Home Take Final Exam Second Part-Narrative Third

During this semester, in the class called Sociology of Education, we read many valuable and informative at the same time literally tasteful books. In this paper I will share some of my ideas about the books by giving some samples from the books and try to synthesize them with my own experiences, some parts of my educational autobiography. Addition to these I will try to use some information that we learned during the class from various articles and discussions to create a wider and academic perspective.

When I was Puerto Rican

In the book called “When I was Puerto Rican,” in my opinion the boldest idea behind the text was assimilation. At the end, we have learned that the main character who was also the author of the book was able to manage to be accepted by Harvard. It might seem like a success story, but in my opinion this part is heavily an example for Tokenistic fallacy. When I compare the author’s educational autobiography with mine, I feel a little angry about the contrast. Until, I kicked out from high school that I was studying because of the scarf ban, my GPA was 4.86. Right now, as an international student who learn English for a while ago, my Sociology major university GPA is so far 4.0, but I could not find any scholarship as an immigrant. I feel like invisible, unrecognized and unsupported from all sides from the academy, from the family and etc. Since the last semester, I am almost dropping out after all many struggles because of extreme tuition for international students. Also, this is not only about me, the book’s end is so rare for common people’s lives. In addition, the book help us a lot to improve our sociological imagination. The working conditions of Puerto Rican women, the society’s impressions and discriminations against women who work outside of their home, Capitalism and Imperialism issues were explained well. By many specific examples, we have opportunities to understand gender roles, structural violence and individual bigotries and how they work together in the society.  For instance, if the big companies were not abusing Puerto Rican’s economy, the main character and her family did not need to come to the U.S. to seek a better life. They could find these in their own countries without facing systematic assimilation and having homesickness here.

Overall, the book was very useful to learn many specific things about Puerto Rican culture and familism characters. It made me to understand how the neighborhood culture, working conditions, people’s reactions’ to working women, and educational system is different in Puerto Rico. In addition to this, the book’s language has some poetic taste in some parts which was also making the reading more joyful. After I finished reading the book, the first thing I remember from the chapters was something like: If you do not like their foods more than our foods, you will not forget your identity and your culture. This was the most impactful aspect of this book and it will escort my mind in the future and probably, I will give this sentence as an example to people and hopefully my students to explain assimilation and possible peaceful resistance against it.

The Long Shadow of Little Rock

Moreover, when I read the book “Lock Down” I was extremely surprised to learn that when the Elizabeth Eckford was entering the all-white school, she was not supposed to be alone and in the plan they were more people was going to enter that school to break that cruel oppression and bigotry against African Americans. At first, until the author forgot to inform her about the changed plan, I was surprised that if these protesters brave girls were nine why we all know only Elizabeth Eckford in Turkey as a symbol of this movement. She was one of my idol during our high school protests. I have created many flyers and protests signs that carried her name to emphasize that we are the blacks of Turkey. The book reminded me many personal sad stories. My friend and I and thousands of other students who were resisting the freedom limitations against scarf in public schools have been experiencing many kinds of mobbing, physical and psychological, systemic insult and torture. One of my friends whose name is Dilek lost one of her legs because of cruel police attacks while the students were waiting and protesting the scarf ban in front of the high school. The police made the trained dogs attacked to the students. My friend; Dilek was so frightened from dogs attacks and while she was trying to escape them, a car hit her and this caused her to lose her legs. But, who can frame this accident as a simple traffic accident! Unfortunately, her inhumane experience and also ours was not worthy to be published on the first pages of the newspaper, but only in a small place on the third page. After eight years later, I visited her in Bosnia where she moved to continue her educational life in dental school freely same as I have been doing it here. While we were praying, I remember her with taking off her prostheses leg and sat down on the floor. Our tragic social movements were not able to catch enough attention even when we went to the capital city of Turkey on bare foot from another city. This made me think that how selective news report and framing conflict with humanistic ethic. We study Elizabeth Eckford in some of our books, hopefully in the future the books and history will talk about us, too.

Moreover, when I read that Ms. Bates forgot to inform Elizabeth Eckford about the change of the plan after postponing to the early morning, I was so mad. How come a person can forgot this kind of thing and also I think she was so late to get out from her house for that kind of a day. I am thankful to her for many reasons that I learned from this book, but still these incidents made me amazed. Overall, I think one of the interesting parts from the book that I read was the steps of the integration process in the schools. We learned that the integration plan was like: First, the integration should begin at the senior high school level and then second, it should be started in the junior high school and finally it should be started in elementary schools. This made me think for a while about the possible reasons of this order. (p. 49) This specific order was official, but I think it is all problematic. Why, because if the political dominant power was too willing to have this integration quickly, I believe that they must have started from the elementary schools. The youngest children of the society were probably the less discriminative, less violent and less oppressive to the possible African American classmates. They could probably adjust to this new more humanistic way than high school students, so the steps of the integration could be easier and faster to spread out to the upper level of education. Based on my observation and critical thinking, I thought this part was very interesting in the book. I will seek more information about it.

In addition, in the book we had a lot of chance to understand the mentality of South of the country, the impact of racism and the bills of fighting back. I think, the title of the book tells a lot of things about Social Movements and Structural Violence in our societies. On little rock can create a lot of bigger racist acts like a stone creates spirals on the water, but at the same time fighting back to eliminate oppression are something that creates spirals, too. Throwing stone into Bates’ family's house has a symbolic meaning addition to its physical violence. However, Bates couples newspaper can be accepted as a peaceful reflection of this stone. We can create good spirals from hurtful stones that were thrown to us.

Lock Down

After reading the book called Lock Down, I thought that if we did not have this much labels, stereotypes that works same as the old Berlin Walls, the life could be better for all of us. I think, I will send this book to my prisoner pen pals with some of others. One of my pen pals told me at the beginning of our friendship that if I wanted to send her some books, I should not send that are related to teach the prisoners how to be a better person, how the black people struggle, etc. This made me think about her old experiences. I thought that she must be tired of lectures and societies, individual people’s virtue lessons.

In the book, I found Reeds’ dialog with Mr. Hooft very interesting. Mr. Hooft’s dialog or loud stereotypes very identical with many white people have learned cliches and labels. He was so sure about his  ideas about people of colors and all minorities, so he did not feel bad when he was too loud and say them to people’s face directly. He was the product of this sick society that shape people’s mind systematically to make them match with the mentality of dominant power. He was racist, classicist when he was speaking with Reeds. He was also enjoying to have more power compare to a child who has to live in Progress and cannot respond him as free as himself. However, he was talking about his situation similar to Reeds spontaneously. He was feeling like locked down in Evergreen. By this similarity and his experience about being a war captive in Japan when he was a child was helping them have some commonness and have empathy about each other. This made me to think that if we emphasize our commonness more than our differences, we can have more friendly society than today.

In addition, I realized that dialog can be an antidote for many poisonous racist, sexist, religious, ideological doctrines that society teaches us from the beginning of our lives. By touching to each other's lives and unique stories, we can alter our current realities. Moreover, when I was reading the last chapters, one of the court members was asking Reeds some questions about his final mentality after his punishment. The person told him that how come you grew up a family with a drag abuse and involves something similar. This made me really sad and mad. This is exactly a type of blaming the victim. There are a lot of fallacies that we need to alter. If a person has a bad environment because of individual and structural problems, their chance to make mistakes are more than others and when we need to deal with them we need to consider these as extenuating circumstances.

Muchacho

Ultimately, in all four books that I have read, I like the book called Muchacho the most because of its fluent, tasteful language and its many embedded small stories and hidden messages about various topics. I strongly understood the importance of the society’s support to make people reach a better future and choose their way in the life. I cannot imagine Eddie without the support of Beecher, female police officer, Lupe, his mother and all other role models like his uncle and book cafe members and so forth. We have lack of good, intellectual role models to shape our goals in the society. Pop culture and capitalistic mechanism, television gave us many unhealthy ideas about ourselves and our future plans.

In addition, the book made me to think that a lot of people who manage to avoid partially the bad impacts of the society can still have hard time to find good models for themselves. In this situation, we need to increase people and especially young people’s chance to reach the books that can change their missions and visions. Teachers and schooling system need to create better environments, lighting systems, etc. to make reading more joyful. We need to alter the image of the book lovers in the student environment.

Moreover, Eddie’s birthday gift for her mother was so unique. This gift became a symbolic foundation for him to do better than his regular actions. In addition, the image of Eddie’s mother was so sad and at the same time still powerful. If she did not put Eddie’s promise on the refrigerator, Eddie could be more passive to reach her goals about education. When Eddie’s uncle talked about his mother’s younger times, Eddie was remembering some silent moments of her in their house. This reminded me my mother. I remember my mother as person who was in a place (home) that she does not feel she belongs to. She wanted to be a doctor, but because of the scarf ban in Turkey she became a housewife. Her image made me work harder to reach my goals and places that I feel attached and do something that I love. In Eddie’s mother case, it was her marriage that passivized her. She could continue her education, but familism, social codes about married women and probably the mentality of her husband created barriers for her. We came across these kinds of samples of gender issues in the book a lot when we read about people reactions against intelligent and hard worker Lupe. Eddie’s friends were criticizing her for not fitting to the common female image. They were also criticizing Eddie to accept this misfit lady as a girlfriend. These parts were very useful to analyze the society’s reactions and norms about gender roles.

I think one of my favorite parts of the book was the sentence about the borders, the mentality about labeling all Latinos as undocumented. Eddie was saying that they did not pass the border, but the border crossed us. If we give chance to people, they can change our perspective sometimes very quickly with these kinds of unique explanations.

In addition, in page 82, the sentences about people’s reactions against different Gods who do not speak English were very meaningful and deserve to catch a lot of attention. The metaphor for Gods who speak English or others and double standards for their followers were very unique. At the end, I am glad that Eddie found his own path by writing poems and improving his intellectual world by writing and reading. Overall, I love the book that gave us countless samples of social problems and unique explanations about them by many monologues.

Meryem Rabia Tasbilek

Chasing Rainbows: Book Excerpt

Kathy Witterick, mother of Storm, wrote a chapter in new book that explores Gender Fluid Parenting Practices

A portrait of Jazz, dad David Stocker, Kio, mom Kathy Witterick and baby Storm, taken six months after the family shared their story with the Star. Two years later, Kathy Witterick has written about her experience with gender-fluid parenting in a new book called Chasing Rainbows.
By: Kathy Witterick Published on Fri Nov 15 2013

The following is an excerpt from Kathy Witterick’s chapter in Chasing Rainbows: Exploring Gender Fluid Parenting Practices, a collection of essays edited by Fiona Joy Green and May Friedman. It was published this fall by Demeter Press.

My first two children acquired the words “Dad,” “Dog,” and a few dozen others before any name for me emerged. So it was an unexpected ode to motherhood when I heard Storm intone “Mum” just after a year. My heart felt full. The story becomes more beautiful. At 18 months, Storm had already been saying “Dad” for a few weeks, when one day, I watched with some mixture of amusement and stunned curiosity as Storm addressed David. “Mom, annie urse?” which translates to, “Mom, another nurse.” Storm was asking David to breastfeed!

Without hesitation, he cuddled Storm in a nursing position, and a tiny nose tucked itself into David’s naked breast. With closed eyes, adult and child were lost in a close embrace for two full minutes. Then Storm climbed down to toddle off full speed and find a new adventure.

There’s tremendous untapped creative power in children’s diversification of the gender landscape. We’re busy generating new labels (like gender fluid, gender creative or gender independent), organizing task forces and discussing gender non-conformity as if it’s an outbreak. While trained professionals in the 21st century write; “yes, a new pediatric problem is in town,” the real courage of gender-creative children unfolds.

Gender nonconformity is not a problem to fix. These children are sidelining a dangerous status quo, risking censure to express a diversity that promises to transform the rigid teeter totter of binary gender into a more inclusive, joyful roundabout. Agency and freedom of expression are that important to being human, and gender nonconforming children are sticking up for everyone’s right to both.

The Search Institute’s developmental assets framework names 40 markers of healthy development in children, including self esteem, integrity, honesty, and personal power. Empirical research suggests that children with those internal assets (and external assets like family support) will be more likely to thrive.

I watch my non-conformers observe the status quo (what’s outside), acknowledge with confidence personal preferences, thoughts, feelings and interests (what’s inside) and synthesize the two into responsible, self-honoring choices.

Not always, but enough that I understand that these skills would be useful to all children. It’s novel to see children gather empowerment in a way that doesn't rely on obtaining it through denying others a fair share.

I’m amazed to see young gender nonconformers practise a Red Cross violence prevention adage that I used to teach to adults: Talk (speak up for what you believe); Walk (find a safe space); and Squawk (find someone who will support you). These skills are at the core of the best expensive, adult-written anti-bullying resources being purchased by parents, teachers and community members desperate to curb unnecessary hurt. And our gender independent children have them already. In bucketfuls.

My three children are giggling helplessly. Storm arrives in the kitchen, grabs my arm and drags me into the playroom, saying, “Mom, waatch.” When I stumble in, all three jump up, hissing like pythons and miming giant arcs of pee all over the room. “You pee!” says the littlest one, as the pretend pissing match dissolves into snorts of laughter. They have tears streaming down their faces as mom joins in.

I’m grateful that my children have made a place for me in their revolution. It’s no neutral spot. Shifting into neutral is an emergency measure for when you’re slipping headlong into a crash collision or ricocheting off a bridge into frigid waters. It’s a vain pitch for a modicum of control.

This moment, as the discussion about gender creativity gains momentum, feels important. Like if we get it wrong, there is a risk of sliding off the road. So now is the time to take a stand and believe in our own — but especially our children’s — agency. Parents are placed at the front line of social influence, which admittedly is a chaotic spot to be intentional.

But parenting must be the future we suggest by the principles we model. Which ones then? Raising feminist sons and daughters addresses inequities, but may depend too much on a two-team foundation — an oversimplification that makes differential power assignment that much easier. Plus, where are the feminist parenting strategies for a once-son, now-daughter? Gender neutral parenting feels like an oxymoron, suggesting the impossible notion of gender as non-partisan. Here’s my “radical parenting strategy” — I’m trying to listen. Sounds boring, so David and I made up a fancy name. We call it gender engaged parenting.

Excerpted with permission from Chasing Rainbows: Exploring Gender Fluid Parenting Practices (Demeter Press). For details on the launch of Chasing Rainbows on Nov. 22 or for ordering information, go demeterpress.org.

http://www.thestar.com/life/parent/2013/11/15/chasing_rainbows_book_excerpt.html

I am a Broken Mirror of the Society-one part of my soc of education take home exam narrative

I hope you do not mess this up this time! I did not say it to myself loudly, but I thought it in my inner world deeply. Out of lockdown, so what is next? In the past, I was get used to stay away from all people in a cell, insecure and at the same time too sterile from the real life. I was comforting myself by telling that yes I cannot go out, but no one can get in, too. I did not have a private room or personal one before, until I was incarcerated. That’s something! Right now, I have many letters in a huge box that tells me a lot of things about life and people. These letters remind me that I am not forgotten and alone.

I walked a long way and it was not easy like people tell you while they look down to you. They are proud because they have never imprisoned and always chose the right thing, but they are lying. They are lying, because no one is a saint just because they have not done something bad, yet. They always throw me some stones made by words, but did not Jesus say that who is without sin cast the first stone at the “guilty” one. No way, I have never seen a person that follows his advice. They love to label someone as a evil and cast all their hate stones to him or her to feel less sinner. Actually, sin is not the point here. I learned to use these kinds of notion from the prison father. I always wanted to ask him, why we have to call him father, but the female ones as sisters. If we call some of them father, why not we call the others mother instead of sister. Yes, I know there are some mothers like Mother Theresa, but not very common. I did not have any brother. It could be good, if I could call a priest brother, bro! I do not like formal calls, so by this label, I might be more comfortable to talk with priests. Also, how many of us can speak their regrets with their real fathers without any trouble. This label makes my confessions harder. I always have these kinds of questions, so I never could find a place in any religion. I have a lot of questions for Judaism or Islam, too. Once, I was working for a Jewish Rabbi as a nanny and cleaner. I saw that they have two king size beds in their bedrooms and I was confused. After a while, I realized that they were separating the wife’s bed when she has her periods. This made me mad same as Muslim’s praying locations in the mosques by gender. All of these shape not only man's mind, but also females mind to internalize the gender hierarchy. These symbolic structures produce real problems same as hidden curriculums at school system. That’s why I had always some problem at schools, too. Seeing many hidden things always create troubles for me, but if you see something once how can I pretend blind.

Did I tell you that when I was in prison and the gourds were calling our name, we always supposed to say “Glad to be here?” What a lie! How come a system can force you to tell a lie every day when you hear your name in a place where supposed to alter your mistakes and learn some good things to make you prepare for outside life. Actually, maybe this was the decent way to prepare us, because free people build their life on many lies and violence and they are just not caught by the law.

Anyway, I have learned a lot from my mistakes. I owe a lot to my mistakes. I would not give my mistakes to another people even if it was possible. Opposite to many people, I really like the religious devil figure in any religion or culture. I think we can learn many things from the devil metaphor. I insist, we can even learn more things from devil than prophets sometimes. I also think, society can learn a lot of things and educate themselves by listening or at least observing and understanding people that they labeled as devil, evil or “others” such as me. We are also sometimes like educators. You laugh, ha?! Take your time friend, I will laugh last.

Several days ago after I got out from the jail I started to work with my friend. Thankfully, he helped me otherwise what could I do with my record. My record file is the only thing that I have a photo on it. Anyway, my friend has a cart in a mall and selling winter scarves. He asked me to get a table top mirror for the stand. First I went to several stores in the mall, but I wanted to compare the prices so I decided to go Macy’s, too. I went to store and asked one of the worker if they have any tabletop mirror or not, same as I did in other stores. He was white, Anglo, in his 60’s and looking to my face like irritated. He said directly, “What!?,” and I repeated my question. He did not say, sorry what did you say, or can you repeat it or etc. He said “WHAT?” and continuously said many words with exaggerated hand moves like I was deaf; “you mean something to weigh something? Table what?” And I felt like my face were burning. I said table top mirrors like people use for make up or see their face on its surface. He looked at me with empty eyes first without any effort of understanding. And then, he examine my face, I guess he realized my changing color. Then I asked him where the bath section with a big exhale was? He started to explain me some corners with a robotic voice, but I could not hear anything and just tried to walk fast to open my distance from him. I found that the section was at down stairs and I asked many employees about the location of the tabletop mirror and they understand me very well. The problem was not that they cannot understand my accent, but I have been experiencing many rude responses when people do not understand my pronunciations or I think sometimes they just pretend to not understand my speaking. This is not a conspiracy theory, I know it! They love to see you while you are struggling to explain them again and again. Not always, but I know this happens, because their response does not carry any effort for understanding, but a rude body language.

Anyway, I was so upset for a while. I was even regretful to not leave the store right after this “conversation.” After I bought the mirror and came back to chart, I told all these to my friend. He said why you didn’t get his name and ask the manager. I did these kinds of staff in the past, too, but this time I did not feel comfortable because I still carry many invisible sandbags that I brought from the prison which put limitations on my actions and dreams. Not only this, but also if you do some aggressive reactions to someone, you are hurting your psychology, too. However, my friend told me that you need to find out some ways to relieve the pressure. So, I found myself murmuring that “you will see man; I will talk about you in my story.” Yes, I learned a peaceful way in prison to take revenge from people; writing. For instance, I wrote this for a while ago:

O you who cut my lips roughly with a rusty knife while I am talking,
Silence this tongue as much as you can,
Try and get tired as you wish and receive greed,
Sacrifice me to your prejudice which you are scared to lose,
Drain some poisonous hate words into my throat,
Get tired!
Hopefully, lose the strength to reach another lip...
But know that the truth does not have a tongue that you can cut and silence it.
Your cruel hands cannot reach to the neck of hope to break it,
That is a breath flow in the veins of life,
There is no need a voice to call it...
Your hands can not go beyond shutting its ears,
And you cannot stop me or my walk towards to hope either,
Because the path that I am pacing is far away from your dream reach.
No one can know its satisfaction until they walk on it.
O you who cut my lips roughly with a rusty knife while I am talking,
Silence this tongue as much as you can,
Try and get tired as you wish and receive greed,
Get tired!
Hopefully, lose the strength to reach another lip...

Moreover, I thought one more option to feel good. I decided to go that store every day when I work in the mall and ask to the same guy if they have any tabletop mirror until he feel suffocated from my questions. He will probably think that I am crazy, but he will soon realize that I am not! At the end of several days of psychological pressure, I will tell him I will come every day until he learn to respond to people, especially minorities politely when he does not understand their pronunciation. How is that? I love this idea. I remember this tactic from my boarding school time. When we were so bored in the boarding school where people try to shape our bind to a specific way that fit well into dominant power’s template, I was collecting some of my best friends from the school and telling them my plan to create some fun time. We were deciding some specific silly questions to ask “lucky” students from around one after another. We were deploying to different locations and one of us was starting the game. She was asking like, what time is it and then after the answer was given, she was like why it is 5 pm, but not 9 pm or using other silly options. And then, when the person was really pissed off and confused, she was leaving and the other member of our group was going to ask same or similar questions. This was a unique tactics from my poisonous school times.

I had to climb every inch of my way on the life path with my scratch. For instance, when I was in 5th grade, I drew and paint a wonderful picture for one of my art class assignment. When I showed my picture to the teacher, she was like who did this for you?! I told her, I did it by myself. And she responded back to me that “You are lying!” I told her, I did not lie and none of my family member likes to draw or paint. She insisted and told me that “You are lying and I will not love you, either!” I went back to my desk and started to draw a very similar piece while I was crying really badly and silently. I was wiping my eyes intently to see clearer to draw better. It was impossible to finish all the drawing, but I chose some samples from the main picture. After I created my proof carefully, I took it and went back near by the teacher desk and handed it to her. She did not lift her head while she said wait until the break bell and then she saw the paper and with a surprised voice, she said “Oh, you! So, you drew a new one! Hmm.” I said yes and started to cry again and left the class. I do not remember any apologize for this incident after this class. I have experienced many similar reactions from many teachers for my little talents. Once, just because of similar reaction for an extra credit take home math equation question, one of my teacher did not believe me for doing it all by myself and did not give me the promised extra credit. In response to this degrading behavior, I decided to give one of my exams empty to protest. At first, some of my friend realized this and take my paper and fill it with answers to help me. While they were writing I was erasing their answers on my paper, but then they took my paper away and filled it and handed to the teacher. You can imagine how the class atmosphere was. I took 100 from that exam, but then I decided to repeat my plan, but this time more secretly and managed to do that. After a while, the Math teacher asked me to talk privately and I told her why I did that action. After my explanation, she apologized to me.

As you can see, my all life including education was surrounded with individual and structural handicaps which I cannot explain detailed in several pages. I learned to use various ways to see people themselves by my unique actions. I might say, maybe I am not a tabletop mirror or cannot pronounce this object’s English name perfectly, but surely I am a humble mirror for people even though they are not always willingly to look at. They broke this mirror once by seeing bad things on it. They blame me for this without adding their parts to it, but now I started fresh. I decided to reflect only goods on my mirror by changing my position.

Meryem Rabia Tasbilek-Fiction 

Domestic Violence in Latino Community

For our group presentation, we chose Domestic violence and sexual assault in undocumented and documented Latina population in the U.S. We decided to analyze the reasons, different types of visa options and laws that help the victims of this violence. We talked about barriers and homicides that were currently going on in Ciudad Juarez as we learned with more details by the help of class materials. We talked about VAWA and how these laws protect victims of abuse who are undocumented. Abusive people such as partners, husbands were threatening the Latinas with deportations if they were trying to escape from them or planning to go police to seek some professional help to alter their violent environment. I shared some important notions in Latino culture that reproduce domestic violence.

In addition to this useful information that gives us wide perspective to understand the domestic violence issue, we shared some useful information about the impact of Economic Inequality and domestic violence. Females continue to earn less than men. It is a significant factor that maintains the cycle of domestic violence. I emphasized that not only earning less money than man, but also Latinas have some troubles to gain power and freedom that normally must be equal to their responsibilities and working effort. Moreover, the legal systems discriminate against victims and fail to protect women who seek protection and support. By the support of some laws and social movements, there are some improvements, but unfortunately they are not significant. So far, we learned that VAWA created special provisions in the United States immigration law to protect victims of abuse who are not citizens of the United States. Under the VAWA support, domestic violence victims can receive self-protection from the police without any fear of deportation and battered spouse or child waiver. If we share these kinds of information with our classmates and loved ones, we can improve people’s awareness about their options and rights so their partners cannot threaten them with unrealistic situations to abuse them more. In the class, we learned that knowledge is power, so if we increase ours and societies knowledge capacity, we can alter our today and future and decrease the violence in our lives.

In the Latino culture such as Marianismo as an aspect of the female gender role in the machismo of Latin American folk culture passivize the females to fight back against abuser family partner and silence them. It is the veneration for feminine virtues like purity and moral strength.” Moreover, Machismo as an assertive masculinity which is often characterized by aggressiveness and dominance over women, quality of being macho, exaggerated masculinity can be a trigger to make males more violent against women as a part of cultural ritual and to prove Latino’s manhood. In addition, Familismo; as a form of social structure in which the needs of the family as a group are more important than the needs of any individual family member make women nearly always postpone their desire and problems, but work for the good of their families. This makes all masculine bigotry more powerful in the society and silenced the female victims. Not only these kinds of cultural codes and norms, but also society’s social inequalities are very effective about the Latino’s violence against Latina women. When Latina men fell powerless in their social world because of systematic structural violence against them, they became more violent to their families especially to Latina women. As we can see the problem is very complicated and we cannot only blame the individual violent Latinos, because while they are practicing some violence at home, they are also victims of the cruel, unequal society.

During this semester we also learned that a theory of multiple worlds was explaining us about conflict in between two worlds and culture. This situation also can be trigger for some people to practice violence or victim of these double worlds’ pressure and stress by other oppressed Latinos in the society. Moreover, we learned that after the de-industrialization Braceros switched to the Braceras and this social change effect on both sides of Latino community. This economic and structural change can make Macho males more aggressive against females. When Latinos feel less powerful by losing their positions in arm-labor world, they became more violent against women. I believe that structural violence feed the individual violence, especially domestic violence. In addition to this, individual violence and violent mentality, language are also feeding and making possible the structural violence. If we want to alter all these violent existence, we need to worn on both of them. None of them is more important than the other.

In this semester we also learned that culture and the family also defines the acceptable gender roles and limitations based on the gender differences. In the bicultural reality, family is important to not get lost and find the balance, but it can turn out to a type of oppression. Latinas are giving money to survival of the entire family system, but rarely given the corresponding increase in power or self-determination. This must be change! In my opinion Familismo is good, but, the dose makes the poison a medicine.

As we learned from this presentations and during all the semester micro level violence is feeding the macro level violence. In addition to this, macro violence and violent language, structural changes in worker’s world are also helping us to reproduce violence and violent languages in the society. Both sides make the other side more possible. However, by the help of knowledge and other social helps like we shared in this presentation, we are as witnesses or today’s actual victims can be a part of the future’s inner and social revolution and hopefully create better conditions for new generation Latinas.

Meryem R. Tasbilek

362 – Greek To Me: Mapping Mutual Incomprehension

“When an English speaker doesn’t understand a word of what someone says, he or she states that it’s ‘Greek to me’. When a Hebrew speaker encounters this difficulty, it ‘sounds like Chinese’. I’ve been told the Korean equivalent is ‘sounds like Hebrew’,” says Yuval Pinter (here on the excellent Languagelog).

Which begs the question: “Has there been a study of this phrase phenomenon, relating different languages on some kind of Directed Graph?” Well apparently there has, even if only perfunctorily, and the result is this cartogram.

When a Hellenophone has trouble understanding something, his or her preferred languages of reference, as far as incomprehension is concerned, are Arabic and Chinese. And while for Arabs the proverbial unintelligible language is Hindi, for Chinese it’s… the language of Heaven.

For Romanians, the ultimate in incomprehensibility is Turkish, for the Turks its French and the French consider Javanese the acme in huh?

But it is Chinese that, according to this cartogram, is the incomprehensible lingo of (p)reference for almost a dozen other languages, from Greek and Polish to Dutch and Lithuanian. Spanish, Hebrew and Greek are also quite popular, understandably so in the case of the latter two languages (isolate, relatively small languages) but more inexplicably so in the case of Spanish – a world language in its own right.

Which begs the fundamental question: why is language X considered the summit of incomprehension by language Y? Doesn’t that at least require some passing knowledge(or to be more precise, an awareness of the existence) by Y of X?

Mutual incomprehension results from the right mixture of inter-lingual proximity and unintelligibility. In the Middle Ages, for example, when the monks’ knowledge of Greek was waning, they would write in the margin of texts they could not translate, in Latin: “Graecum est, non legitur” (“This is Greek to me, I can’t read it”).

Greek, an elite language even in Roman times(1), has remained the West’s most popular shorthand for gobbledygook throughout the time of Shakespeare, who coined the original expression “it was Greek to me” (in Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene II).

In the comments section of Languagelog are listed a few examples of such close/distant language incomprehension pairs:

• In Italian, one can ask: “Parlo italiano o turco ottomano?” (“Do I speak Italian or Ottoman Turkish?” It has a nicer cadence in Italian)
• One reported German expression for something incomprehensible: “Mesopotamisch”. Another one: “Kauderwelsch” (possibly referring to the Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in Switzerland)
• Older Taiwanese refer to youthspeak, internet slang etc. as sounding “Martian” to them.
• Even Esperanto-speakers have been endowed with their own expression, pointing the finger at another constructed language: “Estas Volapuk al mi!” (“It’s Volapük to me!”)
• In Finnish, “Siansaksa” (“Pig German”) is the word for incomprehensible gibberish. Notice the similar English expression “Pig Latin”.
• In Icelandic, one could say “Þetta er latína fyrir mér” (“This is Latin to me”) or “Þetta kemur mér spánskt fyrir sjónir” (“This looks Spanish to me”).
• “Das ist mir Böhmischer Dörfer” (‘That’s Bohemian villages to me”) – this Germanreference to the incomprehension (or at least impronouncability) of Bohemian (i.e. Czech) village names is mirrored in the Slovak expression “Je pre mňa španielska dedina” (“(That) is for me a Spanish village”), and in the Slovenian one “To mi je španska vas” (“This is a Spanish village to me”) . Other related expressions, not just dealing with incomprehension so much as just plain chaos, are “Czeski film” (“Czech movie”) in Polish, for a kafkaesque situation, for example in dealing with bureaucracy. German has “polnische Wirtschaft” (“Polish economy”) for a chaotic situation and “Fachchinesisch” for technical jargon.

(1) In Rome of course, not in Greece.

source: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/362-greek-to-me-mapping-mutual-incomprehension/

Why I’m Not a TEDx Speaker

Frank Swain in Futures Exchange

Last week I was invited to speak at a TEDx event, and today I turned that offer down. It’s not that I don’t like TED — I think the organisers have done a great service to popularise thought-provoking ideas in an easily-digestible format. And the subject of the TEDx event, centring on science and society, is definitely close to my heart. But the problem I discovered is this: TED doesn’t pay its speakers.

Not that the person who approached me is a skinflint. I like to think they’d pay me if they could. But they are bound by the rules of TED, which asks that they don’t pay me. None of the speakers — at TED or its little sister TEDx — get paid. This is despite the fact that tickets to a full-scale TED event cost something in the realms of $6,000.

TEDx events are much smaller affairs, limited to audiences of a hundred. The official line from TED is that these satellite events are there for individuals and organisations to run their own “TED-style” events, and “release TED free to the world”, as if the concept of standing on a stage delivering talks was some kind of incredible innovation that the TED organisers themselves invented. (Guys, trust me, it’s been around a little longer than that. I’m pretty sure the Ancient Greeks were into it.)

I think this makes TEDx quite an insidious effort. They’ve developed a strong brand, strong enough to get away with bullish ideas that “TED-style” events are somehow better and more worthy than unbranded conferences. And within that manifesto, TED pushes the philosophy that there is value in ideas, but not value in delivering them. What’s wrong with paying for speakers? Why not leave it up to the individual organiser to decide if they want to pay?

The defence that TED is a non-profit organisation doesn’t fly with me. I doubt this excuses them from paying the lighting guys, the camera operators, the venue hire, the catering. Why pay those staff but not the speakers? Just because you’re a non-profit organisation, doesn’t mean I have to be.

I’m not averse to speaking for nothing. I’ve done Cafe Scientifique, SciBar, Skeptics In The Pub. I’ve spoken at schools, colleges, universities. None of these were satellite events for a $6,000-a-plate conference. None of them wanted to brand my talk as theirs.

I know I’m supposed to swoon a little at the idea of being an Official TEDx Speaker, that doing this will rain down confetti and job offers and fame on me. But in the end it boils down to this: TEDx is just another organisation asking me to work for free.

Do I sound grouchy and cynical? Well, I suppose I am. I’m tired of being asked to work for free. I’m tired of the bullshit idea that exposure is somehow its own reward. I’m tired of the people who can afford to do it justifying this malignant trend.

I can’t pay my rent with exposure and goodwill. So farewell, TEDx, I won’t be speaking at your event until TED starts paying its speakers. Now there’s an idea worth spreading.

 

Frank Swain

source: https://medium.com/futures-exchange

My Educational Authobiography

My Addiction of Knowledge: September 11, 2013

I am an addict of knowledge, reading and seeking wisdom of the life. These are the most painful and also the most beautiful, healthy addictions of my life. I have been thirsty to learn new things since I knew myself and started to question the universe. This thirstiness is a lifelong specialty of my soul and mind. I see the formal education as a bridge to reach a more free condition to learn and do what I like by getting away from some dependents, but sometimes I feel hard time to grasp in this educational system especially when I see it as a trade system and political turning machine. I am an international student in the U.S. I came here just to continue my educational life which was impossible thing to do in my home country; Turkey. Studying in Turkish public school with headscarf has been forbidden by the government and deep states for many years. I had to work for a while as a domestic worker to collect enough money for my school tuition. For this reason, I feel tired and sad for being late, not to learn, but to study my favorite topics deeper professionally and more freely. This is a modest story of my educational journey. My educational life is full of sacrifice. This sacrifice is very big and meaningful for me, because the object and subject of this sacrifice is my life.

I was raised in a house that has more than 2000 books and no television by my parent’s conscious decision. Reading was the main point of our lives. I’ve learned that even my mother had given a book list to my father as a wish of dowry. Unfortunately, sometimes this motivation was even too extreme for me, because we were drinking tea with my family members only for reading or discussing some intellectual, theological topics. My father was playing with my younger 2 sisters and 2 brothers and I, and pretending himself as a horse and trying to make us memorize many religious passages from books and when we were making mistakes he was stopping and neighing to make our education process enjoyable. This is the earliest teaching method that I remember in my life. In addition, the second one was a modest race chart. It had some conditions, rules and goals which ever we suppose to achieve. My parents were giving us points based on our behaviors and when we reached to 10 points they were giving us a book as a reward. For instance, some of the conditions from this chart were; getting rid of a stone or something else from the sidewalk which might bother people or helping an elderly person’s groceries bags by carrying them or praying on time, etc. These are the things that made me proud and happy about my parents and my childhood when I remember. However, my father was a teacher not only in his school, but at our home, too. Sometimes, this was making him so pushy . When I was in 4th grade, I was studying with a scholarship and once, for the first time despite of all As, I got one B plus and my father made me stay awake whole night as a punishment and forced me to study and summarize all the chapters and examined me at the end of the night. Because of all these kinds of discipline experiences, I was crying when I was getting A minus. Thankfully, my only learning motivation was not my parent that is why I did not lose my passion about learning. I am still a hard working person who is trying to have balance between being perfectionist and modesty. Studying in a second language creates a big pressure on me and tortures my self-esteem, even though I have been studying more than native speakers and managed to learn many things in English in such a short time. In addition, it is hard for me to be too confident in a society that nearly all people have self-confidence obesity. I had to take a break to collect enough money to continue my educational life and became a domestic worker and this made my speaking rusty.

I did not go to kindergarten or preschool, but I was reading before I started the elementary school. In our culture, nearly all students manage to read in the first grade and when the child manage to reach this level the instructor put a red ribbon on his/her collar as a reward and honored the child. The first day of the school I got the red ribbon and this made me very happy and proud. My first elementary school was in a village. My first teacher was male, and I had some kind of female teacher phobia due to being witness of many of their cruelty. I realized that in many cases, people are more merciful to their opposite sex. When I was a little child this was my belief based on my observations and during all my elementary school history, I consistently had male teachers. My family was agreeing with me and for this reason they chose all my siblings’ teachers from the opposite genders. I had some good experiences nowadays that balanced my old belief.

When I was ten years old, I managed to finish reading all parts of holy Quran in Arabic and my family organizes a big celebration to congratulate this success. In Turkish culture, people organize these kinds of party only to facilitate boys during their circumcision. I am against this feast because it produces and internalizes masculine mentality. So, this reading party was a nice alternative for my childhood to create a balance for my character vs. masculine culture. My family organized a similar feast for my brother when he circumcised. Mine was a fruit of my effort, his was not. I guess at least in my subconscious, I realized that reading can give me some opportunities to fill this gender gap. 

After the 3rd grade, we moved to a city center and I also received some scholarship for a private teaching institution as an after school program. The new school was very secular and nationalist which I did not like it. Moreover, all children who are attending Turkey’s primary schools are expected to read aloud the “Andımız” (“Our pledge”) every morning when they come to school. When I was in elementary school, I refused to say pledge which contains nationalist and dictatorial phrases such as: “I am a Turk; I am honest; I am hard working. Let my entire being serve as a gift to Turkish existence.” My family was talking about my country’s dictatoristic behaviors and criticizing it and even imprisoned because of this, but at the beginning of my educational life no one from my family told me specifically about the racist part of this pledge. However, I did not like it and change it to a funny poem and always had some trouble when my teachers heard. I was aware that my friends were from different nations and culture and this phrase seemed to me unfair. More than this, also it was very rigid, forced action and I hate all mandatory things from the beginning of owning my unique willpower. As a Turk why did I need to sacrifice all my existence to a nation that I even did not know the meaning of it and also why we were shouting this pledge every day as a part of the brain wash! The modern Turkish founder father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk has a weird sentence which is everywhere in public institutions’ walls: “Happy is the one who calls himself a Turk.” As a reflection of this phrase, I sometimes ironically was telling people that “I am Turk, but not happy.” They were trying to defense this sentences by saying that he was not saying happy is the one who is Turk, but calls himself Turk. It is basically the key stone of the assimilation. In Turkey, many of Turkish nationalists are from minorities, because they think if they can be so radical nationalist they can be the part of the dominant nation, but normally they never can be. I guess, this can be similar with “model minority” notion. I see these things in my very early ages, but years made the meaning deeper.

After the 5th grade, I wanted to practice one of my religious belief; headscarf, but in my hometown wearing scarf in public school was banned. There was only one private school which was letting some students wear it secretly. I created a pressure on my family to apply there and the school accepted me with half scholarship. This created many financial problems for my parents’ and psychological problems for me. Spoiled, rich students were always making fun of my unchanging dress during our picnics etc. and on the other side oppressive system and scarf ban were making my life harder. Because of these conditions, I became a refuge of the books’ world. Once, the school principals decided to collect my private books from my locker to force me to socialize more with classmates. While they were collecting my books which I was reading only during my free break times, they took my diary, too, but only left my psychology books. The only reason of this privilege was a psychologist who was also involved to this unacceptable action. I was very pissed off and took those psychology books and throw them to floor in front of the school principals and told them they forgot to take those! When I remember this action, I am still surprised that how I could manage to do this as a student with scholarship.

From 6th grade to 9th grade, I continued to study in the private school that I mentioned shortly before in a hidden class room. Some of my friends and I had to be locked up if some inspectors were visiting our school. The building was an additional building inside the main school’s garden and did not have any restroom, so we always need to get permission to use the restrooms to not risk the school authority. Another thing, once, I have applied to a poetry competition and won, but the school authority decided to pick someone from my classroom who were not wearing a headscarf and brought her to the award ceremony with me and introduce her with my name and made me clap to congratulate her. They made someone played my identity in a fake person’s appearance which can fit and fulfill to the system’s wish. For me, it was very an respectful mistreatment. This is only a sample of a big picture of what I have been experiencing for many years just to reach an upper education.

Hopefully, one they all of these experiences can feed my intellectual world and be useful skills for my Sociology major. I desire that all these steps help me to create some meaningful achievements that can make my existence useful for this world. All the paths of the education that I have been trying to pass are just because of this. Based on my experience, I can say that after several years of private school experiences, I believe that public schools are better than private schools despite of all their disadvantaged conditions to able to gain an intellectual and realistic world.

Moreover, I believe that if I add the population of my classes to this autobiography, during my elementary school, from the first to fifth grade it was about 35 and during my junior high school which was private, it was 25 and same in the high school. I did not remember any race discussion during my school life (except national pledge) which might be a problematic and also a good thing, too. It is a problematic from one side, because there are always some people from different regions of the country and cultures I guess, but we did not have any awareness of those richness. It is also a good thing, because I think we did not have a highlighted racist dialog, either. In addition, for instance, when I was around 14, my father gave me Alex Haley’s Malcolm X book as a gift. He was giving this book to his students as an award. I have never felt Black people or different nations as others. On my hometown’s street walls, young people were making graffiti of Malcolm X as a role model of disobedience against domestic oppressors. Based on racist perspective we were white, he was black, but our discomforts about oppressor system were very close. He was very brave thinker and good speechmaker. I have never questioned his and his same destiny friends based on their race or color and I am very happy to have this quality about this issue. I am not proud about it, because I think it must be the basic humanistic way. However, in my class, I remember my instructors were crueler to more poor and orphans and kinder to physically more catchy or rich children. Most of the poor children were coming from Eastern part of the Turkey who was minorities. After I learned that they came to the big cities because the government burned 3500 villages of minorities at that time. I had always warm feelings for gypsies of my town and cross breed people when I realized them from their external appearance. They have been experiencing not the same but similar institutional discrimination with African Americans in the U.S. 

When I was 14, I took my parent’s permission and left my hometown and moved to a different metropolitan city called Istanbul to continue my educational life without scarf ban at high school. At that time, my hometown was a pilot city to practice this scarf ban in public schools. A year later, scarf ban had started to be practiced in my high school, too.  As a result of this limitation of our freedom, we were organizing protests and arrested and physically and psychologically tortured. After a while, my hundreds of friends and I was kicked out from our school or were ironically plowed while they were not letting us to enter our schools. We had to transfer our record to open high schools. I started to study at a Theology Boarding school and continued for two years which was totally against my free character. They were seeking to raise good followers and obedient teachers for their world widely schools, but I was questioning everything. This school was not included my goal, but I did not have a lot of options to make my time useful after kicked out from the high school. I was longing to stay in Istanbul, but my family was letting me to stay only if I was going to this school. I used this boarding school as a tool to stay in Istanbul and to go different Philosophy and Art courses at weekends. In Turkey the barrier for a higher education was politic and here is financial. I still could not exceed these barriers, but one day when I manage to graduate, I will use my experiences of these sacrifices to help other people especially students. My educational autobiography will be completed when the death finds me. This is a story of a meaningful sacrifice, because the object and subject of this sacrifice is my life. I hope one day I will share these memories with a bigger smile on my face.

Meryem Rabia Taşbilek  

My Personal Testimonio

 What We Have Gained From the Harshness

X, who is one of my close friends, who is different than me about many things, but still has a wonderful soul that feeds my existence. Also, she is one of my mirrors that reflect many good things that enrich me. All of my close friends are very different from each other and if I make them to come together in one place, I guess they will not get along with each other pretty well. Despite this, I found unique commonness or goodness in all their different soul foundations. In the past, we were staying together for several months and during the cold seasons; we were sleeping in the same bed crosswise because of lack of bed in the warm room in Istanbul. We were comforting each other every time when we felt down on the life paths or felt in love with someone who hurt us and so forth. Things that I have been seen in her mirror are making me good and think deeper.

This month, X asked me if she opens her headscarf what God’s impression would be about her. “Can Allah still love me, or not,” she asked. I said, sure, if this choice; wearing the headscarf is our only one virtue about us in front of Allah, we would rather not exist. She felt better. Both of us had to leave, or another word kicked out from, our schools because of scarf ban in Turkey’s public schools. We were resisting this inhumane policy and refused to open our headscarves and this resistance cost us to change our destiny paths. Even when I was a child, from 6th grade to 9th grade, I continued to study in the private school in a hidden class room. Some of my friends and I had to be locked up if some inspectors were visiting our school. The building was an additional building inside the main school’s garden and did not have any restroom, so we always need to get permission to use the restrooms to not risk the school authority. Another thing, once, I have applied to a poetry competition and won, but the school authority decided to pick someone from my classroom who were not wearing a headscarf and brought her to the award ceremony with me and introduce her with my name and made me clap to congratulate her. They made someone play my identity in a fake person’s appearance which can fit and fulfill to the system’s wish. For me, it was very a respectful mistreatment. This is only a sample of a big picture of what I have been experiencing for many years just to reach an upper education. I had to leave my country and come to the U.S. to continue my educational life here with all the financial and emotional harshness. Because of the headscarf ban discrimination  we were hospitalized by police forces during our protests and many of our goals had to be postponed. The system did not accept us to take national university exam, so we could not go to university. Finally, she gained some certification about journalism and nowadays became a director of a news agency.

After a decade, this year Turkey’s president started to soften the scarf ban in Turkish public schools. Nowadays, we can be a student in the universities, but not an instructor. Even the Conservative Party not want to solve the problem very quickly after more than a decade of being the government party to use/abuse this topic as a hot button for the next election. Despite all these slow changes, I am still trying to graduate after all many years of financial struggle as an international student and she is still waiting for me to open our book cafe together in the near future. Sometimes, life seems like a whole big postponing.

I could only use my unique education story for this testimonio, but I decided to share this opportunity with my close friend X, because she is a part of my life, too, and our last conversation captured my feelings extremely. In addition, I believe that all friends or people that we know can take and exchange destiny from each other. Her questions and worries about her new potential decision made me think more and more. I liked my first reaction to her when I am thinking back to that day. She is my best friend even though she decided to open her headscarf or not, even if she would change her religion… But, the issue here is why she is thinking to make this decision. We talked together about this just to understand her better.  She is scared to make this step and felt bad and guilty. I emphasized that I support her both possible decisions. I understand her very well and she said that even being understood by me without judging is a big gift for her. We are tired of having the headscarf as a master status in the society. We just want to make it only one of our decisions, but it is impossible because of individual and institutional practices against our religion and its dress codes.

I do not wear the headscarf as a result of fear of God. I am no more feeling a belongingness of a specific frame of religion. I still feed my soul from the foundation and wisdom of Islam, but my soul stepped over beyond the all religions which also include them, not exclude. Although, I still wear it because I like the philosophy and meaning of it. She is confused and thinking to not wear it anymore, because she is tired of discriminations. I feel her pain. We thought together, why this is happening after all those struggles. And, we realized that when the secular system forced us to open our headscarves and be a different person than what we believe and want, made us to practice this choice very hard. After the scarf ban become weaker, we just realized how were are tired psychologically and exhausted. That’s why she started to think this decision when we almost reach our freedom in public. The ironic part is that she might have similar problem in the future because of her new decision based on the new Turkish political atmosphere. Half of our lives passed just to explain our reasons for why we are wearing this headscarves and how we have problems to continue our educational lives in public schools and experiencing insults in the society. Unfortunately and probably, the rest of her life might have to pass just to explain why she decided to not wear it. Thinking about his made we laugh sourly.

I still want to keep my headscarf in my life, because by this practice I can eliminate most of the discriminative external appearance obsessed people from my life. Headscarf is like a litmus paper for people in my life. Yes, the results can be so sad for me sometimes and make me crass to some invisible Berlin Walls, but I still like many of its functions. I am trying to be myself and head is scarf one part of this. Who can tear down his or her invisible Berlin Walls, they can reach my mind and soul and can gain a real friend. Only with these people, we can share our intellectual worlds with each other. And, who can crash this litmus head scarf; he or she can stay away from my life. Despite the individual part, the institutional discrimination hurts more, but these sharpen my character and open many new and sometimes uneven paths which enrich me, too. Headscarf gave me some auto control ability and power to resist external control on my body. I feel really free with it and have more ability to share my privacy to share or not share it with someone. However, I do not like a stable mind. My life and realities can change, but I resist keeping my sincerity until I die. Life is a journey and all the things that we come across on its paths shape us, hopefully toward to a better character. I wish this for my close friend X, too. What we have gained from the harshness of the society is their loss and we will use this wisdom to make our world a better place at least for some people. 

Meryem Rabia Tasbilek

Death by 'security': Israel's services in Latin America

The Mexican government has purchased military equipment from Israel since the 1970s [AFP]

According to a Mexican news article that surfaced in May, the Israeli military will begin training the police force in Mexico's southeastern state of Chiapas, where the predominantly indigenous Zapatista National Liberation Army is based. Yaron Yugman, Israel's defence ministry representative in Mexico, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic, is quoted as affirming that "a country's security is fundamental to its growth" and that human rights would be one of the focuses of military instruction. Of course, "security" and "growth" aren't luxuries usually intended for domestic indigenous groups. A May article in The Electronic Intifada recalls the aftermath of the 1994 Zapatista uprising, which coincided with the inauguration of the North American Free Trade Agreement: "The Mexican government found itself needing to respond to the dictates of foreign investors, as a famously leaked Chase-Manhattan Bank memo revealed: 'While Chiapas, in our opinion, does not pose a fundamental threat to Mexican political stability, it is perceived to be so by many in the investment community. The government will need to eliminate the Zapatistas to demonstrate their effective control of the national territory and of security policy'." As for the alleged focus on human rights, Israel's expertise in oppressing indigenous populations and squelching dignity happens to be more marketable. The Israeli embassy in Mexico has reportedly denied military machinations in the southeast, but not even Fox News Latino is convinced: "The Israeli Embassy's denial of its government working in Chiapas is puzzling, given the long history that Israel's government has of working with Mexico. Since the early 1970s, the Mexican government has purchased airplanes, helicopters, missile boats, small arms and other weapons from either the Israeli army or Israeli military contractors." Contributions to genocide Mexico's indigenous Mayans are not the only group to have found themselves on the receiving end of Israel's arsenal. In an email to me, acclaimed author and historian Greg Grandin outlined a previous episode of such charitable regional intervention: "In [civil war-era] Guatemala, Israel, acting on behalf of the Reagan administration, stepped in to supply military equipment, including helicopters and Galil rifles, and training that had been cut off during the previous Carter administration. Israel also supplied [the Guatemalan regime with] computers, software, and other equipment used for surveillance. This was at the height of the genocide, which ultimately left 200,000 dead, including many Mayans." Investigative reporter Jeremy Bigwood, who as a photojournalist covered Latin American civil wars in the 1980s and 1990s, confirmed that the Israelis were "up to their ears in the genocide" in Guatemala. He said the Israelis had supplied the military with Arava STOL planes and armoured personnel carriers, and established an ammunition factory in the city of Coban. Bigwood added: "The Israelis used telephone analysis - similar to what the NSA is now doing - and were able to utterly destroy the Guatemalan urban guerrillas. They assisted in the countryside by mapping out each family farmhouse and identifying the politics of the inhabitants." A 2012 report entitled Israel's Worldwide Role in Repression by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network notes that Israel's extensive experience in displacing Palestinians enabled the state to assist in the planning and implementation of "scorched earth" policies in both Guatemala and El Salvador. According to the report, the Guatemalan operations "were combined with 'development poles' - concentrated villages of displaced populations that allowed for greater government control over the popular movement and the repression of any grassroots organising". Giong back further, a 1986 article by the Middle East Research and Information Project quotes a former member of the Knesset foreign affairs committee as defending Israeli involvement in Guatemala: "Israel is a pariah state. When people ask us for something, we cannot afford to ask questions about ideology. The only type of regime that Israel would not aid would be one that is anti-American". From Palestinian laboratory to 'trail of terror' One advantage to being forced to comply "[w]hen people ask us for something", obviously, is that sizable profits accompany weapons sales. As for Israel's alleged pariah-hood, this tragic scenario is seemingly contradicted by Bigwood's 2003 article for Al Jazeera, Israel's Latin American trail of terror, in which he lists countries in the region where Israel has supplied, trained, and advised right-wing groups and regimes: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. So much for lonesomeness. Ideology's negligible importance is confirmed in Bigwood's article by Israel's support for the Argentine military junta's dirty war of 1976-1983 - which was characterised by mass forced disappearances and torture - despite, as Bigwood notes, the junta's anti-Semitic orientation. Ideological overlap is, however, seen in the case of Colombia, where President Juan Manuel Santos has not only appeared in a promotional video for an Israeli private security firm but has also announced: "We've even been accused of being the Israelites [sic] of Latin America, which personally makes me feel really proud." Inside Story - The shift in the global arms trade Beyond verifying Santos' clunessness, this statement is particularly relevant given that Carlos Castano - the founder of modern Colombian paramilitarism - was trained in Israel and acknowledged copying the paramilitary concept from the Israelis. Israel's hobby of collective punishment has, it seems, proven especially instructive; although formally disbanded, Colombian paramilitaries continue to terrorise civilian populations, often reportedly in concert with the military - which is itself famous for slaughtering civilians and dressing the corpses up as anti-government guerrillas. A primary goal of this terrorisation is to clear land of indigenous groups, campesinos, and other people whose existence impedes the proper exploitation of resources. In Chiapas, meanwhile, the indigenous movement has rudely imperiled the flourishing of neoliberalism. The Electronic Intifada article explains: "The Zapatistas took back large tracts of land [from the government] on which they have since built subsistence cooperatives, autonomous schools, collectivised clinics and other democratic community structures." Enter the Israeli army. John Collins, chair of the Global Studies Department at New York's St Lawrence University, describes Israeli military collaboration with the Mexican government in Chiapas as "further evidence of how tools of surveillance and repression field-tested on Palestinians are being used throughout the world", quoting Israeli anthropologist Jeff Halper's assessment that "[t]he Israeli economy is based on exporting the occupation [of Palestine]". Although Israel may contend that "a country's security is fundamental to its growth", the fact is that global insecurity is fundamental to Israel's growth. Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, released by Verso in 2011. She is a member of the Jacobin Magazine editorial board, and her articles have appeared in the London Review of Books blog, Salon, The Baffler, Al Akhbar English and many other publications. Follow her on Twitter: @MariaBelen_Fdez The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source: Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/20137717429632532.html