Un proyecto de Navidad con sabor a México

A mediados de Noviembre de este año, recibí por medio de una famosa red social la invitación de una amiga para formar parte de un grupo al que desde un inicio se denominó Proyecto Piñata. En dicha invitación se leía:

“Necesitamos recolectar manos con muchas ganas de hacer que este 25 de diciembre mucha gente sonría. La idea es reunirnos este 15 de noviembre con muchas ideas en la cabeza y definir lo que vamos a hacer para el 25 de diciembre. Desde hacer piñatas, comida, visitas a orfanatos, recolecta de juguetes, ir a ejidos, etc. Tendremos que juntar las mejores ideas y trabajar todos juntos. Hagamos que también pasen cosas buenas en Saltillo, entre más manos seamos, más sonrisas navideñas habrá.”

En un principio la organización y motivos del grupo aún no estaban ordenados claramente, sin embargo los deseos de ayudar y el espíritu de hacer algo por nuestra ciudad, que recientemente se convirtió en centro de batalla entre bandas del crimen organizado, me motivaron a asistir a dicha reunión. En ella, con gusto pude observar a un grupo de jóvenes estudiantes, profesionistas y pequeños empresarios que tenían ganas de ayudar en estas fechas navideñas a quienes consideraron como un grupo vulnerable: niños en estado de pobreza.

Desde la primera reunión se fijaron las bases por las que trabajaría el Proyecto Piñata, que era regalar juguetes en buen estado a niños en condiciones de pobreza así como ir a compartir con ellos la rica tradición mexicana de romper una piñata. Pronto los juguetes comenzaron a llegar y nuestros ánimos a crecer. ¡Era tan satisfactorio ir recolectando 10 juguetes más, 30 más, 50 más! Dicha recolección hablaba bien de nuestra capacidad para organizar actividades de recolección de juguetes, sin embargo también mostraba el alcance que íbamos a tener con aquellos niñas y niñas que recibirían un juguete de parte de nosotros esta Navidad.

El día finalmente llegó y con el apoyo del Colectivo de ciclismo urbano de Saltillo “Los Bicles”, así como de nuestros amigos de la comunidad autosustentable del “Rancho El Misterio” pudimos regalar sonrisas a niños y niñas de los ejidos “Los Fierros” y “Las Maravillas” localizados en los límites de Coahuila y Nuevo León a tan sólo un mes de haber iniciado las operaciones nuestro querido Proyecto Piñata.

Ciertamente esta experiencia que vivimos directamente 11 personas, que gozamos del apoyo de 13 miembros más, significó una cosa diferente para cada uno: para unos significó la oportunidad de retribuirle a la sociedad la prosperidad que afortunadamente gozan, para otros ésta fue una oportunidad para acercarse a ver la realidad de aquellos mexicanos que viven en pobreza, mientras que para uno que otro pudo haber significado una excelente oportunidad para vanagloriarse del trabajo hecho. Como haya sido, la realidad es que en 30 días, 24 personas se movilizaron para llevarles juguetes nuevos y otros usados pero en buen estado a más de 100 niños en dos ejidos donde las condiciones de vida distan mucho de parecerse a las de una ciudad.

Este 25 de Diciembre ahora tendrá un lugar preciado en nuestra memoria ya que representó el acto de hacer algo por otra persona, así como el inicio de una serie de eventos de beneficencia social donde los beneficiados aprenden tanto como los voluntarios.

A. Zan

Gaddafi’s double standard justice

COL Gaddafi’s gruesome and unsurprising death given the repressive nature of his regime, may serve as a warning to autocratic rulers around the world, but it also casts a dark shadow in the conduct of international relations and application of international humanitarian law. NATO’s success in Libya has empowered the United Nations as a legitimate force of international law and seems to indicate a greater move towards liberal democracies in the Arab world.  Nevertheless, the inhumane treatment of the former dictator as well as the double standards observed in Western leaders’ relations with Gaddafi begs an evaluation of to what extent justice has really been served in Libya. 

Gaddafi’s Early Regime

The relationship between the West and Gaddafi, the longest ruling leader in the Arab world and Africa, was marked by several ups and downs after he came into power through a bloodless coup.  It was more as a result of Gaddafi’s support for international terrorism and nationalist economic policies, as opposed to his politically repressive regime, however, that Libya was increasingly isolated.

Escalation with Libya reached a peak following the 1986 bombing of the Berlin nightclub. In an arguably premature and disproportionate retaliation, the Reagan administration, which had branded Gaddafi “the mad dog of the Middle East” ordered strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi causing extensive damage and killing, among others, Gaddafi’s adopted daughter.  

A Partnership with the West

Less than a decade after UN sanctions against Libya, Gaddafi made dramatic foreign policy changes bringing him closer to the West. He delivered the Lockerbie suspects for trial and in 2003 announced the abandonment of his WMD program and paid compensation to the families of Pam Am Flight 103 and UTA Flight 772. The decade prior to the Arab Spring, Gaddafi resumed diplomatic and economic relations with the West and became a partner against terrorism. Through cooperation between the CIA, MI6 and Libyan intelligence service, several terrorist suspects were interrogated in Libya.

The Dual Libyan Model

         Libya’s partnership with western powers after 2003 was regarded as a model of what could be achieved through negotiation rather than force.  Nevertheless, the “Arab Spring” turned the tide against the use of diplomatic approaches. The mediation plan put forward by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was rejected by the US, several European countries and Libyan rebels, who preferred instead Gaddafi’s resignation or a military strategy. Would this proposal have been taken more seriously had it been put forward by a permanent Security Council member? Probably, but it is just as likely that Western leaders had grown tired of Gaddafi and were eager to see some kind of strategic change in Libya.

The adoption of UNSCR 1973 in March 17, 2011, formed a legal basis for military intervention to protect civilians from government violence. The NATO intervention, however, empowered the armed rebels while ignoring the human atrocities they too, as subjects of international law may commit. Germany was one of the countries to remain neutral on the resolution foreseeing serious risks and no doubt adding to its credibility as a trusted middleman for negotiations in the Islamic world. At the beginning of the intervention, Gaddafi’s letter to Obama “Our Dear Son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu Oumama” denoted the close relationship he had felt to western powers. In addition to asking Obama to halt NATO intervention, he diplomatically pointed to America’s double standard in interventions and questioned America’s role as a “world police”.

The coordinated international mobilization of lethal force in Libya may present a second “Libyan model” to replicate elsewhere.  However, politics will continue to determine interventions and it remains to be seen what the global political will is for “humanitarian interventions” in other countries such as Syria and Iran or even Mexico. In an interview with CNN in November 2011, the Russian Ambassador to the UN pointed to the double standards in dealing with Yemen and Bahrain and questioned the role of the international community.  He also observed that intervention in Libya was intended to “protect civilians” but instead caused large amounts of casualties.

The Devil We Don’t Know

While Gaddafi may have reaped what he sowed in Libya, his death after his capture marks an undemocratic beginning for a country trying to move away from Gaddafi’s brutal tactics. The public display of his decomposing body in a Misrata meat locker for several days leaves many western backers uneasy.  Furthermore, now that Gaddafi is considered a martyr by loyalists, retribution between loyalists and rebels will continue so long as Libya is still awash with guns.

Gaddafi’s Ghost

President Obama’s foreign policy during the Libya intervention was mixed with idealism and realism. While his decision to intervene was likely driven by logic of appropriateness and a fear of being judged a moral failure, he still recognized that Libya was more of a vital interest to Europe and took a secondary role supporting the creation of pragmatic alliances. Even in this role, however, the US provided a substantial amount of aid, begging the question if Europeans would still have intervened in Libya without US support. Statements by Tory MP arguing that Libya should pay British intervention since NATO has helped free its economy undermine the humanitarian aspect of the intervention.  Could it be, as some leaked diplomatic cables seem to reveal, that western countries have backed the intervention with key benefits in mind to install a regime better serving their political and economic interests?

What remains clear is that while Gaddafi may be dead, the system he created is still alive. Libya was officially declared “liberated” on October 23, 2011, but it faces several challenges in reestablishing security, revitalizing the economy, rebuilding infrastructure, and building electoral bodies. But could the toppling of Gaddafi’s regime have occurred differently? Given Gaddafi’s admonition that he would fight till the end, the answer seems to be no.  The aim of the NATO forces, nevertheless, fell short of ensuring that rebels too respected international humanitarian law.  Reports of Gaddafi’s extra judicial killing demand an investigation to determine if Geneva Conventions were violated.  The victims under Gaddafi were robbed of justice from having him tried under a Libyan court or International Criminal Court. Instead, Gaddafi, according to speculations, faced an end similar to that of many of his victims, thus blurring the lines between the Gaddafi regime and the one to come.

The question now that Gaddafi has been removed is who will rule Libya and will NATO intervention prove to have been a worthwhile “humanitarian” endeavor? While the official statements of most leaders have been praise for the Libyan people and promised support for the buildup of strong institutions, one can only hope that Libya will indeed meet these expectations. In the aftermath of Gaddafi’s death, Austrian’s Foreign Minister Spindelegger stated that “Although it is never appropriate to feel pleasure about the death of a person, what prevails is a feeling of relief, for now the bloodshed has finally come to an end”. It will remain to be seen, however, if this is the case. As Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, despite huge amounts of international aid destined to “institution building”, Libya faces an upward slope.

Mariam Zan

It is possible

“The more power the government has, the weaker the individual becomes” Carl Jung

Mexico is now known all over the world as one of the most dangerous countries to live and visit and it is automatically related with drugs and violence. People only know Ciudad Juarez and they have heard horrible stories of attacks and extortion which makes them think of Mexico as ruthless and savage place.

As a Mexican living in London, hearing this is very sad and sometimes frustrating. Often I am told “I wanted to go to Mexico but it is too dangerous…”.

Mexican pride is not anymore our beautiful people and places, food, music and colours, everything is stained by corruption, drugs and blood. Attitudes of fear and reclusion are part of our daily lives. I fear for my family and friends and I lament that they are not able to live their lives as they deserve. The Mexico the world know is not the Mexico where I grew up nor the country that also my friends an family love.

Lately I have seen comments attacking the actual president Felipe Calderón and accusations to the government and the police and hopeful ideas and illusions about the next president who is going to come and save us from the hell where we live now.

National parties point their fingers to each other and always make the others responsible for everything bad that is happening. “Hopefully one day the government will have a good idea and put an end to this bloody mess”, “The next president will find a solution”. But what do we do about it? What do common citizens think to do to help and solve this social crisis? This is our problem too and we refuse to accept it.

Are we forgetting that we are an important part of what we call society?

Unfortunately it has always been like this. In México we are used to the paternalist government that keeps us eating out of their hands, they tell us they will solve all our problems and uncertainties, we don’t have to worry about anything, they should and will provide us with all our needs, we just have to stay calm and support everything they say and we lose all hope of making ourselves heard.

 

People happily stays quiet trusting every word and every cheap slogan the government says without doubting it and we just get distraction from what other people want us to do, from what the media wants us to buy, from what Televisa wants us to watch and admire, watching “celebrities” dancing reggaeton with people wearing chicken customs on the TV screen is our everyday medicine for our souls and minds.

This ideas have been told by so many people before but the reason why I recall it is because I would like to help people realizing that if we leave all the responsibility to the government and the criminals we will never get out of this.

 

Personally I think that what we need plenty of social adjustments; we need to promote our sense of community, creating our own ideas and solutions and out of the fear find alternatives. Like the Norwegian people did after the horrible attacks in Utoya last month, they felt frightened but closer and united than ever, no one could defeat that. We should stop pointing out all the time and wondering ourselves “what small things can I do?”. Another admiring example is the Turkish community in London: during the riots that we experienced earlier this month in this city, in most part of the cases, while the young people was looting shops and houses a big crowd was just watching, witnessing and taking videos, doing nothing about it; but when they wanted to loot the Turkish commerces they failed because this community got organized and step in front of their shops, protecting their friends and business with big courage. They showed us how would have been possible to stop the rioters of making damage and hurting people if we had been together.

Yesterday, José Narro Robles from UNAM university held a document called “Elementos para la construcción de una política de Estado para la seguridad y la justicia en democracia” written by 88 specialists where they propose the governement social, economical and political strategies to defeat crime and violence in Mexico. It is worth to check it out.

We don’t need anymore this primitive form of society where we are a tribe and we follow the autocratic rule of a chief. We don’t need more schools, we need better schools, we need social programs that motivate the youth, social projects that make families closer and with better relationships. We need to become strong families and strong communities. That is possible!. I am not trying to pretend I know what is right I am just sharing some ideas and myself I am trying to know what can I do!

Could we collect some ideas and make them real?

What do you think? What can you suggest?

Lucía Zan

My first few weeks in lovely Beijing

Getting tired of the economy and the frequent budget cut offs, I decided to turn my head towards Asia. I wanted to become a teacher in the US, but it seemed that the folks on the other side of the world just had many more interesting options.
Though finding good options when you are not a native English speaker can be pretty hard; I sent quite a few emails around the world asking if they would like to take someone whose first language wasn't English. "Sure, you can teach Spanish here" they said in Korea "but do you have a Spaniard accent?"... Well, no... not really. I'm Latino American, not European...

So sending emails here and there, I finally got a response from the only country that seemed willing to consider me for a teaching position: China.

China? Never in my life had I even considered going there! Quick! take a look at the map!, for sure at some point in middle school I learned where China is! (actually, I'm kidding, I knew where it was... but it never hurts to double-check!) After a quick interview, and an even quicker "hey, we need you here before the 6th of August, and oh yeah it's the 25th of July, so you may want to start looking into departing flights right now" , I decided for the first time ever, not to read anything about the country I was about to visit and just let it surprise me. I booked my flight and soon after I was landing in Beijing.

I have to say that I had a few misconceptions about China that were influenced by the previous trip I had taken to another Asian country. For some reason, I was expecting China to be somewhat similar to the first Asian country I visited, but when I got here, everything was so different from everywhere I had ever been to. I always tell myself before a trip that things will be somewhere between slightly to overwhelmingly different to how they are back home, so try to be patient and tolerant. I expected the language to be a problem, I expected markets to be different, how to buy food, how to pay when you get on the bus, etc.

As I write this, I'm glad to say I have been happily surprised by Beijing so far. Of course I understand absolutely nothing, but there is always someone there willing to point at this and that, draw, repeat the same sentence ten times, and anything they can do to help you; so far, no one has ever yelled at me like they did in other countries, or gave up on me. I am profoundly surprised by the warmth of Chinese people. My brother asked me if I didn't know about the Chinese people's reputation of friendliness and kindness. I said no, not at all; then he proceeded to explain to me how the Chinese succeed in other countries by being friendly and nice to each other within their communities. It always feel good when they make you feel welcome and like you are home away from home.

But it's not just the random people at the streets or supermarkets that have been nice and helpful to me. My school's staff wear a smile on their faces most of the time, and I'm sure one day I will be able to gossip with the cleaning ladies, since they are always talking to me, and when they are alone they seem to have some sort of super interesting conversation that for some reason ends when the other teachers come into the room... I love my students, and I think they like me too; my favorite student and I play this wordless game of staring at each other and just laughing and laughing, because we just love laughing without any reason. We were both wearing Mickey Mouse shirts last time, and he was so excited he even told his mom about it.

I had such a big laugh in one of my classrooms last time,that I wasn't able to keep on singing my song; they just go crazy when the song includes spinning and jumping around. It's wonderful to be reminded every day that the simplest things fill your heart out with joy. Sometimes it's hard not being able to understand a word of what they say, because they are so talkative, and there is of course a little bit of disciplinary actions that I wish I could carry out without any help. Luckily for me, the teachers are there to help me when the kids don't want to pay attention, and without them Id be lost trying to explain my students what the activities are about.

Since, I don't have a computer at school, or a printer at home, I have been drawing my own flash cards, and everything I need for my lessons; this week I drew a Mickey Mouse and then cut it out as a puzzle, and the kids were pretty happy! I found out that it can be somewhat easy to keep them in control when I bring these kind of activities with me. I point at their seats, put my finger in front of my mouth and say "shhhh", and raise my hand. The older kids understand that they need to be sitting in their places, quietly and raising their hands if they want to help assemble Mickey Mouse, or the teddy bear, or the parts of the face and the body. Then the youngest follow. Speaking of the verb "to follow" I avoid using that word in one of my nursery classes, or else I will have a bunch of kindergartners walking around in a circle around me singing "follow me, follow me, follow me".

I met this little boy that was the only student on one of my classes not sitting on the carpet during the English class. The teacher told me that he was so terrified of the other foreign teacher (not that the teacher was mean , but that it had been a male teacher), that he never sat with the other students during the lessons. Now he joins every time, sings, participates and I'm thrilled.

I stopped wearing my glasses when I teach, because at the end of the lesson, some of the students like to say good bye with hugs and kisses; since the lesson takes place with all of us sitting down on a carpet, the kids can wrap their hands around my shoulders when they say good bye. But sometimes many of them try to do it at once, and I'm just covered by many kids wishing me a good day and saying good bye to me. I love the feeling!

I'm sure a lot of people may think that going abroad to live/work is only for the adventurous, but hey! worried about what you could be eating here?... well, do you actually know what's inside a Big Mac?. Is the language a problem? sure it is, so carry a pen and a small drawing pad with you, or buy a smart phone as I did, and google the images of what you are looking for when you go out. Tell your Chinese friends-acquaintances what you will be up to this weekend and if it's possible that you call them in case you need some help; besides don't they say that smiles are universal? ha!. Scared of being alone? for some time maybe, but you can always join the gym, and there are places where the instruction takes place in English, and most of your friends from home are one email/skype-viber call/fb post away!. And if you just feel too homesick, stay home and talk to your friends, and forget where you are for some time.

I believe that the faster you understand that you are in a different country, the easier it will be to transition from a tourist to just another citizen. Acceptance. Crossing busy streets where everything except a plane could run you over is not a very big deal for someone who grew up in a place where streets are like that. I hate buying my plastic bags when I go to the supermarket, so now I just keep one inside my purse. Problem solved. Everyone pushing in the bus? Yeah, I had that before in other places. Not a problem! Different places, different things. So I'm enjoying my time here, because it is really up to me what kind of experience I want to have. I'm sure if I wanted to feel miserable, I could find a million reasons to be miserable: oh why did i run out of water already!? why are my kitchen and toilet in a separate room outside my apartment? wait... why are my toilet and kitchen even in the same room on the first place? Man, where is the spicy food?

But since this is what I will be calling home for an entire year, I can definitely overlook those minor inconveniences, and start living like a Chinese, because at the end of the day, that is what brought me here (and not the imaginary Chinese boyfriend some people think I have), and also because, next year when my trip is over, I will not look back and wonder why the toilet situation bothered me so much, I couldn't enjoy my apartment when it was just a silly thing I could have easily got used to had I wanted to? A year goes by so fast that I better make the best out of it!

I know I will have awesome days, OK days, remarkable days that will say with me for the rest of my life; and sad days, days when I wish I could just go back home; but they are chapters of the same story. And that is what going abroad is all about: a good collection of assorted memories!

I'm sure if I had had more options, I would have probably chosen a different country; and that's why I'm extremely happy that this was my only option instead, because I know I myself couldn't have chosen a better place! I am loving it and can't wait until I get paid to of course spend my money in exploring more and more.

Special collaboration from Beu Cárdenas

Momentos de histeria en Saltillo

Recientes titulares sobre la situación que se vive actualmente en Saltillo, ciudad del Estado de Coahuila que cuenta con una población de 2,748,391 habitantes (INEGI, 2010).

A. Zan