“Don’t tell my mother I’m in Iran”

 

Tensions continue between Tehran, D.C. and Jerusalem but life in Iran continues like any other ordinary day (as ordinary as days can get in the Middle East). Iran seems to be one of the biggest examples of the disparity between media portrayal and political policies and its everyday life. It seems like a fascinating country. I can’t wait to visit one day..

Iran, Turkey, and Israel – the 3 main non-Arab (and democratic) nations in the Middle East. Their relations amongst themselves is also full of so many interesting dynamics.

 

I don’t think there can be a day without adventure in the Middle East.

________________________________________________________

*The “Don’t tell my mother” series captures stories that gives a taste of the country’s culture and people, what are at the heart of the nation rather than its politics, international relations , or media rhetoric that define or stereotype the country. I envy Diego Bunuel, the journalist-turned “Don’t tell my mother” host who’s visited some crazy exciting places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia, etc. etc.

“My goal is to show them that there is a world out there that is open and not a scary place; if you show them there are a lot of exciting places and interesting people to meet, you can touch them and give them hope that our world can change.” – Diego Bunuel

marching off the map

“물론 나도 알고 있다. 우리가 꿈꾸는 세상이 그렇게 쉽사리 오지 않으리라는 것을. 하지만 그렇다고 두 손 놓고 있는 것은 스스로가 초라해서 견딜 수 없다. 도시 전체가 암혹으로 뒤덮여 있는데, 나 혼자 촛불 하나를 들고 있다고 해서 그 어둠이 걷힐 리 만무하다. 하지만 어둡다, 어둡다 하고만 있을 수 없다. 우선 내가 가지고 있는 초에 불을 붙이고, 그 불을 옆 사람에게, 또 그 옆 사람에게, 초가 타고 있는 한 옮겨주고 싶다. 모든 일을 해결할 순 없지만 할 수 있는 일은 하고 싶다. 정말 그렇게 하고 싶다.”

“한편으로는 이런 문제에 처해 있는 복잡한 상황을 우리가 안다한들 뭘 할 수 있을까 싶은 생각이 들 것이다. 그러나 정말 우리가 할 수 있는 일은 없을까? 나는 있다고 믿는다. 그 곳에 평화가 오기를 진심으로 바라는 일, 우리가 그들을 똑바로 지켜보는 일, 어느 편이건 간에 국제 사회와의 약속을 어기고 불의를 저지른다면, 한 목소리로 응징하는 일 등등. 이렇게 우리를 포함한 전 세계가 감시자와 목격자의 역할을 충실히 한다면 팔레스타인과 이스라엘에, 중동에, 나아가 세계에 마침내 평화가 찾아 올 것이라고 믿는다. 적어도 평화가 오는 날을 앞당길 수 있을 것이라고 굳게 믿는다.

 “Of course, I know that the world we dream of won’t come along that easily. But to let go and not do anything makes one’s self-shabbiness unbearable. When an entire city is covered in darkness, it’s impossible to get rid of the darkness with the lone candle I’m holding by myself. But we can’t simply sit around complaining that it’s dark. First, light the candle that I have, then light the next person’s, and the next person’s. As long as the candle is burning, I want to pass it on. We can’t resolve everything, but I want to do what I can. I really do.” 

“On one hand, the thought of what could we possibly do even if we are aware of this complicated situation and its issues will surface. But is there really nothing we can do? I believe there is something we can do. To genuinely hope for peace there, to closely monitor the situation, to unanimously punish whichever side breaks a promise with the international community and commits injustice, etc etc. In this way, when the whole world that includes us dutifully fulfills the roles of monitor and observer, I believe that peace will finally come in Palestine and Israel, in the Middle East, and furthermore in the world.

At least I firmly believe that we can hasten the arrival of peace.”

– Han Bi-ya, “Marching off the Map”

한비야는 말하듯 글을 쓰셔서 누구나 부담없이 읽기 쉬운 책일 거 같다. 그리고 책을 통해 전해 받는 그녀의 열정과 에너지는 정말 본받고 싶다. 그녀는 우리가 사는 세상의 아픔 현실들을 구호현장에서 전해주지만, 그녀의 아름다운 눈과 마음으로 볼 때 그런 세상 마저 아름다워 보이기도 하다. 아름다운 세상에 언젠가 살 수 있을거라는 희망을 품게 되고, 적어도 내가 아니라면 노력을 해서 내 아이들에게는 꼭 아름다운 사람들이 눈물과 기도와 땀을 흘려 현장에서 가진 모든 것을 쏟아부어 만든 그런 값지고 아름다운 세상을 물려주고 싶다.

“All izz well”

Rancho: That day I understood that this heart scares easily. You have to trick it, however big the problem is. Tell your heart, ‘Pal, all is well. All is well.’
Raju: Does that solve the problem?
Rancho: No, but you gain courage to face it.

Sometimes the heart needs to be told, “All is well,” for a little bit of courage.

And sometimes, I need to stop racing. Why so serious? Why running so fast? Am I racing, or am I chasing my passions?

I loved the movie because it was heart-warming, it made me laugh and cry, and it reminded me of a close friend who used to say that he’d rather be a warm-hearted ‘idiot’ over a smart person anyday.

I wholeheartedly agree.

—————-

“작년 이맘때, 어디선가 이런 글귀를 보았다.
“너무 똑똑한 사람이 되지 마라,
조금은 어리석어야 따뜻한 사람이 될 수 있다.”

나는 잘난 사람이 되고싶지 않다.
그저 내 길을 묵묵히 걸어가는,
어리석은, 따뜻한 사람이 되고 싶다.”

나도, 나도

the power of love

I know people are criticizing ‘slacktivism’ and you can doubt whether such a campaign like this (bottom-up and civic motivated) can have an effect on actual foreign policy, but you know what, in this case with enough people, I wanna believe that it can. Be as critical as you want, I think it sends a message to the people of both nations. Plus, I think the first step of activism is awareness. So don’t move so quick to label it as ‘slacktivism’ – these are just the first steps. You can’t just leap over 100 steps of stairs. You get to the top by taking each step.

Maybe what the state governments cannot do, the people can.

And maybe.. peace is in the hands of the people, not Netanyahu or Ahmadinejad or even Obama.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix

“Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.” – James 3:18

http://www.israelovesiran.com/

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/03/israel-loves-iran-on-facebook.html

“My Life’s Sentences”

A great and beautifully crafted article by Jhumpa Lahiri.

It got me thinking about the perfect sentences that I’ve come across in literature.

There are probably too many to list, but one of my favorite perfect sentences is:

“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.” – Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes were Watching God

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/my-lifes-sentences/

the importance of failure and imagination

From J.K. Rowling’s 2008 commencement address to the graduating class of Harvard University:

“So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default..

Failure taught me things about myself that I could not have learned no other way.. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.”

from Harvard Magazine

“Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared..

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.”

The Story of the Genius Refugee: Albert Einstein

Translation of pNan’s webpage – the original article can be accessed at http://blog.naver.com/pnan/60153129465

I’m a refugee too <Albert Einstein>

Welcome to the first story in the “I’m a refugee too” series.

Today we are introducing someone whom everybody knows – the infamous Albert Einstein.

silvieandmaryl.com/author/bosslady/page/3/

‘I’m a refugee? Why don’t you prove it with a mathematic formula?’

Did you know that the scientist Einstein whom we are all familiar with, was a refugee? Let’s take a look at his life to see what happened.

Einstein was born in Munich, Germany in 1870. He was born into a Jewish family. It’s said that he liked music and math from a young age. He went on to a university in Switzerland and after graduation began work as a technical officer at the Bern Patent Bureau.

guidedmunich.com

This is the city where baby Einstein was born – Munich, Germany.

In 1905 Einstein published his paper on what would become the basis for the theory of relativity which would bring him international fame as a scientist. The research paper that was published argued that time and space was relative, which would get the whole world talking.

Afterwards Einstein received a doctorate degree at the University of Zurich in Switzerland and taught students there. In 1909 he taught students at the University of Prague, and in 1914 he moved to the Prussian Science Academy as a researcher. And finally, in 1919 (when South Korea was having its March 1^st independence movement..!!), Einstein proved his theory of relativity mathematically. This is when he received international acclaim as a scientist and went on to receive the Nobel Prize in 1921.

Now starts the Einstein’s life as a refugee.

Einstein who was on a brief visit to the U.S. decided not to return to Germany when Hitler gained power in 1933 and Nazism and anti-Judaism began to spread. Such a case is referred to as “refugee sur place.” This means that although one may not have personally been persecuted, the possibility of persecution when one returns to one’s home country establishes the criteria for being a refugee. Einstein was a Jew and because massive persecution had begun within Germany against the Jews, this meant that a death threat was awaiting him if he chose to return to Germany. So, he inevitably remained in the U.S. and became a refugee. At this time Einstein’s books were burned and he was blacklisted by the German government for treason against the state.

http://apps.nlm.nih.gov/againsttheodds/exhibit/legacy_of_war/war_as_illness.cfm

Many books that were anti-Nazism were thrown into the fire, including Einstein’s.

Having gained U.S. citizenship and having become a professor at Princeton University, Einstein created a U.S. visa application format for Jewish refugees in Germany and began to be involved in vouching for the identity of applicants. In other words, he helped refugees in Germany escape persecution.

Einstein did a lot to help refugees.

http://www.unhcr.org

Einstein was a refugee.

Afterwards, Einstein, a refugee who worked to help refugees, put up his papers for auction and donated the $6 million he received per paper for war funds.

And after sending a last letter to his friend, the pacifist and philosopher Russell, about his stance against nuclear weapons, he bid adieu to the world in 1955.

Einstein’s life as a refugee began with the huge persecution of his ethnic group, the Jews, within Germany. After this point, he worked to help refugees.

Refugees temporarily become refugees not by choice but because of surrounding circumstances that cannot be helped. A refugee is a person who flees the threat of persecution because of their political, religious, racial ideology or identity. Even in South Korea, around 3,300 refugee-status applicants have come to pNan fleeing persecution from all over the world, from places such as Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Iran, Bangladesh, and so on. But when most people view refugees from economically poor countries, they assume by their looks and country of origin that they are people deserving sympathy. But, have you ever thought that the future leader who will change the world could be a ‘refugee’, like Einstein?

Let’s emulate Einstein’s warm attitude towards refugees, and embrace the refugees who have come to pNan and South Korea.

http://www.jokelibrary.net/xOtherAtoM/b_to_e/bicycle-einstein.html

Visit pNan’s homepage for more information on the work that it does: www.pnan.org

서시

죽는 날까지 하늘을 우러러

한 점 부끄럼이 없기를

잎새에 이는 바람에도 나는 괴로워했다.

별을 노래하는 마음으로

모든 죽어가는 것을 사랑해야지.

그리고 나한테 주어진 길을 걸어 가야겠다.

오늘 밤에도 별이 바람에 스치운다.

lightning could strike

“But love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. I say fall head over heels… Find someone you can love like crazy and who loves you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart… To make the journey and not to fall deeply in love.. well, you haven’t lived the life at all. But you have to try because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.”

“Ok, give it to me again but the short version this time.”

“Stay open, who knows, lightning could strike.”

-Meet Joe Black

Little Town of Bethlehem

I went to see the screening of this short movie about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Georgetown University. I enjoyed the movie immensely, but the panel afterwards even more. The most poignant moment of the evening was when someone from the audience asked Sami, one of the men featured in the movie, about the nonviolence movement:

“Can you tell us any stories of hope? Do you think there is a tipping point for peace?”

“No. We are still really far. This is not a success story. We are failures. We didn’t stop the Occupation, we didn’t remove any checkpoints. And the reality is deteriorating. But we are sick with hope… A lot of people ask us what keeps us going. Solidarity. Comoderie between the most unlikely people. We managed to change. We gain an understanding and humanity of the other side. Courage – this is what keeps us going.”