turkishtea

There is a strong case being made these days for the concept of ecologically unequal exchange, a concept predicated on the colonial legacy of the global North/West imposed on the global South/East. This is particularly evident in a nation like Congo, whose rich deposits of minerals and ores are ruthlessly sought after by developed nations. Some of the minerals are widely used in technology that we use every day. The prices of copper, cobalt and coltan on the world market are so strongly controlled by the developed nations that Congolese people are being exploited as a work force on a daily basis. In addition the political situation in Congo suits the rest of the world. A civil war that has been largely supported with the money from ore export is raging in Eastern Congo and has affected about 50 million people in the last 12 years, which has made this Central African country a living hell. Amongst the most bruised are Congolese women that have suffered the worst atrocities. They are victims of violations of human rights on a daily basis, but a lot of these cruel situations could be avoided if it weren’t for the precious metals in the ground that Developed World so desperately desires. Not only has the war done tremendous damage both physically as well as psychologically to the whole population, but in combination with ore extracting it has managed to make women in particular victims of their natural environment. In this paper I will present the terms of global ecologically unequal exchange within the context of Congolese minerals being exported to the West.

The first commercial non-assembly computer was invented in 1973 and about a decade later the first laptop computers were introduced to the market. Computer from 1973 used the Intel 8008 processor and sold for $1,750[1] – the laptop I am writing on uses an Intel processor and cost about the same in 2007. In three decades the Globe has become dependent on computers. From a computer that was big enough to fill a room we have come to owning all these little technical gadgets that are apart of our daily lives. We have become highly dependent on them, and despite this dependency we strangely feel happier with them than without them[2]. Not only do we find ourselves on a verge of an environmental catastrophe because of our fossil fuel consumption and thus green house gas problems, but also our patterns of consumption have weaved the world in a system of unfair production and consumption nets.

Our dependency on computer technology is bigger than ever. It helps us run our daily lives, whether it be the Stockholm underground railway system or a newly built metro in New Delhi[3], or as small as a music player that we listen to while we workout at the gym. But what is inside these little plastic boxes? Apart from consuming electricity every time we charge the device, what else do we consume when we decide to buy a piece of electronic equipment like an mp3 player or a laptop?

When we are talking about the industrialization of our planet, we are referring to the processes that started in early 19th century Britain. This is when a shift in production occurred, when machinery switched from animal, wind and water-powered machines to steam-run ones.[4] This was the start of the dependency on burning fossil fuels for kinetic energy, which we have only in the recent decades recognized as the source of the development of green house gasses. The modern capitalist world economy is still highly dependent on the burning of fossil fuels, even though scientists and activists all over the world are struggling to implement alternative ways of production and shift it from using finite sources:

‘The currently globalizing connections through market exchange and technologies of trade and communication are widely celebrated as a road to a more integrated, prosperous, and even egalitarian future world, yet there is overwhelming evidence that precisely these connections continue to generate devastating ecological deterioration and increasingly severe inequalities within and between nations’ (Hornborg, A. 2008; my italics).

With the invention of the first automatic machine, which was actually a self-acting-mule for spinning cotton, and the patent for the steam machine in 1784 by James Watt[5] and its implementation into the industry later on, an unnatural shift in environment occurred, which caused the levels of of CO2 to rise from 280 ppm in 1870 to 378 ppm[6] that we are facing today. Humans have influenced nature so gravely that extreme increases started, up to 2 ppm CO2 per year (Malm, Andreas; lecture 4, 11 February 2010).

Steam engines became very popular, since they required just the initial capital investment, but provided less dependency on labor force and spatial location (for example, water-run machines required certain natural characteristics, like fast running water; they were also less dependable, since nature can only be controlled to an extent). No longer were companies looking for land to build their facilities on, but they were setting up in towns, where the labor force was already dense. Major urbanization started at the time, villagers and farmers were moving into cities in search of better opportunities.

I. G. Simmons writes about four overlapping phases of dominant systems in the last centuries: from 1750 to 1820 we have previously mentioned water powered engines and textile production, followed by coal usage and steam power up to 1850, which further developed into the popular usage of railways and steamships for transportation of the goods. This was a time of the so called second industrial revolution or the technological revolution.[7] From 1920 to 1950 we see huge fossil fuel consumption and building of roads as an outburst of automobile industry awaits (adopted from Simmons 2008, p. 113).

We can divide this historical time in an economical sense too, if we refer to them as ‘super cycles’ that last from 50-60 or more years, depending on certain factors (like technology, life expectancy etc.) Also called K-waves after their establisher Nikolai Kondratieff (other spelling Kondratiev)[8], they are sinusoidal -like circles that show differences between fast and stagnant growth in the modern capitalist world economy.

Capitalist economy defined six long economic waves, each dependent on a specific technological revolution. The first wave was in 1600 to 1780 (financial-agricultural revolution), followed by the current Industrial revolution in 1780 that lasted for a century, then came the Technical revolution that lasted up to 1940s. From 1940, which is also approximately the time of the growth period on the 4th K-wave, we have the wave of the Scientific-technical revolution, followed by Information and telecommunications revolution that started in 1985 and should last until 2015.

Once known as Zaire, The Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) is a former Belgian colony and one of African central states[9].

King Leopold II[10] took over ownership of the land by force and declared himself a ruler. Soon, reports of his army’s cruelty were numerous; torture, beatings, sexual abuse and the burning of villages was a sad reality for the Congolese people. Missionaries started arriving to Congo as well, and they were the first to speak up. First, they wrote about horrors they had seen privately to each other in letters; later, when it all became too much for them to bear, they started writing to home authorities. Reports about Belgian soldiers whipping locals into obedience, mutilating men, women and children as means of punishment, brutally sexually molesting the female population and cutting off of hands.

Cutting of hands was a reward system set up by King Leopold II. For every dead body of a native person the soldier would get a certain payment. To prove his killings he had to bring the hands of the killed as proof. This soon spread out in a form of punishment for natives, but it certainly was not the only cruel means of getting what they wanted. And what did they want? Why did the King send the first exhibition so far into the central African forest, where no white man has set foot before?

The Congo Free State, as it was called under the governance of King Leopold II, existed from 1885 to 1908. Reports were that the remote area of Katanga was rich in rubber and gold[11], so the army’s goal was set. Rubber was the reason why thousands of locals suffered forced labor and torture on a daily basis. Belgian soldiers were rewarded for their cruelty and happily counted the awards they gathered while slaughtering the savages, as they named the local people.

Another tactic for getting the local men to work harder was to kidnap their women and detain them until they were satisfied with the amount collected. As previously mentioned, one of the punishments for not collecting enough rubber was the cutting of limbs. Horrifying reports state thousands of hands and feet being cut of for the sake of rubber export, and soldiers’ diaries brag about rows of hands displayed on the ground like hunting trophies.

The Belgian state today does not like to be reminded of the actions of this part of the royal family. There are statues and buildings made with the money that was acquired in Leopold’s time that are still standing in Brussels and Antwerp. One of the fountains on Antwerp’s main square shows a giant male figure, holding a cut of hand high up in the air – there’s even a splash of water coming from the vein … The sculpture was made in 1887[12], around the same time as the first car was invented by Karl Benz in Germany and ten years after Leopold II. hired the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley to establish a colony in the Congo region. (Shockingly enough) a century later one can buy tiny chocolate hands at Antwerp’s finest chocolatiers. Maybe Belgians see them as a bitter-sweet reminder of the horrors that are not spoken of in the Belgian sphere lightly.

DR Congo is no longer the main producer and exporter of rubber. This role has been taken on by Malaysia. Congo, and particularly the province of Katanga, has become a major extractor of cobalt, copper and coltan, as well as gold and diamonds[13].

DR Congo is currently in it’s 12th year of war time. The country is divided between the government and rebel armed forces; stuck in the middle are millions of civilians that are being treated like savages again, only this time, it is by their own people. This time around the corrupt local authorities and rebels have taken over the independent state and are now running a non-structural jungle. Middle men trading with cobalt and copper, two of their main exports, are earning the majority of the surplus value. People are being forced to work in horrible conditions, digging in unsecure mine-shafts for an ore that is being sold on trucks through Rwanda, on to Nigeria and then to Europe. This ore is then turned into products that we use every day, even if we don’t realize it.

‘Copper is one of the best conductors of electricity, making it heralded by all computer chip manufacturers /…/ chip makers use copper wires, rather than traditional aluminum interconnects, to link transistors in chips’ (www.copper.org). Aluminum was mostly replaced by copper when it comes to technology, thus making ‘external cables and connectors to bus ways to printed circuit boards, sockets and lead frames’ all copper. Most copper is extracted via mining, through open pit mines, and about 95 % of all extractions have been done since 1900[15]. At the same time, copper is one of the most recycled ores, right after iron and aluminum, and it is estimated that ’80 % of copper ever mined is still in use today’ (http://www.copperinfo.com/environment/recycling.html). The southeastern province of Katanga, Congo, (adopted from http://euromin.w3sites.net/Nouveau_site/gisements/ congo/GISCONe.htm) is rich with minerals, specifically copper and cobalt. Its’ land area is around 500 thousand km², which makes it 16 times bigger than Belgium.

Congolese biggest export is cobalt, which is a side product of copper mining. DR Congo is one of the top producers of this ore, having up to 40 % of world’s stock in cobalt. Previously used as a coloring pigment in art and décor, during a time of technological revolution scientists found new usage for cobalt. If you are like me and don’t know much about chemistry, than the only thing that is important to you when you go to a technical store to by a computer or batteries, is the life expectancy. Our world has become obsessed with bigger, faster, better – in everything. Thus copper found its way into our world through making circuit boards smaller and chips more interconnected. And cobalt? Well, cobalt is in all those batteries of phones and mp3 players and computers that have a sign ‘Li-ion’ on it; the ones that a salesperson is going to say to you ‘They last longer’. The first time I heard the difference between lithium cobalt oxides filled electrodes (or Li-ion) and ‘the old batteries’ I was sold when told that I don’t have to wait for the battery to fully empty out in order to refill it. To a layman this is enough.

Let us now return back to Congo and its’ political situation in order to find out why the economical market is not the only element, controlling the prices of minerals.

Another important mineral that is extracted in eastern Congo in major quantities is coltan (or columbite-tantalite), which is widely used in electronics as well. It appears in your cell phones, laptops, pagers and other electronic devices. 'It is important to everyday communication in the United States, but it is making the conflict in Congo more complicated /…/ When refined, coltan becomes metallic tantalum, a heat-resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge. These properties make it a vital element in creating capacitors, the electronic elements that control current flow inside miniature circuit boards. /…/ The recent technology boom caused the price of coltan to skyrocket to as much as $400 a kilogram at one point, as companies such as Nokia and Sony struggled to meet demand[16]. Price of coltan is hard to pin down though, since it depends on a certain amount and combinations of different minerals inside this one ore. Other sources for example state that prices of coltan skyrocketed in 2000, peaking at 275 US$ right after Sony put out a demand for more coltan. It was estimated that the price per kilo in 2001 was again approximately at the start level, that is 41 US$ (adopted from Willum 2001). What caused this surge of prices after 1999 was Sony’s demand form more coltan because of new technology in Playstation 2, which is still the most sold model[17].

Tons of minerals were extracted from Congo in the recent decade, smuggled out of the country (mostly through Rwandan militia with the help of western companies[18]) and never paid for. Child labor is widely used as a labor force, and so is forced labor. As a British politician Oona King said "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms"[19] in the case of Playstation (and other gaming consoles).

Not only is this a case of globally unequal exchange[20], but also has a huge impact on environment, starting with the innocent bystanders like Central African gorillas, who are natural habitants of the Congo Basin and its’ rainforest. Extensive logging and mining is going on in the so called gorilla land ‘because the illegal trade in timber and in metals such as gold and coltan /…/ generates between $14 million and $50 million a year /…/The money helps fund the militias' battle against the Congolese army. As the militias fight the army, the insecurity in the region has driven thousands into refugee camps' (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/03/30/gorillas.threatened/index.html?iref=allsearch).

In 1960, Belgium announced that it was giving Congo its independence, but Belgians gave their former colony just five months to get ready for independence despite the fact that it was clearly unprepared for such a task. The independent Congo Republic was declared on June 30th, 1960 with its Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Fights between Congolese army and the remaining white officers started after a month and numerous attacks took place against Europeans in general. The situation worsened when the mineral-rich area of Katanga in southern Congo was declared independent by Moise Tshombe who lead the people in Katanga. ‘Katanga produced copper, 60% of the world’s uranium and 80% of the world’s industrial diamonds. Tshombe was backed by the European companies that worked in Katanga as they hoped to take a cut from the considerable profits that could be made from mining such resources. Katanga had the potential to make Congo one of the more wealthy African states. Without it, the new nation would remain poor’ (www.historylearningsite.co.uk).

This is the point where the UN stepped in with almost 10 thousand troops and tried to bring back law and order in Congo. But, the UN force was only allowed to ‘use force as a means of self-defense and it was not allowed to take sides between the government in Leopoldville and the government of Tshombe in Elizabethville’ (later being in Katanga). So when the government asked for help in a military sense, Dag Hammerskjöld[21], who was Secretary-General of the United Nations at that time, had to decline and ‘Lumumba immediately accused the United Nations of siding with Tshombe because of Katanga’s rich mineral reserves. He also accused the United Nations of siding with the rich European companies that mined the region’. Lulumba turned to the Russians for help, and quickly both sides had Russian weapons and ‘the country by the summer of 1961 seemed to be on the verge of implosion. A vicious civil war seemed a real possibility’. After this, UN was given permission by the Security Council to use force in order to stop a civil war from happening. Some of the once rebel groups formed a coalition with the government and established their own parliament, and the only group that was not part of this was Tshombe’s Katanga. In the following events, of ‘August 1961, 5,000 United Nations troops launched an attack on Katanga. Though they captured key points in the province, they did not get Tshombe as he had fled to Rhodesia. /…/In January 1963, Katanga was re-united with the rest of the Congo’ (adopted from http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/united_nations_congo.htm).

Whether or not this UN action was a success, is highly debatable. But, at the moment, the refugee camps set by the UN in Congo are the only semi-safe havens for locals.

One of the most damaged parts of society in Congo is the female population[22]. These women are facing everyday dangers that go far beyond any horror movie that we could possibly imagine. Women are being raped on a daily basis by all the militias, governmental or rebel. Females have no voice in a society that is highly patriarchal. They are considered the property of their husbands and there are numerous tribes in Congo that are polygamist as well, which diminishes the role of the female even further. Women are considered to be ‘valuable’ in a material sense only if they are virgins until they get married, which is also a reason for the widespread practice of female genital mutilation. This gruesome practice that has been condemned by every international human rights organization and is defended in Congo as ‘a part of their culture’, allows men to penetrate a woman in a violent way in order to subordinate her.

Similar ‘tactics’ are used by all militias in order to morally ruin the female population. But, consequentially, not just morally – victims of rape are actually considered ‘dirty’ and ‘unhonorable’ and they are usually shunned from their communities. Therefore there are huge refugee centers created exclusively for females that have been victims of rape, where they can at least be semi-protected and provide for themselves and for their children who are often a direct result of rape. A surge of sexually transmitted diseases is a tragic consequence as well.

The developed world, with mostly male head-figures, is exploiting and extracting minerals from the developing world. Stock traders in England are bathing in their open hot tubs in the middle of winter, while African women are walking for hours on end on a daily basis to find drinking water, food and fire wood. It is sadly ironic how technical gadgets that are widely used in the developed world and are bringing us such happiness[23], cause tremendous sadness in the countries where the raw materials for the same gadgets come from.

Not only are we seeing genocide in Congo and gross violations of human rights on multiple levels, but we are also seeing globally unequal exchange in action. DR Congo with its’ mineral supply could be the richest country in the world, and yet it is facing extreme poverty, hunger, spread of diseases and ruin of its nature. Mining for ore that is widely used in devices such as computers and cell phones has caused near catastrophic damage to Congo’s rainforest and the Congolese people. Child labor, violence against women and exploitation of the extracting workforce are not a new reality for this Central African country, but unfortunately a rather familiar situation ever since the occupation of their land by Belgians in 19th century.

The conflict is so vast that journalists are calling it ‘The African World War’ and despite continuing reports from international government and NGO organizations about massacres, systematic plundering, rape on a mass scale both of women and the environment, these people are left behind so that development of technology and consumerism can continue.

Some of the companies in the developed world are now refusing to by cobalt, copper or coltan from Congo and are replacing it with imports from Australia, where the regulations are (relatively) strict and transparent. Perhaps if we as consumers can learn to pay more attention to the seemingly mundane origins of the products we buy, we can take a step towards repairing the damage that has been done in the Democratic Republic of Congo as in so many other places in the developing world.

Hornborg, A. 2009, ‘Zero-Sum World: Challenges in Conceptualizing Environmental Load Displacement and Ecologically Unequal Exchange in the World-System', International Journal of Sociology, Vol. 50, No. 3-4, 237-262.

Polgreen, Lydia Train cuts through Delhi's chaos, International Herald Tribune, May 14 2010, page 2.

Simmons, I. G. 2008, Global Environental History - An Indostrious World, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Women and the crisis, list of general guidelines for my writing on female issues:

[3] Train cuts through Delhi's chaos, Lydia Polgreen. International Herald Tribune, May 14 2010, page 2

[4] Adopted from Global Environental History - An Indostrious World. I. G. Simmons (p. 109)

[12] Built in 1887 by Jef Lambaux. It depicts the symbol of Antwerp, the mythical hero Brabo. When the giant Antigoon demanded stiff fees from boats using the harbor, Brabo fought him and cast his hand into the river, an act depicted in the statue http://yurg.homestead.com/marksquare.html

[15] 'Copper has been in use at least 10,000 years, but more than 95% of all copper ever mined and smelted has been extracted since 1900. As with many natural resources, the total amount of copper on Earth is vast (around 1014 tons just in the top kilometer of Earth's crust, or about 5 million years worth at the current rate of extraction). However, only a tiny fraction of these reserves is economically viable, given present-day prices and technologies. Various estimates of existing copper reserves available for mining vary from 25 years to 60 years, depending on core assumptions such as the growth rate’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper

[17] Currently, the Playstation 2 is the best-selling video game console of all-time, having sold through over 140 million units /…/ (in 1999( Sony required a significant increase in the production of electric capacitors, which are primarily made with tantalum. This helped drive the world price of the powder from $49/pound to a whopping $275/pound, resulting in the frenzied scouring of the Congolese hills known for being ripe with coltan http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/playstation-2-component-incites-african-war/1231745

[18] A highly controversial U.N. Security Council report recently outlined the alleged exploitation of natural resources, including coltan, from Congo by other countries involved in the current war. There are reports that forces from neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are involved in smuggling coltan from Congo, using the revenues generated from the high price of coltan to sustain their efforts in the war. By one estimate, the Rwandan army made at least $250 million over a period of 18 months through the sale of coltan, even though no coltan is mined in Rwanda. All countries involved in the war deny exploiting Congo's natural resources. http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1352/1

[20] Coltan mining is very well paid in Congo terms. The average Congolese worker makes $10 a month, while a coltan miner can make anywhere from $10 to $50 a week. http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1352/1

[21] Hammerskjöld’s peace action: Dag Hammerskjöld and Markings by KG Hammar.

[22] I am basing these next paragraphs on my research of human and women’s rights. Sources can be found at the end of my reference list.

Polka, Minarets and Distorted Memories

                           Polka, minarets and distorted memories
                                                     by Tea Durmić   
                 Ovo je ovde Balkan, zemlja iz sna između moćnih sila, dobra i zla;
                                                 Tu svako može biti dušman i brat, svakih 50 leta izbija rat;
                                                      Ovu su zemlju pravili i ratnici i pesnici i različiti Bogovi;
                                                            Ovo je ovde Balkan mirisni cvet potpuno nerazumljiv za ceo svet.    
                  This here is Balkan, a land of dreams between the powerful forces of good and evil;
                              Here everyone can be an enemy and a brother and every 50 years a new war erupts;
                                                  This land was made by warriors and poets and different Gods;
                            This here is Balkan, a pleasant smelling flower, misunderstood by the rest of the world.                                                             Serbian rock artist, Bajaga & Instruktori[1] 
Serbian rock artist, Bajaga & Instruktori[1]

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iopBKFUuKV4

Introduction

     My intention for this essay was to take a deeper look into the plight of Muslim minority in the Republic of Slovenia since its independence in 1991 and how the situation is influenced by both history and the media. The initial drive was my position as a student of journalism and my disappointment with the quality of Slovene media over the last few years. With the current Swiss referendum against building of minarets[1] and post 9/11 global islamophobia and growing tensions among Muslims in the EU, we are seeing nationalistic and anti-immigrant tendencies developed. Furthermore, the planning of building a mosque in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, is now approximately 40 years old. Under every constitutional and legal right there can be a mosque (đamija) in Slovenia, and yet certain parties and individuals manage to keep blocking it. Finally, all the necessary documentation is in order and the process of building of the Muslim Cultural Center can start. And yet it is accompanied by (un)open threats from certain online communities that freely use global anonymity for hate speech. My interest was in the ‘official’ and online reports and the role they play in shaping the perception of Muslims, particularly in Slovenia. The time seems to be right to pin the blame on the media and their growing global influence. But can we really?

[1] http://www.theinternationalonline.com/articles/107-swiss-referendum-prohibits-construction-o

To speak about the current situation of Muslim community in Slovenia is to refer both to history and media constructs of it; past political and economic situations; ethnic and religious background; migrations and origin. All these complex questions are a part of the complex group, which is around 50,000 people strong - judging by the latest official population census[3]. But before we even try to understand the current events and position that Muslim community is in at the moment, we need to take a look at some variables that influenced this position.

We shall first take a general look at the country of Slovenia, one of the newest members of the European Union. Through the country’s history we will start examining contacts between East and West, or to put it differently, the flow of Muslim and Christian migration through the geographical area of the Balkans. We also cannot afford to skip the horrific time of the Balkan war in the ‘90s, which shaped the future of Bosnian Muslims immensely and with this also influenced the position of Muslims in Slovenia. We will further discuss the process of ‘othering’ during this war, the ‘othering’ of Muslims in the global arena and take a look into the ‘global war on terrorism’ and the surge of islamophobia.

Slovenia has a colorful history. Never before 1991 was it known as an independent state. It was a part of the Roman Empire and partly the Republic of Venice; the principality of Karantania (only modern Slovenia's northern part) and later on the Habsburg Monarchy and the Austrian Empire (later known as Austria-Hungary). The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was created and later renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. I stress these facts because all of these complicated relationships are crucial to understanding some of the symbols and rhetoric used by nationalist or rightist parties in the area of former Yugoslavia, not just Slovenia.

Following the re-establishment of Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, Slovenia became part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, declared on 29 November 1945. “Yugoslavia was an artificial union of its constituent elements – republics and autonomous provinces. The differences were manifold: national, religious, cultural, historic, and economic/…/The result was that the republics and even municipalities began to develop as independent economies, without links to each other/…/Political relations within the country were influenced by disintegration of the economy, expensive and unproductive production process, and the polycentric etatism on the part of the republics – all of which stimulated nationalism. Indeed, it may be argued that the Yugoslav example supports the position that nationalism is engendered wherever weakly developed productive forces are confined to a provincial (local) market” (Ferfila, Bogomir; 152–53). Further more, “Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the autonomous province of Kosovo in Serbia were all defined by the federal government as ‘less developed’ and therefore entitled to economic aid fro the ‘developed’ republics of Slovenia, Croatia and, in part, Serbia. Disagreements between the developed and less-developed constituent parts of Yugoslavia contributed greatly to the collapse of the Federation” (Ferfila, Bogomir; 156).

Also because of the Tito-Stalin split, economic and personal freedoms were broader than in the Eastern Bloc. In 1947, Italy ceded most of the Julian March to Yugoslavia, and Slovenia thus regained the Slovenian Littoral, including access to the sea. From the 1950s, the Socialist Republic of Slovenia enjoyed a relatively wide autonomy. In 1990, Slovenia abandoned its socialist infrastructure, the first free and democratic elections were held, and the DEMOS coalition defeated the former Communist parties. The state reconstituted itself as Republic of Slovenia. In December 1990, the overwhelming majority of Slovenian citizens voted for independence, which was declared on 25 June 1991. A Ten-Day War followed in which the Slovenians rejected Yugoslav military interference. After 1990, a stable democratic system evolved, with economic liberalization and gradual growth of prosperity. Slovenia joined NATO on 29 March 2004 and the European Union on 1 May 2004. Slovenia was the first post-Communist country to hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, for the first six months of 2008.[4]

According to Bernard Lewis the hatred of Muslims towards the West for most historians, Middle Eastern and Western alike, the conventional beginning of modern history in the Middle East dates from 1798 on. This was the time when the ideas of French revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt. It was a severe shock for the Islamic world that a small Western force invaded one of the heartlands of Islam. “The second bitter lesson that Muslims had to learn: Not only could a Western power arrive, invade, and rule at will but only another Western power could get it out” (Lewis, Bernard; 47). This was a part of armed invasion and conquest phase, “by which European powers established effective domination over important areas of Islamic world”. But before this, what is seen in the Muslim world as exploitation of them and their countries, or officially called commercial expansion, has damaged their world immensely. These events mirror themselves to current times, when the invasion of Middle East started – it is mainly viewed that Western invaders are only attacking Muslim countries because of natural resources.

But let’s first take a look at the historical travels that Muslims travelled to reach the area of the Northern Balkans.

During Islamic caliphate’s 1^st expansion under the Prophet Muhammad from 622–632 the Western European areas were under Byzantine rule, including Constantinople (Istanbul). The caliphate contained the area around the Red Sea, with its centers in Mecca and Medina, and reached to Sanaa, the current capital of Yemen, and Persian Gulf. With the rise of Ottoman Turks in the beginning of 14^th Century Istanbul fell under the ruling of Ottoman Empire a century later, and so did Bulgaria, Greece and large part of Turkey. Expansion proceeded and under Mehmet II and Selim I by the end of 1520 the larger part of Balkans, including present area of Serbia and Croatia, belonged to Ottomans.

Bosnia and Herzegovina came from under the ruling of the Ottoman Empire to Austro-Hungarian Empire before the WWI. Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo & Macedonia were annexed to Ottoman Empire, but were never a part of Austro-Hungary. On the other hand, northern Balkan parts, including Vojvodina, Croatia & Slovenia were never a part of Ottoman Empire, but were ruled by Austro-Hungarian thumb. In 1918 Yugoslavia started to exist, with Bosnia in the middle (adopted from Ferfila, Bogomir; 45).

These historical facts are important not only for shedding a light on some events, but also because of the following: “In his pronouncements, bin Ladin[5] makes frequent references to history. One of most dramatic was his mention of the ‘humiliation and disgrace’ that Islam has suffered for ‘more than eighty years’ ” (Lewis, Bernard; XV).

He was referring to the year 1918 when “the last of the great Muslim empires, was finally defeated/…/and much of his territory partitioned between the victorious British and French Empires.” With the arrival of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his “adoption of Western, or as he preferred to put it, modern ways” (Lewis, Bernard; XVi) one of the first acts was the abolishment of the sultanate in 1922. This was quickly also the end of an era of the Caliphs[6], “the head of all Sunni Islam, and the last in a line of rulers that dated back to the death of the prophet Muhammadin 632 C.E./…/not as spiritual, but as religious and political head of the Muslim state and community” (Lewis, Bernard; XVii). The caliphate was a “potent symbol of Muslim unity, even identity for nearly thirteen centuries; its disappearance, under the double assault of foreign imperialists and domestic modernists, was felt through the Muslim world. Many Muslims are still painfully conscious of this void”.

It seems like everything denied in public sphere has moved to this global space online, where anonymity allows us to speak freely and without borders. Of course freedom of speech is one of the vital fibers in our societies, but it seems like it has become an excuse for spreading hate speech, racist messages - calls for violent acts that could (would) be evaluated by the country’s legal system and their authors would have to carry the consequences. Online anonymity also allows individuals and groups to go further with their comments, which they do not in the public sphere or national media. But since these rightist groups are still small (Slovene National Party SNS for example is still in opposition, even though they reached the necessary 2 % to enter Parliament …) they represent an alternative view, not a mainstream idea. SNS has a strong leadership in their main politician (and we could say spokesperson) Zmago Jelinčič, who is a part of all major and minor political debates when it comes to pressing issues. He is constantly invited to different programs, including National Radio and Television (RTV SLO), which is a public network. His rhetoric is demeaning to immigrants, homosexuals, other races and ethnicities, all of which he freely spurts on National TV where he is (was) a frequent guest. The latest major incident occurred last year when he talked about Gypsies as scum, ‘eaters’ of Slovenia’s social-support and bullies on a popular show. He got away with it on basis of his diplomatic immunity (?!).

I also closely observed the commercial television Pop TV, especially revealing to the whole situation was a show called Trenja (Tensions)[7] from December 2008, where they were discussing the question of đamija (the mosque). There were nine guests, out of which only Mr Jelinčič and Jarc (who was the main person to try for the referendum to try to stop the building) were against the building of the Islamic cultural center in Ljubljana. Their attempts to throw of any sort of intellectual debate were clear to a slightly observant viewer. Usage of historic ‘proofs’, cultural references, comparisons of Christianity as peaceful and Islam as violent religion; hints to the fact that Muslims equal terrorists; denying any legal proof of human rights or Slovene constitution that allow freedom of religion from the other guests etc.

To get back to our topic of nativity, this is also one of the important questions raised by SNS – the fear that Slovenes will become extinct and other ethnicities will take their place. This brings us back to the videos of ‘Muslim growth’ and the ‘Slovenian Fist’. He stresses his concern with a video of an Egyptian cleric on Memri TV[8], denouncing how Muslims will be predominant in EU in 20 years and have an important influence on decision-making. He goes on saying: ‘This angers a lot of other groups and they see it as great danger. These are, as we know, haters of Islam. But Westerners don’t know anything about Muslims. Statistics show that 70 % of people don’t know who the Muslim Prophet is. And even if they know that it is Muhammad[9], they don’t know what that means. They know nothing about him, his history’.

He claims that intentional provocative actions are set in EU to get the Muslims out of this area; 20-30 million Muslims represent a big threat. He calls the The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy ‘offensive action with the comics’ and continues: ‘Westerners intentionally pressed the button of sacrisy to Muslims, offended the K’horan and Muhammad. And it clashes with the same button that is sacred to the West: freedom of speech. West is attacking what is sacred to the Muslims with that which is sacred to them. In order to be able to kick the Muslims out, the Europeans must have a reason for it – like they did in Bosnia. They are provoking Muslims so they would start fighting back and making mistakes, like bomb attack and other unconventional reactions. Than the Europeans could say that they have a concrete reason. This is my interpretation. What else are they gaining by constant insults to the Muslim population?! What is important here that the Muslim population of 30 million integrates itself to the EU society and show their neighbors that they are successful and worthy of respect.’

To return back to video posts on the mosque, I found a lot of videos that look the same posted from different users. They all have the writing ‘What will happen to đamija in Ljubljana?’[10] and Arabic mass in the back; the mass is interrupted either by gunshots or a bomb going off, followed by a famous popular Slovene folk song that is played at every farmers-fest.

Slovene Muslims mostly came from Bosnia, the majority after 1991 with Slovenia's independence and the start of the Balkan war. In the last census (2002) there were 50,000 Muslims living in the geographical area of Slovenia[11] that has a population of 2 million. This is not counting the migrant workers from BiH, Kosovo and Macedonia, who are also mostly Muslim. Historically speaking Bosnian Muslims came to the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the last expansions of Ottoman Empire in 15-16^th Century.

Slovene literature from 19^th Century depicts some of the Ottoman invasions of this Northern Balkans area, which was strongly Christian. Folk stories were being written about the horrific and violent Ottoman soldiers on strong horses with curved swords that were trying to reach Vienna as the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; while doing so, they reached Croatian and Slovene villages, where they robbed and burned down villages, taking young men to train to fight for Ottoman army etc. These were the first direct contacts between Slovenes and Turks, and I claim that then the first step in Slovenes collective memory[12] was made. Even though Turks did not stay in this area, or try to implement Muslim religion, my presumption is that because of the strong presence of the Christian Church[13] the attacks were explained through biased religious glasses as well.

The representative of Slovene Muslim community Nevzet Porić[14] told me that things are getting better then it comes to acceptance of Muslim community in Slovenia. He agrees with my assessment that Slovene media are still putting Muslim related topics exclusively in the informative part of the program (both on RTV SLO and Pop TV). He misses documentaries related with Muslim issues and concrete academic and intellectual debates. The show Trenja that I mentioned above, are only a farce playing into the hands of the nationalistic tendencies in Slovenia. We discussed the rhetoric that was used by Mr Jelinčič and Mr Jarc, who represented the opposition groups against the building of the first mosque in Slovenia. Mr Porić condemns this sort of debate under false pretences and adds that the show host was playing along with their provocations against the Muslim community. He stressed the fact that two shows like this were made in 2002 & 2003, which was right after the 9/11 attacks. The pressure in the media and the debates around Muslim topics were ‘hot’ at that moment and he feels like it was the worst possible time to debate about the issue of building of Muslim Religious Center in Ljubljana. Even though attitudes towards the Center have changed immensely, as he claims, the Muslim topics still remain a part of the informative program. And even when they do report on something other than the mosque, like Bayram for instance, they show a short clip of the Slovene Muslims and accompany them with footage of Afghan or Iraq Muslims etc., which is totally out of the context.

Mr Porić recognizes that part of the blame also comes from their side, since he points out the fact that unfortunately so far there have not been a lot of texts from Muslim culture, translated to Slovenian language. This should change shortly, especially with the building of the library. They are also striving to be a part of the television program on RTV SLO, since the number of Muslims in Slovenia is apparently much higher than the last census stated officially. To the 50,000 Muslims that are officially listed in the last population count, we can just in the year of 2007 add 27,000 immigrant workers, that asked for working visas for Slovenia at the Sarajevo embassy; another 27,000 in the next year. Muslims (as it seems) became an unofficial minority group that nobody seem to have exact and fresh statistical data on.

If we presume that all these people (and more) stayed in the Republic of Slovenia, than an interesting comparison can be made to two officially minority groups in Slovenia: Italian and Hungarian in their respective areas. They have their slot in RTV SLO program and their respective languages are also recognized and used officially, since these two are the only minorities that have legal status. On the basis of mother tongue data[15], however, we can conclude that there are respectively more people using languages of ex-Yugoslav area: Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian, Macedonian and so on, but their status is not legalized in terms of language usage. Again, also the data of language usage can be interpreted in multiple ways; the first thing that would need further discussion on is the fact that we cannot measure individual use of Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian language if we use a common category of Serbo-Croatian language in the same research[16]. There are also strong tendencies from all parts of former Yugoslav Federation to abolish the description of the common language as Serbo-Croatian, since there never was such a thing.

Language was also strongly used and common technique (among others[17]to stir nationalism[18] in the newly formed Republics on the remains of Yugoslavia. This is just one of the examples that Ben Fowkes represents in his book Post-Communist Era:

“The newly formed Croatian government now took a number of steps which were likely to provoke the Serbian side to violent resistance, understandable though they were in the context of nation-building: the wartime ‘Independent State of Croatia’ (NDH), which was associated with the genocidal crimes carried out by the Ustaše[19] against local Serbian and Jewish minorities, was historically rehabilitated” (p. 86). They used the name kuna for their new currency (same name of Ustaša currency), pictures of the Ustaše leader were hung in police stations, the red & white šahovnica (the chest-board) was re-instated and is still used even today; an official document proving Croatian origin was required for most public acts, like starting a business or getting a passport; the Latin alphabet was declared official in Croatia, with this excluding the Cyrillic script, favored by Serbs and so on.

But to return to our topic of lack of media space in (non)informative program, Mr Porić noted that RTV SLO is the only television that gives Muslims a 3-minute slot in their evening news during Bayram, where their representative addresses the broader public (similar to big Christian, Jewish and Protestant holidays).

I think it is important to stress the presence of Muslim community in Slovenia from an educational point of view, especially since I have noticed that with some of this nationalistic sub-groups the problem really is just the lack of knowledge about the other culture, hating or rejecting something ‘other’ because it is unknown. This religious center should change that. Their plans are academically ambitious, and from what I gathered the mosque is of course going to be a part of the complex, but not as its primary role. Their stress was on a huge library, rooms for debates, kindergarten and so on.

The fear of some of the guys that I talked to, about the 20-minute long ‘yelling’ from the minaret and the ‘fact’ that Muslims want to influence Slovene politics with this Center, and want to set up the rule of shariah[20], Mr Porić dismissed with a short laugh and a pleasant reply that the masses are around three minutes long and a part of their tradition (like church bells for some, I would add) and that their intentions are in no way political, even though whole Muslim religion combines religion and politics in Muslim countries[21]. He also noted that they did not rely on any government or political support when it came to gathering financial means for the building and that everything was gathered from private donations and with a loan, that they will successfully pay of in a couple of months.

Because of recession their process got stopped once again, after they finally surpassed different ‘traps’ from opposition parties that were trying to stop the buying of the land and all further progress - first by trying to find bureaucratic mistakes and later with calling for a referendum. Mr Porić say that the fact that Supreme Court denied the petitioners to file for a referendum, is proof of Slovenian Court’s system correctness. The dismissal was based on the ground of Basic Human Rights and articles in Slovene Constitution. When asked if the Swiss referendum that voted against the building of minarets last November had influenced Muslims in Slovenia, he answered that these situations do not reflect the situation in Slovenia[22]. Things with the mosque are finally closing up, all there needs to be done is the planning for the layout of the Center. This cannot be done until they pay off their loan; he says they do not want to acquire huge debts but go slowly and wisely. So this time the financial means are what is stopping them, after they have finally gained the support of the public.

I noticed two main groups of online communities during my research. First one is Tu je Slo and the second one

Hervardi[23]. Both groups have Karintian[24] Panther in the sign and they both stress the issue of migration to Slovenia, representing old statistic population counts, some of them dating back to 19^th Century, buy this ‘proving the purity of Slovenia’ etc. I have chosen some of the ideas or ‘solutions’ as they call it, from Hervardi page.

‘It is logical to assume that multiplication effects of escalating number of foreigners cause a greater confliction with them. This can escalate to the point of physical violence, in which in relative numbers foreigners are preceding others – this claim can be empirically proven’.

‘An important factor when we talk about migrations, is the so-called assimilation potential of the majority. Slovenes have historically demonstrated a very low assimilation potential and individual cases show that even the reverse is possible - under pressure from foreigners the Slovenian spirit becomes undermined. The process of assimilation is also strongly influenced by the "will and desire" of foreigners to adapt to its environment. In Slovenia foreigners have very little or no interest to be included in the Slovenian society, in particular, this applies to contemporary immigrants former Yugoslav republics, whose linguistic similarities do not require major effort for basic communication. Few specific examples where foreigners adapt in a relatively short time can be seen’.

‘Assimilation potential can be increased in several different ways, and this is by limiting and balancing the number and structure of particular migrants by sex and education, to prevent the formation of ghettos, with active integration policy and in particular the trend towards unification, which leads in the opposite direction from current trends of particularization and increasing the prerogatives of different groups of foreigners. In Slovenia, for the time being (2007) we do not see any such measures. Foreigners are immigrating with enormous increase, they are isolated, in most cases also ghettoized and do not contribute to society, therefore, represent a huge problem which we keep sweeping under the carpet. This is a problem with which someone (we, our future generations), will once (within 30 years) have to deal with’.

These groups stress the meaning of Slovenian history, for example also the Prince's Stone (German: Fürstenstein, Slovene: Knežji kamen) is the reversed base of an ancient Ionic column that played an important role in the ceremony surrounding the installation of the princes of Carantania in the Early Middle Ages. After the incorporation into the Frankish Empire the procedure held in Slovene language was continued as the first part of the coronation of the Dukes of Carinthia, followed by a mass at Maria Saal cathedral and the installation at the Duke's chair.[25] It represents 'Slovenianism' with the logic that even under Austrian rule we were able to conduct in our own language and be proud of our culture, as for when we entered the The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes we let down our culture and history. Followed by entry to Yugoslavia, we were 'slaves' to others until our independence in 1991 and we must not let this repeat itself.

But isn’t this true for all religions and all people? Even believes that are not recognized as ‘true’ religions are usually people’s anchor in a time of need. May this be an institution like Church, or belief in the good of human kind, or reading of astrology or strongly favoring a certain political party, even football team – aren’t all of these just means of reaffirming our own identities and at the same time showing the ‘others’ around us how they should perceive us?

I had a tendency while spending a semester in Turkey, to ask colleagues not ‘Where do you come from’ but ‘Are you Muslim?’ I was trying to learn what being Muslim means to them, since all student parties were full of alcohol, rock or house music, none of the girls were wearing a veil, the gender gap was not noticeable – in general, there was a lack of stereotypical ‘Muslim’ symbols that I, a naïve Western student, was expecting. First of all, there was a huge gap between urban and rural areas in Turkey; between secularism and Islam. I realized that one cannot simply divide residents judging on their birth place and upbringing, but in large portions the experience was this: young people, students, academia, and workers in urban areas would first mention their nationality, and take for granted that they are Muslims.

According to Bernard Lewis’ theory this would not be typically Muslim. He writes about the difference in viewing history and national affiliation between Western and Arabic cultures and concludes that Westerners see themselves according to which nation they belong to and then go on compartmentalizing the rest – religion, political views etc. And that Muslims of certain countries see themselves as a part of a larger group, and not as much with national borders. This might have a lot to do with the fact that borders in the Middle East area were mostly artificially drawn by western imperialists during different invasions; these were not borders naturally formed between communities.

After I asked my Turkish friends why they are drinking alcohol, staying in mixed dormitories etc. (for which I presumed would be frowned upon …) one of the answers ads up all of them nicely: our parents live far away and what they don’t know can’t hurt them. This in my opinion shows the move from religion to secularism, especially among the younger generation. It is probably not necessary to point out that parent’s visits to our student town were always a big deal, which was accompanied by severe apartment cleaning days before their arrival, rearranging the roommates so the genders didn’t mix for the time the parents stayed there etc. From my short experience in one of the most secular Muslim countries I can conclude that not only do the politics and the media play an important role of keepers of the old – the strongest influence comes from tradition and strong family ties.

While writing this essay I talked to four guys all together that are members of a group called Tu je SLO (Here is Slovenia), which has nationalist tendencies. All of them are nice guys, well raised and of course patriotic; they fit the profile of the 18-28 years-old male white person and they oppose the building of the mosque in Ljubljana, but especially they are against the minaret and the sound of the calling to prayer. When I asked them how they imagine this prayer to sound like and how long it is, they said approximately 20 minutes, in Arabic language, and of course very loud. I told them that from my experience in Turkey the calls are about 2 minutes long and loud depending on the size of the mosque. They were right about one thing: the Arabic.

Their arguments were that this sort of building does not belong in a cultural space of Slovenia. What they fear the most seems to be the situation that they saw on Youtube’s video from Holland[26] that is showing a crowded street, a mosque in the back and a sound of the mass. They seemed horrified by the ‘fact’ that Ljubljana will be the same, even though none of them live even close to the capital. While searching for this video, I found an even more interesting combination for our topic: a video[27] posted by a user named ‘Slovenian Fist’, with a logo of a fist and 1991 on it[28]. It is a report from a Swedish TV judging a Fox TV report on the violence in Rosengård as hypocritical coverage of the immigrant situation. ‘Slovenian Fist’ represents this as an example what will happen in Slovenia if we do not stop immigration.

The same user and others with similar national symbols have posted videos ‘depicting horrors of immigration’ as they put it and especially the Muslim population. Amongst them are videos showing statistics of Muslim population growth[29] compared to European nativity. I have found the response to the ‘facts’ represented in it on BBC[30]. Most of them were outright false or constructed; even though BBC’s information agrees on the fact that Muslim population is growing faster than the European rate, there is no way of knowing how precise these estimations are, since the West views all Muslims as one unity ... Checking the comments on these nationalistic oriented videos there was a lot of hate speech and statements like ‘They are spreading like rats’ and ‘The mosque will be blown up anyway’ and so on. Does hate speech have no limitations online?

It seems like everything denied in public sphere has moved to this global space online, where anonymity allows us to speak freely and without borders. Since these rightist groups are still small (Slovene National Party SNS for example is still in opposition, even though they reached the necessary 2 % to enter Parliament …) they represent an alternative view, not a mainstream idea. SNS has a strong leadership in their main politician (and we could say spokesperson) Zmago Jelinčič, who is a part of all major and minor political debates when it comes to pressing issues. His rhetoric is demeaning to immigrants, homosexuals, other races and ethnicities, all of which he freely spurts on National TV where he is (was) a frequent guest. The latest major incident occurred last year when he talked about Gypsies as scum, ‘eaters’ of Slovenia’s social-support and bullies on a popular show. He got away with it on basis of his diplomatic immunity (?!).

I also closely observed the commercial television Pop TV, especially revealing to the whole situation was a show called Trenja (Tensions)[31] from December 2008, where they were discussing the question of đamija (the mosque). There were nine guests, out of which only Mr Jelinčič and Jarc (who was the main person to try for the referendum to try to stop the building) were against the building of the Islamic cultural center in Ljubljana. Their attempts to throw of any sort of intellectual debate were clear to a slightly observant viewer. Usage of historic ‘proofs’, cultural references, comparisons of Christianity as peaceful and Islam as violent religion; hints to the fact that Muslims equal terrorists; denying any legal proof of human rights or Slovene constitution that allow freedom of religion from the other guests etc.

To get back to our topic of nativity, this is also one of the important questions raised by SNS – the fear that Slovenes will become extinct and other ethnicities will take their place. This brings us back to the videos of ‘Muslim growth’ and the ‘Slovenian Fist’. He stresses his concern with a video of an Egyptian cleric on Memri TV[32], denouncing how Muslims will be predominant in EU in 20 years and have an important influence on decision-making. He goes on saying: ‘This angers a lot of other groups and they see it as great danger. These are, as we know, haters of Islam. But Westerners don’t know anything about Muslims. Statistics show that 70 % of people don’t know who the Muslim Prophet is. And even if they know that it is Muhammad, they don’t know what that means. They know nothing about him, his history’.

‘Westerners intentionally pressed the button of sacrisy to Muslims, offended the K’horan and Muhammad. And it clashes with the same button that is sacred to the West: freedom of speech. West is attacking what is sacred to the Muslims with that which is sacred to them. In order to be able to kick the Muslims out, the Europeans must have a reason for it – like they did in Bosnia. They are provoking Muslims so they would start fighting back and making mistakes, like bomb attack and other unconventional reactions. Than the Europeans could say that they have a concrete reason. This is my interpretation. What else are they gaining by constant insults to the Muslim population?! What is important here that the Muslim population of 30 million integrates itself to the EU society and show their neighbors that they are successful and worthy of respect.’

To return back to video posts on the mosque, I found a lot of videos that look the same posted from different users. They all have the writing ‘What will happen to đamija in Ljubljana?’[33] and Arabic mass in the back; the mass is interrupted either by gunshots or a bomb going off, followed by a famous popular Slovene folk song that is played at every farmers-fest.

My expectations about the influence of the mass media on the perception of Muslims in Slovenia have only partly come to be. Through observing news on both televisions I quickly realized not only that Slovene media is constructing popular memory[34], but also that the situation is specific for this Balkan area. Complicated political, social, economic and other issues, that were present through a long period of time in this space, have led the construction of this and other ex-Yugoslav republics to be unique. Collective memory of all nations, ethnicities and religions has been created, with all possible variations of three mentioned categories. Thus not only has the media influenced the view in which Muslims in Slovenia are represented (or reported on), but also historical backgrounds and ethnic origin are playing a major role. It seems like everything is connected to the past, but a past that seems to have a million different versions. A concrete debate in the media is not possible, as long as politicians and important public figures keep using historical references in a de-constructive sense. Something similar is happening with the Croatian media sphere, when around 200 journalists went to protest, with their mouths taped together, fighting against political & economic pressures and self-censorship. Example of a typical dealing with ‘historical’ rhetoric was the ignition for this protest (similarly to our ‘dog’, Janša): an editor called a female reporter ‘Chetnik[35] whore’ because she is married to a guy with Serbian roots. These sorts of things are nothing uncommon in day-to-day conversation in Slovenia; sometimes they also reach the broader public. All media play the game, but how could they not?! Their journalists are people, they have personal histories, they are a part of the collective memory, and most of them were here with the fall of Yugoslavia and independence of Slovenia.

Young generations of journalists want to move forward and not think about the Balkan war, especially if they are too young to remember; the older generations that were involved in this process seem not to want to touch this issue. So it lingers, and the more events remain unexplained or even presented, the more likely there are going to be different ‘truths’ constructed around it. Media of course play a major role, but my stress is that not only they are to blame. Lack of education about the near past of our countries is in my opinion the main reason for tensions between ethnicities, religions, nations etc. young generations listen to versions of history from their parents and their children next and so on. History gets re-written numerous ways and mostly becomes folk stories without real background. This is why I would applaud documentaries and other parts of the program, that do not fall under the category of ‘informational’, but rather educational.

My view is also that generations, that were involved in these horrors of the war, even if it was just a 10-day-war like in Slovenia’s case, or in the case of other less fortunate for years like in Sarajevo, should take responsibility and set a mental frame around these events in a formal way, as soon as possible, clear and useful for further generations to come. Even if the war is over, there are strong (maybe even stronger…) national or ethnically-powerful tendencies in the Balkans. It seems like politicians care more about what moral victory on history’s paper they are going to get that to rectify the situation in any way. Nominally of course everyone supports the idea of peaceful Balkans, but through dialogue we quickly notice that paintings of their historical view are all that is important. Like after the WWII with Hitler, people still remember too clearly Slobodan Milošević’s influence on the shift in Serbian public opinion and the horrors that followed. Attempts of nationalistic Serbs get shut down mostly from this fear, even though there are still strong Great Serbia tendencies; on the other hand peaceful solutions to certain issues or historical writing get dismissed because there are just too many views on the same topic. These linger on, until we reach a point of total confusion about ourselves, about our past, present & future, about our role in our community or country, in the global sphere, in the local area; uncertainty & a sense of danger coming from ‘the others’, which are neighbors in this case, is a dangerous breeding ground for nationalism and ethnic cleansing. We must not allow that the situation of Bosnian Muslims (and other thousands of victims on all sides) repeats itself.

For a more concrete analysis of Slovene media I would have to conduct further research of both television programs, I would also like to conduct interviews with members of the Muslim community, regarding their viewing habits and their personal, subjective opinion on the representation of Muslims in the mass media. My interests linger also on the observation, that Bosnian Muslims were the only ethnic group in former Yugoslavia that was named directly from their religion, and not from their national dependence (like Slovenes, Croats & Serbs). It would be interesting to conduct a survey to find out if this coincidental, or does it really show strong connection to their religious origin; has the notion of the war strengthened their view of themselves as a religious group? Has the move to Slovenia at the time when Bosnia was occupied done the same? Are Muslims feeling threatened by the constant attempts to stop the building of the mosque, which symbolically represents their community? These are all important questions, what would require complex surveys, interviews & other methods of research. Nobody is denying the fact that the number of Muslims in EU is going to grow in the next decade and with falling to address the educational point that is necessary to start making in regard to different religions, not just Islam, we are deepening the gap between cultures, which need to coexist in the same community. Equally, peacefully and without prejudice. I realize that this view might seem naïve, but I believe that by educating the children in a common community most of the obstacles and differences will be taken away. We have a perfect opportunity that we do not let ourselves to forget the horrors of WWII and the wars that are currently evolving in the Middle East.

‘The War on terror’ is not just a local war, situated in the Middle East. It is a war on human rights, a war that globally stigmatized the Muslim community and made global viewers immune to every day violence that is going on somewhere far, not concerning us. Muslims communities all over the Western world are feeling all of this the strongest: treated as second class citizens, that are at the same time religiously connected to their Arab ‘brothers’ and feel a strong emotional pain for the killings in the Arab world.

How else would we explain the controversy behind the Muhammad cartoons in Denmark or even harsher response from global Muslim community on Pope Benedict XVI’s speech[36]? It was an emotional, not a religious response alone to the speech made by the holiest of all for the Western civilization, as it might be viewed. Muslims all over the world started protesting at the violation of a moral principle. The global reaction was very quick and the quoting of Pope’s citation of this medieval text was presented in the form of a soundbite.

I would like to end up by using Faisal Devji’s article The Mountain Comes to Muhammad: Global Islam in Provincial Europe, because it represents my view on Bosnian Muslims as being ‘local’ in Slovenia, and at the same time a part of a bigger community, both in media and religious sphere. Devji points out a couple of cases in the West that led to global protests among the Muslim community, like Salman Rushdie’s affair around the book The Satanic Verses, Yllands-Posten publishing of controversial Muhammad depictions, American solders flushing pages of Quran down the toilet, and Pope’s address in 2006.

“When authors like Rushdie or the Pope are made responsible for the offensive portrayals of Muhammad circulated in the media, they are attacked not as individuals but the media-enhanced representatives of abstractions like the West, Christendom or Zionism. /…/ Muslim protesters are concerned not with the individual intentions behind these media statements but with their global dissemination as collective products of the West, Christendom and so on. /…/

If Muslim anger appeared to be so raw, this is because it voiced a global presence that remains as yet unmediated by any institution or authority. And if Muslim hurt appeared so intensely felt, this is because it expressed disappointment at the supposed lapse of a religious leader who had otherwise enjoyed considerable respect in the world of Islam./…/ It is as if the protesters were acknowledging, with sadness as much as anger, that the Pope, too, had to be included in the ranks of those who would defame their religion” (The Sage Book; 628–30).

Ferfila, Bogomir. The End of Utopia: Reforms of the Former Communist Countries. Ljubljana: Delavska enotnost, 1992.

Fowkes, Ben. The Post-Communist Era: Change and Continuity in Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Macmilan, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Kolind, Torsten. Post-War Identification : Everyday Muslim Counterdiscourse in Bosnia Herzegovina. Aarhus : Aarhus University Press, 2008.

Slovene mufti http://www.rtvslo.si/slovenija/mufti-zivimo-kot-drzavljani-slovenije/92829

Talk-show Trenja: The Mosque on Pop TV poptv.si/multimedia/trenja-dzamija.html

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iopBKFUuKV4

[2] http://www.theinternationalonline.com/articles/107-swiss-referendum-prohibits-construction-o

[3] http://www.stat.si/popis2002/en/

[4] Adopted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenia

[5] Bin Ladin might be the most famous Islamist terrorist, but certainly not the only one. They all use similar rhetoric and historical examples for backing their point. These groups engage in a campaign of violence and terrorism against those who they perceive as the enemies of Islam and Muslims. Examples of such organizations are: Al-Qaeda (The Base); Takfir wal-Hijra (Repentence and Flight) and al-Gamaa al-Islamiya (The Islamic Group) in Egypt; and Harkat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (Islamic Resistance Movement or HAMAS) and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. (Husain, Mir Zohair; 22)

[6] The caliphate was abolished in 1924

[7] poptv.si/multimedia/trenja-dzamija.html

[8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLf54lbU7EQ&feature=fvw

[9] The third fundamental principle of Islam is the belief in God's prophets. Muslims believe that every known nation had a warner or messenger from God. God chose these messengers to teach humankind and deliver His divine message. Although the Qur'an alludes to 124,000 prophets since the time of Creation (with Adam as the very first prophet), it specifically mentions the name of only 25 of them. Among them, Muhammad stands as the last and most important of God's prophets. (Husain, Mir Zohair; 10)

[10] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f869JP4CdQ&NR=1

[11] http://www.rtvslo.si/slovenija/mufti-zivimo-kot-drzavljani-slovenije/92829

[12] “Collective memory suggests a deepening of the historical consciousness that becomes wedged between the official markings of the past and ourselves in the present” (Barbie Zelizer in Television histories; 64).

[13] The community was organized trough the Church. “Early Christianity had a definite conception of true versus false religion (vera et falsa religion), was strongly exclusive with regard to other faiths and was intolerant of them” (Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja; 4).

[14] http://www.islamska-skupnost.si/

[15] See Graph 1

[16] The 1966 Declaration had denounced the 1954 Novi Sad agrreement that established a common Croatian and Serbian literary language, claming instead that the Croat language was entirely separated from Serbian, and that there was no such thing as a 'Serbo-Croatian' or 'Croato-Serb' language. The revival in 1980s of the demand for linguistic separation was part of a general revival of Croat national culture; whether this could be accomodated within a common Yugoslav framework was more than doubtful (Ben Fowkes; 81).

Both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were for decades dominated by one nation. The Russians in the Soviet Union and the Serbs in Yugoslavia. In both federations, the separatist tendencies were in large measure a consequence of the long-term domination of the largest nation over the other nations and nationalities and over the federal structures of these states” (Ferfila, Bogomir; 151).

[18] “Writing may also become a symbol of nationality, as is the case with the Serbs and Croats adopting different alphabets to   transcribe their distinct, but closely related, languages (Goddard, Victoria A.; 99)”.

[19] The Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Ustaša - Hrvatski Revolucionarni Pokret): members known collectively as Ustaše, but sometimes anglicised as Ustashe, Ustashas or Ustashi, was a Croatian fascistanti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was blend of fascism, nazism, Croatian ultranationalism, and Roman Catholic Clericalist Fundamentalism. The movement functioned as a terrorist organization before World War II, but in April 1941, they were appointed to rule a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia as the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of Nazi Germany. The Ustaše were chiefly responsible for the WWII holocaust in occupied Yugoslavia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usta%C5%A1e)

[20]“Shariah is the comprehensive, eternal, immutable, and divine law of Islam that governs all aspects of the public and private, social and economic, religious and political life of every Muslim. The shariah’s provisions were complied by the ulama (Islamic scholars) during the Middle Ages using the discipline of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), hadith (Prophet Muhammad sayings), ijma (consultation and consensus) and qiyas (analogy)” (Husain, Mir Zohair; 15).

[21] “Many non-Muslims tend to confuse Islam and Islamism. Islamism has its roots in mainstream Islam, but is distinct from the Abrahamic faith of Islam. Islamism is a comprehensive religio-political ideology in world affairs./…/ For Islamists, religion and politics (‘church and state’) should be fused. Non-Muslims are also under the erroneous impression that all Islamists are terrorists” (Husain, Mir Zohair 16).

[22] “The Swiss political system is highly differentiated and therefore especially complex. It functions as a direct democracy /…/ and this system is the result of Switzerland’s socio-cultural and socio-political diversity and creates not only various opportunities for political articulation but also a variety of tensions among interest groups. In spite of linguistic, cultural, and religious differences as well as considerable economic inequalities /…/ they have managed to develop strategies for solving political disagreement by very elaborate political discourses and to reach a consensus on some basic political values, but by no means on such issues as nuclear energy, disarmament, joining the EU etc. Consequently, the political decision-making process is rather slow, complicated and often inefficient”. (The media in Western Europe; 229)

[23] http://www.hervardi.com/ & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMV-9_vjopM&feature=rec-LGOUT-real_rev-rn-1r-1-HM

[24] Slavic ancestors of the present-day Slovenes settled in the area in the 6th century. The Slavic principality Carantania was formed in the 7th century. In 745, Carantania was incorporated into the Carolingian Empire, while Carantanians and other Slavs living in present Slovenia converted to Christianity.

[25] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince%27s_Stone

[26] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7tZ9ksP5N4&feature=related

[27] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZABSyFzl_98

[28] Slovenian independence

[29] www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

[30] www.youtube.com/watch?v=mINChFxRXQs

[31] poptv.si/multimedia/trenja-dzamija.html

[32] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLf54lbU7EQ&feature=fvw

[33] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f869JP4CdQ&NR=1

[34] “Live ‘media events’ are in competition with the writing of history in defining the contents of collective memory. In addition, ordinary, every day television often blurs history and fiction, conflates historicity and contemporaneity, and is inseparable from popular memory, the active process of remembering and forgetting. Contemporary television is therefore a site of struggle over the meanings of historical experiences, in the shape of popular memory” (Television histories; 61).

[35]The Chetnik movement or the Chetniks (Serbian: Četnici, Cyrillic script: Четници) were a Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organization operating in the Balkans before and during World Wars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks

[36] On 12 September 2006, a day after the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the relationship of faith and reson to an audience of academics at Regensburg University. The potiff began his argument by citing a medieval text disparaging the Propthet Muhhammad as someone who had brought to the worlds 'things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached'. (The Sage Book of European Studies; 628)

Gender and Violence

- Women and children hiding under a tree during the day, so the airplanes do not spot movement and burn their village. Gathering of food, water and fire wood happens during the night and so does the majority of violence -

- FGM is a highly contested violent practice and is condemned by WHO and other NGO´s.

Culture is something that we do, not what we have and our actions are cultural practices, depending on race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, age … It is dangerous to defend certain practices in a culture like they are 'natural' in that environment. Culture is created and it is not a strict form, it transforms over space and time. Thus, also gender is created, and it is not a biological category. Therefore, male and female roles and power positions are ‘the collection of believes, attitudes and values that an individual or a group holds’ (French in Semra, 98) depending on their environment and experiences. One of the most violent practices in the world is female genital mutilation, sometimes called ‘circumcision’. I will use the term FGM, because it states the gruesome act of violence and women, as for circumcision implies a medical procedure.

“The term 'circumcision' implies male circumcision, where the foreskin is removed without damaging the organ itself. On the contrary, the damage to females is much more extensive/…/’Sunna’ circumcision of females is equivalent to cutting of the head of the penis. The male equivalent of clitoridectomy would be the amputation of most of the penis. The male equivalent of infibulations is the removal of all the penis, its roots of soft tissue, and part of the scrotal skin.’ Furthermore, the difference between even the harshest form of penis-cutting, which would be the so called infibulations, does not cause further medical complications for the male, as for ‘the scars created by the female operation lead to terrible problems at childbirth as normal dilatation is prevented’ (Semra, 92; my own emphasis).

From this I claim that circumcision cannot be compared or equated with FGM in any way, even through the narrative - apart from both being procedures, done on sex organs. If we equate these two, we give way for a spread of this violence, in addition to already fighting off the claims of FGM being a cultural practice, which is slowing down the process immensely. FGM is momentarily spread in Africa and in most of the Muslim countries[1] and one of the cruelest situations for women in general, not just because of FGM, is evolving in Democratic Republic of Congo as we speak. These women are facing every sort of human rights violations and gender discrimination possible. From fetuses to old ladies they suffer violence, sexual abuse, emotional and physical abuse etc [2]. Male violence against women is packed in a form of FGM, which is a practice thought to cure sexual deviancies, such as girls being sexually active before marriage or outside of it, which is unacceptable in Congo for example; another mirror to this is that females do not or should not (have to) enjoy sex, and therefore they are stripped of their ability to achieve orgasms; and not the least also promotes men’s virility, since he has to forcefully penetrate the woman during sexual intercourse.[3] When we heard the reasons from local village men in

Congo

as to why this practice is done, they first named ‘health reasons’, which are quite the opposite from what happens in reality. The general believe is that cutting is going to make child birth easier, but it often causes sever complications for the mother as well as for the child, which is backed up by most of the literature available, also strongly condoned by the World Health Organization[4]. Many reports state that women are actually the ones keeping this tradition alive the most, and one of the stories illustrates nicely how deeply influenced by the society this practice really is: a girl was feeling left out of a group of piers, because she did not have a stitched vagina to show to other girls. She was called dirty, because she wasn’t shaved as it is usually done during this ‘passage from girl to woman’. She was being ridiculed in a similar way that I remember being teased for not owning the newest ‘model’ of Barbie while growing up. Kids who didn’t have the ‘right things’, couldn’t be in the gang, hang out and play. This just goes to show the differences in our cultures, where what we value the most, is money and material things; what is trying to be preserved and valued through FGM is virginity and purity of the female, and at the same time keep her subordinated and passive. With a sick twist to this believe, the practice itself more often than not has huge medical complications and even death for the woman, not to mention unexplainable pain she undergoes ‘especially when it comes to infibulations. We are facing yet another torture for the female, since the vagina is intentionally sewn together, leaving just a tiny hole for urine and menstrual blood to come through. This means that the women goes through the same horrible experience more than once in her life, since the skin is cut in order to perform intercourse after the marriage ceremony or to give birth to multiple children, which is expected (if not even required of a woman)’ (Semra, page 94). Again, in order to support the ideals of femininity and masculinity. So much so, that the left-out un-cut little girl one day couldn’t stand the ridicule anymore, so she took a knife and a string and she performed a clitoridectomy on herself[5] … When the physical abuse is done, women are excluded from the public scene, confined in their homes; tied first to her father, she is bound emotionally and economically; then, to her husband; then, to her son. She is also unmarriable, if she doesn’t undergo FGM. She is passed on like a commodity that needs to produce as big of a surplus value (kids) as possible. Semra claims that FGM is not solely an act of violence, but that it is

‘an initiation into life-long violence and abuse, including future genital mutilations /…/ ‘first, her capacity for sexual enjoyment destroyed or diminished, she will be a breeding machine to perpetuate her husband’s line fertility (and polygamy)/…/secondly, domestic confinement, which stems directly from the above to enforce her husband’s control’’ (page 99).

What needs to be done is education of the population as the first step, followed by legislation, religious authorities and social responsibility - anatomy and sexuality are taboo topics in most of the African countries[6].

- Self-harm is an increasing problem in our society, but is at the same time challenging gender norms.

Gender has been widely researched in poststructuralist approaches. Influence of feminist history led to a distinction from a historical profession, which was favoring biological essentialism[7]. Of course feminists ideas were strongly opposed this starting point. Theories do not focus solely on female issues or gender issues, but start to incorporate ideas of class, rase and power into the equation. Design and pop culture also became a part of the research, since these mediums are highly influential on our lives. At the end of 19th century in

USA

we can see different groups in design, for example »ladies, mens' and boys' knives«.

'The differences between designs of manufactured goods became the incarnation of contemporary ideas of social difference. Unlike the muddled and contradictory form that these ideas usually took in the minds of ordinary men and women, design represented them in a from that was at once clear, tangible and irrefutable' (Forty, 63).

For example, trousers appeared as unisex clothing in the '60, and now it is fully accepted that women ware 'male clothing', meaning pants. At the same time, women are still almost exclusively the sole wearers of skirts and particularly dresses. Even though temporary fashion design is expanding their limits beyond the borders of (these created) gender roles, men (with an exception of the old Scottish kilt wearing tradition) are not considered 'normal' or 'manly' if they put on a skirt. Even though the only physical difference in pants and skirts is only in the way that materials are cut and sewn together, there is a symbolism and an ideology behind it. Similarly to the WC signs that are still widely used (one showing a male with pants, other female with skirt), even though there have been pushes for using the Venus & Mars symbols or to not use gender stereotypezations at all (what about transsexuals, do they belong nowhere then?!) … Similarly to this, self-cutters derive from the notion that ‘the contemporary Western body is normally closed and impenetrable, avoids bleeding and proliferating itself via scars and bumps, does not gape. The mode of bodily representation chosen by scarifiers deviates from contemporary Western bodily norms in its use of fluid body boundaries, its messiness, its carnivalesque character’ (Pitts and Hewitt in Brickman, 107).

Patients were being guinea pigs for psychiatrists during the 20^th century, but only around the late 1990s trend towards representations in the public sphere increased.[8] Psychiatrists tried to explain this new form of ‘typical’ self-mutilative behavior, which they named ‘delicate self-cutting’[9]. Brickman goes on in saying that cutters are not solely female and white, as it has been presented in the media: 'In short, the white, suburban, attractive teenage girl persists as the face of self-mutilation' (Brickman, p. 87). These sorts of conclusions were done through decades in public sphere, because of the first doctors that concluded that the majority of self-cutters were young, female and white[10]. But, drawing from Brickman’s article, we can see that the number of boys vs girls in prevalence of self-cutting the ratio is about the same. As we have heard from Anna Johansson in her thesis, the online forums she has researched show that boys are actually ashamed and afraid to come forward exactly because of this presentation – as it being a female problem. If we draw from Susan Bordo, we can talk about the so called ‘second wave feminism’ that in particular examined both representations of the female body and the material body itself as a ‘site of political struggle’:

‘feminism imagined the human body as itself a politically inscribed entity, its physiology and morphology shaped by histories and practices of containment and control – from foot-binding and corseting to rape and battery to compulsory heterosexuality, forced sterilization, unwanted pregnancy, and (in the case of the African American slave woman) explicit commodification’ (Bordo in Brickman, p. 89).

This feminist philosopher was for example writing about plastic surgery in the West from a similar perspective, that is showing the act itself being done voluntarily by women, to themselves, in order to ’fit in’, to be a ‘normal’ part of the society and culture as the rest of people. This is interesting, since self-cutting can be an expression of not conforming to accepted social rules, as a personal act of disobedience. And yet, both plastic surgery for esthetic ideals and the need to undergo FGM, derive from the same place. This reminds me of the story of a girl in Africa, that felt ugly and unfeminine compared to other girls, because she hasn’t undergone the brutal ritual of FGM that we, in the Western culture, perceive as torture … Is not plastic surgery only a means of conforming with the existing power structures as well?! (Bordo, p. 24-25) Practices such as cosmetic surgery, obsessive dieting and physical training represent, for Bordo, how cultural “representations homogenize” and how “these homogenized images normalize”. Unbearable Weight also makes the connection between culture and female disorders and further emphasizes the fact that disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia cannot simply be defined from medical and psychological standpoints but must be viewed from within a cultural context, as “complex crystallizations of culture” (Bordo, p. 35).

- Girls´ and/or women´s violence has long been a non-issue both in politics and research. Why has the interest for girls´/women´s violence been so low in the society? Has violence by girls/women increased at the end of the twentieth century?

Western society was mostly influenced by two main ideas: Christian tradition and ancient Greek philosophers, namely Aristotle[11]. Both contained strong ideas of patriarchy or in general the male sex was predominant. Common ideas about femininity are that women cannot own their own sexuality, they need to be controlled and guided, they are soft and emotional and irrational, as opposed to male, who is sturdy, sexual, self-controlled and rational. Women, they are blindly ruled by sex; notion behind the responses of males in Congo as to why their culture follows FGM or Congolese soldiers as to why they rape was that they have to be controlled, even though the soldiers were more open when it came to their response. This sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it? Not so long ago, there were thousands of women[12] burned under the accusation of being witches in Europe (also in a new-founded colony Massachusetts, USA) and basically all they did ‘wrong’, that is did not conform to the ideas of society, was that they had ‘special healing powers’. To us, now, this might seem absurd and even funny, but for these ‘witches’ harsh reality was that they were getting burned alive because they did not act the same as the rest of their social group[13]. With the processes of democratization and liberalization in the West during 20^th century and the surge of mass media on a global scale in 21^st century, public arena became open to some issues that are still taboo in certain cultures (like African, for example). Freedom of speech became an important part of every democratic country and therefore talk about topics previously hushed, started. If ‘childhood’ is a Western construct[14], than also the idea of learning through play is[15]. Girls and boys play together in our culture all the time and fights between boys are usually accepted (in a sense ‘boys will be boys’), but fights between girls?? Or even the unimaginable, a girl beating a boy?!? Questions like ‘where has our society gone to? Have we fallen so deep into the gutter that our good, nice, behaved girls are hooligans?!?’ have been set in the media and thus in the public debate. Sheila Batacharya explains the description of white women in Western societies by saying that all the discourses surrounding them are excluding the role of white women as agents of domination. In patriarchal discourses women are perceived as objects/property or as victims/resisters in gender-centric feminist discourse (adopted from page 63). ‘The narrative of girl violence is constructed around the idea that violent girls are a new phenomenon. This new trend is explained as either a result of eroding gender roles or due to violence against women that caused otherwise nonviolent white girls to be violent’ (Batacharya, p. 67) Similarly to moral panic[16] that surrounded the murder of an Indian teenager Reena Virk, there was a huge moral panic[17] and media scandal surrounding brutal killings of stray cats in my home country of Slovenia. Boys that mutilated these poor animals were all in their early teens and the public was shocked at the fact that these children come from ‘good families’, and that they were ‘good boys’ – what in the world caused this horrific behavior in them?! What was worse, they were not immigrant or deviant or any of the labels that could stereotypically ‘explain’ this sort of behavior. The media helped to start a huge moral panic, which was widely written about in the academia later on as well.[18] It is not only the gender that we should be focusing on when we talk about these issues, because we ‘fail to identify the insidious presence of white supremacy in the form of hegemonic femininity that can be found in some feminist theorizing and activism’ (Batacharya, 78).

- Rape is a problem that has to do with male and female sexuality, but it also functions as a war strategy: the case of DR Congo

‘Rape and other forms of sexual violence continue to be major social problems worldwide. The global statistics on sexual violence against women are staggering. MacDonald (2000) noted that at least one in every five women may experience rape or attempted rape during her lifetime’ (Viki et al., 789).

'The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, underdevelopment or deprivation. /…/ The inclusion of the word ‘‘power’’, in addition to the phrase ‘‘use of physical force’’, broadens the nature of a violent act and expands the conventional understanding of violence to include those acts that result from a power relationship, including threats and intimidation. /…/ Thus, ‘‘the use of physical force or power’’ should be understood to include neglect and all types of physical, sexual and psychological abuse, as well as suicide and other self-abusive acts' (WHO report, page 5).

Rape in particular has connections to most of the above: power, physical force, sex, threats, psychological damage etc. As we read in Pernilla Ouis’ study of

Sweden

, there is a lot more sexual abuse going on daily than we imagined. One of the misleading notions is apparently also that dark, secluded streets are more dangerous than our home environment, since the most sexual assaults according to this study happen behind four walls, even with a known perpetrator. But, in a case of rape in war, the violence gets an added dimension. The majority of sexual assault victims are (very) young and it has been extensively documented in recent civil conflicts (such as the one in

Bosnia and Herzegovina

), and has been used systematically as an instrument of torture or ethnic domination, which is an added category.

‘Now, with precedents set at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in Tanzania, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, at The Hague, for mass rape, other acts such as sexual assault, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced sterilization, forced abortion, and forced pregnancy may qualify as crimes of torture, crimes against humanity, and even some as crimes of genocide’ (UNFPA)[19].

The UN troops in

Congo

do not even go into the most dangerous areas, since it is too dangerous even for them. Women in these rural remote areas are feeling hopeless and left to rot, being raped day after day and the cruelest crimes against humanity being committed on them. There are no men in these villages, and there is no sense of security what so ever[20]. One of Beasdale’s photos shows women and children hiding under a large tree during the day so they do not get spotted by airplanes. As he explained in one of his presentations, these women’s only chance to collect firewood and water is during the night, so they sit silently in the shade in order to survive. When the night falls, the real battle begins. On their miles long walks they are being intercepted by militias from both sides, that loot, torture and rape. And even available water is not necessarily safe and drinkable, so we can see how environmental problems as well are mostly affecting women in particular. They are facing a struggle for basic survival, because the country does not have any structural security. The only way these people can stay remotely secure is to move to one of the refugee camps set by the UN and other NGOs. Huge slums are being created, where all the food and water needs to be delivered. Rape in war becomes a weapon on its’ own, a way to subjugate a nation, a means to morally crush women and men at the same time. But women are the ones that are suffering on multiple levels, from physical to psychological damages, to being excluded from the society as rape victims, to being tortured over and over again, having babies from rapes and trying to provide for them … Machism is not displayed in a ‘safe’ arena, like in a club where guys are showing off to girls and trying to be ‘manly’, to be cool – but it shifts from this patriarchic ideal of a country like Serbia, that has always thrived on manly symbols and armies and masculine ideals, to a mass of rapist soldiers that are raping Muslim Bosnian women in order to control them, to diminish them, to bring them to their knees both physically and mentally, in order to occupy their land.

- Honor-related violence, honor killings, early marriage etc. Are there any differences or similarities between “normal” intimate partner violence and honor-related violence?

It feels like we are stepping backwards hundreds of years when we start discussing a situation like the one in

Congo

in present times. In the case of debating Western situation, as nicely presented in the report by Eva Lundgren The Captured Queen on violence of men in 'equal'

Sweden

, we go to details concerning gender equality. Lundgren for example researches the term controlling behavior, which 'includes such manifestations as jealousy, the man preventing the woman from seeing relatives and friends, calling her disparaging names or forbidding her to make her own decisions about money’ (Lundgren, 28). Would such category be even included in a research of

Congo

? I severely doubt it, but certainly not because I would discard such categories, but simply because there is much more to be done in terms of major shifts in society and culture on the way that locals perceive gender and practices (such as FGM) connected with this. Even implementation of basic Human Development Goals set by the UNDP is a major challenge for everyone involved, from UN troops to activists and other NGOs. The first steps would have to be first implementing the three UNDP goals, and then we could start going deeper and deeper into the problem. For example, the study Captured Queen also presents forms of violence conducted not by spouses, but by ‘boyfriends’[21]. Lundgren explains this term as ‘Boyfriend signifies a man with whom a woman has or has had a sexual relationship but not cohabited' (Lundgren, 41). This would be perceived as socially unacceptable in

Congo

. Therefore, we have to concentrate on different subcategories inside of one major overall topic of gender equality or violence against women, in order to fully grasp the situations that are present on different continents, surrounded with different situations and cultures.

One of such is honor-based society. Pernilla Ouis writes about the girls[22] in the Middle East that have been victims of gender-based sexual discrimination and violence. Such practices are early marriage, sexual abuse and honor violence. She set out to research the particular cultural mechanisms that underline this gender-based sexual violence. I shall concentrate only on honor violence. She claims that (in these societies) ‘children are threatened or exposed to violence in relation to codes of sexual morality and general behaviour’ (Ouis, 2009). Violence is not reserved solely to females, even though they prevail. We can see the connection between a patriarchal society and honor culture, since it is trying to control female behavior: ‘Girls(…)are denied leisure time, or to play with boys, as they are kept inside and are subjected to strong moral rules(…)playing games or bicycling are not always accepted for girls(…)because of the fear of ‘loosing virginity’ during such activities(…)they have to stay inside the homes and be ‘good girls’ (Ouis, 2009). This sets the rules of conduct up from an early age, thus females impose the appropriate behavior on themselves most of the time. A high percentage of girls themselves claimed that in order to not be punished for your misbehavior, one should just not misbehave. And if they do, they deserve punishment. Going hand in hand with this ‘the attribution of the blame for sexual assault and rape is on the victim, not on the offender. Sometimes the imprisonment of the victims is the only protection from the violence and killing in the name of honor(…)to imprison victims year after year is definitely a violation of these children’s rights’ states Ouis in her research. Main basis for this are honor values. If we compare those against Western idea(l)s, we can still see similarities – because we are talking about ideologies in both cases. Ouis cleverly states that honor values are actually honor ideology – because ‘ideology deals with mental constructions (i.e. values, traditions, ideas) related to power(…)oppressing particular groups while giving power to others based on gender and sexuality’. The main difference that I see here between forms of violence is that honor values are supported by the system and vice versus, so people are trying to live accordingly to what is expected of them. On the contrary, violence in a partner relationship in the West for example, would be considered deviant and outside of the norm of conduct, thus the ‘system’ would be helping and supporting the victim, not the perpetrator. Honor values thus give way for the whole structure of the patriarchal system to fall in place and maintain its’ position.

- articles: Racism, "Girl violence," and the murder of Reena Virk by Batacharya, Sheila

Coming out to play? Young women and violence on the street by Pearce, J. Jenny (p.131-151)

Forty, A. 1986, Objects of Desire: Design and Society Since 1750. Cameron Books, London.

Green, A. 2008, Theory and History: Cultural History. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

World report on violence and health, Krug, E. G. et al. 2002,. Geneva : World Health Organization WHO http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/world_report/en/summary_en.pdf

Wiesner, E. M. 2000, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, second edition, London.

Year of ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Congo is one of the signature countries) http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/71.html

Bordo, S. 2003, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Tenth Anniversary Edition. University of California Press, London.

Bulc, M. 2002, Serijski morilci mačk (Serial Cat-Killers) Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 26, No. 3, 300-325 (2002) http://jci.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/300

Viki T., Chiroro P., Abrams D. et al. 2006, Violence Against Women: Hostile Sexism, Type of Rape, and Self-Reported Rape Proclivity Within a Sample of Zimbabwean Males

[1] Cultures that practiced FGM in the past include Hittites, Phoenicians, the ancient Egyptians, the Aboriginals in Australia, and some Pacific island inhabitants. FGM was also practiced by modern physicians in Canada, England and the United States as recently as the 1940s to treat masturbation, hysteria, lesbianism, and other female ‘deviances’. Currently FGM is widespread in Africa, the southern part of the Arab peninsula, along the Persian Gulf, and among the Moslem populations of Malaysia and Indonesia (Semra, 94).

[2] Source: Heise, L. 1994. Violence Against Women: The Hidden Health Burden. World Bank Discussion Paper. Washington. D.C. The World Bank http://www.unfpa.org/gender/violence.htm

[3] Source: lectures, prof. Inger Lovkrona and reports by Agnes Pareyio and videos on this topic http://vimeo.com/6760260

[4] FGM http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/en/

[5] ‘Anab’s story illustrates the tremendous pressure to belong, particularl in African societies where conformity is the rule’.(Semra, 99)

[6] Year of ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Congo is one of the signature countries) http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/71.html

[7] Adopted from Theory and History: Cultural History. Green, Anna, 2008.

[8] One of the examples is a movie Girl, Interrupted from 1990 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172493/ ;

Girl, Interrupted contains both ‘delicate self-cutting’ of the arms, which is the body part chosen by 74 percent of cutters (Favazza in Brickman, p. 107), and other manifestations of the disorder (hitting and bruising of one’s own body parts, or burning).

[9] Cutting: ‘direct, deliberate destruction or alteration of one’s own body tissue without conscious suicidal intent’ (Favazza in Brickman, p. 87)

[10] Similarly, the persistence of the early diagnoses and characterizations might be perceived in the amount of work Favazza (1996) must do to diffuse the myth, while still being intrigued by the numbers of adolescent (probably female) skin-cutters currently documented. Therefore, despite recent efforts to change the nature of research on self-mutilation, the model developed by psychiatric studies decades ago and created from a particular social bias that pathologizes the female body continues to work in both scientific and popular discourses today (Brickman, 88)

[11] He regarded females as defective males, as more passive and weaker not just physically but also morally and intellectually, making them more likely to give into the devil’s offers (adopted from Weisner, page 173)

[12] ‘Sex, fear and poverty’ were common reasons for burning of witches and it also explains why ‘between 75 to 85 % of those questioned, tried, and executed for witchcraft after 1500 were women’ (Wiesner, 265)

[13] Explanations on why and how come there are more female witches than men were as follows: ‘1. they are more credulous, and since the chief arm of the devil is to corrupt faith, therefore he rather attacks them…2. women are naturally more impressionable…3. they have slippery tongues, and are unable to conceal from their fellow-women those things which by evil arts they know…; it is commonly the nature of women to be timid and to be afraid of everything. That is why they busy themselves so much about witchcraft and superstitions and run hither and thither, uttering a magic formula here and a magic formula there’ (Wiesner, 264)

[14] Ouis presents local responses in Middle East to the idea of 'inocent childhood'

[15] It is 'through time spent inhabiting local streets and estate buildings and stairways that young women learn how to coexist with violence and danger in their immediate environment.' But, in a case of girls running away from home, this same street 'has no protective walls, leaving young the women particularly vulnerable to violence and sexual exploitation' (Pearce, 132)[15]

[16] Also, in 'Moral panics of girls acting like boys' (Pearce, 131)

[17] Stanley Cohen was the first one who coined the term 'moral panics'. He defined the concept as a sporadic episode which, as it occurs subjects society to bouts of moral panic, or in other terms, worry about the values and principles which society upholds which may be in jeopardy. It is ’a condition, episode, person or group of persons [who] become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’ (Cohen, p. 9)

[18] Marko Bulc: Serijski morilci mačk (Serial Cat-Killers) http://jci.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/300

[19] http://www.unfpa.org/gender/violence.htm

[20] WHO report: Single and isolated refugees, as well as women who are heads of households, may be at particular risk of suffering psychological stress.

[21] In total, slightly more than one woman in ten, i.e. 11 per cent, has been subjected to violence by their present husband/cohabitant partner. Half of these have been subjected to violence in the last year. 7 per cent have been subjected to physical violence by their present husband/cohabitant partner. (Lundgren, p. 28)

[22] Protected by the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child http://www.unicef.org/crc/

Happy Holidays AKA:

Nothing much has changed in four months. It was 25 C when I left Novo mesto, and now we're snowed in, but otherwise same-old … After a week of seeing the people I wanted (or needed) to see, a few errands and I was ready to go into my hibernation-study mode.

The year is nearly over, but I feel like a new year has started for me already. The first week of December was so crucial, that this upcoming last one doesn’t stand a chance for being more important. Eye-opening events have made my 'early-New-Year's-day' first depressing (how appropriate!) and later revealing & emotional & life-changing. What a way to end the year, huh?!

My Christmas present came early this year, in a form of a harsh moral slap in the face – from myself!

Certainly, the hand that was directing the motion of the slap might have come from outside sources, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that I felt like everything that I was lying (or denying) to myself about, came flying right at me with full speed, crashing down on my chest like Wild Coyote’s anvil.

It sobered me up like a bucket of icy water on a hot summer’s day. I often heard about ‘eye-opening-experiences’, but when I think about it, it has never really happened to me before. Sure, realizations about others or certain events – but never about me!

How can one be surprised about one’s own self?!? Apparently, it happens. And when it does, there’s no way of preparing yourself for it. You might have a feeling, a certain notion, that shit’s about to hit the fan.

But you’re denying it even when it starts smelling.

And when it gets so stinky, that you really can’t handle it anymore, you decide to call the cleaning service. And they come, with vacuums-a-blazing, but the final verdict is even shittier: you gotta clean the crap by yourself!

While you clean the crap, there’s a lot to think about. The more you clean, the less it stinks. And you think, and you inter-debate, and listen to other people – because of course you feel like you need some help with all that shit! But it turns into an even bigger pile of crap and you finally realize that you really have to do it on your own.

And you do. It is hard work, it smells, it looks like it’s never going to end – just horrible work conditions … No health insurance either …

Anyways, it does end. Yes, there’s a light at the end of this shitty tunnel!

Once it’s all cleaned up, it actually smells pretty nice; doesn’t look that dark anymore, either!

I wish you all happy holidays & a successful start of the New Year! And remember, pick up that shovel and get that crap out of your driveway – New Year is gonna smell much nicer and look prettier!

Mine just came 4 weeks early …

Politika vs stroka na kulturnem področju

Kulturna politika v Sloveniji bi se morala bolj zanašati na stroko - vendar naj bo stroka del političnega telesa, ki bo sprejemalo odločitve

Osebnostno in v samem jedru delovanja se kulturniki in politiki razlikujejo na več področjih. Ena od teh razlik se nahaja v podobnem jedru delovanja obeh skupin. Obe naj bi si prizadevale za javno dobro; le da si kulturniki želijo različnih kulturnih vsebin za vse državljane, ker je to del ustavnih pravic vsakega posameznika in ohranja kvaliteto življenja – politiki pa preko proračuna in birokratskih ovir pregledajo možnosti izvajanja določenih vsebin. Denarja na koncu vedno zmanjka za kulturo, češ 'saj imate že eno predstavo Dostojevskega, zakaj bi rabili še Tolstoja?' Seveda banaliziram, vendar si je tak ugled Kulturno ministrstvo 'prigaralo' v zadnjem preteklem mandatu. Nonšalantnost kulturnega ministra, močno oslabljeno delovanje filmskega področja, zmanjšanje ali ukinitev finančne podpore določenim uspešnim kulturnim projektom in zaprtje Kinodvora so le utrinki odnosa do kulture v Sloveniji.

Včasih bi politiko najraje kar odtrgali od kulture, vendar popolna ločitev kulture od države ni možna, saj gre le logistično gledano za prevelik projekt, da bi ga ločili na manjše sklope. Poleg tega pa bi s tako dejansko privatizacijo kulture prišli do še bolj tržno naravnanega konteksta kulture v Sloveniji, kar lahko primerjamo recimo s pritiskom oglaševalcev v medijih. Medij, ki je odvisen od oglaševalca, do njega ne bo kritičen; v kulturi bi se finančni uspeh prenesel v smer komercialne kulture, ki bi poplavila trg. Že danes, ko naj bi bila kultura podpirana z javnimi sredstvi in je na kulturnem področju veliko 'resnejših' vsebin, se te ali pojavljajo z isto vsebino v različnih izvedbah ali pa gre za iste avtorje z različnimi deli.

Za alternativo je že danes premalo prostora, kar bi morala urediti kulturna politika - vendar s pomočjo stroke in skozi nek javni dialog. Definitivno bi potrebovali (in potrebujemo!) tudi specializirane menedžerje v kulturnih ustanovah. Podoben premik ali poseg je bil prevzem Kinodvora, sicer s strani ljubljanske občine, ki zdaj končno spet ponuja kvalitetne filmske vsebine. Če pa bi trg prevzel vajeti kulture v Sloveniji, pa bi dobili nove in nove predstave Moških in Žensk, le njihovo število in vloge bi rahlo spreminjali; ker se te vsebine pač prodajajo. In s tem seveda ni nič narobe, vendar bi morali ravno zato pospešiti zarjavelo kolesje slovenske kulturne politike, da bi nam ponudila različne in kvalitetne kulturne vsebine.

(www.vest.si) Kinodvor v Azilu:

Ob osmem marcu ...

Neenakopravnost žensk v sodobni družbi predstavlja pereč problem, ki se ga mednarodna skupnost vedno bolj zaveda. Kljub splošni volilni pravici, pravici do samoodločanja o številu otrok, enakopravnosti na delovnem položaju in v družbi so ženske drugorazredne članice skupnosti. Kljub boju za enakopravnost pred več sto leti, ženske še vedno niso enakopravne članice skupnosti. Z analizo primarnih in sekundarnih virov bom opozorila na nekatere kršitve človekovih pravic in še konkretneje, pravic žensk.

Kljub konvencijam in zakonom pa je nasilje nad ženskami in otroci vseprisotno v naši družbi. Samo v Sloveniji je bilo po podatkih policije v petih letih, od 1998 do 2003, »izvršenih skupno 890 kaznivih dejanj zoper spolno nedotakljivost. Registriranih je bilo 454 primerov posilstev in 397 primerov spolnega nasilja nad žensko, kar je povprečno nekaj več kot 150 prijavljenih³ dejanj posilstva in spolnega nasilja na leto« (Černič Istenič in dr. 2003, 67).

Razkol med zapisanimi pravili in dejanskostjo je vse večji z vedno večjo vlogo žensk v skupnosti. S »pravico do življenja, svobode in varnosti« (Splošna deklaracija človekovih pravic[1], 3. člen) se seveda vsi strinjamo, da »nihče ne bo podvržen mučenju ter nehumanemu in ponižujočemu odnosu« (Splošna deklaracija človekovih pravic, 5. člen) je 'človeško'.

Da pa so ljudje v vsakdanjih in kriznih situacijah lahko ne več 'najpametnejša žival', temveč le še žival, se vsakodnevno kaže na področju kršenja pravic žensk in otrok. Mučenje je »kakršnokoli dejanje, ki povzroča psihično ali fizično bolečino in trpljenje« (Konvencija proti mučenju in ostalim nehumanim, ponižujočim odnosom ali kazni, 1. člen), enako ravnanje je neopravičljivo tudi v času »vojne ali grožnje vojne, notranjepolitične ali kake druge javne nestabilnosti« (prav tam, 2. člen).

Še posebej v čustvenih, stresnih in nevarnih situacijah se pokaže pravi odraz družbe in njen odnos do žensk, saj so »spolne vloge pogosto imele smrtonosne posledice, ki so bile analogne smrtonosnim posledicam rasnih, verskih in razrednih predsodkov« (Warren 1985, 22). V času genocida v Ruandi leta 1994 so, kot pravi Gilles Courtemanche (2003, 213)¹ »/m/oške ubijali hitro, s strelom ali mačeto, ženske pa niso imele te pravice. Bile so mučene, pohabljene, posiljene; pustili so jih poginiti kot živali«.²

Grozovita dejanja, ki jih ne opraviči niti izbruh vojne, pa se v manj opaznih oblikah dogajajo tudi v naši družbi. Zaradi »ženskega boja za osvoboditev (npr. na spolnem, intimnem in ljubezenskem področju) in enakost (npr. na ekonomskem in političnem področju)« naj bi bile izzvane »različne nasilne reakcije nekaterih moških, ki se ne ‘znajdejo’ v novih razmerah (oz. v razmerjih z ‘novimi’ ženskami, ki nočejo več igrati tradicionalnih družbenih, spolnih, zakonskih ali družinskih vlog« (Kanduč 1999, 36). Vedno več je nasilja v domačem okolju štirih sten, kjer se žrtve počutijo ujete, nemočne in nezmožne spremeniti situacijo. Vendar one niso edine, tudi zakonske avtoritete priznavajo nemoč pri reševanju družinskega nasilja.³

Slovenska zakonodaja na tem področju močno šepa. Nesprejemljivo je, da je najnižja zaporna kazen za dejanja zoper spolno nedotakljivost šest mesecev. Popolnoma bi bilo potrebno spremeniti trenutno zakonodajo⁴, ki trenutno med drugim sporoča tudi, da je izsiljevanje včasih koristno. Dikcija je namreč sledeča: »Kdor prisili osebo drugega ali istega spola k spolnemu občevanju tako, da uporabi silo ali zagrozi z neposrednim napadom na življenje ali telo, se kaznuje z zaporom od enega do desetih let«, kdor pa stori popolnoma isto kaznivo dejanje, ki je seveda hkrati kršenje osnovnih človekovih pravic, s tem da žrtvi »zagrozi, da bo o njej ali njenih bližnjih odkril, kar bi škodovalo njeni ali njihovi časti ali dobremu imenu, ali da bo njej ali njenim bližnjim povzročil veliko premoženjsko škodo« (Kazenski zakonik, 180. člen), dobi kazen od šestih mesecev do petih let – se pravi pol manj, če je storilec iznajdljiv.¹

Poleg družinskega nasilja pa se zaradi vedno večje odprtosti mej povečuje trgovina z belim blagom, ki se ponovno nanaša na vprašanje ženskih pravic, saj so te poleg otrok najpogosteje njene žrtve, ki so v mnogih primerih prisiljene v prostitucijo. Boj za ženske pravice in emancipacijo pa je privedel tudi do tega, da se odpira vprašanje prostitucije kot oblike legalnega dela. Zahteva po klasifikaciji prostitucije kot obliki dela izhaja iz zahtev po »ženski enakopravnosti na delovnem mestu in normalnih delovnih pogojev« (Aradau 2006, 85). Tu pa se odpre kompleksno vprašanje legalizacije prostitucije (in s tem posredno tudi trgovine z belim blagom v tem primeru), kar je z vidika varovanja človekovih pravic nedopustno.²[3] Čeprav ni natančnih statistik o trgovini s človeškim blagom, posredni dokazi in raziskave kažejo, da je več sto tisoč – če ne par milijonov – ljudi premeščenih na leto. Strokovnjaki so skupnega mnenja, da gre pri tej trgovini v večini primerov za ženske in deklice (glej Jordan 2002, 32).

Zaključki mednarodnih organizacij so jasni: osnovne človekove pravice in pravice žensk morajo biti omogočene, ženske morajo imeti večjo vlogo pri političnem in družbenem odločanju. Trenutno ima Slovenija več izobraženih žensk kot moških, kljub temu pa je v parlamentu samo okoli 11 % žensk, na ministrskih stolčkih pa jih sedi skoraj pol manj (povzeto po UNDP). Samo sprememba družbenega konsenza bo dosegla implementacijo človekovih pravic in zmanjšanje strukturnega nasilja³, zato moramo v družbo vpeljati spremembe, prekiniti strukturno nasilje ter doseči »žensko emancipacijo in enakopravnost v vseh sferah družbe, tudi pri procesu odločanja in dostopu do moči, kar so osnove za enakopravnost, razvoj in mir« (Pekinška deklaracija, 14. člen).

¹ Kaj je diskriminacija (1. člen): “Diskriminacija proti ženskam je kakršnakoli ločitev, določitev ali omejitev na podlagi spola /…/ enakopravnost temelji na enakosti med moškimi in ženskami, na človekovih pravicah in osnovnih svoboščinah na političnem, ekonomskem, družbenem, kulturnem, civilnem ali kakem drugem področju.”

² Nasilje proti ženskam med drugim pomeni: fizično, spolno ali psihično nasilje v družini; spolno nadlegovanje (ne delovnem mestu); spolno nasilje nad deklicami; izkoriščanje; trgovina z belim blagom in prostitucija.

³ Poudarek avtorice.

¹ Courtemanche, Gilles. 2003. A Sunday at the Pool of Kigali. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf. Citirano po Chapdelaine Feliciati (2003, 16).

² Chapdelaine Feliciati (2003, 16): »Skoraj vse ženske in mladostnice, ki so preživele genocid, so bile posiljene. Največ žrtev posilstva je bilo med dekleti, starimi od 16 do 26 let, medtem ko je imela starost žrtev razpon od dveh (!) do 50 let«.

³ Lastni problemi policistov in policistk (nemoč – 15% odgovorov, nesodelovanje žrtve – 14%, intervencija je le začasna rešitev – 14%, otežkočeno ugotavljanje situacije – 18%); problemi v družini kot jih vidijo policisti in policistke (nasilje nad ženskami in otroki – 14% odgovorov, alkoholizem in druge oblike zasvojenosti – 12%, materialno in socialno stanje družine – 8%) in druge probleme (neučinkovitost drugih inštitucij – sodišč, Centrov za socialno delo – 10%, neustrezna zakonodaja – 18%). Največ problemov imajo policisti in policistke zaradi otežkočenega ugotavljanja situacije in neustrezne zakonodaje (Istenič Černič 2003, 74).

⁴ Tudi raziskave javnega mnenja v Evropski Uniji kažejo na zavedanje vse večjega problema neenakopravnosti in neprimerne zakonodaje, saj je po podatkih Evrobarometra »v vseh državah EU večina vprašanih - v povprečju 64 % - menila, da njihove nacionalne zakonodaje na področju spolnega nasilja niso zadovoljive /…/ 62 % (pa je) menilo, da je nasilje nad ženskami v vsakem primeru nesprejemljivo in bi zato moralo biti po zakonu vedno kaznivo« (Evrobilten št. 10, september 1999).

¹ Obsojene polnoletne osebe in mladoletniki, ki jim je bil izrečen varnostni ukrep ali kazen, Slovenija, 2007: 123 oseb, od tega 115 odraslih in 5 mladoletnih moških storilcev ter 3 odrasle ženske (Statistični urad RS).

² »Vidik človekovih pravic je jasno predstavljen v inštrumentih mednarodnega prava, ampak ko ga država izvaja s pomočjo policije in drugih državnih uslužbencev, tožilcev, sodnikov, je to problem ilegalnih migracij in organiziranega kriminala« (Zavratnik Zimic 2003, 1145).

³ »Obstaja nasilje, ki je še dosti hujše od ‘osebnega’ nasilja močnih in nemočnih družbenih akterjev - gre za ‘strukturno’ nasilje, ki ga ni mogoče pripisati posamičnim fizičnim ali pravnim osebam. Vseeno pa strukturno nasilje ‘pije kri’ večini članov in članic družbe« (Kanduč 1999, 35).

Luknja namesto nove narodne knjižnice

(foto: http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/image_gallery/northwest_s12liverpool _capital_culture_gallery.shtml)

Tisti, ki ne potrebujemo nekoga, da nam ovrednoti slovenske kulturne entitete, se lahko na lastne oči prepričamo že odkar pomnim (sem letnik trgatve '85), le par korakov od Križevniškega samostana in Plečnikovih Križank o vrednotah, ki nam jih ponazarja slovenska kulturna politika. Jama namesto nove Narodne in univerzitetne knjižnice, železni panoji, ki popisani z grafiti pričajo o svoji trajnosti in hkrati zastirajo poglede na luknjo v srcu Ljubljane.

Pogled na 'gradbišče (foto: http://www.delo.si/assets/media/picture/iman/2006_01/sz5_nuk2_gradbisce.jpg)

Najprej naj bi šlo za ustavitev del zaradi arheološkega izkopavanja, nato je vse obstalo. Če bi se odgovorne danes vprašalo, zakaj narodna knjižnica še nima temeljev, bi bil izgovor verjetno recesija – če bi se koga vprašalo. Pa se ne. Luknja je tam, med Francosko ambasado in Mrakom, luknja je tudi v medijih in političnih debatah. Edini premik so verjetno na novo pritrjene čudovite fotografije Ljubljane, ki prekrivajo železje in grafite. Vendar se pozornemu mimoidočemu oko še vedno ustavi in zazre skozi luknje v panojih, ki ponujajo prikriti pogled na razdejanje, ki zeva ob Slovenski cesti.

Pročelje Plečnikovega NUK-a (foto: http://img.siol.net/08/319/633622763803166106_nuk1.jpg)

Ponovno ne gre za problem mesta, temveč za dolžnost obeh, države in mesta, da uporabnikom (državljanom in davkoplačevalcem) zgradi pričakovano novo narodno knjižnico. Vendar politične prioritete ležijo nekje drugje – recimo v izgradnji medicinskih objektov?

In vendar so se enaki (ali celo isti) zapleti recimo s pediatrično kliniko pojavljali že tudi pred osmimi leti, ko smo kdaj z razredom Srednje oblikovne šole hodili skicirat na Grad. Ob jesenskih popoldnevih, ko se drevesa počasi znebijo listja, se tam zgoraj vidi čudovita ljubljanska panorama. Vidi se tudi luknja imaginarne knjižnice. Res pa je, da je opazna le, če pririneš na grajski grič ali kukaš skozi luknje v panojih.

Nekako podobno se obnaša tudi naša kulturna politika. Potrebno se je riniti, iskati alternative (navadno v privatnem sektorju) ali pa moledovati za izvedbo projektov. Če ti darežljivo odstopijo košček sredstev, moraš postati njen prijatelj, zagovornik. Politika je tvoj mecen in ti si obrtnik, ki zanjo ustvarja. Tako 'diktaturo kulture' je vpeljal minister Vasko Simoniti in nas s takim načinom popeljal stoletja v preteklost; zdaj pa je na vrsti ministrica Majda Širca, da kulturo ponovno vpelje v vsakodnevni javni in politični diskurz.

Ljubljanski župan Zoran Jankovič in takratni kulturni minister Vasko Simoniti ob maketi nove stavbe NUK

(foto: http://www.delo.si/assets/media/picture/iman/2008_03/sz5_nuk2.blaz.samec.jpg)

In ker kultura in umetnost nista obrtni, je rezultat politike prejšnje oblasti marginaliziranje kulture in še nadaljnje ločevanje znotraj kulture same; ločevanje na elitno in komercialno, moderno in tradicionalno, črno in belo - sivega pa ni. Ravno odtenki sivin pa so tisti, ki nam lahko pomagajo razumeti ekstremno črne in najsvetlejše delčke.

Kulturo bi morali obravnavati kot barve. Slikar nikoli ne bo nanesel tovarniško namešane barve iz tube direktno na platno, ampak se bo z njo na igral, jo mešal z drugimi, opazoval, o njej razmišljal (!) in jo nazadnje pozorno nanesel kot del svoje umetnine, kjer bo zaživela. Tudi kulturo je treba namešati previdno in z občutkom po potrebah ljudi. Ljudje nismo na ekstremih barvnih lestvic, ampak smo vsak zase kombinacija barv, odtenkov in vsak je namešan po svoje. Naloga države pa je, da te odtenke tudi ponudi.

Pobiranje prstnih odtisov samo v filmih

Vse pogostejše kraje v študentskih domovih v Ljubljani – Kdo je odgovoren za nastalo škodo? – Študentje se v lastnem domovanju ne počutijo več varne

Po problemih z garjami se nadloge prebivalcev študentskih domov v Ljubljani kar ne končajo. Kraje v domovih so namreč vedno bolj pogoste, tatovi pa postajajo čedalje bolj drzni, kot namigujeta zadnja dva primera v najdražjem študentskem domu na Litostrojski pa razlog za preplah ni le materialna škoda, temveč sam način vdora. Lopov je namreč s ključem odklenil sobo in študentki Nini odnesel profesionalni fotoaparat, Miji pa je neznanec kar dvakrat vstopil v sobo. Toda ta neobičajni lopov ni ničesar odnesel, kvečjemu dodal, saj je za sabo pustil pepelnik poln cigaretnih ogorkov, prižigal pa si je tudi svečke.

Zagotovo pa s tem ni pričaral romantike za preostale prebivalce doma, ki so zgroženi nad dejstvom, da se lahko kljub posebno zaščitenim ključem, varnostni službi, ki jo plačujejo, in nadzornimi kamerami nepridiprav mirno sprehaja od sobe do sobe. Generalni ključ, ki odpira vsa domska vrata, imata le hišnik, ki je takoj zamenjal ključavnice omenjenih sob, in Uprava študentskih domov, ki pa ne daje izjav iz »varnostnih razlogov«. Ključi sob pa naj bi imeli posebno zaščito, ki onemogoča kopiranje. Res pa je, da je s ključi podobno kot z računalniškimi hekerji: če je mojster dober, lahko premaga vsako zaščito.

O krajah je bila obveščena tudi ljubljanska policija, ki za izjave ni bila dosegljiva. Sicer so opravili pregled in napisali zapisnik, študentje pa so njihovo delo ocenili kot površno in neresno. Študentki Patriciji in njeni sostanovalki je neznanec vlomil skozi balkonska vrata, si v njun kovček pospravil prenosnika in ostalo računalniško opremo v sobi ter mirno odkorakal. Ko je policiste prosila za pregled posnetkov na varnostnih kamerah, so jo odslovili, češ naj se jih loti sama, na vprašanje, zakaj s stekla ne poberejo prstnih odtisov, pa je dobila ciničen odgovor: »Deklica, to se dela samo v filmih!«

Uprava je oškodovancem sporočila, da niso odgovorni za nastale probleme in jih napotila na policijo ter dodala, da je »vsak študent ali delavec dolžan prvenstveno skrbeti za svoje stvari in se držati navodil iz domskega reda«. Tako pa se poraja vprašanje, kdo lahko študentom v takih primerih sploh pomaga. Nemočni in ogroženi pa se počutijo tudi ostali prebivalci domov, saj se v lastnih sobah več ne počutijo varne, in kot dodaja ena od sogovornic: »Ali bomo res morali počakati, da nekoga fizično poškodujejo, da se bo kdo od odgovornih zganil?«

PKK, Kurdi, Turčija in mediji

Poskušam se navadit na visoko razvito turško nacionalističnost, pa mi nekako ne gre. Trenutno me dogodki na ulicah spominjajo na dogajanje med našo desetdnevno vojno in na posnetke iz Jugoslavije. Množice ljudi na ulicah, ki v duhu bratstva in enotnosti demonstrirajo za vojno proti PKK. Si lahko predstavljate kolono ljudi od ljubljanske Drame do Bavarca, ki nosi slovenske zastave in zahteva napad na neko teroristično skupino? Nepredstavljivo, kajne? Tukaj je to postal del vsakdana. Priča sem bila demonstracijam, v katerih se je taka kolona valila od centra Eskisehirja do občinske stavbe in se dokončno ustavila tam, na trgu pred Atatürkovim kipom. Po poročanju tujih agencij se podobno, vendar še bolj množično, dogaja tudi v Istanbulu, Izmirju in Ankari. Skandirajo parole, ki v skrajšani verziji sporočajo, da naj se preneha prelivanje krvi turških vojakov in dol s PKK.

Začetek kolone vodijo moški srednjih let, katerih globoki glasovi v meni prebudijo srh. Sledijo študentje, srednješolci in nazadnje še ženske in osnovnošolski otroci. Ne morem si pomagati, pogled na otroke, ki se ne zavedajo političnih razmer in poslušajo samo mnenja svojih razgretih staršev me razjezi. O trenutni situaciji poskušam spraševati vse, ki mi dajo priložnost: cimre, prijatelje, sošolce, profesorje, novinarje. Dobivam zelo skope odgovore, vendar še vseeno nadaljujem svojo mini raziskavo 'javnega mnenja'. Poskušam zajeti vse, različne starosti, spol, politično pripadnost, poskušam najti nekoga, ki bi bil proti napadu – vendar take osebe še nisem našla. Mnenje ljudi je odsev glasovanja v parlamentu v Ankari 17. oktobra, ko je za napad glasovalo 507 članov, proti pa le pičlih 19. Varira le mnenje glede Kurdov in njihove povezanosti s PKK. Na faksu mi vsi zatrjujejo, da PKK seveda ni isto kot Kurdi ter da bo ta napad pripomogel tudi k svobodi kurdskega ljudstva. Razlagajo mi, koliko so Kurdi pretrpeli v zadnjih desetletjih, veliko tudi zato, ker jih ljudje povezujejo s teroristično skupino in ne ločijo civilistov od PKK. Podpirajo napad med drugim tudi zato, ker zaradi PKK pada slaba luč na vse Kurde. Na našem faksu študira tudi veliko Kurdov in tudi oni so za napad. Nato sem pa še isti večer seznanjena z drugo stranjo.

Vse se je začelo, ko sem si kupila lepo rdeče-belo ruto s posebnim vezenjem in cofki.

Vedela sem, da ta ruta nekaj pomeni, vendar se nisem obremenjevala s tem, kaj točno. Prvič sem si jo zavezala ravno na dan največjih demonstracij in šla z njo v šolo. Pogledi so me po ulicah spremljali že navsezgodaj zjutraj, ampak nisem reagirala. Ob kavi pa mi sošolke povejo, da je to kurdska ruta, ki pa je značilna tudi za vzhodni, bolj konzervativni del Turčije, medtem ko je ruta, ki jo nosijo podporniki PKK rumeno-rdeče-zelena, tako kot kurdska zastava. Po dolgem zasliševanju z moje strani so mi zagotovile, da zaradi te rute ne bom imela nobenih problemov, saj 'PKK in Kurdi niso isto'. Na poti domov sem opazovala reakcije ljudi in predvsem starejši ljudje so me gledali z odobravanjem, nek starejši prodajalec v naši trgovini me je celo pohvalil, češ da je lepo, da kot tujka nosim to ruto.

Tako sem se pomirjena dobila z znanci v njihovem stanovanju. Ko sem vstopila, me je eden od fantov takoj napadel, zakaj nosim to svinjarijo, da če si želim, da me nekdo pretepe, zakaj izzivam itd. Ko sem ga prosila, če mi lahko podrobneje razloži svojo reakcijo, se je začel pravi šok: PKK in Kurdi so ista stvar, vse je treba pobit oziroma z njegovimi besedami – 'prerezat vratove', nato se je začel dreti parole iz demonstracij in kazat znak s prsti

ki pomeni 'volk', kar po turško pomeni Kurd … Razložil je še, da ima Turčija zaradi 'teh ljudi' že skozi celo zgodovino same probleme, da so izdajalci, ker so se v začetku prejšnjega stoletja borili na turški strani, potem pa zahtevali nepredstavljivo v zameno: svojo lastno državo. In da se to ne bo nikoli uresničilo …

Spoznala sem še drugo stran, in to od ljudi, za katere si tega nikoli ne bi mislila. Vedno nasmejani, žurerski in prijazni ljudje so se v sekundi spremenili v čiste nacionaliste. Dodal je še, da naj bi večina Kurdov, ki živijo v Turčiji, glasovala za eno od treh najmočnejših strank, MPH, ki je desničarska nacionalistična stranka, ki naj bi podpirala PKK, Kurdi naj bi še vedno upali na svojo državo, ki jim jo lahko omogoči le PKK … Veliko nepotrjenih informacij, ki pa so zasidrane globoko v nekaterih glavah.

Zelo naivno primerjam situacijo v bivši Jugi in našo osamosvojitev z ustanovitvijo Kurdistana (priznam zmanjkovalo mi je materiala za provociranje …). Zakaj Turki ne odstopijo dela svojega ozemlja za Kurdistan in končajo dolgoletno nasilje ter težnje po ustanovitvi Kurdistana? Dobim zgrožene poglede in razlage, da bi s tem uničili avtonomijo turškega ozemlja ter da bi potem še vsi ostali hoteli košček Turčije. Kdo so ti 'ostali' ne izvem, ker se debata preusmeri na zgroženost glede nedavne izjave Condoleezze Rice, ko je prvič izjavila ime 'Kurdistan'. Turki že tako sovražijo ameriško politiko in njihove ukrepe, da se zdaj počutijo ogrožene ob ameriški omembi države, ki fizično ne obstaja. Menijo, da se začenja neka velika spletka Amerike, da bi pomagali ustanoviti Kurdistan. Vprašam jih še, kaj si mislijo o napovedanem glasovanju v ameriškem parlamentu, da bi napade leta 1915 na Armence uradno označili kot genocid? Nihče mi noče odgovoriti v angleščini, vsi samo govorijo drug čez drugega v turščini, prevod s profesorjeve strani pa je: vsi imajo zelo močna čustva glede te teme! Aja, ne res?!? Očitno so res močna, če se jih pet minut ni dalo ustaviti …

Medtem premier Recep Tayyip Erdoğan grozi Iraku z uvedbo ekonomskega embarga, na njegove grožnje pa je uradni Irak odgovoril, da bodo v tem primeru prenehali Turčiji dostavljati bencin, kar bi bila zaradi že tako visokih cen bencina prava katastrofa. Erdoğan je na sestanku v Romuniji prav tako pozval voditelje evropskih držav, da naj predajo kakršnekoli voditelje PKK, ki bi delovali v njihovih državah. Izrazil je mnenje, da ta napad ne bo vplival na nadaljevanje turških pogovorov o vstopu v Evropsko unijo in hkrati prosil Anglijo za podporo pri tem napadu, ne vem pa, kakšno: politično, ekonomsko, vojaško? Prejšnji teden pa je njegov telefonski pogovor z Georgom Bushem v Turčiji sprožil govorice, da Erdoğan prosi za Bushevo dovoljenje glede napada na PKK, kar je odločno zanikal in zatrdil, da Turčija ne rabi nikogaršnjega dovoljenja za napad.

Turški mediji so izrazito enostranski, opazila nisem niti enega poročila, ki bi kakorkoli dopuščal diplomatsko rešitev problema, temveč kvečjemu podpihujejo že tako razgreta nacionalna čustva. To so mi potrdili tudi novinarski kolegi, ki redno spremljajo dogajanje v medijih. Popolnoma sem bila šokirana tudi na posebnem predavanju pri predmetu Televizijske novice z francoskim gostom Yvesom Renardom, ki predava na univerzi za novinarstvo v Lillu. Imeli smo simulacijo televizijskega uredništva in poskušali narediti izbor novic, ki bi jih objavili v večernih poročilih. Študentje četrtega in tretjega letnika novinarstva so ga resno spraševali, zakaj sploh potrebujemo recimo odgovor oziroma posnetek reakcije iraškega premierja na grožnje turškega, kaj je novinarska objektivnost in zakaj je potrebna, ter zakaj naj ne bi podajali svojega mnenja v poročilih? Najprej sem mislila, da so vprašanja komično-ironična, po 30 minutah plazu takih vprašanj pa je postalo kristalno jasno, zakaj turški mediji poročajo tako, kot poročajo. S Pino si ob začetku trenutnih demonstracij in omemb o napadu nisva mogli razložiti, kako lahko nek novinar tako požre vse, kar so ga naučili na faksu in zanemari svoje vrednote do te mere, da poroča skladno z vsako politično izjavo turške strani. Zdaj sem ugotovila, da namen tukajšnjih medijev sploh ni biti kritičen do politikov, ampak da so novinarji nekakšni PRovci vlade … Še bolj presenetljivo je, da je kvaliteta študija tukaj na zelo visokem nivoju, na žalost pri veliko predmetih še na zelo višjem kot v Sloveniji, ampak tale učna ura me je čisto šokirala …

Po drugi strani pa je še vseeno razvito kritino razmišljanje, recimo glede napovedi o zvišanju cen elektrike, ogrevanja (se pravi plina), alkohola in cigaret, o čemer smo se vsi strinjali, da država uvaja podražitve ravno v času, ko večino medijskega prostora zavzemajo novice o PKK in Iraku, tako da ljudje niso pozorni na take 'malenkosti'. Zanimiv je tudi podatek, da vlada ukinja finančno pomoč invalidom, medtem ko so začeli graditi novo predsedniško palačo …

Fanta 'mam!!!

Moja cimra si je zadala nalogo, da mi predstavi vse samske mladce v Eskisehirju. Kljub mojem nenehnem ponavljanju, da imam fanta, se v našem stanovanju že prvi dan zvrsti kopica postavnih mladcev, ki si poskušajo izboljšat angleščino. Ko že petdesetič razlagam, da Slovenia ni Slovakia (hvala naši vladi za izbiro tako učinkovitih simbolov za predstavitev Slovenije v svetu, I Feel the Love Too!) ugotovim, da nekaj v tem stanovanju ne štima. Ne samo, da me je strah stopiti v banjo zaradi strahu pred glivicami in glede na cimrino spolno življenje hepatitisi Ž, N, J, zdi se mi, da tu živi malo več ljudi kot imam 'uraden' podatek.

Po neprespani noči na kavču, ker smo imeli na obisku 15 ljudi, me najprej okoli štirih zbudi možak, ki hodi po mestnih ulicah in nabija na ogromen boben, zraven pa se zverinsko dere meni nerazumljive stvari. Bobnar je tu zaradi Ramazana, ki je trenutno v polnem teku. Ljudje mu na ulici dajejo denar, študentje pa bi ga z visokih balkonov in oken zalili z ostanki hrane, saj je spanje v centru ob takem hrupu praktično nemogoče. Hrup njegovega okoli vratu obešenega bobna odmeva več ulic stran in to ravno takrat, ko se klubi zaprejo in se mestni utrip umiri. Končno zaspim, sledi pa nov zvočni šok - ob petih zjutraj me zbudi jutranja maša, ki se oglaša z bližnjega minareta. Vsi še spijo in ko si v dnevno sobo odnesem moj prvi pravi turški čaj na kavču spijo trije tipi, ki jih nisem še nikoli videla. Poleg njih so vse moje stvari, laptop, foto, dokumenti, denar, v odprtih kovčkih pa se je udobno namestil zlati prinašalec Kahul. Oblečem si trenirko polno rumenih dlak in se odpravim raziskovat mesto.

Eskisehir se prebuja v nov sončen dan, jutranje meglice se dvigajo nad oddaljenimi gorami. Meščani hitijo na svoja delavna meste, šole, fakultete … Jaaa, itak!

Ura je sedem zjutraj in v mestu, kjer se uradi in trgovine odprejo ob devetih so ulice polne dostavnih tovornjakov, parkiranih starih avtov in pometačev. Gledajo me kot da sem padla z Marsa, 'navadni' ljudje se doma ravnokar prebujajo in kuhajo čaj, kavo, turški zajtrk. Ulice so polne mačjih brezdomcev in z veseljem brskajo po vrečah smeti, ki jih prebivalci ne odlagajo v smetnjake, temveč na pločnike. Bolj zavaljenih mačk še v življenju nisem videla …

Pravijo, da je vsak začetek težak. Nisem pa si mislila, da bo moj začetek najprej nevaren nato pa smrdeč

Ob treh zjutraj po turskem času sva s kolegico Pino prileteli na istanbulsko letališče Ataturk in ugotovili, da sicer ugodna cena leta z Adrio v Istanbul pomeni 4urno čakanje na podzemni vlak, ki pelje do glavne avtobusne postaje (turško otogar), od koder sva imeli bus za najino končno destinacijo – Eskisehir.

Otovorjeni s 40imi kilogrami prtljage (vsaka seveda) sva se počili na tla pred vhodom na letališče, ki je bilo ob tej uri polno zdolgočasenih delavcev, in to po večini moških. Najprej so naju hoteli ogoljufati in naju za ceno 15 evrov peljati na avtobusno postajo, kjer bi tako ali tako morali čakati na prvi bus, ki pelje ob šestih. Očitno je vame udarila Pinina gorenjska kri, saj sva odločno zavrnili ponudbo in se predali usodi.

Medtem ko sem ljubosumno opazovala turiste, ki so jih na letališču pobrali taksiji in odpeljali v udobne hotele, se nama je pridružil moški srednjih let, ki se je s svojo polomljeno angleščino na vsak način poskušal pogovarjat z nama. Lahko si predstavljate, da ga po nekajurnem letu in spoznanju, da postelja še zdaleč ni blizu, nisva bili ravno veseli. Ko je po polurni ignoranci še vedno čvekal, sva si našli novo družbo: študenta iz Prage, ki je že 10 ur čakal svojega prijatelja, ki je po pomoti z drugim prevoznikom pristal na drugem carigrajskem letališču, na čisto drugem koncu 16 milijonskega mesta. Ko nama je povedal še, da potujeta v Sirijo, kjer študira njegova punca, se mi je najin Eskisehir zdel vedno bližje.

Končno smo dočakali podzemni vlak, na katerega nas je uslužbenec spustil zastonj (ne vem, ali je temu botrovala jutranja zaspanost ali se je po turško kaj pokvarilo). Najina vožnja pa bi kmalu lahko postala najdražja v mojem življenju.

Tisti tip je bil še vedno z nami in nam prijazno povedal, na kateri postaji moramo izstopiti. Dve postaji pred našim izstopom pa vstopijo trije čudni tipi, ki mu samo nekaj rečejo in pogledajo proti nam. Medtem ko so s hrbtom obrnjeni proti nam, kmalu opazim, da nas in našo prtljago opazujejo v šipi (hah, mami, zdaj si verjetno vesela, da gledam vse tiste 'neumne' filme, ne?!?). Moj s holivudskimi kriminalkami naspidiran čut mi pravi, da nekaj smrdi. Povem Pini, ki instinktno k sebi privije laptop, jaz pa se oklepam svojega novega fotoaparata. Že vidim, kako se bom morala po Jackie-Chanovsko braniti, ko model opazi, da ga gledam in takoj pogleda stran. Izstopna postaja se približuje, in najin Čeh nama prijazno pomaga prijeti prtljago (seveda, ker je tip in s primanjkljajem šestega čuta ni opazil ničesar čudnega …) in takrat se potencialni roparji prestrašijo in prvi odidejo z vlaka. Nas čudaški kompanjon nas še vedno zasleduje (joj, Vobič bi bil navdušen nad mojim kronološkim redom …), nekako se ga znebimo, s Pino se posloviva od prijaznega Čeha in si čim hitreje poskušava najti avtobus.

Postaja zgleda kot tržnica v Bihaću, vendar še bolj pisana (ja, tudi to je mogoče), seveda sva spet edini ženski in še sami s skupaj 80imi kilogrami prtljage. Can anybody say: easy target?!?

Kupiva karto in končno sva na busu, ki je bolj udoben kot naši mednarodni prevozniki. Ne mine pol ure in že nam ponudijo čaj, piškotke, vodo … Ko se nabutava z vsem, kar nama dajo, se zacne 6urna vožnja čez hribe in doline proti Eskisehirju.

Istanbul in njegovo predmestje še ohranita mojo pozornost, nato pa dolgočasna pokrajina in prečuta noč naredita svoje. Zbudim se nekje sredi hribovij in malih zapuščenih vasic s tremi hišami in štirimi kozami. Glede na to, da prihajam iz bivše Juge, in ker v naši malii državici še vedno divja vojna in nimamo centralne kurjave (predstave nekaterih Erazmovcev, ki so prišli na FDV), me seveda ne bi smelo biti strah mest, kjer so vse ženske pokrite z rutami in imajo po deset otrok, medtem ko na faksu itak nihče ne govori angleško in kjer se moram paziti, ker me lahko na vsakem koraku nekdo oropa ali napade (dobronamerna opozorila pred mojim odhodom v Turčijo).

Prispemo do nekega velikega mesta, je to mogoče Eskisehir?! Na levi se dviguje ogromen napis Andolu University – to je zihr to! Ponovno se z vso prtljago zbaševa z busa in tokrat čakava na avtobusni postaji. Ob pogledu na najino prtljago Pinin novi cimer prasne v smeh in vpraša, če je to vse najino. Ja itak, al' sva dve babi!

Nabutamo se v predpotopen ameriškorumen taksi, vso najino prtljago strpamo v prtljažnik, ki se ga seveda ne da zapreti, zato ga taksist mirno poveže z elastiko, očitno je že navajen … Najslabša stvar za želodec po dolgi in naporni noči ter samih sladkarijah in čaju je lahko le divja vožnja skozi ulice Eskisehirja s taksijem. Še dobro, da nisem verna, ker ne vem h komu bi molila: Jezus, Alah, Buda … Saj ni važno, samo naj se tale vlakec smrti konča!

Odložijo me v centru pred neznanim blokom, kjer me čaka moja nova cimra. Tako sem vesela, da je vožnje konec, da se niti ne poslovim od Pine. Staro dvigalo, vsa moja prtljaga in dekle, ki ne govori angleško. Jiiiihaaaa, show se lahko začne. Kazanje z rokami, ogled stanovanja in nato šok. Moja soba ni soba, ampak skladišče za razno šaro in kupe oblek bivše cimre, ki se noče izseliti; kopalnica ni kopalnica, ampak leglo bakterij in svinjarije in kljub temu, da smrdim po letalu in busu in taksiju si prisežem, da se moje nožice ne bodo dotaknile dna tiste banje! Pa kaj sploh nakladam, poglejte slike:

Moj eDnevnik

From red rubber to bloody cobalt: Globally unequal exchange in Congo

Polka, Minarets and Distorted Memories

Gender and Violence

Bordo, S. 2003, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. Tenth Anniversary Edition. University of California Press, London.

Happy Holidays AKA:

Politika vs stroka na kulturnem področju

(www.vest.si) Kinodvor v Azilu:

Ob osmem marcu ...

Luknja namesto nove narodne knjižnice

Pobiranje prstnih odtisov samo v filmih

PKK, Kurdi, Turčija in mediji

Fanta 'mam!!!

Pravijo, da je vsak začetek težak. Nisem pa si mislila, da bo moj začetek najprej nevaren nato pa smrdeč

Na kratko o meni

Kategorije

Najnovejša sporočila

Moji prijatelji

Zanimive strani

		<a href='http://ads.e-mesto.com/adclick.php?n=ac99f793' target='_blank'><img src='http://ads.e-mesto.com/adview.php?what=zone:104&n=ac99f793' border='0' alt=''></a>		Odpri svoj eDnevnik Na prvo stran Naključni eDnevnik Nadzorna soba Celje.info / Kozjansko.info