Styrk Den Internationale Solidaritet

Trying to learn my Danish protest chants... Styrk den internationale solidaritet isn't so different in English: "Strengthen international solidarity / the international solidarity movement". I think it sounds cooler in Danish... a bit more rhythmic. But that's probably because Danish just sounds generally more interesting than English to me.

So proud of my friend for pulling this together in about a day's time!

The youngest demonstrators!

 

At the corner of Nørrebros Runddel. The red is just a sparkler but it looks pretty impressive here...

This is my favorite. The little anti-fascist patch tops it off...

demonstration i aften i solidaritet med Gaza

Tonight at 19:00 at Blågårds Plads. We'll gather and then walk up Nørrebrogade to Nørrebro Station. There will be live Arabic music and hopefully plenty of people and enthusiasm.  Facebook event for Blågårds Plads tonight.

ALSO- a larger demonstration is planned for 17:00 at Christiansborg this Thursday.  Facebook event for Thursday

And here's a link for the facebook page for the International Solidarity Movement.

I feel very lucky to know the person who is organizing this demonstration - it will be good to show solidarity and meet with others here who are also disturbed by the senseless violence now taking place. I'm excited to be involved with this movement / show of support in Copenhagen.

Over the past days I have thought a LOT about the messages and assumptions surrounding Palestine and Israel that I grew up with in the US. Bottom line is that for most of my life I spent a lot of time around Jewish friends and an extremely pro-Israel society and media... and I knew no Muslim or Arabic people. That has changed (thankfully) since I went to college. To be clear, many of my Jewish friends have an extremely nuanced and compassionate perspective on the conflict. The problem was that Jewishness was so normal to me while Muslimness which was foreign, exotic, 'other' and I had no idea that this was the case.

I am not interested in arguing about one state, two state or a red state, blue state solution. (That's supposed to be a Dr. Seuss reference... not US politics...) In other words... while it's ideologically important to discuss the origins and history of Israel and Palestine as states, that discussion often supersedes addressing the human rights situation facing people living in Palestine and Israel right now. The way Palestinian lives are treated as expendable and the discriminatory policies enshrined in Israeli law cannot be tolerated.

Words like 'occupation' or 'apartheid' or 'illegal settlement' once sounded extreme to my ear. And I can understand why - so much of what I grew up hearing was a not so subtle account of how violent and scary the Arab world is. On the one hand Europe generally and Denmark more specifically has it's problems with racism towards Muslims. Yet I still feel that the conversation - both in the media but even more so among people - is much more balanced and based in the reality facing people who live in the region.

Looking forward to the demonstration. Hope to see you there if you're in Copenhagen :)

War Legacy and travel blog --> life blog

On Friday, like I mentioned before, I was privy to a delectable Italian feast prepared by two Italian classmates. They live quite a bit north of the city so we had to train.... for me a bus, a train, and another train - so worth it! Very cosy evening. Without even planning I hopped on the train in the very same car as Lota, Hege, Laura, and Nash.... then when we got off at the station three other friends popped up. WOAH.

Over lasagna and pizza Laura and I somehow started talking about family histories.... She is from Belgium, the Dutch/Flemish speaking area. I was telling her that I had been to Belgium with my grandfather in the areas where he fought in WWII when I was 12. Her grandpa was also in the war. Comparing stories of how they've reflected and formed their identities around the world was eerily similar. As more joined in the conversation we became acutely aware of the meandering and unpredictable ways the world can shake up and rearrange human beings. Our two Italian hosts both had grandfathers who had fought for the fascist Italian army - everyone had to. One of my Italian friends is actually half Swiss - she's from the north of Italy - so that grandfather had been exempted from fighting simply due to his Swiss passport. Lotta from Finland told of her grandfather's traumatic experiences in the Finnish-Russian war. Irene from Spain grew up hearing mostly about the trauma of the Spanish civil war just before and around WWII. It was a sobering conversation to be had over such luscious food. The historian in me was going wild.

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Lately I have been contemplating how this blog feels different these days. I'm not "traveling" like I was when I had my fun 'gap year travels' blog (http://aliceminor.blogspot.dk/ if you're interested). With that blog there was always something ABSURD or extreme happening. A giant Indian moth that I mistook for a rat with enough conviction to inspire the local guards to come in with a machete, the time we got caught up in Ganesha's birthday festival on the Ganges, learning what the hell they meant by "shame, auntie, shame!!!" in relation to my dupatta. And frankly, I was so young then. I'm so young now, but I was SO young then, and had no sense of wanting to build permanency around me. Now I find myself trying to settle into routines, make stable and close friends, get to know this place. The way I make friends here is very different form when I was traveling after high school. Then I wanted to meet and hear from everyone almost just for the sake of hearing anything anyone had to say. I still believe that I can learn a great deal from anyone I meet.... but I'm much more prone to seeking commonalities and people that truly make sense in my life. In many ways I think I exoticized the friends I made in India, Thailand, and elsewhere. They were "experiences". My friends here.... are friends. Which makes me feel weird about blogging about them and our more personal connections.

All this, I've come to believe, is a reflection of the fact not just that I'm a bit more mature, but also that I want to LIVE here. It's less fun to go on and on about how crazy and different things are when you want to be a part of it. In that vein, I had a fantastic conversation with a friend of mine from my graduate program who has been reading my blog who related to much of the feelings of being out of place or different in Copenhagen that I have discussed. She's Danish! But from a very small town in Jutland, which truly is a different world from Copenhagen.... one that I have yet to really explore. As much as I know that Jutland is a different world from CPH it was wonderful to be reminded, and also to talk to someone with an unexpectedly similar experience.

It's tiresome to be constantly reminded of my nationality in some of my young friendships with people here. I don't want to interact with people as representatives of Spain, Belgium, Ghana, Denmark, Romania, Finland -whatever. As evidenced by my earlier story about WWII legacies sometimes that's the best language we have to talk about our selves and histories but there is that fine line between discussing place-based divergences in experience and assigning inherent or defining value to those divergences. Trying to walk that line in my friendships.

Herzegovinian Heaven: Ljubuski

After touring Mostar we had the incredible honor of visiting our friend Marija's hometown, Ljubuski. It is about 45 minutes to an hour outside of Mostar fairly close to the Bosnia / Croatia border. I can't exaggerate the beauty of this country. Turquoise - actually vivid turquoise - rivers, dry hills and mountains covered in beautiful shrubbery and then luscious forests as well. Marija has an older brother, little sister, and little brother from ages 30ish to 15. They all live at home (along with Grandma) - it's the cultural norm in Bosnia to live with your parents until you're married. In part because it is far too expensive for young people to have their own places. For that reason people usually don't go too far away for University. For example, my friend from Banja Luka (the capital of the Serbian district of Bosnia) would have liked to go to Sarajevo for university but it was simply not an option. This economic reality serves to reinforce ethnic segregation.

Here is a panorama of Ljubuski that I found online...


Marija's family could not have been warmer, more generous, more welcoming. They sat us down for drinks and conversation. Then Marija took us to the river down the road from her home. They live in a pretty rural area - growing their own vegetables, raising chickens, pigs... so many amazing walks to take and tranquility to find. During the war this place wasn't as impacted directly. Though there really was no part of Bosnia that was unscathed at least emotionally, psychologically. For instance, there is a sizable community of refugees from the Srebrenica massacre living in Ljubuski now. And a much smaller percentage of Serb Bosnians in the area than before the war - so more segregation. It is remarkable to me to hear Marija speak about the war. She has said repeatedly that she wasn't that impact by the war like others because "my father and uncles went to battle - but they came home". I cannot imagine a life where there is a full out civil war in Seattle and my father leaves randomly for days to fight, kill, risk his life.

This is Marija at a waterfall in the area near Ljubuski. She was such a gracious host, wanting us to see the best of her corner of the world.



Marija's brother runs a beach bar/cafe alongside the river that is near her house. I'll post a photo soon! It's beautiful... I know I'm sounding like a broken record now... But there are little rapids that you can float down, the water is perfectly fresh, mountains along the horizon. Marija's brother absolutely refused to let us pay for ice creams. While we were there we ran into about half a dozen of Marija's cousins, her dad, and some aunts and uncles.

Photo of the Trebizat river that runs through the area...


We were running a bit behind after lunch but rushed back to the house to say goodbye to her mom and grandma.... change of plans! They madeus a bunch of dessert pancakes and homemade honey and of course we really couldn't say no. Hahaha... Marija is OBSESSED with bumble bees. We met one of her best friends, Marina, and one of the first things she asked us was, "Do YOU have to save the bumble bees on facebook too???"  Yes, yes I do.


All in all... I can't express how much it meant to me to meet Marija's family. I gained immeasurable respect for the levity, grace, and rebellious courage with which Marija leads her life. Ljubuski is gorgeous and loving but also certainly conservative. And Marija lives her life walking this balance of political awareness and care for her roots that I find absolutely extraordinary. Without a doubt I want to return to Ljubuski and see these amazing people again.

Balkan wanderings - Sarajevo

Hello! I haven't been writing in a long while because I haven't had a computer or consistent internet... but a lot has happened. Most importantly - I AM AN AUNTIE!!! My brother welcomed his first child into the world on July 3. Her name is Alice Juliet Kinyon Minor. Though I am having a wonderful time traveling I really can't wait to get home and meet my newest loved one.

The program is over! strange whirlwind of a finish! As always with these things.

This is a group shot of Copenhagen 2012 in the Christianshavn meeting room :) Wonderful group of people.


Bosnia.... it was one of the most powerful weeks of my life. After the HIA conference in Sarajevo I stuck around and saw the city for a day. We (five friends from my program last year plus an HIA fellow from France) took a trip around the outskirts of Sarajevo. Amazing views from the hills, local watering holes, and of course the tunnel of hope. The 800 meter long, 1.5 meter high tunnel through which military personnel, civilians, food, supplies, medicines... everything... came in and out of Sarajevo during the four year siege. The entrance is strangely anonymous. A family allowed the tunnel to emerge in the basement - taking enormous risks in doing so of course. Like many areas of Sarajevo there are still bullet holes all over that home.

This is me and my friend Una (she works for HIA doing office and book keeping stuff) along the river that runs through Sarajevo. That is a cultural center behind us. Una is so amazing! Blessed to have her as a new friend. Una, and Sara and I spent an afternoon wandering at the end of the conference. It was a welcome change of pace to be in a smaller group and without a particular agenda of things to see and do. I'm so glad I'll get to live in the same place as the two of them soon.

(side note: my friend, who is Bosnian, opined that the bullet holes left behind in Sarajevo are a complicated mixture of not having the funds to repair and not wanting to cover up the conflict. Sarajevo is majority Bosniak. The war can be somewhat considered a civil war - but it was also largely a war of aggression from the Bosnian Serbs against the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats.... but I hesitate to categorize too much. If I've learned anything in Bosnia it is that you cannot say anything about the war or ethnic groups without several caveats. Ethnicity doesn't equal religion and vice versa... but often they stand in for each other politically. which leads to more tension.)

While in Sarajevo we also visited Srebrenica, the site of Europe's worst genocidal crime since World War Two. Obviously a difficult visit. An over three hour bus ride from Sarajevo, extremely hot - the Balkans are HOT. We met with a man who survived Srebrenica, Hasan Nuhanovic. He was a translator for the Dutch peacekeepers who turned 6,000 Bosniaks over to the Serb army. He was forced to turn over his parents and brother to the Serbs but held back himself to translate. Over the past 9 years he has been engaged in a law suit against the government of the Netherlands... but the trouble is, UN troops can't be prosecuted on the national level.

Here is a video of him:  http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/take_action/gallery/portrait/nuhanovic

It was a powerful presentation. Hard to say much more about it. We all sat in a large hall and he began to talk. A few minutes in he told us that we were sitting in the large containment area where the Bosniaks were gathered before they were slaughtered. Where he had said goodbye to his family 17 years ago.

Another thing Bosnia has taught me - 17 years is an EXTREMELY SHORT TIME.

Sarajevo is filled with this tumultuous cascade of lightness and weight. Young people carry the stories and prejudices of their parents, the elderly remember a time when everyone coexisted, and ethnicity is never far from the surface although everyone looks the same. Seriously. They are all Yugoslavians. There are different religious roots but no one is "purely" Croat or Bosniak or Serb. And Muslims are not "new". In Mostar, Muslims and Catholics coexisted peacefully for five hundred years before the war.

The HIA conference was really fantastic. I saw presentations on Internally Displaced People in Bosnia from the war - there are still thousands. The shifting political landscape and national economy makes it hard for them to return home - either members of a different ethnic group have moved into the area or there is no longer a home where they lived... etc. I also learned about segregated schools in Bosnia. A MAJOR issue.

As always meeting new amazing people was a highlight of the conference. So we did some fun / upbeat stuff too. Here we are at the Eurocup semifinal, Italy vs. Germany. That's Kasper, Margrethe, me, Pierre-Anthony, and Una.

And here I am at the conference closing reception in a building overlooking part of the city. Bosnia is GORGEOUS. absolutely beautiful. the beautiful photos are coming soon.... That's Ogi and Tara behind me.

Outside our hotel which was in the hills of Sarajevo overlooking the city center, etc. Gorgeous, gorgeous place.

Marija and me in Sarajevo Old Town. FANS are such a good thing. Marija had one in Copenhagen last year and I thought it was a fashion statement type situation... No. So much more than that.

When we went on our tour of Sarajevo was stopped at an ancient Roman bridge on the outskirts of town (after looking at the tunnel of hope). I made 'friends' with two little girls... they taught me some Bosnian. "Volim vas!" We love each other! and of course: "Vi volim Bosnia!" We love Bosnia. Dang I love children... I have been wanting to snatch them all up - especially since I'm about to meet my newborn little niece when I come home! Every kid is a major reminder of her for me.

More later.... I am in Belgrade now and want to see a little something... we took an overnight bus here from Montenegro and are all a bit drowsy but I think I'm fresher than most. I'm a solid bus sleeper.

The next post will be a bit more upbeat - abotu our visit to Marija's place - my friend from Southern Bosnia, and Mostar and Dubrovnik. And buses in between... transit is always amusing....

All my love,
Alice