Monthly Archives: May 2019

Binaries for a Single Gender: A Review of “Women Without Men”

Movie Review: "Women Without Men"

The film Women Without Men, directed by Shirin Neshat, is set in Tehran in 1953 during a coup to bring the leader of Iran back to power.  Amid a tastefully mellow colorscape and rich cultural and organic sounds, the film follows the lives of four women during this time and reveals the effects of political unrest on their social lives.  

 

Munis:

Munis is the sister of Amir Khan.  At the start of the film, she rejects her brother’s desire for her to get married, instead choosing to closely follow the political crisis on the radio.  When he threatens to break her legs if she leaves the house, Munis jumps off of the top of a building, killing herself. Through cinematic magical realism, Neshat follows a theoretical plotline in which Munis rises from the dead and escapes her brother’s house to join the resistors.

 

Fakhri:

Fakhri, the wife of a military general, initially appears to be the most socially and financially stable of the four women.  This soon changes when her husband witnesses her admiration for an old flame, and grows jealous. He tells her that it is a woman’s job to satisfy her husband, and if she cannot, he will find a new wife.  With that, Fakhri leaves her husband and buys a house in the forest.

 

Zarin:

A prostitute whose  situation is never explicitly explained,  Zarin’s background is hinted at through her crying as a woman yells at her to prepare for a customer, as well as the image of her emaciated body in a bathhouse. She is not entirely complicit in her situation, possibly as a result of financial need.  In a final session with a customer, Zarin has a breakdown and flees the house. She is seen floating in a stream near Fakhri’s new home and Fakhri finds her, brings her home, and nurses her back to health.

 

Faezeh:

A friend of Munis’s and the more culturally traditional of the pair, Faezeh wishes to get married, especially to Munis’s brother.  Faezeh was the one to dig Munis from the ground after Amir Khan buries her, and she follows her to a coffee shop. At the coffee shop, she catches the eye of two men, who follow and rape her.  She enters a state of mental distress, and Munis takes her to Fakhri’s house, where she is taken care of and reimagines her identity and the concept of purity that she had been clinging to.

 

Completing the narratives of the four women, Women Without Men is framed in a series of conspicuous dichotomies.  The juxtapositions of two opposing concepts make apparent what Neshat is saying about each individual concept.  For example, the first and most explicit dichotomy that is introduced in the film is the binary of silence and noise.  The film opens with the sound of a horn that plays throughout. As Munis is descending through the air, she talks openly in a voiceover about how this is a leap towards silence. By beginning the film with this explicit dichotomy, Neshat prepares us to listen for sound and its absence throughout the rest of the film.  In high-energy moments of celebration or distress, there is loud clamor and music. In times of letting go, character development, women coming into themselves, and the death of self, the film has only silence or organic noises, such as the sound of a stream gurgling.

A less explicit but similarly crucial dichotomy in the film is the one between innocence and maturity.  This is most apparent in the coupling of Munis and Faezeh. Faezeh’s innocence comes at the price of naivety–she idolizes the concept of virginity, criticizing Amir Khan’s new wife for her reputation for sleeping with men, but has no grasp on what it means, suggesting that a woman’s “hole” simply grows wider after she is married– and vulnerability.  After her trauma, Faezeh chooses to opt into Munis’s more agential lifestyle. As part of this transformation, she stops wearing her head covering. When this is drawn to the viewers’ attention by Amir Khan, who asks her to be his wife, with his first wife as her servant, she reacts disdainfully. Unlike at the start of the film, she is unwilling to dismiss his character flaws, and prioritizes her own wellbeing in their relationship.  There are downsides to the maturation of the two women, though– they are both shunned by men in their phallocentric society, especially Amir Khan, and must struggle to realize their own identities and support themselves.

Additionally, there is a pairing of the urban and the organic.  The stream and Fakhri’s home are symbols of the mythical organic in the film.  When the women leave the urban, they leave men, and they are able to fully realize the power in their femininity by creating their own culture in which they can thrive.  Only Munis stays in the urban in the film, and the strength of her character lies in the similarities between her personality and the personalities of men of the film.

The setting of dichotomies may seem simple, but in fact, it is a meaningful decision.  By showing noise without sound, maturity without innocence, and organic without urban, Neshat gives the viewer no room for misinterpretation of her view of what a world of women without men would be– an oasis for healing and realizing the fullness of the feminine self.

Is College Ready for Me?

Op-Ed

Why does college readiness inevitably  refer to the students’ readiness to grapple with systems that are insufficient to support them? It  should refer instead to the readiness of a college to be held accountable for the success of students to whom it has marketed itself as a supportive and safe environment. In the past few years, Wellesley has made an effort to support POC, low-income, and first generation students. At their core though, all of these efforts place a large burden on the students themselves to spend the time, effort, and energy to find help in navigating academia. But don’t worry—administrators will serve you cake to celebrate diversity and visibility.

The problem with most of the efforts to promote diversity at Wellesley is that they are focused on mentorship.  I’m all for mentorship as a component to a robust effort to bring about inclusion, but on its own, it’s only a band aid solution, and a taxing one at that.

I’m told to find a mentor who understands my experiences.  So I go to my Latina mentor. Then I go to my gay mentor. And my physics mentor.  My mentor who was a first-generation college student. One who grew up low income. The one who descended from immigrants. There aren’t enough hours in a day to go to every mentor I need to fully realize the complexity of my identity and cobble together some sort of strategy for propelling me through a system that was fundamentally not designed to enable  a person like me to succeed. Of course I’m grateful for all of my mentors and everything they do for me, but after spending so many hours getting mentored and designing a strategy, I’m exhausted. Except that it’s not time to be exhausted– it’s time for me to put forth my best effort to execute the strategy. And even then, there’s a huge chance that that strategy won’t work.  It’s not a well-trodden path so we’re shooting in the dark.

Mentor me all you want, the system’s still screwed.

Mentorship has taught me how to file a Title IX complaint when I’m facing harassment from my professors.  But mentorship doesn’t teach the professors not to harass me. Mentorship has taught me how to respond to a professor who refuses to believe when I say I’m sick. But mentorship doesn’t teach professors not to treat me like a serial liar. Mentorship has taught me to fight and fight to prove wrong the people who don’t believe that I’m capable of succeeding.  But the fighting is tiring, especially when the people who are supposed to be on my side are actively undercutting me behind my back.

Of course, there are professors who try support me, but they’re so far outside my experience that making their support effective requires training on their part.  The way academia is set up though, jobs are highly competitive. For a professor who has not yet received tenure, taking time off from research to participate in inclusivity trainings can negatively affect a career. And for a professor who has received tenure, there are virtually no repercussions for being problematic toward students no matter how many complaints are made.

To the administrators: as for the cake, shove it up your ass. Congrats on “seeing and hearing” POC, low income, and first generation students, I guess?  Congrats on “seeing and hearing” the struggles while doing very little about it. Congrats, but until I see equitable treatment of all students, I’ll go ahead and assume this means you acknowledge the struggles, but you don’t care enough to effect any real change.

I’m calling for college readiness, and by that I mean the college’s readiness to deal with the type of students it has never had to consider before.  Train all of your professors, not just ones who express interest.  Critically examine your practices to see who isn’t benefiting and why.  Engage with the problem instead of just hiring a few diversity representatives to engage for you.  To hell with “that’s the way academia has always been.” If you’re looking for a change in the people represented in your system, you have to change the system to accommodate those people.  That’s not negotiable.

Sara ElHassan, Revolution and the in-between.

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Illustration of Sara ElHassan by Jordan Andrew Carter

If you follow Sara ElHassan on twitter be prepared for some sharp social and political commentary, complete with a little bit of sarcasm and zero tolerance for bullshit. Meeting Sara in person was actually not very different. She speaks with the rhythm of a spoken-word poet; Spelling out hard-hitting truths and filling every syllable with passion, she articulates her hopes for her country with insistence, and expresses her desire for the freedom of her people with urgency—a people that have risen once again in a revolution against years of oppression and dictatorship.

While I could easily imagine her as the loud protester at the front of the march, her determined rallying cry rippling through the crowds, the contributions Sara has made to the current revolt have actually come through the power of her writing—and from thousands of miles away, too.

As a freelance writer, blogger, poet and editor, she has always written about Sudanese social and political issues, publishing her work on her own blog, but also for publications with a wider reach like CNN and OkayAfrica. One of her more recent pieces on the art fueling the Sudanese revolution, a series of uprisings that have persisted since last December, reflects her commitment to strengthening the role of art as a catalyst for social change. She has held her belief in art as a revolutionary tool since moving back to Sudan after college and recognizing just how much passion and talent is waiting to be unleashed in her home country.

In 2012, together with several of her friends and collaborators, Sara started a monthly event series and literary club called Nas with Notepads in Khartoum that brought together aspiring writers and poets to engage in writing workshops, collaborative work and performance. The events were usually private and would be publicized through a mailing list. But after gaining a lot of traction and attracting 4000 participants, Nas with Notepads held their first public event as part of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. The event was a great success, but as soon as the first Arabic poem was read, the authorities shut it down. Eventually they had to stop holding events all together. 

Sara knew the power of literary art in influencing and educating. But until the current political movement began, putting into motion a wave of talent and energy in art that spread quickly and drove people to take to the streets, she had never understood that visual and graphic art could fuel change in her country to the same degree as writing. She hopes that by sharing this art on her social media, by writing about it and publicizing it, she can help fuel the revolution and reach people in a way that her alone words can’t and in the long run, she hopes to help create the environment for Sudanese artists to have the support they need.

I first met Sara when my student association invited her to give a talk at Wellesley based on a professor’s recommendation. Her talk was focused on gender, media and art of the Sudan Uprisings and it was completely different from any lecture or talk I had attended at the college in the past. Not only were we hearing from a highly sympathetic young person about a powerful political movement that had just ousted a long-standing dictator, but her perspective turned out to be very unique. Sara was born in the US, but lived in Sudan for many stretches of her life and since 2017 has been based in Arizona.

As a Sudanese-American she feels she is always in between—not Sudanese enough for the Sudanese, not American enough for the Americans. And it is from this vantage point that Sara writes about the issues of her country. “I am fortunate enough to have an outsiders perspective and be more critical but at the same time I have a very deep understanding of Sudanese culture. So my analysis is not lacking context.”, she explains. Though her in-betweenness comes with a set of challenges, she is grateful for the role she is able to play in amplifying people’s voices and putting the international spotlight on Sudan. She does it not only to fight stereotypes about Sudan, Africa and post-colonial countries in general, but also because an international eye on a local issue is a method of protecting those vulnerable to the brutality of dictators.

Sara ElHassan feels passionately about her people’s freedom and the important role that art and advocacy can play in making change. Her dream is for Sudan to have a civilian government that cares about its people and gives them the chances and opportunities they deserve in life.

Out in the Field: A Chat with Garmalia Mentor William

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“He-hello? Can you hear me?”

“Uh…yes. Are you there? Yes.”

After many hellos over the crackle of a poor connection, I come face-to-pixelated-face with Garmalia Mentor. The smiling Mentor sits in a parked car in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, as that is where her internet connection is the best.

A medical doctor graduated from the Escuela LatinoAmericana de Medicina in Cuba, with a Master’s degree in Public Administration in Emergency and Disaster Management from the Metropolitan College of New York, Garmalia has many years of schooling under her belt.

Her path has not been a linear one, and it has largely been driven by her overwhelming compassion for her community. Born and raised in Haiti, Mentor earned a scholarship to study medicine in Cuba. After six years of studying to become a doctor in a foreign language, she returned to Haiti and began working with the Ministry of Health. She remained in that post until 2010, a year when the lives of many Haitians were indelibly changed.

The earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, causing an estimated death toll of over 200,000, was devastating. It awakened in Garmalia, a desire to change the scope of her impact. She no longer wanted to work one-on-one with individual patients, but to reach entire communities.

She now works primarily on disaster preparedness, making communities aware of seismic risk, tsunami risk, and other hazards. She places a heavy emphasis on training representatives of the civil society, from women’s organizations, to social and economic organizations, to representatives of the media. Her approach is participative and inclusive, prioritizing institutional memory and inter-generational education. She acknowledges that public health, her original field, is still poorly served in Haiti. Her calling, however, is undoubtedly in the area of disaster preparedness and community training.

Garmalia is currently serving as a representative of GeoHazards International, a nongovernmental organization that aims to be “on the ground before disasters, helping communities prepare.” They strive to reach the most vulnerable communities, and prepare them for those disasters whose damage cannot be avoided, but whose impact can be mitigated through education, preparation, and awareness.

Through her work with GeoHazards International, Garmalia has thoughtfully tailored her outreach to the communities with which she works.

“Usually, projects are not conceived or designed in Haiti. This is the only concern I have. It’s nice, thinking about [developing] countries, and helping people, but it’s hard to know the real needs of a population without knowing them, without visiting the country. But, unfortunately, this is how projects, usually, are designed. People [elsewhere] read about the needs in Haiti and they just make a proposal. Once you’re working for [this kind of] organization you’re supposed to implement this project the way it is.” Garmalia adds that the difference with GeoHazards International is that the organization allows and encourages her to work in a more effective manner. This particular NGO has given her the opportunity and resources to tailor her outreach to the communities she knows well.

Garmalia believes in adaptability and in tailoring projects as thoughtfully as possible. She thinks that this is the best approach for communities in Haiti, and she raised this concern with her supervisors. “I’m the only one based in Haiti, and I’m the only one who knows the situation…so I tried to create some flexibility before implementing the project.” [Edit to add (23-sept-2019): Since our interview, Garmalia has been joined by other staff members in Haiti.] 

There are other organizations like GeoHazards International whose work involves similar disaster preparedness instruction. Garmalia’s approach is customized for each classroom, each church, each workplace that she enters. She teaches children to go home and teach family members who would not otherwise be reached. She believes in spending the time getting to know the community in order to foster long-term growth.

Garmalia’s passion is palpable. She has pushed herself beyond her comfort zone, fueled by a desire to reach as many people as possible. She has spoken on the radio, beginning to realize her dream of reaching whole communities and creating positive change. This mission of hers is also personal. As our video-call is dropped and I ring her once more to say goodbye, I recall what Garmalia said to me about her connection to Haitian communities compared to that of her colleagues who do outreach in other countries: “I’m based here. I’m just as vulnerable as the population. I’m vulnerable too.” Sometimes, advocating for a community means immersing yourself, being in the thick of it, and creating new and sustainable ways to overcome adversity. Garmalia Mentor is a magnificent example of what you can do to leave a community better off than you found it.

Honest Stories: An Interview With Melissa Li

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If I had to choose one word to describe Melissa Li, it would be honest.  In spite of significant success in her career, when asked if it is what she would have chosen for herself she doesn’t hesitate to let me know that it absolutely isn’t. With wry humor, she tells of how as a child she felt forced into music, and how when she gained her independence she wanted to distance herself from it as much as possible. Oh, how things have changed.  I suppose when you have as much talent as Melissa, music finds you whether you like it or not. Melissa’s current career is focused on writing musicals. Most notably, Melissa wrote the music for the musical Interstate as well as contributing to the book and lyrics in collaboration with Kit Yan.  Interstate premiered at the 2018 New York Musical Festival, where it was nominated for the awards “Outstanding Musical” and “Best Music,”  and won “Outstanding Lyrics” and “Special Citation: Representation and Inclusion.”

Why has Interstate racked up so much success? Because the real beauty in Melissa’s unapologetic honesty is not her willingness to share facts about her life; rather, it is how her dedication to the truth informs her storytelling.  Interstate follows the story of Henry, a South Asian transgender boy.  Henry takes comfort in the work of the other two protagonists of the show, the transgender man Dash and the lesbian Adrian, artists who are embarking on their first national tour.  When choosing what stories to tell, Melissa prioritizes choosing only narratives she can tell with honesty. The character Adrian is based on herself, and Dash is based on her partner Kit, a transgender man, who carefully reviewed Dash and Henry’s narratives for emotional accuracy.  That’s what makes Interstate so robust– it embodies the stories of real people and the way that those real people see their own stories and emotions.  Melissa explained to me that if she wanted to tell a story that were not her own, she either wouldn’t or would do it to assist someone else who was working to tell their own story.  Ultimately, she doesn’t feel like other people’s stories are hers to decide to tell.

Furthermore, she chooses to tell more diverse and uplifting narratives of queer people of color than the tragedies we typically see in mainstream media.  Melissa hopes that underrepresented people will not only see themselves in her work, but also that they come away feeling hopeful and supported. Even if that means passing up opportunities for her own career.  In our talk, Melissa shared with me that she and Kit were recently approached with an offer to produce Interstate commercially.  There was one condition though– they would have to cut Henry’s support system from the plotline.  Here, Melissa admitted to me what a difficult decision this proved to be. Commercial production, after all, would take away the stress of fundraising faced by independent artists, and would make her work widely available to general public.  Ultimately, she and Kit declined the offer. In spite of all the benefits it would provide, they could not justify adding Interstate, a work already cherished by many as an uplifting creative gesture, to the ever-growing list of work that casts queer people of color as lonely, afraid and sad.

Selfless and honest, Melissa is part of a new generation of artists.  She is working to create a space at the table for people who have traditionally been underrepresented in the whitewashed arts.  She seeks to tell traditional Broadway-style stories, the only difference between those stories and the ones she tells being the types of people she chooses to represent.  Her work is not what she considers radical. Still, she’s making waves in the world of theater, and honestly, it means a lot to people.

Op-Ed: Resisting the Couch Party.

Op-Ed

The president of Egypt can now legally stay in power for 11 more years. But rest assured, he will not be in office forever, because “there’s no such thing as ruling for eternity.” According to President Abdel Fattah ElSisi. “We all die at some point.”

On the 23rd of April 2019, Egypt passed the most dangerous constitutional referendum in its history with an alleged 88.8% of voters saying YES to the proposed changes. Admittedly, it’s a slightly more creative percentage than the presidential elections of last year, which ElSisi won by 97%, after jailing all but one of his opponents.

Faced with a sham referendum that, among other changes, extends the presidential term until 2030, some Egyptian government-opposers decided to go vote No, despite the predictable result. By doing so, they hold on to a fleeting sense of hope and raise a voice of dissent against the regime, albeit a muffled one.

Photo of government posters in Tahrir Square. Cairo, April 2019. [MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/Getty Images]

No one, of course, was surprised by the April results. In fact, we Egyptians have grown accustomed to these types of elections, complete with DJs and government-commissioned music videos accompanied by dancing supporters in matching T-shirts. Not to mention subsidy boxes exploiting the poor and buying their vote in exchange for two packets of flour and a month’s supply of cooking oil. In the past, people in the opposition have called for a boycott of elections in an effort to expose the illegitimacy of the vote and to refuse to participate in what many want the world to know is simply a travesty of democracy,  staged by a dictatorial military regime.

What was interesting this time around is the online movement by regime-opposers to actively participate in the referendum and vote No, rather than the usual boycott. For days – and it was only days between the announcement of the amendments and the start of voting – my social media feeds were filled by friends in the opposition debating about the vote, asking themselves and each other the common question: “What’s the point?”. The tired and the cynical made fun of those supporting the movement to vote No and popularizing the hashtag #انزل_قول_لأ (Go say no); The latter responded with impassioned posts about our country’s future and our people’s lost revolution.

When the revolution erupted in January of 2011, I was only 14 years old. Politics were not really a topic of discussion in our house, but I knew my parents didn’t like then-president Mubarak. As an Egyptian, self-censorship is a skill passed down to you at an early age out of fear of the reach of the police state. In fact, I remember one of my first lessons. One day in primary school I was singing a jingle from a famous advertisement while walking home with my father. The song was for the popular cheese product La Vache qui rit, The Laughing Cow. And to my father’s surprise, I turned to him and asked loudly “Why do we call Mubarak the laughing cow!?” … Unknowingly, I was referring to a derogatory caricaturization of Mubarak, a tacit form of humorist resistance, commonly used as a tool of popular dissent. At the time, I was not old enough to be let in on the joke, but this was the day my father explained to me what a plain-clothed informant is and why we don’t talk about politics in public. Or at all.  

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The Laughing Cow cheese logo. PC: Getty Images / La Vache Qui Rit Arabia

My parents’ generation is one that experienced an era of disillusionment and political disengagement, brought about by the military’s dominance of the political process since 1952. A period that gave rise to what is now known as the “Couch Party”, a term coined during the revolution to refer to the silent majority of politically detached Egyptians, whose participation in public life does not extend beyond the couches of their homes. Many in the Vote No campaign this year warned that boycotting the referendum would be a return to the same political stalemate; A return to the proverbial couch.

The 2011 revolution broke through a barrier of fear and political paralysis. When millions of Egyptians took to the streets and ousted Mubarak, not only did politics become a topic of discussion in every household, but the people actually saw themselves as participants in the political process, agents for change after years of oppression, suffering and inequality.

That sense of agency was short-lived. When people mobilized again in 2013 to protest the Muslim Brotherhood’s push for more power, their movement was hijacked by a military coup, masked as a response to popular demand. Today, many call the the series of 2011 uprisings, dubbed the Arab Spring, failed revolutions. Apart from Tunisia, all the countries that saw massive protests in 2011, today are far from meeting any of the revolutionaries’ demands, the removal of the president simply being the tip of the iceberg in most of these cases. Just to name a few, Yemen is entangled in an ugly proxy war, Libya has become a failed state, Syria is committing war crimes against its own people in its torture facilities, and Egypt has made a full circle back to brutal military dictatorship.

ElSisi’s is the most oppressive and relentless regime Egypt has ever seen. Since his rise to power in 2014, we have witnessed countless executions without due process, waves of forced disappearances, detention of young people and activists, and torture, which as in the case of Giulio Regeni, an Italian graduate student researching labor rights, can end in murder. Most recently, we were traumatized by the images of people burning to death after a railway accident in Cairo’s main station which exposed the level of neglect to which the regime has allowed the basic infrastructure to descend. Repairs to the railway were proposed last year, but in a televised conference the president brushed off the proposals claiming they were not worth the investment.

Indeed, in ElSisi’s Egypt, human lives are not worth the investment and human rights have no place. Neither does the rule of law. The constitutional amendments extend presidential term duration to six years and allow for two consecutive terms. The changes will be applied retroactively to the president’s current term, extending it until 2024, but they also disregard the president’s first term that ended in 2018, making it possible for him to stay in power until 2030… or until the next referendum. The amendments also extend presidential powers over the judiciary and make the military in charge of “protecting democracy”. The final text was never made available to voters and was not posted at voting stations.

In the few days between the announcements of the referendum and the window to vote while abroad, I tried to arrange a trip to NYC in order to vote, but it was impossible at such short notice. I had spent the entire week arguing online as I made up my decision about whether to Vote No or to Boycott and had eventually decided I wanted to join the efforts to Vote No simply in order to fight passivity.

The entire operation was illegitimate and undemocratic and the turnout figures were clearly inflated, claiming 44% participation rate (~27 million people), despite empty polling stations. Those pushing for a No vote were fully aware of that. In fact, this movement actually has nothing to do with the results, but only with the act of participation. It is a movement against passivity, against defeatism and against the reemergence of the politically unengaged Couch Party. It is a movement of hope to remind the people, but also to remind those in power that once the barrier of fear is broken, nothing can reimpose it. Despite the brutality of the current regime, the movement to Vote No in this referendum served as an attempt to hold on to this glimmer of hope, to the promise of the revolution and to the memory of those who died fighting for it and those who are still in prison for believing in it.

Broadcasting Nuance: An Interview with Rim Gilfanov

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Rim Gilfanov is the head of RadioLiberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service Azatliq, the only independent media in the Tatar and Bashkir languages available in Russia. In addition to English, he speaks Czech, Russian and Tatar. He has published several books, including Tatar Diaspora (1993) and Tatar Way of Reforming Islam (2003). Has written for publications ranging from the Kazan newspaper Donya to Al-Jazeera. He has been quoted in the Moscow Times, the Atlantic, and other publications. Gilfanov has given lectures at think tanks and universities and has met with members of Congress to discuss Russian democracy and minority rights. Imagine my surprise when my inbox pinged with an answer to my amateur request for an interview, or even just a general direction: “Your idea seems interesting, we can do it.” 

 

Having successfully navigated the Prague-Boston time difference and having found a time for the interview, I was surprised at how easily conversation flowed. I was immediately struck by his enthusiasm to share his work and passion and his openness in discussing the path that lead him to RFE/RL Prague headquarters. Gilfanov started listening to RadioLiberty’s service while he was in secondary school during perestroika. This experience of realizing that “someone else, some foreign power cares about your language, which was in jeopardy in your own country” shaped his future path and helped carve out his identity as a “real Tatar.” While at Kazan University pursuing a degree in sociology and political science, Gilfanov worked as a stringer for RadioLiberty in the 1990s, a time of political change and ideological tumult in Russia. He joined the RadioLiberty team officially in 1993, moving to Munich, and later to Prague, when the headquarters were relocated.  

 

“This is my dream job actually.” Even after 29 years of experience in journalism Gilfanov’s enthusiasm for engaging with people regardless of their relative knowledge of Russia and Eurasia is evident in every aspect of his persona. Tatarstan, one of Russia’s 22 republics among 83 federal subjects, is rather unknown to most Americans. However, Gilfanov takes advantage of every opportunity to share the history and current circumstances of Tatars with his audiences. Of all the history and politics that he cites in his regular spiel to interlocutors, the fact they find most surprising is that the Tatar language is nothing like Russian. People “think that in Russia, everything should be close to Russian. . . but it’s completely different.” Tatar is a Turkic language belonging to the Altai family.  

 

The Tatar language and the various barriers to its instruction and usage are among just a few of the minority-related issues that Gilfanov and other journalists and advocates have addressed in recent years. According to Gilfanov, globalization and technology crowd out spaces that were originally pockets for smaller regional languages. Even in the countryside, where Tatar and regional languages were once integral to daily life, Gilfanov sees the younger generation trading in their use of Tatar for Russian, English, or another global language. 

 

As if the trials of globalization were not enough, the Tatar language has faced political attacks from inside Russia. Though Russian law upholds the idea of space for minority groups and officials claim that they try to defend these languages, Gilfanov sees another view emerging that diversity undermines the unity of the state. This quest for unity, and the homogenous population it envisions pit minority and republic languages such as Tatar, Bashkir, and Chechen against a broad russifying agenda coming from Moscow.  

 

Gilfanov’s job on a day-to-day basis is to support broadcasts and news coverage in Tatar and Bashkir that address issues not covered by state-owned or state-restricted news channels in Russia. However, the Tatar-Bashkir service, along with the Georgian and North Caucasus services, supported in part by American aid, are at risk of being cut by Trump’s new 2020 budget proposal. According to Gilfanov, this would be a “poor gift to Putin because it will give him a hand in building this new totalitarianism and russification policy.”  

 

Despite the numerous threats to the Tatar language and identity, Gilfanov remains hopeful and optimistic, even at times upbeat. Rather than succumbing to the cynicism that might be expected, perhaps justifiably of journalists focusing on minority rights in Russia, Gilfanov, though never sugar-coating the reality of minority groups, remains positive, stressing the importance of taking opportunities to talk with people, particularly young people, about Tatarstan. At the end of our conversation, Gilfanov mentioned a trip he recently made to Florida Atlantic University to attend a seminar. Students who had never heard of Tatarstan were genuinely curious and asked what they could do to get more involved. “I didn’t expect that kind of interest from young people, students. . . I was touched, really.” He answers their queries in this way: “Just being interested in the politics and events in certain regions is the biggest contribution you can make.” 

Burning Churches Can’t Burn Down Their Structures

Op-Ed

I opened my phone on April 15th to find a barrage of news notifications about a tragedy in France. Notre-Dame Cathedral had burned down. I felt mournful for this gorgeous piece of architecture and part of French culture. I began reading the news articles wondering about the magnitude of the tragedy and the number of lives lost. What I learned shocked me. No one lost their life, and the main structure of the cathedral and its two iconic towers were still intact. A measured tragedy, I thought, but a tragedy nonetheless.

What I learned in the following hours was more astonishing. Massive donations had poured into the rebuilding of the cathedral within hours of the inferno. Hundreds of millions of euros came in from French billionaires. First, 100 million euros from François-Henri Pinault, head of the luxury goods group Kering that owns brands like Gucci and Saint-Laurent. Hours later, not wanting to be outdone, a rival billionaire, Bernard Arnault, France’s richest man and CEO of LVMH, donated 200 million euros. More donations from the ultra-wealthy in France continued to pour in. The cause gained international attention too; even the United States government pledged its support. In just a day and a half, 880 million euros (995 million US dollars) had been raised.

All right, great! This landmark cathedral will get rebuilt. People were able to mobilize money rapidly and put it to use. The French State accepted millions in funding for Notre-Dame, in spite of the fact that it is global symbol of the Catholic Church — one of the world’s wealthiest organizations. People will be able to keep travelling to simply revel in the glory of this cultural epicenter and post glamour shots to Instagram. Christians, who claim to follow a religion of giving to the poor and caring for thy neighbor will get their ornate roof fixed with money that seemed to materialize overnight. Super. This structure will remain intact. But it makes me wonder. What else could this instant billion have gone to?

What about the three historically black churches that burned down – not by accident – in Louisiana less than two weeks before? Do those who worship at these places deserve compassion any less? These churches put out an ask for a mere $1.8 million between them and although they were able to raise it, for a while they were hard-pressed to get even that much. And what about the atrocities in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, the hundreds of people who lost their lives in the bombing attacks on churches? Do they not deserve donations to rebuild their places of worship? Where is the outpouring of international support for the hundreds of lives lost there? What about the families in Flint Michigan who have not seen clean tap water in nearly five years? It is estimated this crisis could be resolved with only $55 million. Perhaps instead of the U.S. government pledging support to France, it could have helped the families poisoned on American soil. What about Puerto Rico? Where was the money needed to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Maria last September, a tragedy that not only destroyed much of the island physically, but took out nearly 4% of the population? Experts say it would only take $139 million to recover from this disaster. And finally, what about our planet? Did these billionaires think about the fact the we may not even be here in 50 years to see this rebuilding if we don’t start making rapid progress towards dealing with climate change? Where is the money for that?

Let’s step back for a moment. The total amount needed to fix the burnt-down black churches, provide clean water to Flint, and aid Puerto Rico is only $195.8 million. Even if this money was sent to these other crises, there would still be plenty to fix Notre-Dame. So why is it that donations flooded the Cathedral but the money needed by poor and marginalized communities is nowhere to be found? It’s because the same structures of power that built the Catholic Church and keep it running are the ones keeping these communities down.

The huge donations to Notre-Dame reflect a legacy of colonial and white supremacist power structures that determine far too many events in today’s society. The Catholic Church exists to perpetuate the supremacy of white Catholics, and the church’s imperialistic history cannot be ignored. The colonization of disadvantaged or marginalized communities and cultures brought the church to power, and in order to retain this power these communities must be kept down. In the same vein, the ultra-wealthy are in positions of power due to a history of systematic oppression and power grabbing. More often than not their wealth is the product of a legacy of exploitation, and this legacy has not changed, only morphed with the times. Today, we see an outpouring of support coming from those who benefit from these structures of power to the very structures of power that have put them in their place of privilege and continue to do so.

This is a dangerous self-perpetuating system, one reflected in nearly every aspect of the Notre-Dame fire, even down to how the donations are structured. There is a 60% tax break on Notre-Dame donations — allowing for those who have profited most from our late-stage capitalist society to continue to reap the benefits. With this tax break, for each 100 million donated the French billionaires get 60 million back, plus all the publicity they enjoy for being a generous supporter of French culture. And they get to do this while still holding amounts of wealth that if donated or redistributed in a bit more thoughtful way could do some serious good. And by serious good I don’t mean fixing the roof on a building that is symbolic of the oppressive colonial behavior that condemned these disadvantaged communities to where they are today.

While people die, the planet burns, natural disasters wreak havoc, and racist attacks take place, the ultra-wealthy spend their money in ways that serve only to keep their power structures intact. Ironically, in this case that means keeping a physical structure intact. The power systems that brought the Catholic Church to prominence and lined the pockets of these billionaires are the same ones that kept the burned-down black churches in Louisiana and bombed churches in Sri Lanka from seeing massive publicity and support, poisoned the people of Flint, and let the people of Puerto Rico go without reparations. Maybe it’s time to turn the tables.

Quit Your Day Job

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It’s no secret that she loves what she does. Jeanmarie Papelian, proud Armenian and Executive Director of Armenia Tree Project (ATP), brings great passion to the organization and is inspired each day to continue to help it flourish. Armenia Tree Project is a non-profit organization with a primary goal of reforesting the rapidly desertifying land of Armenia and promoting environmental education both in Armenia and the diaspora.

This has not always been her day job. Jeanmarie had always wanted to be a lawyer when she grew up. She went to McGill University as an undergrad and right after that she attended law school at Suffolk University. During her time at law school in 1998, a horrible earthquake hit Armenia. This earthquake, coupled with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Armenia’s subsequent independence, as well as the nation’s war with neighboring country Azerbaijan, made for a tragic time for the people of Armenia. Seeing the immense suffering the people of her homeland were facing, she began getting involved with volunteer work to provide humanitarian relief to Armenia.

She got involved with the Armenian Milk Fund, an organization with the goal of providing infant formula to those who could not afford milk due to widespread poverty and the collapsing dairy industry. Over the next 17 years she volunteered with this organization, serving as the chair and helping it grow rapidly and overseeing its absorption into the larger Armenian Missionary Association. Jeanmarie then began getting more involved with the larger organization and served as a member of the board. While committed to these humanitarian nonprofits on a volunteer basis, she was further developing in her law career, moving up to become partner of her firm. She was successful in her practice, but after 21 years at the same firm, she realized that she was having more fun doing her volunteer work than she was at her day job. A large part of her legal career involved handling divorce law. She was working with people at their worst and at a horrible time in their lives, and the job had become taxing. She was ready for a change.

Luckily, she decided at just the right time to make the leap from law to working for the organizations in which she had become so passionately involved. She had heard about Armenia Tree Project through a close friend of hers who was passionate about the organization. Her friend asked her to go visit some of the tree nursery sites on one of her other volunteer based trips to Armenia and report back. She was inspired by this organization, and though she did not get involved then, she continued to keep tabs on the project. When she was ready to make her move away from the harsh world of divorce law, she learned that the director of ATP was retiring, and she let the organization know she was interested. Now she is four years into her work as Executive Director of ATP and inspired everyday by the work she does.

ATP has brought much happiness to Jeanmarie’s life. “People love what we are doing…it brings people so much joy” she says, “even if you ask somebody for money and they say no that always say what you’re doing is so great and they wish they could help.” Her response to nearly every question I asked ended with a beautiful story about her time at ATP. She acknowledged that although fundraising constantly and managing international teams across time zones is taxing, the people she works with and the joy the organization brings to people never cease to inspire her.

One of the best aspects of working with ATP for Jeanmarie is speaking with the next generation of Armenian environmental stewards — the children. ATP works to promote environmental education starting at a young age, and believes that if the nation is to survive, the children of Armenia need to be better stewards of the environment than their parents and grandparents. This includes diasporan students, whom ATP works to bring into closer contact with their counterparts in the homeland. Jeanmarie laughingly recalled one of the annual trips the 5th graders from a local Armenian elementary school make to Armenian in which they spend one of their days planting trees with students at a school in Armenia. The students were amazingly engaged, she remembers. They loved communicating with each other– both groups practicing the other’s language while actively learning what they can do to help the environment of their homeland and fostering meaningful connections.

But these fun interactions with the next generations are not the only things that inspire Jeanmarie. Some of her most powerful stories involved the hardships the people of Armenian have faced and the ways in which ATP has been able to help in a profound way. She has found a deep level of support from members of the recent immigrant community who remember vividly the adversity they endured back in the homeland. After giving a speech about ATP to a local church, she was on her way out when the priest got back up in front. He told the community about how he remembers being a young boy in Armenia and cutting down the trees around his home and in the local park to heat his home and cook food because there was no other option. This story is sadly not a unique one. For years the catastrophic events plaguing the country led to a severe energy crisis which affected huge numbers of Armenians. There was no heat, no hot water, no light, and no way to get power, so for many, the only way to stay alive was to cut down all their trees. Jeanmarie made it clear how moved she is with each new story like this one, and how vital the work she does is.

ATP is much more than just a tree planting organization, and no one understands this better than Jeanmarie. She spoke about a branch of the organization called Backyard Nurseries, a program that provides tree seeds to members of rural villages. The villagers can plant the seeds and care for the trees, and once they reach a large enough size to be relocated, ATP buys them back, providing enough income for the villagers to be able to stay in their homes. ATP employs many people in communities across Armenia through this program as well as those who work in their nurseries and forests, providing vital source of income for many. This income allows men to stay home with their families rather than having to leave the country for work, allows for widows to afford to remain in their homes, and even employs refugees from neighboring countries, allowing them to build new lives.

Jeanmarie calls this “community revitalization” and considers it a vital part of ATP’s mission. More than just planting trees, ATP is turning a new leaf for the Armenian people, inspiring the next generation, bringing communities back together stronger than ever, and above all else, bringing joy.

 

On Idealism: An Interview with Stephen C. Bold

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Stephen C. Bold runs into Clapp Library with briefcase in hand, as though he were coming straight from a lecture on French literature. He wears a button-up shirt and looks off into the distance when he talks. Clearly prone to reflection, he recounts his career, childhood, and ideas on the importance of cultural exchange. If he became a professor of French literature at Boston College 30 years ago, it wasn’t on purpose. Driven by his idealism—resulting partly from the culture of the 1960s, the influence of his parents, and his own instincts—he was drawn into a lifelong pursuit of the humanities. He suspects his penchant for foreign language and culture originated early in his life, during his childhood in Germany and Holland, where he would interpret for his American parents. By the time he chose to pursue a Ph.D at New York University, it was only natural to immerse himself in Francophone studies, particularly in the works of Blaise Pascal.

For Professor Bold, Pascal is not merely an interesting writer and historical figure; he also sees in Pascal a reflection of his own desire to be broad and not to limit himself too much. Bold explains it this way: “Pascal was a kind of Renaissance man in a way. He wrote about religion—that’s what he’s most known for—but he was also an experimental scientist, and a mathematician, and a talented writer. I was in some ways attracted to that kind of broad base of the world”. This is the kind of idealism that motivates Bold—it is an open-arms approach to the world. He loves all the ways in which he can understand the great questions of the past, present, and future through his studies.

However, in all of Bold’s pursuit of breadth, he sees where his studies have been narrow. Over the years, he has encountered many different definitions of multiculturalism, and he concedes that if he wanted to be very multicultural, he missed the mark. He is very aware that his studies of Pascal focus on “a dead white European man”. This has stretched his cultural understanding, and he believes in the power of genuinely pursuing any culture other than one’s own. But when asked if he considers himself a cultural advocate, he only timidly says yes–he knows he has mostly focused on another Western, first-world country.

However, he still champions the idea of multiculturalism. He recalls returning from studying abroad in Montpellier and being asked by a friend if he was glad to be home. “I was glad to be home, but I was also glad to be away,” he replied. In his refusal to idealize his own culture and his appreciation of other norms and ways of living, Bold stands as an advocate for cultural exchange and appreciation.

As Bold continues to speak, multiculturalism again rises to the surface. After speaking of his trip to China, he immediately shares a lesson: “I strongly believe that we all need to see the way other people live and put ourselves in the position of not being at home all the time and of respecting the different ways of life and also the different assumptions and the different life experiences.” This conviction merges with many aspects of his life, including his parenting. He proudly states that his sons feel like they are “‘citizens of the world” and “have a broad outlook” due to their experience travelling and being biracial.

Bold himself calls this the best lesson of his life: to get out of one’s own head and experience in order to grow through listening to others and taking risks. Although he feels he hasn’t taken enough risks in a conventional sense, having followed the path that many have before him, he does feel that sharing ideas is putting oneself on the line. He has surely done that every day of his career as a professor.

As our conversation ends, Bold takes a risk and shares one last idea. He is concerned for the future of the world, particularly for social institutions. He is afraid that his idealism—that which has driven his whole life—is not shared by today’s society. Asking questions and being curious and not placing numbers and practicality over bigger issues–these values are not so common now among the younger generations and at institutions of learning, as language and literature programs are devalued. He hopes things will turn around, even if he does not find it a hopeful time. But he does have a dream: that we could all somehow find a family of nice people on the other side of the earth, spend a few weeks with them and find out as much about them as possible. If everyone could fall in love with a family from another culture, that would make the world a lot better.

Even as Professor Bold shares his concerns, his idealism persists. It seems to be a fundamental part of his character. When he speaks and stares off into the distance, he must be envisioning another world. In that world, he wouldn’t need to be a cultural advocate, because the exchange of ideas and traditions would be commonplace. And he could sit back and enjoy the family that he loves—both the one here and the one across the world.