communist propaganda that depicted the West as the one and only enemy of the socialist state and the main hindrance towards reaching the communist goals. Nevertheless, for a brief period after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was considered futile, as governments thought that their policies will speak for themselves and will freely transmit the message of their states.
This proved to be a wrong move for the Western countries and for US in particular, as Public Diplomacy is a constant process that cannot be “turned on and off” according to the temporary interests of the parties involved. It entails a continuous process of communication within countries, a process that cannot and should not be stopped regardless of what policies are put into practice. Policy-making and public diplomacy should work close together or, the way Coleen Graffy convincingly expressed it – “Public Diplomacy should be there at the take-off, not only at the crash landing”.
Basically, the United States is presently trying to convey its message to the world through a series of channels, the majority of which imply engaging diplomats in an active communication process, in order to get them out of the so-called “Washington Bubble”. This entails a whole range of methods, including providing them with an immediate alert of the narrative overseas through the EUR Alert – a compilation of the news overseas, extracted from the most important newspapers.
Moreover, if traditionally the ambassadors were thought to be the exclusive messengers of a country and the only ones to speak out on behalf of their states, the Public Diplomacy strategy of the US targets all diplomats, who must be present where the public that is absorbing their information is. In order to implement this somewhat theoretical concept, special websites have been set up, with diplomats taking turns blogging about important issues and giving answers to people’s questions and concerns. The main goals of these actions are to have all the embassies officials engaged in communication and to prevent the spread of rumors that have the tendency to harden intro conventional wisdom before they get to be countered through traditional channels.
In order to meet these purposes, the US is presently setting up Media Hubs in Europe and Asia, respectively in Brussels (where a TV studio is to be built as well), London and Dubai. This implies, in Graffy’s opinion, a certain amount of “pre-activity” (a concept situated in between “reacting” and “acting proactively”), of anticipating what the story will be and lining up the voices needed for it to be heard. Moreover, I found very interesting the fact that there are people whose jobs are to log onto Arab blogs (where the information is written 100% in Arabic) and to counter misinformation intended to mislead the population.
From the cultural point of view, US is promoting the English language through language courses in Muslim communities and is trying to engage citizens in the program of “Citizen dialogue”, by which American Muslims travel in Arab countries for organized dialogue with the Muslims abroad. There is also an outreach to women, through the promotion of breast cancer awareness in the Middle East and Latin America and a support for business women in Russia.
From a personal point of view, ever since I first encountered the term of “Public Diplomacy”, the thing that came to my mind was the business-related term of “Public Relations”. Public Relations implies acquiring public sympathy and positive feedback from the public by using of a series of tools that are mainly focused around communicating brand values, engaging the customer and creating a positive image of the company and/or brand. Drawing a parallel between the Public Relations(PR) and Public Diplomacy, I would say that Public Diplomacy does for International Relations what PR does for International Business – bolsters the development of a positive image of a country worldwide.
As a graduate of International Business, I would simply call this “country marketing”. The concept is of utter importance nowadays and it is also essential for building a country’s credibility and image for the ordinary people. Diplomacy itself handles the official ties between countries, but Public Diplomacy is meant not only for officials, but for the entire population, for the ones who are most vulnerable to stereotyping and to absorbing negative aspects that are heavily promoted throughout more or less biased media channels.
From this perspective, US is generally criticized for being too frivolous, having too many religious fixations, lacking values and profoundness of thought, for being too materialistic and too puritanical. Having these traits as anchor points, it is easy to imagine why the term “Americanization”, used in explaining the process of adopting certain features of the American way of life in European countries is always thought to have a bad connotation. I found very interesting a quote from Oscar Wilde that Colleen Graffy used for emphasizing the idea of the bad image of US that must be countered – “America is the only country who went from Barbarity to Decadence without Civilization in between”.
Indeed, America is often seen as the unsophisticated and superficial state that only relates on military and economic power in order to attain its purposes, regardless of the ones who suffer the consequences. However, this image has not emerged solely as a result of a strategy meant to discredit the United States but it came as a consequence of some of the political choices made by the American leaders throughout history.
As much as I have personally appreciated Colleen Graffy’s attempt of depicting US in much brighter colors than its real image, the best example that comes to mind in regard to the way America is viewed by the world can be extracted from her very speech. When asked about the way the war in Iraq is affecting US’ image abroad and attracting negative vibes from the people who are anti-war and who consider America’s intervention in Iraq illegitimate, her answer truly struck me. I have been working in the field of Public Relations for the past 4 years and I perfectly understand that image must be handled with care, that there are aspects that are too delicate to be directly tackled and that there must always be a strategy.
However, I am also aware that the tactic of handling a company or a country’s image must be a sensible and reasonable one in order to attain the goal of shifting the public opinion from the negative to the positive side; it must have the substance and the consistence necessary for rendering it believable.
With this framework in mind, I found Ms.Graffy’s answer not only naïve but dangerous for the credibility of the sheer image that she was trying to uphold: “I may sound idealistic, but America went in Iraq wanting to make a positive difference in the Middle East”. As idealistic as I am myself and as much as I would want to believe the good intentions that led the US into intervening in Iraq, I am also realistic enough to separate economic interests from pure and unconditional humanitarian intervention.
Just as we had debated during the Research Methods class with regard to single-variable explanations, US’ intervention in Iraq cannot possibly be explained by a single-variable; even more when that variable is roughly “making the world a better place”. Clear economic interests, worries regarding weapons of mass-destruction as well as the previous conflict between US and Iraq have all led to the American intervention to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.
From this standpoint, one of the first rules of Public Relations is that it is better to give a “No comment” answer or simply to remind the person who asked the question that this does not fall within your range of authority than to provide an answer that will clearly be interpreted as fake and inconsistent with the real situation. I truly think that the same principle should apply to Public Diplomacy as well.
Nevertheless, I am by no means in disbelief regarding America’s good intentions worldwide, expressed in the policies that it is promoting throughout the world. While I was listening to Colleen Graffy talking about Radio Free Europe and Voice of America as one of the main tools of American Public Diplomacy, I couldn’t help not thinking about the days when Romanian people were persecuted by the institutions of the Communist Party or even imprisoned for the mere act of secretly listening to Radio Free Europe. My grandparents were politically detained and persecuted during their entire lives for being “anti-communist” and even deported with forced domicile for 10 years because of their political beliefs.
I therefore know what being idealistic means and I know that during the Cold War Radio Free Europe and Voice of America have done more for the people in Eastern Europe than the US can probably imagine. What is today considered a tool of Public Diplomacy was back then a tool of ideological survival for the peoples of Eastern Europe; it was their oasis of mere sanity in a desert of communist propaganda that was meant to make them lose contact with what was happening in the world, keeping them exclusively connected to the Communist rhetoric. From this point of view, I totally agree that Public Diplomacy was acting for bettering the world; however, that does not imply that America itself always is.
Moreover, Public Diplomacy should never be just a one-street approach, as the negative image that America has in Europe is most of the times counterbalanced by the European conception that America itself has a negative image of the rest of the world. The so-called “American exceptionalism”, seen as a sign of superiority is inherently undermining the relations between US and other states of the world.
Just one of the many possible examples with regard to this matter is the reluctance of the United States in signing the Rome Treaty and becoming a state-party to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The thing that most shocked me while reading about this issue before the visit to the ICC was the assertiveness of the US officials in claiming that “having our American citizens, especially the members of the armed forces, indicted and tried by other than American judges would be unacceptable”. This not only undermines the credibility of a Criminal Court meant to act as a legal guardian for the same world that the US wants to „make better”, but it also sets a double-standard for justice, according to the level of power of the state in question. When a state uses its power to claim a different treatment, the feedback of the rest of the world cannot possibly be a positive one.
Overall, this Chatham House event was extremely interesting for me and I would say interesting for any International Relations student. Public Diplomacy is becoming an increasingly active part of international relations, an aspect that one should be fully aware of when pursuing a career in this field. It was a valuable insight to find out from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy of the US how the mechanisms of Public Diplomacy really work. Nonetheless, it would be also interesting to know how the effects of these actions can be assessed on the long term, if there is a way of quantifying the outcome of the ongoing programs and how they will affect the country’s image in time. If they will truly make the desired change for the better it is still to be seen in the future
Extrapolating from the benchmark of ”American Exceptionalism” and thinking about the final call in Ms.Graffy’s speech, for “leaving the negative conceptions about the US aside and joining in a united effort to face world challenges”, I reckon that America’s image will stop being a negative one in the moment in which the cultural and social actions that it undergoes and its claims for a better world will be supported by an attitude of solidarity with the rest of the world rather than one of domination. For, in my opinion, this is what “united effort” is all about.
The first Chatham House(Royal Institute of International Affairs) event that I attended had an intriguing title that left room for both interpretation and analysis: “What is America doing to improve its image abroad?”. After months spent as a grad student of an American university, I was truly interested in finding out an answer to this question, or at least hearing what a “Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy” such as the speaker Colleen Graffy had to say on the matter.
I will have to admit that I was somewhat biased in my conceptions about the US when I embarked on this Master Program and most of my outlook on what America stands for and on American values and ways of doing things has known significant changes due to the insight that I’ve had for the past three months. Hearing Colleen Graffy speak about encouraging young people from Europe and all over the world to study in American universities or come with study abroad programs in order to discover US from the inside and not through stereotyping and prejudicial thinking really made me think of myself and my former perspective on things.
First of all, from my point of view, the most interesting element of the conference was the analysis of the concept of Public Diplomacy, a new and interesting term that would at a first glance be deemed illegitimate by scholars because of the mere association of “diplomacy” with the word “public”. Diplomacy was never supposed to be public; it was always seen as an art of establishing and maintaining international relations through the intercession of diplomats, people who would negotiate crucial aspects of the inter-state relations in a totally non-confrontational way. Before being endorsed by politicians and government people, treaties and important papers were always analyzed by diplomats, which gradually placed into the public mindset the idea of diplomats as people who are usually not seen, but who help orchestrate the official actions of a country.
However, in our times diplomacy is a process that no longer takes place exclusively “behind the curtains”, but has actually become a public action. Our speaker, Ms.Graffy, stressed this aspect at the beginning of her presentation on America’s image abroad and underlined the role of “public diplomacy” as an art of communicating a country’s values and messages to peoples in other places of the world. As she interestingly formulated it, thanks to public diplomacy “people can disagree with the United States without being anti-American”.
Public diplomacy was heavily used during the Cold War as a way of getting messages thorough, from the Western World onto the Eastern European peoples who were constantly subjected to the Communist propaganda that depicted the West as the one and only enemy of the socialist state and the main hindrance towards reaching the communist goals. Nevertheless, for a brief period after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was considered futile, as governments thought that their policies will speak for themselves and will freely transmit the message of their states.
This proved to be a wrong move for the Western countries and for US in particular, as Public Diplomacy is a constant process that cannot be “turned on and off” according to the temporary interests of the parties involved. It entails a continuous process of communication within countries, a process that cannot and should not be stopped regardless of what policies are put into practice. Policy-making and public diplomacy should work close together or, the way Coleen Graffy convincingly expressed it – “Public Diplomacy should be there at the take-off, not only at the crash landing”.
Basically, the United States is presently trying to convey its message to the world through a series of channels, the majority of which imply engaging diplomats in an active communication process, in order to get them out of the so-called “Washington Bubble”. This entails a whole range of methods, including providing them with an immediate alert of the narrative overseas through the EUR Alert – a compilation of the news overseas, extracted from the most important newspapers.
Moreover, if traditionally the ambassadors were thought to be the exclusive messengers of a country and the only ones to speak out on behalf of their states, the Public Diplomacy strategy of the US targets all diplomats, who must be present where the public that is absorbing their information is. In order to implement this somewhat theoretical concept, special websites have been set up, with diplomats taking turns blogging about important issues and giving answers to people’s questions and concerns. The main goals of these actions are to have all the embassies officials engaged in communication and to prevent the spread of rumors that have the tendency to harden intro conventional wisdom before they get to be countered through traditional channels.
In order to meet these purposes, the US is presently setting up Media Hubs in Europe and Asia, respectively in Brussels (where a TV studio is to be built as well), London and Dubai. This implies, in Graffy’s opinion, a certain amount of “pre-activity” (a concept situated in between “reacting” and “acting proactively”), of anticipating what the story will be and lining up the voices needed for it to be heard. Moreover, I found very interesting the fact that there are people whose jobs are to log onto Arab blogs (where the information is written 100% in Arabic) and to counter misinformation intended to mislead the population.
From the cultural point of view, US is promoting the English language through language courses in Muslim communities and is trying to engage citizens in the program of “Citizen dialogue”, by which American Muslims travel in Arab countries for organized dialogue with the Muslims abroad. There is also an outreach to women, through the promotion of breast cancer awareness in the Middle East and Latin America and a support for business women in Russia.
From a personal point of view, ever since I first encountered the term of “Public Diplomacy”, the thing that came to my mind was the business-related term of “Public Relations”. Public Relations implies acquiring public sympathy and positive feedback from the public by using of a series of tools that are mainly focused around communicating brand values, engaging the customer and creating a positive image of the company and/or brand. Drawing a parallel between the Public Relations(PR) and Public Diplomacy, I would say that Public Diplomacy does for International Relations what PR does for International Business – bolsters the development of a positive image of a country worldwide.
As a graduate of International Business, I would simply call this “country marketing”. The concept is of utter importance nowadays and it is also essential for building a country’s credibility and image for the ordinary people. Diplomacy itself handles the official ties between countries, but Public Diplomacy is meant not only for officials, but for the entire population, for the ones who are most vulnerable to stereotyping and to absorbing negative aspects that are heavily promoted throughout more or less biased media channels.
From this perspective, US is generally criticized for being too frivolous, having too many religious fixations, lacking values and profoundness of thought, for being too materialistic and too puritanical. Having these traits as anchor points, it is easy to imagine why the term “Americanization”, used in explaining the process of adopting certain features of the American way of life in European countries is always thought to have a bad connotation. I found very interesting a quote from Oscar Wilde that Colleen Graffy used for emphasizing the idea of the bad image of US that must be countered – “America is the only country who went from Barbarity to Decadence without Civilization in between”.
Indeed, America is often seen as the unsophisticated and superficial state that only relates on military and economic power in order to attain its purposes, regardless of the ones who suffer the consequences. However, this image has not emerged solely as a result of a strategy meant to discredit the United States but it came as a consequence of some of the political choices made by the American leaders throughout history.
As much as I have personally appreciated Colleen Graffy’s attempt of depicting US in much brighter colors than its real image, the best example that comes to mind in regard to the way America is viewed by the world can be extracted from her very speech. When asked about the way the war in Iraq is affecting US’ image abroad and attracting negative vibes from the people who are anti-war and who consider America’s intervention in Iraq illegitimate, her answer truly struck me. I have been working in the field of Public Relations for the past 4 years and I perfectly understand that image must be handled with care, that there are aspects that are too delicate to be directly tackled and that there must always be a strategy.
However, I am also aware that the tactic of handling a company or a country’s image must be a sensible and reasonable one in order to attain the goal of shifting the public opinion from the negative to the positive side; it must have the substance and the consistence necessary for rendering it believable.
With this framework in mind, I found Ms.Graffy’s answer not only naïve but dangerous for the credibility of the sheer image that she was trying to uphold: “I may sound idealistic, but America went in Iraq wanting to make a positive difference in the Middle East”. As idealistic as I am myself and as much as I would want to believe the good intentions that led the US into intervening in Iraq, I am also realistic enough to separate economic interests from pure and unconditional humanitarian intervention.
Just as we had debated during the Research Methods class with regard to single-variable explanations, US’ intervention in Iraq cannot possibly be explained by a single-variable; even more when that variable is roughly “making the world a better place”. Clear economic interests, worries regarding weapons of mass-destruction as well as the previous conflict between US and Iraq have all led to the American intervention to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime.
From this standpoint, one of the first rules of Public Relations is that it is better to give a “No comment” answer or simply to remind the person who asked the question that this does not fall within your range of authority than to provide an answer that will clearly be interpreted as fake and inconsistent with the real situation. I truly think that the same principle should apply to Public Diplomacy as well.
Nevertheless, I am by no means in disbelief regarding America’s good intentions worldwide, expressed in the policies that it is promoting throughout the world. While I was listening to Colleen Graffy talking about Radio Free Europe and Voice of America as one of the main tools of American Public Diplomacy, I couldn’t help not thinking about the days when Romanian people were persecuted by the institutions of the Communist Party or even imprisoned for the mere act of secretly listening to Radio Free Europe. My grandparents were politically detained and persecuted during their entire lives for being “anti-communist” and even deported with forced domicile for 10 years because of their political beliefs.
I therefore know what being idealistic means and I know that during the Cold War Radio Free Europe and Voice of America have done more for the people in Eastern Europe than the US can probably imagine. What is today considered a tool of Public Diplomacy was back then a tool of ideological survival for the peoples of Eastern Europe; it was their oasis of mere sanity in a desert of communist propaganda that was meant to make them lose contact with what was happening in the world, keeping them exclusively connected to the Communist rhetoric. From this point of view, I totally agree that Public Diplomacy was acting for bettering the world; however, that does not imply that America itself always is.
Moreover, Public Diplomacy should never be just a one-street approach, as the negative image that America has in Europe is most of the times counterbalanced by the European conception that America itself has a negative image of the rest of the world. The so-called “American exceptionalism”, seen as a sign of superiority is inherently undermining the relations between US and other states of the world.
Just one of the many possible examples with regard to this matter is the reluctance of the United States in signing the Rome Treaty and becoming a state-party to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The thing that most shocked me while reading about this issue before the visit to the ICC was the assertiveness of the US officials in claiming that “having our American citizens, especially the members of the armed forces, indicted and tried by other than American judges would be unacceptable”. This not only undermines the credibility of a Criminal Court meant to act as a legal guardian for the same world that the US wants to „make better”, but it also sets a double-standard for justice, according to the level of power of the state in question. When a state uses its power to claim a different treatment, the feedback of the rest of the world cannot possibly be a positive one.
Overall, this Chatham House event was extremely interesting for me and I would say interesting for any International Relations student. Public Diplomacy is becoming an increasingly active part of international relations, an aspect that one should be fully aware of when pursuing a career in this field. It was a valuable insight to find out from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy of the US how the mechanisms of Public Diplomacy really work. Nonetheless, it would be also interesting to know how the effects of these actions can be assessed on the long term, if there is a way of quantifying the outcome of the ongoing programs and how they will affect the country’s image in time. If they will truly make the desired change for the better it is still to be seen in the future
Extrapolating from the benchmark of ”American Exceptionalism” and thinking about the final call in Ms.Graffy’s speech, for “leaving the negative conceptions about the US aside and joining in a united effort to face world challenges”, I reckon that America’s image will stop being a negative one in the moment in which the cultural and social actions that it undergoes and its claims for a better world will be supported by an attitude of solidarity with the rest of the world rather than one of domination. For, in my opinion, this is what “united effort” is all about.
vineri, 2 noiembrie 2007
The day I fell in love with autumn..
I never used to like autumn. For as far back as I can remember, autumn always made me feel sad, always gave me a feeling of stillness and utter gloominess, similar to the one that the last chapter of a sad love story leaves on us. The autumn rain, its coldness and its dark clouds always reminded me of Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights", in which the two lovers Heathcliff and Cathy never end up together. I always picture that book in the dim colors of autumn...
Nevertheless...something changed this year. Just like in one of Emily Bronte's books, when the heroine falls in love with the man she used to despise, this year I fell in love with autumn. It happened unexpectedly, there was no moment of revelation in which I said "I think I'm falling in love", it just happened..like it usually happens in life.
I live in London right next to Regent's Park. Although I grew up next to Tineretului Park in Bucharest and I know it by heart...I can truly say that Regent's Park is probably the most beautiful park I've ever seen. It doesn't have statues, such as Vigeland Park in Oslo, it's nor that famous, nor that full of life and people like other parks in the world. It is, however, the park in which I've witnessed...yes...witnessed...the most wonderful autumn ever. It's in this park that I've for the first time in my entire life the urge of laying down on the yellow and reddish carpet of leaves, laid back and facing the sky, counting the clouds in the sweet drunkenness of the fresh autumn air.
It is Regent's Park the place of my morning strolls, with a bag of nuts in one hand, for feeeding the squirrels(that would just look at me with their big curious eyes...)and with the camera in the other, taking photos of this amazingly beautiful nature. Every time I see Regent's Park I feel incredibly lucky just for being there, for being able to lay my eyes on the fresh green grass, on the perfect yellow leaves, on the cloudy but beautiful sky...I truly feel and am blessed...
I forgot to mention, but Regent's Park is actually the park of my college here in London. Webster University is part of Regent's College, along with London School of Business and other 5 academic institutions, so I get to walk through Regent's Park on my way to classes. During the breaks, I just buy a sushi-set from the cafeteria and sit on the green grass to eat it...it's my little way of spoiling myself and enjoying a beautiful sunny day :)
If you've ever seen ,,American Beauty"...being in Regent's Park constantly reminds me of the scene with the plastic bag "dancing" in the air. And the words of the boy: "How can you stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in...".
And indeed...there is so much beauty in the world. You just have to keep your eyes wide open so that you can notice it. And try to have your heart open as well...
sâmbătă, 27 octombrie 2007
The Aviator's Granddaughter
Ever since I can remember, all I wanted to do was travel. But not any type of traveling, I wanted to FLY. With my grandfather (may he rest in peace) being an aviator for whom planes had been the center of his entire existence up to the last day of his life...it wasn't that hard to imagine why I loved to fly and why planes always exerted such a strong hold on me. I was indeed "Nini's granddaughter". This is how I used to call my grandfather...Nini. I don't even remember how I started calling him that way, I just know my grandmother was fondling him with that name and I somehow caught it and apropriated it myself :)
Up to last year, my father used to joke about my passion for airplanes, saying that "your ideal life would be just in-between airplanes, just like your grandfather". And in a way he was right. I always said that, had I been a boy, I would definitely have been a pilot. That would have been the only thing to suit me. But anyway, my goal on this planet seems to be quite intertwined with the airplanes as well. When I got into the Master's Programme that I'm currently doing, my father laughed again (fatherlike and supportive, of course) and said, quite rightfully, "This MA seems to have been made especially for you. One year and 5 locations. You will really get to be in-between airplanes".
And indeed I am. I was thinking about this while on the plane that took me from Amsterdam to London. You could truly say that airplanes are now my second home. I definitely spent more time in airplanes that I got to spend in my car for the past 3 months. And the first signs of "addiction" have started showing. The thought that I could crop this into a "How do you know when you're a PLANE FREAK" list really made me laugh. So...how do you know?
I know I'm one, because:
- I know by heart all the food-menus of the main carriers (KLM, British, Austrian) so I basically know what to expect every time. My favorite is KLM's pasta, but they only serve that for long-haul flights. And they also have a very good tomato&pepper juice.
- I can check myself in electronically in about 1 minute (with printing the boarding pass included).
- I have a favorite seat (4D is the one that I always pick). When I'm traveling alone I always pick the aisle-seat, because I like the mobility and the possibility of moving around without getting two strangers out of their seats. When I'm traveling with friends, I looove the window seat :).
- I know Amsterdam Schiphol better than I know the streets in the center of Bucharest...and I'm not kidding. You could keep my eyes tied and I would still manage to get my way through Schiphol. Just a few flights more and I could apply for a part-time job at the airport :)))
- I'm starting to know the schedules of the main carriers by heart (Amsterdam-Bucharest flights either arrive at 13:20 or at 00:10 and they usually depart from Bucharest at 06:30 or 14:15; I have the London schedules as well :) ).
- I know my 11-digits Flying Blue code by heart, because I use it all the time and I'm starting to do miles-math in my mind (how many miles do I get for a flight from X to Y, how many Award Miles, how many Level miles etc...);
- I can quote from the "Holland Herald" (the KLM inflight magazine) any time and any place. I know products, prices, available colors, everything. I've skimmed through that so many times that I almost memorized it.
And...the last but definitely not the LEAST...one more argument in bolstering my PLANE-FREAKINESS is...that I love it. I absolutely love it. And yes...I know that somewhere up there...Nini is indulgently smiling back at me ;)
Up to last year, my father used to joke about my passion for airplanes, saying that "your ideal life would be just in-between airplanes, just like your grandfather". And in a way he was right. I always said that, had I been a boy, I would definitely have been a pilot. That would have been the only thing to suit me. But anyway, my goal on this planet seems to be quite intertwined with the airplanes as well. When I got into the Master's Programme that I'm currently doing, my father laughed again (fatherlike and supportive, of course) and said, quite rightfully, "This MA seems to have been made especially for you. One year and 5 locations. You will really get to be in-between airplanes".
And indeed I am. I was thinking about this while on the plane that took me from Amsterdam to London. You could truly say that airplanes are now my second home. I definitely spent more time in airplanes that I got to spend in my car for the past 3 months. And the first signs of "addiction" have started showing. The thought that I could crop this into a "How do you know when you're a PLANE FREAK" list really made me laugh. So...how do you know?
I know I'm one, because:
- I know by heart all the food-menus of the main carriers (KLM, British, Austrian) so I basically know what to expect every time. My favorite is KLM's pasta, but they only serve that for long-haul flights. And they also have a very good tomato&pepper juice.
- I can check myself in electronically in about 1 minute (with printing the boarding pass included).
- I have a favorite seat (4D is the one that I always pick). When I'm traveling alone I always pick the aisle-seat, because I like the mobility and the possibility of moving around without getting two strangers out of their seats. When I'm traveling with friends, I looove the window seat :).
- I know Amsterdam Schiphol better than I know the streets in the center of Bucharest...and I'm not kidding. You could keep my eyes tied and I would still manage to get my way through Schiphol. Just a few flights more and I could apply for a part-time job at the airport :)))
- I'm starting to know the schedules of the main carriers by heart (Amsterdam-Bucharest flights either arrive at 13:20 or at 00:10 and they usually depart from Bucharest at 06:30 or 14:15; I have the London schedules as well :) ).
- I know my 11-digits Flying Blue code by heart, because I use it all the time and I'm starting to do miles-math in my mind (how many miles do I get for a flight from X to Y, how many Award Miles, how many Level miles etc...);
- I can quote from the "Holland Herald" (the KLM inflight magazine) any time and any place. I know products, prices, available colors, everything. I've skimmed through that so many times that I almost memorized it.
And...the last but definitely not the LEAST...one more argument in bolstering my PLANE-FREAKINESS is...that I love it. I absolutely love it. And yes...I know that somewhere up there...Nini is indulgently smiling back at me ;)
A sunny day in London town
I made it! I'm in London now.
I don't know why, but I have this sudden urge of writing in English. It's both odd and understandable at the same time. Odd because my mother tongue is Romanian and understandable because here I speak English 24/7. As silly as it may sound, I even had a dream a couple of weeks ago in which I was talking to my parents in English...let alone the fact that every time I take a wrong step or drop something my exclamations are now in English... I'm even starting to THINK in English when I'm by myself, which clearly shows a daaaangerous path...the "Americanization" of Diana. Just kidding. That's never going to happen...I'm far too European for that to be possible and I plan on staying this way.
Ok...let's switch to something more interesting. Like me being in LONDOOOON! I love this place. I totally and absolutely love it. I feel like a child in a candy store,I cannot help not staring at the wonderful things around me. Although England is...amazingly enough...my 24th country to visit (and I feel truly lucky and blessed for that), it's indeed different from all the other places I've been to. It has a totally different vibe, it's so "out of the Sherlock Holmes movies" in the best way :). My room faces a typical English street and the building just across the street is identical to Tony Blair's house on Downing Street. Downing Street is basically...almost every English street. You can feel like Tony Blair's next door neighbor wherever in London you might find yourself :)
I got to London through Amsterdam (70 min. flight...I didn't even know when the plane took off and landed...it was such a short time...) and Heathrow Airport was a very weird experience. The first time I had been there I was only transiting it and I remember the endless queues and the immense crowds of people waiting for their flights or for the custom check.This time...it was hardly anyone. Maybe being a Saturday afternoon it was less crowded, but still...the airport was a much less stressful experience than I had expected. Another funny thing about the flight is that I got to "play the mother" in a way with two French kids who were sitting right next to me on the plane. They were probably sent by their parents to visit some grandparents or other relatives, because they were traveling by themselves and had the name tags with them. They were around 6-7 years old but so polite and nice...typically French I would say.
As the plane landed on London Heathrow Airport, Michael Buble's song "A foggy day in London Town" was playing in my iPOD. Although it was no foggy day, it was quite a sunny and beautiful one. By the way - I LOVE Michael Buble, he's an amazing jazz singer. Him and Katie Melua are my absolute sweethearts!
I took a London cab (great experience...they actually look like out of an English movie :) )and ended up on Wyndham Street, in Central London, where our lodging is. Webster is accommodating us at a cosy hotel in Central London (just 2 streets away from Regent's Park). Their campus here is still under construction, so we're staying at the Wyndham, which is great. Being a small hotel, it's basically "our house", there are only a couple of rooms except for ours and we already feel like home. The rooms are really tiny (hey, it's Central London...real estate is more expensive than anywhere else) but they're really neat and...English. I will take some pictures and put them online as soon as I have the time for that.
Tonight I marked one more accomplishment on my "Diana can do it" list :), respectively carrying 2 huge suitcases (25 kg each) from the place we had them stored in up to the Hotel (which is roughly 1 km away). Just imagine a bunch of American students (and me) crossing Regent's Park at 1 a.m in the morning with their huge suitcases.... That was a scene to remember. And, moreover, carrying them 3 floors UP THE STAIRS (there's no elevator in the hotel). Anyway...I could do it so...1 more point to Diana :)))
I think I'm going to love London. In fact, I already love it. I have so many things that I want to experience while I'm here...I feel that everything is just crowding into my mind, fighting for the top place on my "to do list". But there's time for everything. Indeed there is...:)
I don't know why, but I have this sudden urge of writing in English. It's both odd and understandable at the same time. Odd because my mother tongue is Romanian and understandable because here I speak English 24/7. As silly as it may sound, I even had a dream a couple of weeks ago in which I was talking to my parents in English...let alone the fact that every time I take a wrong step or drop something my exclamations are now in English... I'm even starting to THINK in English when I'm by myself, which clearly shows a daaaangerous path...the "Americanization" of Diana. Just kidding. That's never going to happen...I'm far too European for that to be possible and I plan on staying this way.
Ok...let's switch to something more interesting. Like me being in LONDOOOON! I love this place. I totally and absolutely love it. I feel like a child in a candy store,I cannot help not staring at the wonderful things around me. Although England is...amazingly enough...my 24th country to visit (and I feel truly lucky and blessed for that), it's indeed different from all the other places I've been to. It has a totally different vibe, it's so "out of the Sherlock Holmes movies" in the best way :). My room faces a typical English street and the building just across the street is identical to Tony Blair's house on Downing Street. Downing Street is basically...almost every English street. You can feel like Tony Blair's next door neighbor wherever in London you might find yourself :)
I got to London through Amsterdam (70 min. flight...I didn't even know when the plane took off and landed...it was such a short time...) and Heathrow Airport was a very weird experience. The first time I had been there I was only transiting it and I remember the endless queues and the immense crowds of people waiting for their flights or for the custom check.This time...it was hardly anyone. Maybe being a Saturday afternoon it was less crowded, but still...the airport was a much less stressful experience than I had expected. Another funny thing about the flight is that I got to "play the mother" in a way with two French kids who were sitting right next to me on the plane. They were probably sent by their parents to visit some grandparents or other relatives, because they were traveling by themselves and had the name tags with them. They were around 6-7 years old but so polite and nice...typically French I would say.
As the plane landed on London Heathrow Airport, Michael Buble's song "A foggy day in London Town" was playing in my iPOD. Although it was no foggy day, it was quite a sunny and beautiful one. By the way - I LOVE Michael Buble, he's an amazing jazz singer. Him and Katie Melua are my absolute sweethearts!
I took a London cab (great experience...they actually look like out of an English movie :) )and ended up on Wyndham Street, in Central London, where our lodging is. Webster is accommodating us at a cosy hotel in Central London (just 2 streets away from Regent's Park). Their campus here is still under construction, so we're staying at the Wyndham, which is great. Being a small hotel, it's basically "our house", there are only a couple of rooms except for ours and we already feel like home. The rooms are really tiny (hey, it's Central London...real estate is more expensive than anywhere else) but they're really neat and...English. I will take some pictures and put them online as soon as I have the time for that.
Tonight I marked one more accomplishment on my "Diana can do it" list :), respectively carrying 2 huge suitcases (25 kg each) from the place we had them stored in up to the Hotel (which is roughly 1 km away). Just imagine a bunch of American students (and me) crossing Regent's Park at 1 a.m in the morning with their huge suitcases.... That was a scene to remember. And, moreover, carrying them 3 floors UP THE STAIRS (there's no elevator in the hotel). Anyway...I could do it so...1 more point to Diana :)))
I think I'm going to love London. In fact, I already love it. I have so many things that I want to experience while I'm here...I feel that everything is just crowding into my mind, fighting for the top place on my "to do list". But there's time for everything. Indeed there is...:)
joi, 25 octombrie 2007
Atunci cand stii...
Se spune ca atunci cand cunosti "persoana" (si nu, ghilimelele nu sunt intamplatoare) cu care iti este scris sa fii toata viata, o simti. Ai un implus, o tresarire, un fior...oricum ai vrea sa-l numesti. E ceva inauntrul tau care spune ca persoana respectiva e "The One". Am auzit asta de multe ori si da...chiar daca nu am cunoscut deocamdata persoana care sa fie "The One" pentru mine, incep sa inteleg foarte bine ce inseamna sa ai un asemenea sentiment, ca totul este la locul lui, ca toate se leaga, ca esti acolo unde trebuie sa fii. Chiar daca nu e vorba de dragoste, acest sentiment de "belonging" undeva, sentimentul ca asta e ceea ce iti doresti, ca asta vrei sa faci, ca asta vrei sa FII ramane la fel de puternic in orice domeniu al vietilor noastre, cu conditia sa fim suficient de norocosi sa ne gasim drumul potrivit.
Am stiut mereu ca voi fi un "citizen of the world", ca "the world won't ever be enough" :), ca imi doresc sa activez intr-un mediu intercultural. Cand am terminat insa facultatea, nu am avut acel sentiment de "right person, right place, right time", pe care ma asteptam sa il am. Am lucrat in domenii extrem de interesante, am calatorit in toata lumea...si cu toate astea am simtit mereu ca ceva in mine e diferit. Diferit de prietenii mei, de colegii din generatia mea...ca ei isi doreau cu totul altceva decat mine, ca vedeau lumea altfel. O vreme am crezut ca eu sunt cea care vede lumea "gresit", cu niste ochelari roz si cu un idealism mult prea pronuntat. Si poate asa si este. Am invatat insa, de-a lungul drumului, ca nu exista drum "gresit" si drum "corect", exista doar alegeri care ni se potrivesc sau nu.
Acum exact un an de zile, in octombrie 2006, faceam un stagiu la Ministerul Afacerilor Externe si aveam revelatia ca viitorul meu e foarte clar. Ca masteratul in afaceri pe care il incepeam era perfect, ca superjobul meu era exact ceea ce imi trebuia, ca visele mele de a face un masterat undeva in strainatate, de a-mi lua viata in maini si a cunoaste in profunzime alte lumi, alti oameni, alte moduri de gandire...ca toate astea sunt doar iluziile unei fete de 23 de ani cu imaginatie mult prea bogata. Niciodata nu am avut senzatia ca totul e atat de clar si de neclar in acelasi timp mai mult decat in acea luna octombrie. Aveam senzatia ca totul e limpede in fata mea, ca viata mea e oarecum "trasata", dar ma simteam atat de departe de ceea ce imi doream cu adevarat. Privind inapoi, imi dau seama ca m-am amagit multa vreme cu gandul ca asta era ceea ce imi doream. Ca de fapt imi era frica sa ma gandesc la ceea ce imi doresc cu adevarat. Imi era frica de faptul ca, daca mi-as fi dat seama ceea ce imi doresc cu adevarat, ar fi trebuit sa actionez ca sa obtin acel lucru. Ar fi trebuit sa ies din monotonie, sa alung sentimentul de complacere intr-o comoditate pe termen lung, sa obtin ceea ce imi doream. Si, inconstient, imi era frica de asta.
Nu mi-a fost usor sa ajung aici. Si nu, nu o spun ca sa ma laud, ci pentru ca, privind inapoi dupa aproape 3 luni, imi dau seama ca m-am imbarcat in aventura mea europeana cu o doza de entuziasm si una si mai mare de inconstienta. Ca un inotator care se arunca direct in valuri, fara sa calculeze adancimea apei. La momentul respectiv nu mi s-a parut nimic dificil, nu intelegeam de ce prietenii si parintii ma intrebau de cate 10 ori pe zi "Dar esti sigura? Stii ca vei fi singura acolo, printre americani?", ,,Stii ca nu vei avea cu cine sa schimbi o vorba in romaneste macar?", ,,Stii ca ei sunt atat de diferiti de noi?", "Stii ce volum de munca presupune asta?". Da...stiam si stiu. Insa nu mi-a pasat. Nu am putut intelege atunci de ce toata lumea ma batea pe umar si-mi spunea ca am un mare curaj. Nu mi se parea ca e un mare curaj, mi se parea doar ca fac ceea ce trebuia sa fac de multa vreme - imi urmez inima. Acum insa...privind inapoi, le dau un pic dreptate. Privind inapoi, imi dau seama ca am facut un salt fara plasa de siguranta, fara sa ma uit inapoi si fara sa realizez macar dificultatea. Si asta ma incanta si ma surprinde in mod placut. Faptul ca mi-am asumat acest salt si l-am facut sa para firesc, ca entuziasmul meu a facut drumul sa para lipsit de obstacole, desi nu a fost asa.
Inainte sa plec din Leiden, am avut o discutie cu profesorul meu coordonator, Dr.Suransky. Un om extraordinar, un expert in relatii internationale si un mare profesionist. Si dupa conversatia cu el, m-am simtit poate mai mandra decat m-am simtit vreodata pana acum. In ultima mea zi, mi-a trimis un email rugandu-ma sa vin sa-l vad la biroul lui de la facultate, ca sa vorbim despre lucrarea mea finala, "Eastern European Nationalism, between Western Betrayal and Western Bliss"(continutul e la fel de controversat ca si titlul, va asigur :)). M-a surprins faptul ca mi-a spus sa vin fara sa le spun colegilor mei de asta, pentru ca lor nu le-a citit inca lucrarile. Pe moment, m-am intrebat ce are oare de discutat atat de important incat trebuie sa fim doar intre 4 ochi. M-am dus cu o mare curiozitate, stiind ca ii placuse f.mult proiectul meu de Midterm ("A Marxist Perspective on the Latin-American Apartheid") si Reaction Paper-urile mele, ca imi spusese in mai multe randuri ca apreciaza stilul meu critic. De cate ori puneam cate o intrebare mai incomoda la un curs, comenta mereu razand "Great question. Coming from Diana, it had to be a critical one" :).
Am intrat in biroul lui si mi-a spus sa ma asez pe scaun, lucrarea mea fiind pe masa. Reconstitui cu atat de multe detalii pentru ca undeva in mintea mea simt nevoia sa reconstitui momentul pentru a retrai acel sentiment de "right place, right time" despre care vorbeam la inceput. M-a indemnat sa ma uit pe lucrare spunandu-mi ca vom vorbi dupa. Pe ultima pagina din cele 25 erau 3 paragrafe mari scrise cu rosu. M-am uitat la el putin intrebator, nu stiam daca are de gand sa-mi spuna "live" ce scrie acolo sau daca vrea sa citesc chiar eu. "Go ahead, read it...we'll have time to talk later". Am citit si mi s-a pus un nod in gat. "This is a superbly tuned expose, well conceived and developed, considerable research, well rounded and well presented. Excellent work. Your performance in and out of the class have been superior. You are an imaginative and critical thinker, with a fine analytic bent and it's been truly a pleasure to have you in my class. Carry on your way and there will be no stopping for you. Congratulations Diana!"
Sub paragrafe erau 7 casute, cu aprecierile lui finale (Oral Presentations during the class, Participation, Midterm, Reaction Papers etc...), toate cu A. Evident ca nu m-am putut abtine sa nu zambesc si da...mi s-a pus un nod in gat. A fost f.ciudat si emotionant deopotriva sa citesc acele randuri scrise de omul asta pe care l-am simtit mereu atat de zgarcit cu aprecierile si atat de critic. Mi se paruse mereu un profesor dur, nu neaparat prin felul de a fi, cat prin pretentiile lui care erau intotdeauna foarte mari. Colegii mei americani erau tot timpul nemultumiti de faptul ca ne dadea multa munca de facut si ne reamintea mereu cat de important este research-ul. Impunea cel putin 7 surse bibliografice la o lucrare de pana in 10 pagini, in timp ce la cele mai mari impunea minim 14, ceea ce pentru colegii mei americani era de neconceput. Obisnuia sa ne spuna ca "I want you to carry out a RESEARCH. Research does not mean Wikipedia, research means burying yourselves in books!".
Tocmai de asta, cuvintele lui au insemnat atat de mult pentru mine. Au insemnat o confirmare a muncii mele. Stiam ca munca mea e de calitate, stiam ca nu am muncit in van...feedbackul lui insa a fost ca medalia pe care o primeste atletul dupa un maraton. E confirmarea eforturilor lui. Iar asta inseamna enorm. Dupa ce am citit paragrafele, a spus ca vrea pur si simplu sa vorbim, daca am timp. Fireste ca aveam, eram f.curioasa sa stiu despre ce anume vrea sa vorbeasca - despre lucrare, despre criticile mele legate de America, despre munca mea per ansamblu. In schimb mi-a spus ceva f.surprinzator: "I know your work and it's outstanding. But now I want you to tell me something about you...about your background, about your life, I want to know you". I-am spus cate ceva despre mine, despre studiile mele anterioare, despre viata mea in Romania, despre planurile mele de viitor...iar ceea ce m-a impresionat a fost sinceritatea lui fata de mine.
Mi-a spus ca intr-adevar, cand m-a cunoscut, a avut indoieli. O fata din Europa de Est, inconjurata de americani. Isi imagina ca voi fi oarecum stinghera in a-mi exprima opiniile, ca ma voi simti putin "outsider" printre colegii mei. Ca engleza nefiind limba mea materna, nu voi cunoaste tipicurile academice americane in scris. Mi-a spus toate astea cu multa franchete si cu acelasi zambet de bunic blajin (asa mi-l imaginez de fiecare data pe Dr.Suransky, ca un bunic exigent dar si blajin la nevoie), dupa care mi-a spus ca am fost una dintre cele mai mari surprize din cariera lui si ca de asta a vrut sa vorbeasca cu mine. Sa stie de unde vin, care e trecutul meu academic, cum de am ambitia de a face ceea ce fac, ce imi doresc in viitor si...ceea ce m-a facut sa ma simt cel mai mandra in adancul sufletului, cum de scriu cu atata pasiune si cu atata suflet. "Americans don't know how to write, that's the truth", mi-a spus cu un zambet. Nu degeaba colegele mele fusesera trimise in turma la "Writing Center", sa invete cum se scrie o lucrare academica. Da, colegele mele americance. "You, on the other hand, have a superb way of writing"...as fi de-a dreptul ipocrita sa spun ca asta nu m-a magulit. Aproape ca imi venea sa sar in sus de bucurie, si asta pentru ca scrisul a fost mereu viata mea. Ceea ce imi place cel mai mult sa fac, modul meu cel mai placut de a ma exprima. Iar sa aud aprecierile lui...da...a fost un mare ego-booster in cel mai bun sens al cuvantului.
Mi-a spus ca se bucura ca sunt prietena cu fetele din grupa, ca suntem atat de apropiate si...aproape ca m-a bufnit rasul...m-a rugat sa le mai dau sfaturi din cand in cand cu privire la scris. "It has come to my knowledge that the girls give you their papers for you to proof-read them. Cynnetta told me that". Spre surprinderea mea, prietena mea Cynnetta ii spusese ca imi da lucrarile ei sa i le citesc inainte de a le preda si ca ii fac mereu corecturi si ii dau sfaturi cum sa reformuleze. M-a surprins faptul ca o americanca a recunoscut asta, in general sunt f.orgoliosi. "They need help with their work. Don't be fooled by the fact that English is their mother-tongue. Most Americans have problems with writing well and you can really help them better their work". Nu mi-a venit sa cred ca aud asta. Am dat din cap, semi-uluita in sinea mea si am promis ca voi incerca sa le ajut cat pot eu.
Am vorbit apoi de planurile mele de viitor si m-a rugat sa-l tin la curent cu ceea ce voi face, dupa ce i-am povestit ceea ce imi doresc sa realizez in viata. "Let me know when you get there. Cause you'll get there, mark my words". Mi-a strans mana, mi-a urat succes si am plecat din biroul lui cu un sentiment f.straniu de "You're in the twillight zone" :)), ceva de genul ,,Ok...asta s-a intamplat cu adevarat? Sigur? Nu cumva a fost un vis si acum tocmai o sa cad din pat?" :) Am pus mana pe telefon si i-am sunat pe ai mei. Simteam nevoia sa impartasesc cu cineva ceea ce se intamplase. Simteam nevoia sa spun cuiva faptul ca ma simt incredibil de fericita, ca simt ca sunt pe drumul cel bun, ca da...ca am ajuns pe drumul pe care trebuia.
Nu am spus nimic colegilor mei despre intalnire, ultimul meu gand era sa ma laud, pur si simplu aveam o mare bucurie in suflet, care nu avea nevoie de "batut toba", era pur si simplu o certitudine personala. Cu toate astea, surpriza mea nu s-a oprit aici. Cynnetta, prietena mea de care vorbeam mai sus, mi-a batut la usa in aceeasi seara, spunandu-mi ca vrea sa vorbeasca ceva important cu mine. Mi-a spus ca a fost sa-l vada pe Suransky pentru ca are probleme cu lucrarea ei finala (am uitat sa precizez ca americanii mei au o mare meteahna - sunt incapabili sa termine o lucrare la timp, cer mereu extensions la deadline-uri si zile in plus, pentru ca - sincer vorbind - nu stiu sa-si gestioneze timpul si sa faca research altfel decat pe wikipedia) si ca Suransky i-a spus ceva cu caracter confidential dar ea nu poate sa nu-mi spuna. M-am uitat la ea, cu o oarecare curiozitate. Nu-mi dadeam seama ce ii putea spune Suransky in mod confidential dar puteam intelege de ce nu putea sa NU imi spuna, Cynnetta e genul de persoana "Ce e-n gusa, si-n capusa...", care spune lucrurile pe fata. "He told me to continue being close to you in the future, cause you're a great person. I shouldn't tell you this, but he told me that he thinks you're the most intelligent in our cohort, because you always look beyond the surface, you go in depth with things. And I agree with him, I should try being more like that too". "Most intelligent in our cohort?", "I agree with him?"? Ok...suntem prietene, dar sa aud asta din gura Cynnettei a fost al doilea soc al meu pe ziua respectiva, pentru ca - asa cum spuneam - americanii sunt ffff orgoliosi.
Asta a fost ultima mea zi in Leiden. Memorabila...cred ca e un cuvant prea mic. A fost ziua in care am primit - desi aproape ca nu mai aveam nevoie - confirmarea ca sunt pe drumul cel bun. Ca, asa cum a spus profesorul meu, "I will make it!". Dar cel mai important lucru este ca ,,I will make it" in domeniul care imi place, in ceea ce ma face fericita. Puteam sa reusesc si in PR, si in afaceri...cu straduinta as fi reusit in orice m-as fi apucat, pt ca sunt o perfectionista si intotdeauna vreau sa am o munca de cea mai inalta calitate. Diferenta este insa, de suflet, de pasiune. E cam ca diferenta dintre o casatorie din dragoste si una de circumstanta. Poate ca amandoua vor merge pana la urma, dar cea din dragoste va avea intotdeauna ceva ce una din complezenta nu va avea - "the sparkles", "the passion". Astea sunt chestii pe care nu le poti falsifica sau mima. Exista sau nu exista. Si ii multumesc Lui Dumnezeu ca sunt atat de norocoasa incat in cazul meu...exista. Si ca mi-am gasit drumul.
In "Sex and the City", Carrie Bradshaw spune la un moment dat ceva legat de relatii. Am avut acel citat o buna bucata de vreme ca "Status" pe fostul meu blog. Si acum simt ca mi se potriveste, nu in domeniul relatiilor ci in legatura cu ceea ce simt acum in legatura cu cariera mea. "Some people settle down. Other settle. And there are some who won't settle for anything less...than butterflies".
Am stiut mereu ca voi fi un "citizen of the world", ca "the world won't ever be enough" :), ca imi doresc sa activez intr-un mediu intercultural. Cand am terminat insa facultatea, nu am avut acel sentiment de "right person, right place, right time", pe care ma asteptam sa il am. Am lucrat in domenii extrem de interesante, am calatorit in toata lumea...si cu toate astea am simtit mereu ca ceva in mine e diferit. Diferit de prietenii mei, de colegii din generatia mea...ca ei isi doreau cu totul altceva decat mine, ca vedeau lumea altfel. O vreme am crezut ca eu sunt cea care vede lumea "gresit", cu niste ochelari roz si cu un idealism mult prea pronuntat. Si poate asa si este. Am invatat insa, de-a lungul drumului, ca nu exista drum "gresit" si drum "corect", exista doar alegeri care ni se potrivesc sau nu.
Acum exact un an de zile, in octombrie 2006, faceam un stagiu la Ministerul Afacerilor Externe si aveam revelatia ca viitorul meu e foarte clar. Ca masteratul in afaceri pe care il incepeam era perfect, ca superjobul meu era exact ceea ce imi trebuia, ca visele mele de a face un masterat undeva in strainatate, de a-mi lua viata in maini si a cunoaste in profunzime alte lumi, alti oameni, alte moduri de gandire...ca toate astea sunt doar iluziile unei fete de 23 de ani cu imaginatie mult prea bogata. Niciodata nu am avut senzatia ca totul e atat de clar si de neclar in acelasi timp mai mult decat in acea luna octombrie. Aveam senzatia ca totul e limpede in fata mea, ca viata mea e oarecum "trasata", dar ma simteam atat de departe de ceea ce imi doream cu adevarat. Privind inapoi, imi dau seama ca m-am amagit multa vreme cu gandul ca asta era ceea ce imi doream. Ca de fapt imi era frica sa ma gandesc la ceea ce imi doresc cu adevarat. Imi era frica de faptul ca, daca mi-as fi dat seama ceea ce imi doresc cu adevarat, ar fi trebuit sa actionez ca sa obtin acel lucru. Ar fi trebuit sa ies din monotonie, sa alung sentimentul de complacere intr-o comoditate pe termen lung, sa obtin ceea ce imi doream. Si, inconstient, imi era frica de asta.
Nu mi-a fost usor sa ajung aici. Si nu, nu o spun ca sa ma laud, ci pentru ca, privind inapoi dupa aproape 3 luni, imi dau seama ca m-am imbarcat in aventura mea europeana cu o doza de entuziasm si una si mai mare de inconstienta. Ca un inotator care se arunca direct in valuri, fara sa calculeze adancimea apei. La momentul respectiv nu mi s-a parut nimic dificil, nu intelegeam de ce prietenii si parintii ma intrebau de cate 10 ori pe zi "Dar esti sigura? Stii ca vei fi singura acolo, printre americani?", ,,Stii ca nu vei avea cu cine sa schimbi o vorba in romaneste macar?", ,,Stii ca ei sunt atat de diferiti de noi?", "Stii ce volum de munca presupune asta?". Da...stiam si stiu. Insa nu mi-a pasat. Nu am putut intelege atunci de ce toata lumea ma batea pe umar si-mi spunea ca am un mare curaj. Nu mi se parea ca e un mare curaj, mi se parea doar ca fac ceea ce trebuia sa fac de multa vreme - imi urmez inima. Acum insa...privind inapoi, le dau un pic dreptate. Privind inapoi, imi dau seama ca am facut un salt fara plasa de siguranta, fara sa ma uit inapoi si fara sa realizez macar dificultatea. Si asta ma incanta si ma surprinde in mod placut. Faptul ca mi-am asumat acest salt si l-am facut sa para firesc, ca entuziasmul meu a facut drumul sa para lipsit de obstacole, desi nu a fost asa.
Inainte sa plec din Leiden, am avut o discutie cu profesorul meu coordonator, Dr.Suransky. Un om extraordinar, un expert in relatii internationale si un mare profesionist. Si dupa conversatia cu el, m-am simtit poate mai mandra decat m-am simtit vreodata pana acum. In ultima mea zi, mi-a trimis un email rugandu-ma sa vin sa-l vad la biroul lui de la facultate, ca sa vorbim despre lucrarea mea finala, "Eastern European Nationalism, between Western Betrayal and Western Bliss"(continutul e la fel de controversat ca si titlul, va asigur :)). M-a surprins faptul ca mi-a spus sa vin fara sa le spun colegilor mei de asta, pentru ca lor nu le-a citit inca lucrarile. Pe moment, m-am intrebat ce are oare de discutat atat de important incat trebuie sa fim doar intre 4 ochi. M-am dus cu o mare curiozitate, stiind ca ii placuse f.mult proiectul meu de Midterm ("A Marxist Perspective on the Latin-American Apartheid") si Reaction Paper-urile mele, ca imi spusese in mai multe randuri ca apreciaza stilul meu critic. De cate ori puneam cate o intrebare mai incomoda la un curs, comenta mereu razand "Great question. Coming from Diana, it had to be a critical one" :).
Am intrat in biroul lui si mi-a spus sa ma asez pe scaun, lucrarea mea fiind pe masa. Reconstitui cu atat de multe detalii pentru ca undeva in mintea mea simt nevoia sa reconstitui momentul pentru a retrai acel sentiment de "right place, right time" despre care vorbeam la inceput. M-a indemnat sa ma uit pe lucrare spunandu-mi ca vom vorbi dupa. Pe ultima pagina din cele 25 erau 3 paragrafe mari scrise cu rosu. M-am uitat la el putin intrebator, nu stiam daca are de gand sa-mi spuna "live" ce scrie acolo sau daca vrea sa citesc chiar eu. "Go ahead, read it...we'll have time to talk later". Am citit si mi s-a pus un nod in gat. "This is a superbly tuned expose, well conceived and developed, considerable research, well rounded and well presented. Excellent work. Your performance in and out of the class have been superior. You are an imaginative and critical thinker, with a fine analytic bent and it's been truly a pleasure to have you in my class. Carry on your way and there will be no stopping for you. Congratulations Diana!"
Sub paragrafe erau 7 casute, cu aprecierile lui finale (Oral Presentations during the class, Participation, Midterm, Reaction Papers etc...), toate cu A. Evident ca nu m-am putut abtine sa nu zambesc si da...mi s-a pus un nod in gat. A fost f.ciudat si emotionant deopotriva sa citesc acele randuri scrise de omul asta pe care l-am simtit mereu atat de zgarcit cu aprecierile si atat de critic. Mi se paruse mereu un profesor dur, nu neaparat prin felul de a fi, cat prin pretentiile lui care erau intotdeauna foarte mari. Colegii mei americani erau tot timpul nemultumiti de faptul ca ne dadea multa munca de facut si ne reamintea mereu cat de important este research-ul. Impunea cel putin 7 surse bibliografice la o lucrare de pana in 10 pagini, in timp ce la cele mai mari impunea minim 14, ceea ce pentru colegii mei americani era de neconceput. Obisnuia sa ne spuna ca "I want you to carry out a RESEARCH. Research does not mean Wikipedia, research means burying yourselves in books!".
Tocmai de asta, cuvintele lui au insemnat atat de mult pentru mine. Au insemnat o confirmare a muncii mele. Stiam ca munca mea e de calitate, stiam ca nu am muncit in van...feedbackul lui insa a fost ca medalia pe care o primeste atletul dupa un maraton. E confirmarea eforturilor lui. Iar asta inseamna enorm. Dupa ce am citit paragrafele, a spus ca vrea pur si simplu sa vorbim, daca am timp. Fireste ca aveam, eram f.curioasa sa stiu despre ce anume vrea sa vorbeasca - despre lucrare, despre criticile mele legate de America, despre munca mea per ansamblu. In schimb mi-a spus ceva f.surprinzator: "I know your work and it's outstanding. But now I want you to tell me something about you...about your background, about your life, I want to know you". I-am spus cate ceva despre mine, despre studiile mele anterioare, despre viata mea in Romania, despre planurile mele de viitor...iar ceea ce m-a impresionat a fost sinceritatea lui fata de mine.
Mi-a spus ca intr-adevar, cand m-a cunoscut, a avut indoieli. O fata din Europa de Est, inconjurata de americani. Isi imagina ca voi fi oarecum stinghera in a-mi exprima opiniile, ca ma voi simti putin "outsider" printre colegii mei. Ca engleza nefiind limba mea materna, nu voi cunoaste tipicurile academice americane in scris. Mi-a spus toate astea cu multa franchete si cu acelasi zambet de bunic blajin (asa mi-l imaginez de fiecare data pe Dr.Suransky, ca un bunic exigent dar si blajin la nevoie), dupa care mi-a spus ca am fost una dintre cele mai mari surprize din cariera lui si ca de asta a vrut sa vorbeasca cu mine. Sa stie de unde vin, care e trecutul meu academic, cum de am ambitia de a face ceea ce fac, ce imi doresc in viitor si...ceea ce m-a facut sa ma simt cel mai mandra in adancul sufletului, cum de scriu cu atata pasiune si cu atata suflet. "Americans don't know how to write, that's the truth", mi-a spus cu un zambet. Nu degeaba colegele mele fusesera trimise in turma la "Writing Center", sa invete cum se scrie o lucrare academica. Da, colegele mele americance. "You, on the other hand, have a superb way of writing"...as fi de-a dreptul ipocrita sa spun ca asta nu m-a magulit. Aproape ca imi venea sa sar in sus de bucurie, si asta pentru ca scrisul a fost mereu viata mea. Ceea ce imi place cel mai mult sa fac, modul meu cel mai placut de a ma exprima. Iar sa aud aprecierile lui...da...a fost un mare ego-booster in cel mai bun sens al cuvantului.
Mi-a spus ca se bucura ca sunt prietena cu fetele din grupa, ca suntem atat de apropiate si...aproape ca m-a bufnit rasul...m-a rugat sa le mai dau sfaturi din cand in cand cu privire la scris. "It has come to my knowledge that the girls give you their papers for you to proof-read them. Cynnetta told me that". Spre surprinderea mea, prietena mea Cynnetta ii spusese ca imi da lucrarile ei sa i le citesc inainte de a le preda si ca ii fac mereu corecturi si ii dau sfaturi cum sa reformuleze. M-a surprins faptul ca o americanca a recunoscut asta, in general sunt f.orgoliosi. "They need help with their work. Don't be fooled by the fact that English is their mother-tongue. Most Americans have problems with writing well and you can really help them better their work". Nu mi-a venit sa cred ca aud asta. Am dat din cap, semi-uluita in sinea mea si am promis ca voi incerca sa le ajut cat pot eu.
Am vorbit apoi de planurile mele de viitor si m-a rugat sa-l tin la curent cu ceea ce voi face, dupa ce i-am povestit ceea ce imi doresc sa realizez in viata. "Let me know when you get there. Cause you'll get there, mark my words". Mi-a strans mana, mi-a urat succes si am plecat din biroul lui cu un sentiment f.straniu de "You're in the twillight zone" :)), ceva de genul ,,Ok...asta s-a intamplat cu adevarat? Sigur? Nu cumva a fost un vis si acum tocmai o sa cad din pat?" :) Am pus mana pe telefon si i-am sunat pe ai mei. Simteam nevoia sa impartasesc cu cineva ceea ce se intamplase. Simteam nevoia sa spun cuiva faptul ca ma simt incredibil de fericita, ca simt ca sunt pe drumul cel bun, ca da...ca am ajuns pe drumul pe care trebuia.
Nu am spus nimic colegilor mei despre intalnire, ultimul meu gand era sa ma laud, pur si simplu aveam o mare bucurie in suflet, care nu avea nevoie de "batut toba", era pur si simplu o certitudine personala. Cu toate astea, surpriza mea nu s-a oprit aici. Cynnetta, prietena mea de care vorbeam mai sus, mi-a batut la usa in aceeasi seara, spunandu-mi ca vrea sa vorbeasca ceva important cu mine. Mi-a spus ca a fost sa-l vada pe Suransky pentru ca are probleme cu lucrarea ei finala (am uitat sa precizez ca americanii mei au o mare meteahna - sunt incapabili sa termine o lucrare la timp, cer mereu extensions la deadline-uri si zile in plus, pentru ca - sincer vorbind - nu stiu sa-si gestioneze timpul si sa faca research altfel decat pe wikipedia) si ca Suransky i-a spus ceva cu caracter confidential dar ea nu poate sa nu-mi spuna. M-am uitat la ea, cu o oarecare curiozitate. Nu-mi dadeam seama ce ii putea spune Suransky in mod confidential dar puteam intelege de ce nu putea sa NU imi spuna, Cynnetta e genul de persoana "Ce e-n gusa, si-n capusa...", care spune lucrurile pe fata. "He told me to continue being close to you in the future, cause you're a great person. I shouldn't tell you this, but he told me that he thinks you're the most intelligent in our cohort, because you always look beyond the surface, you go in depth with things. And I agree with him, I should try being more like that too". "Most intelligent in our cohort?", "I agree with him?"? Ok...suntem prietene, dar sa aud asta din gura Cynnettei a fost al doilea soc al meu pe ziua respectiva, pentru ca - asa cum spuneam - americanii sunt ffff orgoliosi.
Asta a fost ultima mea zi in Leiden. Memorabila...cred ca e un cuvant prea mic. A fost ziua in care am primit - desi aproape ca nu mai aveam nevoie - confirmarea ca sunt pe drumul cel bun. Ca, asa cum a spus profesorul meu, "I will make it!". Dar cel mai important lucru este ca ,,I will make it" in domeniul care imi place, in ceea ce ma face fericita. Puteam sa reusesc si in PR, si in afaceri...cu straduinta as fi reusit in orice m-as fi apucat, pt ca sunt o perfectionista si intotdeauna vreau sa am o munca de cea mai inalta calitate. Diferenta este insa, de suflet, de pasiune. E cam ca diferenta dintre o casatorie din dragoste si una de circumstanta. Poate ca amandoua vor merge pana la urma, dar cea din dragoste va avea intotdeauna ceva ce una din complezenta nu va avea - "the sparkles", "the passion". Astea sunt chestii pe care nu le poti falsifica sau mima. Exista sau nu exista. Si ii multumesc Lui Dumnezeu ca sunt atat de norocoasa incat in cazul meu...exista. Si ca mi-am gasit drumul.
In "Sex and the City", Carrie Bradshaw spune la un moment dat ceva legat de relatii. Am avut acel citat o buna bucata de vreme ca "Status" pe fostul meu blog. Si acum simt ca mi se potriveste, nu in domeniul relatiilor ci in legatura cu ceea ce simt acum in legatura cu cariera mea. "Some people settle down. Other settle. And there are some who won't settle for anything less...than butterflies".
marți, 23 octombrie 2007
History repeating
As the visit to the International Criminal Court was the final one for our professional seminar in the Netherlands, I inherently tried to compare it to the four previous visits, especially to the ones at the other two international tribunals. Looking back and analyzing my expectations at the first visit and comparing them to my present perspective on things, after having been acquainted to all these institutions, I would definitely say that I embarked on this experience with a fairly more naïve approach on international justice.
I somehow expected these institutions that I had heard and read so much about to be the true peace wardens that I had pictured them to be. I might be biased by my inborn intolerance to injustice and impunity, but since we are boasting with leaving in a 21st century society, completely modern and technologically endowed, I had supposed that people were bettering not only the material side but also their social awareness and the relations between them. That after all the wars and man-induced disasters that humanity had to face we had learned our lesson and our keenness of not repeating the same mistakes was stronger. Regrettably, history always seems to be repeating itself.
I can say that I enjoyed the visit to the ICC. It provided the final piece of the puzzle, the one that I needed in order to have a broader view on how international judicial mechanisms work. Of how law is enforced and how relations between states work. I can truly say that, as rewarding as the readings about the ICTY, the ICC or ICJ may be for a person’s basic knowledge; the actual presence at their premises is a totally different and enriching experience.
Even though the answers that we get to some of our questions bear traceable elements of PR, it is still a valuable insight that we couldn’t have obtained otherwise; it is the simple fact of sitting face to face with people who are closer to the mechanisms that make the world as we know it work. That is something that no book or guideline will ever be able to provide.
Going beyond the broadly known information about the ICC and its activity, one of the interesting things that I found about it was related to the new elements that it has brought to international law. Including gender crimes against women on the list of codified crimes which are subjected to investigation and prosecution is a huge step for law, as it comes to fill a void that existed for too much time. As no innovation or brand new idea can succeed without previous opposition, the concept of “gender crimes” encountered serious opposition from the Arab states which are parties to the Rome Treaty. The use of the term “gender” instead of “sex”, because of its more broad meaning which encompasses both biological differences and social ones, was met with disdain by the conservative and patriarchic Arab societies in which the role of women is highly different from Western societies.
I had wondered whether their objections to the use of the term had led to a change or at least the creation of a system of reservations or provisions that would handle the different debatable aspects of the Rome Treaty. However, our fourth speaker cleared my doubts, as it seems that the law was adopted in its original form, which sets a milestone for international criminal law. This is indeed impressive and hopeful for the future of international justice. Just as interesting from the point of view of improving international judicial mechanisms is the fact that victims are represented at international level and, to some extent, they can even lodge appeals. Although cost-engaging, this brings people closer to the law and gives them the chance to voice their opinions in the right way to have them heard.
An interesting and endlessly debatable aspect of the ICC is certainly the reluctance of the United States in signing the Rome Treaty and becoming a state-party. What had shocked me at first, while reading about this issue, was the assertiveness of the US officials in claiming that “having our American citizens, especially the members of the armed forces, indicted and tried by other than American judges would be unacceptable”. On one hand, this would mean undermining the credibility and the impartiality of the Court (even more, after finding out from our speaker that the US has actively contributed to refining some aspects of the Rome Treaty) and on another hand, it would mean setting different standards for countries, according to their levels of power. Roughly, this could be interpreted as selective justice. Big powers get the easy way out and have a chance at deciding their own fate, while smaller ones are compelled to fully comply with the letter of the law.
What astonishes me is how the world’s biggest democracy can serenely make claims regarding the honesty of its people and of the fact that American citizens are unable to commit any crimes, yet fail to accept the jurisdiction of an International Court to the creation of which it had even contributed. The most dangerous thing for international law is this setting of a double-standard in judging people, when justice is supposed to be equally applicable to everyone.
I had been disappointed with the Romanian judicial system, which still has a long way to go until becoming fully unbiased by personal interests and immune to financial incentives. At times, I was outraged with the impunity of people just on terms of their financial or social power, which might be among the reasons that boosted my hopeful feelings regarding these international courts. I was anticipating that international law still had an unprejudiced seam. It seems however that the international environment is merely a large-scale representation of the low-scale injustices that take place everyday in most countries.
From this viewpoint, my overall impression of the ICC is that there is still a high degree of uncertainty floating in the air, partially nourished by the world powers unable to harmonize their interests. “Crime of aggression” is still a vaguely defined concept, due to political aspects and 80% of the communications from people trying to raise awareness regarding committed crimes fall outside jurisdiction because they “lack the gravity threshold that would trigger the court’s jurisdiction”.
I cannot help not thinking if it wouldn’t be preferable to prevent the committing of crimes in their incipient state rather than to desperately try to stop them when they start plaguing the society. How can someone establish a “threshold” for the gravity of the crimes? Do lives of human beings, pain and suffering fall within a measurement scale? And, more importantly, can we really know what is the borderline between “not enough” and “too much” when it comes to people’s lives?
On the train back from The Hague, I tried to reach at least a preliminary conclusion to what I had experienced in these two months with the Professional Seminar visits, to draw a line and sum up my moral victories and defeats, my expectations and my outcomes. I thought to what Dr.Suransky had told us, about the way we could do something to improve the present state of things. The only thing that I can think of is strongly people-related; the only force that we have to change anything for the future resides in people’s consciousness of their mistakes and on the honest desire of not reiterating them. I do believe that we have reached a crossroads in our world history, a moment in which we have to look deep inside ourselves and figure out what is the right path to follow, since the borderline between the good and the bad seems to have become barely noticeable.
Those were my last thoughts, on my way back from The Hague. With my iPod turned on, I couldn’t help not thinking whether I am too idealistic in my wish of doing something to change and better the world. Whether the world really wants to be changed. The only echo that I found for my thoughts was in a song that I deem just as idealistic as my perspective on life, and whose lyrics I wrote below. As I listened to it and watched The Hague drift away, I tried to provide myself with a conclusion that would serve as a closure for the first stage of my experience. I don’t know if I found it; what I know for sure is that I am going to keep hoping and acting for this world’s change for the better, even if I will only be able to induce an infinitesimally small change. It would be still a place to start. And that is the best I can possibly do.
“Gazing through the window at the world outside
Wondering will mother earth survive
Hoping that mankind will stop abusing her, sometime…
After all, there’s only just a few of us
And here we are still fighting for our lives
Watching all of history repeat itself, time after time...”
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