Monthly Archives: April 2015

Closeted in the Congo

Op-Ed

As a Catholic fundamentalist nation, the Democratic Republic of Congo is very conservative, politically speaking. Having grown up a quiet liberal in an overwhelmingly conservative town, I’m pretty good at holding my tongue when I disagree politically with my friends. When I traveled to the Congo the summer before my sophomore year at Wellesley, this skill once again became useful. I wasn’t about to reveal to my new Congolese friends that I’m gay, but even admitting my support of queer rights earned me stricken responses like, “I’ll pray for you,” and “you’ll go to hell.” Nevertheless, I’d have felt disloyal to my values if I’d refrained entirely from advocating for my beliefs, so I found myself on the losing end of many political debates, struggling to stay afloat with my clumsy French. Try as we might, they could not fathom my views, and I could not fathom theirs.

Queerness has been adamantly discouraged in the Congo politically, socially, and historically. Aggressive heteronormativity is even built into the Congolese Constitution—article 40 states that “all individuals have the right to marry a person of their choice of the opposite sex.” It’s nice to let people choose who they marry, I can appreciate that—but true choice doesn’t include stingy stipulations or impose limitations. Biased though I may be, to me sex is sex, love is love, and bodies are bodies. Why criminalize queer existence?

On top of that, anti-LGBTQ* activists have pushed for even more stringent limitations on sexual conduct in the Congo, pressing to penalize homosexuality and zoophilia (because they’re basically the same thing, right?). Proposed bills have included punishments like a fine of 200,000 Congolese francs or up to five years in jail for these “counter-nature acts.” The most recent bill, spearheaded by Steve Mbikayi, a member of parliament, hopes to render both homosexual acts and transgenderism entirely illegal. A recent article published by Think Africa Press explains the details of Mbikayi’s proposed bill: “The proposed penalty for engaging in a homosexual act is 3 to 5 years in prison and a fine of 1 million Congolese francs; while a transgender person would face the same fine and a jail sentence of 3 to 12 years.” What is it that makes queerness such a grave criminal offense?

Mbikayi has an answer to that question: “In relation to our culture,” he says, “homosexuality is an ‘anti-value’ that comes from abroad.” His logic isn’t arbitrary—37 African countries already have sanctions in place concretely banning homosexuality and other queer lifestyles, legislating against the LGBTQ* acceptance supported abroad in order to preserve the religious righteousness of their nations. But, if you ask me, as much as everyone is entitled to their own moral values, no one is entitled to legislate the moral values—or “anti-values”—of others. That’s the central flaw in Mbikayi’s logic: his definition of Congolese culture is all too narrow and not entirely Congolese. Homosexuality is seen as an “anti-value” in the Congo primarily as a result of colonization. With Belgium’s aggressive foray into the Congo in the 1870s came the ideological imposition of Catholicism; today, most Congolese are Catholic fundamentalists and, therefore, not so LGBTQ* friendly.

However, homosexuality is not an inherent “anti-value” according to Congolese tradition. An article on gay life in the Congo relates that “in Africa, [homosexuality] has often been associated with magic and mystical practices.” As reported by a traveler in Kasai, a district in the center of the Congo, in 1977, those on the hunt for diamonds would often visit small groups of homosexuals, as it was purported to bring good luck. So, really, homosexuality is not an anti-value in relation to Congolese culture at all; this borrowed homophobia is, rather, an anti-value to colonialist Belgian culture circa 1870.

Many times since my trip, I have considered the double-edged implications of my silence. I worried that it would be disrespectful to argue with the dominant attitudes of modern Congolese culture, but I also didn’t want to partake in the fearful silencing of queer people in the Congo. In the end, I chose to stay neutral, smiling, silent, not wanting to take on a battle that wasn’t mine to fight. All I can do is support the Congolese LGBTQ* activists already fighting for justice in the Congo. Maybe they’ll begin to win over the Congolese population, and maybe queer Congolese will find a more welcoming home in their own nation. Maybe Mbikayi’s bill won’t pass.

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the editor

Re: “Down and out in upscale Japan” (10/26/14) by Tom Benner:

Benner addresses Japan’s precarious rate of unemployment. However he focuses too much on the economic decline to notice the real problem: the lack of government aid for the homeless. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government survey on the homeless population is incomplete, a poor reflection of recently elected Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe’s strong stance on social welfare issues. Hiroshi Ito cites the government’s investment into job training programs as the key to the decreased recorded population. However, what Ito ignores is that the majority of the homeless population face discrimination in the workplace for being older.

In fact the majority of Japan’s population is 60 and above. In contrast to the situation of the rising middle class, there is no long-term plan in place to provide security for the elderly population, who due to the economic decline may lose their jobs. Instead of pouring money into social security for the elderly, the government focuses on the welfare benefit tied to seikatsu hogo, the livelihood protection law. While the welfare benefit provides shelter, citizens are expected to find a job and leave after 3 months.

In a park in Osaka the number of homeless people has grown so big and self-sufficient that they’ve founded their own association. They put their once-paid skills to use as gardeners and scavengers. It looks more like a homeless commune than a government shelter. This community of blue tarps tied to nearby trees is not a permanent one, but until the government actually steps in, it’ll have to do.

RE: Burying the Hatchet

Letter to the editor

Letter to the Editor – RE: Burying the Hatchet (3/13/15) – Katherine Jordan

Katherine Jordan’s treatment of the issue of comfort women highlights a cardinal rule of politics: Do as much as you can get away with doing. Or – in this case – do as little. By assuming a meager compensation given in 1996 was an adequate apology, the Japanese government has shamelessly shirked its responsibility to the victims of war crimes perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army. Jordan says “identifying and compensating former comfort women” must be the first step, but money is a poor substitute for a true acknowledgement of responsibility. There cannot be a price tag for suffering.

Even if Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were to authorize additional compensation tomorrow, the money would not heal the deep wounds felt by many Asian Pacific Rim communities that suffered from Japanese imperialism. More outrageous than viewing the reparations given in 1996 as sufficient, Abe now seeks to erase the victims’ histories from his country’s textbooks – effectively ending any chance for Japan to face its own history.

Only a sincere expression of atonement can begin to resolve the pain caused by these war crimes. Since its 1996 apology letter – which is not acknowledged by Abe’s administration – the government has inadequately addressed the issue of cultural trauma. Monetary compensation can be an easy step in Japan’s responsibility toward its victims, but that is not a sufficient solution to the problem.

You cannot use money to bury a hatchet, especially not one of this size.

 

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the editor

RE: This is not a study abroad blog post (3/18/2015)

Writing for the audience back home does reinforce the mentality of viewing life abroad from an American perspective, but it’s a symptom, not a cause of this “ ‘traveler’ mentality.” We students are so comfortable in American culture, and we have easy enough access to it even when abroad thanks to the internet, that we lack the desire or impetus to try on another culture for size. Not keeping a blog doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll become part of the local culture.

The issue is that we learn to live as Americans surrounded by a foreign culture instead of assimilating into that culture. When I was in Japan, it was hard enough for me to eat an unfamiliar cuisine, communicate in Japanese and adjust to communal bathing, let alone abandon the comfort of my American self for a new set of cultural values and way of thinking. Culture shock after culture shock wears down our endurance and ability to integrate, and we fall back on our American point of view, regardless of whether we’re keeping a ‘study-a-blog’ or not.

The Last One in Line

Op-Ed

The first time I saw a Lega Nord (“Northern League”) advertisement was in an Italian seminar during my junior year of college. My mother, a southern Italian woman, rarely discusses the politics of her homeland, so I wasn’t very familiar with the right-wing party. Lega Nord is a small northern party whose support has fluctuated since its conception in the 1990s. I later learned that its platform was meant to promote more regional autonomy among Italy’s states. Some even demanded that Northern Italy secede from the rest of the country.

This ideology wasn’t reflected in the actual advertisement, which was literally a line of racist caricatures standing in front of a closed door. The first was an East Asian man with buck teeth. The next was a weary Roma woman (the politically correct term for what many know as gypsies) with a kerchief on her head. She is followed by an African man with massive lips dressed in a purple tunic. Finally, a bearded Arab man dressed in white carrying a curved sword is at the end, and he pushes an elderly white Italian man behind him. The headline above their heads reads, “Indovina chi è l’ultimo? [Guess who’s the last one?]”

It’s a ridiculous ad, one that is clearly playing on the fear of foreigners taking jobs, and the racism within it was so over the top that a viewer could easily wonder if it was fake (it wasn’t). That ad and the mentality surrounding it truly captures Italians’ peculiar views on race. Italians are very capable of being racist, just like anybody else. But their brand of racism is inextricably tied up with nationality and fear of a changing Italy.

Part of the reason that the ad was so surprising to me was the fact that the experience my father had in Italy was so different. My dad, who is a black American, described Italy as the first place where he felt comfortable in his own skin. It was the first place where he wasn’t followed around in stores, and he still recounts the story of an old woman who left him alone in her shop. He ends with, “I just couldn’t believe it. That had never happened to me before.”

However, this is because it doesn’t have to do with blackness, or at least not entirely. Italians don’t have the same racial history as Americans. They don’t have the same hang-ups or stereotypes because their history evolved differently. Italians don’t follow black people around stores because they never learned to be wary of black people.

That doesn’t mean that they aren’t suspicion of Africans though, and that is the key distinction. For Italians, black people from the States are cool because they’re American. If you examine the Lega Nord advertisement, the point isn’t that the person is black, even though the artist took great care to capitalize on certain African features to make a point. The viewer is meant to look at the tunic and realize that he is African and hate him for the fact that he is African, not because he is black. In other words, if a shopkeeper is following around a black person in a store, it’s not because he’s black, but because he’s African and therefore “foreign.”

Many Italians view foreigners with a great deal of suspicion, and a lot of this fear has to do with cultural and lifestyle changes due to modernization. Before the 60s, Italians had been more divided by region because fewer people had cars and reliable transportation to travel. More women stayed at home as housewives while men went out to work, and the country was largely divided along the lines of Catholics and communists. In short, Italian society had distinct divisions in place that Italians could easily adhere to. But after the 1960s, more Italians had cars, women gained more independence and education, regional dialects began to die out, and the country imported much of its culture from the States. As regionalism gave way to nationalism, Italy started to look an awful lot like the U.S. and eventually the question arose of what exactly it meant to be Italian.

Naturally, the problem with that question is that it’s nearly impossible to answer. On the other hand, immigrants provide an easy answer of what an Italian is not simply due to their place of birth. The wild caricatures that Italians associate with immigrants serve as convenient examples of what it means to not be Italian. An Italian doesn’t wear tunics. An Italian isn’t black. An Italian doesn’t wear turbans. Certain features are a convenient way to decide what an Italian is not, and the conclusion that many Italians have come to is that an Italian is is white and Catholic.

That definition is narrow-minded and harmful for the future of Italy. In order for this issue to be addressed, Italians need to start focusing on the more complicated question of what an Italian is in the modern era. Immigrants to Italy have shown us that Italians can be Muslim, can be black, can be Asian. But it’s time for Italians to recognize this new diversity and start to focus on what it actually means to be Italian. History has shown us that Italians can be poetic, revolutionary, ambitious, and deeply patriotic. There’s a rich and beautiful history to be written once the country lets new Italians become a part of it.

Let’s Learn to Argue

Op-Ed

What would you say to someone with whom you disagree?

Here is what Chinese netizens said:

“Shameless rat!”

“Shut your dirty mouth!”

“You are no expert on this. You’re only a dumbass!”

“Your talk is as disgusting as your looks!”

“Go to hell!”

“Bullshit!”

“You think you are an expert? F*** all you experts!”

Why they became so angry is a long story.

A month ago, the former Chinese TV reporter Chai Jing released Under the Dome, an independent documentary on the inconvenient truth of China’s devastating pollution. The documentary went viral on the Internet and sparked heated conversations about environmental protection across the country.

A response by Wan Zhanxiang to Chai’s documentary also went viral. Wan is a senior engineer and administrator of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), a state-owned enterprise that the documentary identifies as one of the major contributors to the pollution. Wan attempts to refute many of Chai’s arguments. He claims that low-quality fuel produced by CNPC isn’t a major cause of pollution and that, without CNPC’s monopoly of the oil market, the quality of fuel will only drop. He concludes that “there aren’t many good points” in the documentary, perhaps because Chai “does not have enough brain power, or she doesn’t have enough knowledge or insights”.

Wan’s article was met with angry comments from Chinese Internet users who have rallied to Chai’s defense. Only one or two comments, out of the hundreds, actually use statistics or pertinent arguments to refute Wan’s points. Even on the censored websites that have probably deleted the most extreme comments, most pages are filled with angry squawks.

Whether or not Wan’s arguments make sense is a separate issue, but even if his arguments are ridiculous, irrational personal attacks are an even more ridiculous means of response. Chinese netizens should steer away from blind mob attacks and learn to think critically and argue in a rational way.

There are good reasons for being angry about Wan’s criticism of the documentary. Although he states that the article represents only his personal opinion, it is quite obvious that he is the unofficial mouthpiece of CNPC and the government, since his article was immediately circulated by all major news outlets. Naturally, his opinion reflects a strong bias, and with the powerful institutions as his backstage supporter, Wan sounds arrogant throughout the article by constantly using !! and ?? and calling Chai immature, which irritated a large number of her fans. To add fuel to the fire, the government decided to take down the documentary from the Internet. Many see this act as a reflection of the government’s reluctance to take serious measures against pollution and one more attempt to deprive the public of their right to information. And here came Wan saying that it is just a mediocre documentary without much value. No wonder he became the target of attacks.

But just because the crowd’s anger is justified, doesn’t mean that anger will contribute to the conversation in any way. If the point is to condemn Wan for trying to obfuscate the issues and lead public opinion astray, the best thing to do is examine his arguments, pinpoint the flaws in his logic, and present solid statistics to prove him wrong. Verbal abuse, in however large quantity, from ten thousand people, or even ten million people, does not do any of these. Some commenters also took the occasion to vent their anger at the government for trying to shut down the discussion by deleting the documentary. They didn’t realize that these curses and insults will only close off the conversation more tightly. Even worse, it completely betrays the purpose of Chai’s search for a comprehensive and scientific explanation of the pollution. As a work of investigative journalism, the documentary is not immune to errors or oversights. Only when these faults are spotted can the documentary maximize its accuracy and value. Consecrating the documentary and denouncing any criticism as if it were blasphemy does not do credit to the film or the filmmaker. It only denies Chai and the public opportunities to understand more about the pollution in China.

This is not an isolated case of mob attacks. They are rampant on Chinese websites and social media. Of course, to call this a Chinese phenomenon is overestimating the originality of the Chinese, although many are very good at turning all debates, intellectual or not, into verbal fights. It can at least partially be attributed to an endemic lack of critical thinking in education as well as in the society. Parents, schools, and other forms of authority dictate what is right or wrong, and children are never encouraged to challenge popular opinion. Most Chinese people don’t learn that truth only emerges as a result of constant debates. Nor are many aware that different opinions can coexist at the same time.

What’s worse, the Chinese tend to link a person’s beliefs directly to his or her moral standing. To have a dissenting opinion often leads to evaluations of one’s character as uninformed or unwise at best, unscrupulous at worst. Many Chinese people believe that whatever they deem to be correct is the absolute truth and that anyone who attempts to question that truth is to be shouted down or punished. Therefore, when a belief is challenged, the immediate reaction is not to argue back with logic or evidence, but to get angry. This mentality penetrates all levels of discourse. At home, in public, on the Internet, from pro-government rallies to anti-government sentiments, anything can be turned into a shouting match.

Should Chinese netizens refrain from getting angry then? Of course not. No human is completely rational, and societies wouldn’t evolve if humans weren’t driven by indignation, pride, and the desire to press for change. But there is a difference between being motivated by passion to accomplish things in a rational way and letting passion override the rational mind. Chai Jing did a praise-worthy job pursuing the former. It is now up to the netizens to crawl out of the abyss of irrationality and learn to argue.

Cooperation Not Co-optation – Why Valls’s Proposal Against Radicalism Will Fail

Op-Ed

France’s Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, appears in gossip rags almost as much as he does in serious political newspapers. After all, he is the young, upcoming star of the Socialist Party. However, his new plan for the education of imams – the religious leaders of Islamic congregations – is anything but progressive or innovative.

On March 2nd, Valls spoke at the University of Strasbourg about radicalism and secularism. He highlighted his continued concerns regarding these topics, “The rise of radical Islam and the rise of the extreme right” are “two major dangers [to France] that feed off one another.” In particular, he championed an education plan for imams as a solution to France’s burgeoning problem with radicalism. This program includes an assurance of increased dialogue between the Muslim community and the French government. However, the focus of the proposal is a curriculum for imams on the subject of French secularism, laïcité. In other words, the government is seeking to have an active hand in directing the religious doctrine of Islam in France.

Despite Valls’s best efforts to address radicalism, his “solution” will be ineffective and dangerous. This proposal is another step toward the increasing contamination of French laïcité policies by xenophobia. Given the January attacks in Paris, the definite and government-imposed training of imams will become another point of strife within the already tense population. His plan will motivate the very thing that Valls wishes to remedy – radicalism.

The resurgence of extremism in French society can be traced to pervasive xenophobia and the isolation of “foreign” cultures. This is not the first time that France has enacted laws to further the ideal of laïcité. In 2004, the government banned ostentatious religious symbols, such as hijabs or kippahs, in public schools. For some, this prevented religion from entering their child’s education. For many, this law further quarantined sub-cultures and intensified their desire to express their heritage freely. A growing population of young Muslims, many of whom are second-generation immigrants, have started to wear headscarves as a response to the restrictions. Hijabs are now a symbol of cultural expression in a country that tries so hard to suppress it. In its essence, fundamentalism reflects a longing to return to the literal interpretation – the roots – of a belief. Valls forgets that past laws, which limited religious expression, have actually given rise to more extreme schools of thought and practice. Instead of perpetuating the mistakes of the past, Valls should try to remedy them. Valls’s proposal will do nothing to ameliorate the situation, but will only further alienate the growing Muslim population.

Forced assimilation discourages collaborative tolerance.

That isn’t to say that secularism isn’t a worthy goal. At its core, separation of church and state is a noble pursuit, and one that is essential for effective democracy. Originally, laïcité was intended to counteract the dominance of Catholicism. Laïcité laws, mostly addressing public education, had protected freedom of thought from Catholic indoctrination.

Unfortunately, over the past fifteen years, xenophobia has distorted this ideal of secularism. Now, laws overtly favor the native French culture, which has pervasive Catholic roots. For instance, the Christian cross is exempt from the ban on religious symbols in public schools. When secularism is used to counter the dominant religious ethos, it promotes intellectual freedom. The minority perspective is heard and welcomed into the educational dialogue. However, when it is used to silence the minority, it becomes a tool for repression.

Instead of using laïcité to avoid addressing the real issues of an increasingly diverse France, Valls should take this opportunity to address France’s evolving culture. Islam and other sub-cultures are becoming as true to the French identity as baguettes or stinky fromage. A real solution to radicalism would challenge the entrenched notions of Frenchness. Valls’s current plan is symptomatic of the xenophobia that is polluting French policy. This plan reinforces the idea that minority cultures should be quashed and silenced. If Valls does not address France’s present diversity in an open dialogue, the intersection of xenophobia and secularism will ultimately result in a reckoning between France’s dominant and minority cultures. In 2004, the harassment directed at women in head coverings skyrocketed after the ban on hijabs had been enacted. No doubt, if Valls’s plan is enforced, further acts of Islamophobia will follow. Rather than targeting imams and the Muslim population in his ineffective proposal, Valls should seek a substantial cooperation – not co-optation.