Every year, many Nepalis risk their lives to find work outside of Nepal in countries around the world. Nepal shares an agreement with India for hiring Nepali workers to shoulder the labor concerns of India's development - it is common to see Nepalis (newly arrived or living in India for a number of generations) building roads and cooking in restaurants, for example. Nepalis can make good money doing the work that many Indians do not want to do themselves.
A popular out migration destination for Nepalis is the Gulf region where oil money and huge development in places like Dubai have created a job market for low-skilled labor such as drivers, house guards, housekeepers, and nannies. Nepalis can get work in these regions easily, but job security, safety, and human rights issues surface as a result of the semi - legal nature of the employment. The Nepali government has been trying to formalize some of these relationships with popular out-migration destinations, but given the dysfunctional nature of political situations in Nepal, not much has been accomplished.
One attempt has been ongoing in relation to official passports for Nepalis traveling out of Nepal for work. Here's an article describing the current issues with these official passports and efforts to formalize these working relationships with other countries. Seems that the Maoists have ideas about how they would like things to go and, as usual, are prepared to protest and march to get their side of the story heard.
At least this is a pertinent issue affecting the lives of many Nepalis currently rather than more sensationalist news regarding the ruling elite.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Three Idiots
Hit Hindi Film staring Bollywood star Aamir Khan is still all the rage in India - It's called 3 Idiots and tells the story of Aamir's character and his two buddies as they bumble through engineering school.
Many have said this film was written about Sonam Wangchuk, founder of SECMOL in Ladakh, education reformist, activist, and brilliant human being. The film is actually based on a novel, but it is undeniable that the character portrayed by Khan resembles Wangchuk's life very closely.
Wangchuk was awarded a "Real Heros of India" award (sponsored by Reliance Networking) two years ago. Aamir Khan presented the award to Wangchuk and 19 of his peers who have set the bar high for Indian standards of reform, development, and all-around goodness.
Here's a link to an article written by an old SECMOL volunteer from India. Though SECMOL wasn't featured in the film (it was another similar school), the talk of Ladakh has been Wangchuk's resemblance to the main character of the film.
Many have said this film was written about Sonam Wangchuk, founder of SECMOL in Ladakh, education reformist, activist, and brilliant human being. The film is actually based on a novel, but it is undeniable that the character portrayed by Khan resembles Wangchuk's life very closely.
Wangchuk was awarded a "Real Heros of India" award (sponsored by Reliance Networking) two years ago. Aamir Khan presented the award to Wangchuk and 19 of his peers who have set the bar high for Indian standards of reform, development, and all-around goodness.
Here's a link to an article written by an old SECMOL volunteer from India. Though SECMOL wasn't featured in the film (it was another similar school), the talk of Ladakh has been Wangchuk's resemblance to the main character of the film.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Right Speech
"The pillar of skillful speech is to speak honestly, which means that we should even avoid telling little white lies. We need to be aware of dishonesty in the forms of exaggerating, minimizing, and self-aggrandizing. These forms of unskillful speech often arise from a fear that what we are is not good enough––and that is never true. Honesty begins at home, so the practice of skillful speech begins with being honest with ourselves."
- Allan Lokos, "Skillful Speech" (Winter 2008)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Constitution Process and Support for Nepal
It's hard to watch from afar. Maybe even harder to watch at all. A colleague just returned from KTM this weekend saying how shocking the living conditions are there: garbage in the streets piled high (the waste management system workers have been on strike since last may), loadshedding up to 18 hours/day (not enough time to charge a converter to get power).
Here are two articles -
First about STILL having no concensus on the constitution that is due to be finished on 28 May of this year.
Second about India and Nepal relations in times of difficult economy - will India support Nepal through this crisis spring?
Here are two articles -
First about STILL having no concensus on the constitution that is due to be finished on 28 May of this year.
Second about India and Nepal relations in times of difficult economy - will India support Nepal through this crisis spring?
The Jewel in the Crown is India
Often, when we, from the United States, begin to talk about colonial imperialism, the topic presents a conundrum not easily sorted out. Examples from Franciphone Africa, China and its occupied territories, the mess left in South Africa, Brits in India, and (if we are brave enough to talk about it honestly) British in the US resulting in the genocide of Native Americans. The topic overflows with examples of brutality, racism, oppression, servantry, power, control, and economic development. If we're lucky, the discussion doesn't stop at the floodgates of guilt that quickly bubble up depending on how much one has thought about the topic of one's social identity and come to terms with these dynamics. Isn't it?
One of the books (or sets of books) the students can choose to read before coming to India is the Raj Quartet by Paul M. Scott. Jewel in the Crown is the first, but also the title of the miniseries that has been called the best miniseries of its time.
Literary works of art - novels of the best storytelling and intrigue. What makes a good story? Lots of characters that you can identify with - characters with tragic flaws, ones that you fall in love with along with the storyline, ones that you hate because you see them one dimensionally until the secret behind them is revealed, and even then, you hate them a little bit for their cruelty. Historical fiction works in this way - giving context of the time period (In JITC's case, 1942 - 1947 in India) by following characters along their journeys. Characters that may or may not have actually existed at the time, but it doesn't matter. The characters are telling the story of the history.
Themes: Social commentary - Brits in India, or the history of Brits in India juxtaposed with India's own history, or the powerlessness to interact with it - power dynmaics and how they play out - WWII - Independence - Muslim/Hindu conflict -privilege - 'home' - graciousness/manners - drinking - love and how quickly or slowly the interaction takes place - taboos of sexuality -trust -...
I noticed how the characters never call each other out on their shit. They just kind of bear it, sometimes to 'vent' to someone else about the behavior or decide what to do about it, but never to their faces. (Example, Merrick, Susan's insanity) Misunderstandings frustrate the viewer.
Colonialism is like a bad marriage - filled with frustration, angst, abuse, exploitation, joy, and sometimes love.
Most of the Indians portrayed in the series are servants, sometimes cunning and stealing, sometimes supporting their Memsahibs perfectly. Lady Chatterjee, Nawab and his family, and Hari Kumar have substantial roles. It is quite skillful of the writer/director to spend such a time with Hari and Daphne creating an intense connection with them, then tragedy strikes. They are not in the series physically for the rest of the episodes, but they hover in the storyline as a reminder of the ambiguity of disaster, unfortunate events, questions of identity and love; they ARE the main storyline, even though we finish with the Laytons and Ahmed's fate. Hari and Daphne are the ominous bookends to the story, reminding the viewer that complications and dissapointment are the themes of the work.
Each episode includes actual wartime footage from WWII telling the story from the Indian/British perspective of the time. Sarah, Merrick, Guy, and other characters are fully engaged in the security forces at different levels. The footage brings reality to the stories of the characters and helps the viewer understand what the context is for their lives during each episode. Another technique used is the ambiguity of the ending of each episode, sometimes in flames, sometimes just quietly ending without fanfare sneaking up on the viewer creating a feeling in me of expectation, tragic anticipation, or frustration at times. There is no happy ending. This solidifies the view that colonialism is like a bad marriage.
Pandit Baba, Gandhi/Nehru,
First Draft.
One of the books (or sets of books) the students can choose to read before coming to India is the Raj Quartet by Paul M. Scott. Jewel in the Crown is the first, but also the title of the miniseries that has been called the best miniseries of its time.
Literary works of art - novels of the best storytelling and intrigue. What makes a good story? Lots of characters that you can identify with - characters with tragic flaws, ones that you fall in love with along with the storyline, ones that you hate because you see them one dimensionally until the secret behind them is revealed, and even then, you hate them a little bit for their cruelty. Historical fiction works in this way - giving context of the time period (In JITC's case, 1942 - 1947 in India) by following characters along their journeys. Characters that may or may not have actually existed at the time, but it doesn't matter. The characters are telling the story of the history.
Themes: Social commentary - Brits in India, or the history of Brits in India juxtaposed with India's own history, or the powerlessness to interact with it - power dynmaics and how they play out - WWII - Independence - Muslim/Hindu conflict -privilege - 'home' - graciousness/manners - drinking - love and how quickly or slowly the interaction takes place - taboos of sexuality -trust -...
I noticed how the characters never call each other out on their shit. They just kind of bear it, sometimes to 'vent' to someone else about the behavior or decide what to do about it, but never to their faces. (Example, Merrick, Susan's insanity) Misunderstandings frustrate the viewer.
Colonialism is like a bad marriage - filled with frustration, angst, abuse, exploitation, joy, and sometimes love.
Most of the Indians portrayed in the series are servants, sometimes cunning and stealing, sometimes supporting their Memsahibs perfectly. Lady Chatterjee, Nawab and his family, and Hari Kumar have substantial roles. It is quite skillful of the writer/director to spend such a time with Hari and Daphne creating an intense connection with them, then tragedy strikes. They are not in the series physically for the rest of the episodes, but they hover in the storyline as a reminder of the ambiguity of disaster, unfortunate events, questions of identity and love; they ARE the main storyline, even though we finish with the Laytons and Ahmed's fate. Hari and Daphne are the ominous bookends to the story, reminding the viewer that complications and dissapointment are the themes of the work.
Each episode includes actual wartime footage from WWII telling the story from the Indian/British perspective of the time. Sarah, Merrick, Guy, and other characters are fully engaged in the security forces at different levels. The footage brings reality to the stories of the characters and helps the viewer understand what the context is for their lives during each episode. Another technique used is the ambiguity of the ending of each episode, sometimes in flames, sometimes just quietly ending without fanfare sneaking up on the viewer creating a feeling in me of expectation, tragic anticipation, or frustration at times. There is no happy ending. This solidifies the view that colonialism is like a bad marriage.
Pandit Baba, Gandhi/Nehru,
First Draft.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Using Metaphor as a teaching tool...
As an observation of the students that I am working with this semester, my boss and I have have many chats about the fact that the students don't understand metaphor. Makes it quite difficult to understand poetry, art, and interpretations of history for that matter. The students seem to be constantly staring at us with blank looks when we use metaphors to explain concepts in music, dance, and history.
One way I have addressed this in the past is to see it from their shoes - what metaphors make sense in their lives? There is flat understanding when a teacher uses a metaphor from his/her own life that the students just haven't experienced yet. Example - having kids, being married, graduating, turning 30, spending 5 years working on a degree that you never end up using in your work. Is it the teacher's responsibility to come up with the metaphors that work for the students? Can the teacher know the students' experience well enough to do that? As the teacher gets older and the students stay the same age, does this process become more and more difficult?
I am looking for some research that my old boss told me about sometime that I always use as an example but can never remember who did the research - that our brains develop fully by the age of 25. Something about the corpus callosum being the last part of the brain to fully develop? So juniors and seniors in college still have a difficult time navigating things outside of their worldview - i.e. they process things through their own lens and have a difficult time empathising with others' experiences because some part of the brain is not developed fully yet. It is a difficult world for them because at the same moment, they are expected to understand how to manage their time, be socially savvy, excellent writers and processors of information, build their resumes with heartfelt humanitarian work, and mind their manners. That's a lot when you are doing it from one perspective.
That's not to say that holding them to committments and expectations isn't important - if you've been aware of a paper that is due on Friday at 5 pm for three weeks (and it is one of those papers that you have to do a lot of work on for three weeks rather than something you can write in two hours), don't ask for an extension at 2 pm on Friday afternoon! And teachers, it's our responsibility to say NO to the extension. Of course, in a skillful way that builds your relationship to the student - asking the right questions (rather than telling them, or putting them on the defensive) to help the student understand how they have been managing their time.
OI - so this come back to metaphor? somehow. Nuance. More than taxonomic understanding. making connections. I've always been a visual learner - I notice myself, when a lecturer or facilitator is presenting a metaphor to help me understand some concept, I visualize it in my mind. I draw the picture in my mind of a cave, a fire, a huge wall, and people looking at the wall and feeling fearful of what they see when someone is describing Plato's allegory.
I do my best when I am the one presenting the metaphor to actually picture it in my head while I describe, or tell stories in hopes that the image comes across through my words. Would the Matrix (Morpheus explaining the matrix to a newly awakened Neo) work better for these guys?
Bringing it Home:
Buddhism is filled with allegory and seemingly mythical stories that one can interpret at many levels - stories and hagiographies telling of powerful beings, manifestations of the compassionate mind, legendary diligence, and boundless wisdom. These stories serve to inspire us to engage - to search for our own relationship to meaning. It's our responsibility to figure this out. (Here are some examples in a recent IDP blog...) The point that these metaphors serve is to wake us up. To shake us from our habit. To help us recognize our nature through identifying and then detaching from that identification, for we can see that way how strongly we identify, if we pay attention.
I need a metaphor to explain it. :)
One way I have addressed this in the past is to see it from their shoes - what metaphors make sense in their lives? There is flat understanding when a teacher uses a metaphor from his/her own life that the students just haven't experienced yet. Example - having kids, being married, graduating, turning 30, spending 5 years working on a degree that you never end up using in your work. Is it the teacher's responsibility to come up with the metaphors that work for the students? Can the teacher know the students' experience well enough to do that? As the teacher gets older and the students stay the same age, does this process become more and more difficult?
I am looking for some research that my old boss told me about sometime that I always use as an example but can never remember who did the research - that our brains develop fully by the age of 25. Something about the corpus callosum being the last part of the brain to fully develop? So juniors and seniors in college still have a difficult time navigating things outside of their worldview - i.e. they process things through their own lens and have a difficult time empathising with others' experiences because some part of the brain is not developed fully yet. It is a difficult world for them because at the same moment, they are expected to understand how to manage their time, be socially savvy, excellent writers and processors of information, build their resumes with heartfelt humanitarian work, and mind their manners. That's a lot when you are doing it from one perspective.
That's not to say that holding them to committments and expectations isn't important - if you've been aware of a paper that is due on Friday at 5 pm for three weeks (and it is one of those papers that you have to do a lot of work on for three weeks rather than something you can write in two hours), don't ask for an extension at 2 pm on Friday afternoon! And teachers, it's our responsibility to say NO to the extension. Of course, in a skillful way that builds your relationship to the student - asking the right questions (rather than telling them, or putting them on the defensive) to help the student understand how they have been managing their time.
OI - so this come back to metaphor? somehow. Nuance. More than taxonomic understanding. making connections. I've always been a visual learner - I notice myself, when a lecturer or facilitator is presenting a metaphor to help me understand some concept, I visualize it in my mind. I draw the picture in my mind of a cave, a fire, a huge wall, and people looking at the wall and feeling fearful of what they see when someone is describing Plato's allegory.
I do my best when I am the one presenting the metaphor to actually picture it in my head while I describe, or tell stories in hopes that the image comes across through my words. Would the Matrix (Morpheus explaining the matrix to a newly awakened Neo) work better for these guys?
Bringing it Home:
Buddhism is filled with allegory and seemingly mythical stories that one can interpret at many levels - stories and hagiographies telling of powerful beings, manifestations of the compassionate mind, legendary diligence, and boundless wisdom. These stories serve to inspire us to engage - to search for our own relationship to meaning. It's our responsibility to figure this out. (Here are some examples in a recent IDP blog...) The point that these metaphors serve is to wake us up. To shake us from our habit. To help us recognize our nature through identifying and then detaching from that identification, for we can see that way how strongly we identify, if we pay attention.
I need a metaphor to explain it. :)
Hindu rajya jai ho! (?)
From Times of India, a Hindu saint with supernatural powers has taken up a seat at Pashupatinath in Kathmandu to pray for Nepal to resume its status as a Hindu state, with all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining. .
Seems politicians who voted in 2006 during the end of the people's war to recreate Nepal as a secular state (a decision which actually reflects the religious and ethnic beliefs as as country and is in line with socialist agendas of the Maoists) are taking time to visit with Kalidas Dahal at Pashupatinath.
It is unclear from the article how long these pujas (prayers) will go on. Depending on patronage, it could be an effort of activism on the part of the Hindu rightwing to answer to Prachanda and the prepubescent Maoists' bid for total power.
All this while the Constituent Assembly continues to drag its heels...
Seems politicians who voted in 2006 during the end of the people's war to recreate Nepal as a secular state (a decision which actually reflects the religious and ethnic beliefs as as country and is in line with socialist agendas of the Maoists) are taking time to visit with Kalidas Dahal at Pashupatinath.
It is unclear from the article how long these pujas (prayers) will go on. Depending on patronage, it could be an effort of activism on the part of the Hindu rightwing to answer to Prachanda and the prepubescent Maoists' bid for total power.
All this while the Constituent Assembly continues to drag its heels...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
