Workshop in Kirkuk 22-23d of September

These pictures are from a three day workshop in Kirkuk.

The city is quite run down, with farm animals as a part of traffic. Being from the city of Kirkuk I have many fond memories of lovely friday evenings,but seeing the state of my "hometown" brought me back to reality.

The workshop was about gender and the different types of abuse on women. There was one woman among the participants, and she said "this is the way we live,and it's how it is" when asked about the treatment of women in the Kurdish iraqi society.

The workshop was held in the local offices of the communist party in Iraq. I found the pictures of Stalin and Lenin very amusing, these people look up to them as ideologies. It says something about the progress of Iraq.

All in all it was a good workshop, filled with very interesting men and woman.

The question is, will this stay with them as the ideology of Stalin does?

Lovely

The moon...

Under Kurdish skies (september 19th)

What can one do when it’s the weekend here, and no work to go to?
Well, one can do what every other fun loving Kurd/Iraqi does; indulge yourself in absolute fun!
My aunt, a few cousins and I decided to go bowling at the famous Suleymani Bowling center.
C decided to join us along with her sweet cousin. When we arrived, we were starving and decided to eat at the outside restaurant. The smell of shishia (water pipe) had me hypnotized from the moment I sat down and I decided to order the apple flavored one right after I’d finished my interesting pizza.

The weather was so lovely and the sky so mesmerizing that I almost wanted to cry from happiness. Imagine being able to move back to your homeland, live in absolute safety and have every facility a rich country like this is supposed to offer its citizens. I hope that day is close by.

Back to the lovely nargila: We were ofcourse sitting in the family section of the restaurant because single men shouldn’t be sitting amongst girls. I couldn’t care less; I just wanted to have my tea and nargila in peace while watching some wonderful songs they were displaying on the big screen TV. As we enjoyed, three sophisticated ladies among many families, we noticed that some were shocked at our behavior. I suppose women here don’t smoke in public but I couldn’t care less now either! We ordered a new flavor of nargila, the mint taste and it was even lovelier. We stayed until it was too cold to sit there without a jacket and marched away a little dizzy but also a bit triumphant. We showed them that women can claim just as much space as men!
/H

A new week in Sul.

Tuesday 16th of September 2008

On Saturday, after a relaxing and nice weekend, the first day at the office in Sul. started again. I have to admit that I was a bit annoyed by the fact that something was going on in the organization, and that somehow it was not to be shared with the newly arrived ones. Well, the organization has gone through a lot of changes the latest three months because of financial issues from the Norwegian ministry of foreign affairs. Though it is easy to forget the fact that Iraq is not defined as a developing country, after the US military operation in 2003, the whole world society has send a lot of aid here to improve the situation, besides Afghanistan off course. It is very typical that local NGOs in countries which are in a developing process and are very dependent on aid from foreign countries, to get into an organizational crisis when the aid is decreasing drastically. Some few hardworking and strong local Iraqi NGOs are getting financed through project proposals and project budgets. In a country such as Iraq where the civil society is not that strong compared to the private and the public sphere, and the public financing is very low to the strengthening of this sphere, such project funding will make the organizations existence dependent on foreign aid.

Anyway, before arriving Kurdistan, I did not have high expectations about the work here. Somehow I had drawn a mental picture of how the work in PDA would look like. After the first day, H and I decided to make our own plans about our work in the organization, afterwards get approval from the leaders and then start our work to obtain the plans, and at the same time, reach our objectives. Now we are in step 3; we drew a plan and got it approved by the leader, and now we are preparing some workshops. Today H had her first meeting with the people in the Cultural Development Desk; tomorrow I have with the Human Rights Desk (if they do not postponed it further more). To be continued.

The latest days there has been a horrifying sand storm all over the Kurdistan province; it is absolutely terrible. I have allergy against dust, and can reassure you that I have been feeling down a lot lately. This morning I woke up to the beautiful sight of a bloody pillow; the bleeding from my nose would not stop. My uncle who works in the hospital told me that this is a sign of a strong reaction on the dust created by the sand storm. I even left work earlier than usual. On my way home, I saw some people wearing white (dentist look alike) masks covering their mouth for the sake of protection against the sand and dust.

For some days ago some peshmerges got killed in Xaneqin. The conflict in Xaneqin between the KRG and the central Baghdad government is still not solved. They are fighting over the authoritative control over the Kirkuk province. They found some burned Korans in the toilets of a mosque in Suleimany, and this is a major subject now. I find these actions as very disrespectful; it really takes away the understanding and the tolerance among humans in such societies which are not homogenous neither when it comes to ethnicity nor religion. Such actions stimulate the hate engine to blossom up more conflicts and the uprising of new civil wars.

For each day passing by, my grandfather is getting sicker and sicker. Since yesterday his speaking ability has been dramatically reduced. For the two weeks I have been here, he even lost his walking ability. One of the leaders in PDA informed me that Alzheimer has increased a lot in Kurdistan. I wonder why.

C..

Hewler, the other Kurdistan?

Sunday 14th of September
What is different about Hewler?

2005: The autumn of 2005 I was attending a course that lasted for some months in Hewler. I did not like Hewler because I found the mentality of the inhabitants (as general and rude as it may seem) as very conservative and traditional. And when I paid a visit to Suleimany, I liked my city of birth much more.

2007: In November 2007 I came back to Hewler for the first time since 2005. I did not have high expectations before reaching the city because of bad experiences from my past. It had changed a lot; the buildings and the physical infrastructure. They were working really hard on improving the roads to the extent it can bear the high increase of cars since 2003 (SUVs, Mercedes, BMWs etc). It was more expensive than Suleimany, and by the first glance of the eye everything seemed to me as a bit improved. On that ground I expected that the mentality of people also had changed a bit since then. I observed that there were less women outside in the city center (in the area of the main bazaar close to the fortress Cita Del (Qala)) compared to the city center of Suleimany. Women were wearing much more covering clothing, and men were literally staring at women passing by much more than in Suleimany. My second judgment; the city looked nicer while the mentality and city culture was still the same as before. Off course these judgments are putting forward a black and white picture of the world though it is not my intention, but I do emphasis the point that these are all mine personal and subjective opinions as a private person.

2008: Last week was my third trip to Hewler, and I have to admit that I was a bit shocked. Even from the three days stay in November 2007, things had changed again. Usually I find places and direction easily (sense of direction), but this city is developing so fast I cannot follow the changes. The city council (or maybe KRG) has spent thousands of dollars on the environmental issues. They have invested in planting trees and other green(ish) plants to first of all improve the looks of the city, make use of the threes as protection against all the sand coming from the south part areas, and thirdly be able to get rid of some of the CO2 discharge. Still I was waiting to meet the same mentality as before. The people I met from Hewler in PDA`s offices, they are all very highly educated, open and social people. In the way I understood them; people who believed in equality between the two sexes, and human beings. And then one evening about 22.00 we went to the city centre (2 male, 4 female and a child) to get some sweets after having dinner (shirini in Kurdish). There were not one single female other than us there; even more children outside with their fathers, brothers, uncles (male leaders), but not a single female figure to find.

The questions are; has it really changed? What are the changes besides the improvement of the buildings?

As I told you, H and I hooked up with some friends from Norway, and we had a great time at B2B restaurant. And somehow together we came to the same conclusion; it is difficult to live in Kurdistan (no matter where in Kurdistan areas) but still not impossible. It really depends on what your “mission” is, what kind of ideologies you base your life on and what are the objectives of your life. To decide on whether these changes are positives or not, if they are nothing more than “building castles in the sky” is difficult to say. I do not believe that all of these changes are factors that will supply to a sustainable development, but at least they have created something that is floating in the air. Somehow it is a mixture of negative peace, strong capitalism and strong opportunism.

If I have to make a final conclusion about the changes and developments in Hewler, it will be the same conclusions about the changes and development in Suleimany. The city of Hewler looks nicer, and it is the capital of the Kurdistan province, therefore a lot of resources are send to that center of happenings. The Dubaization of Hewler is easier than to make it in Suleimany. To live in Hewler or Suleimany is basically the same. Everyone is working hard to make a living, to fill up the basic human needs and to be happy. The lack of electricity and water is the same, the political situation is still unstable, the school system is almost down, and capitalism is steering the mentality of people. The so called collectivism is controlling many social relations, the rationality of the people and the behavior of human interaction in the society, except when it comes to economical matters. The survival of the fittest (the one with most money is the strongest ideological foundation for many in this matter.

For me it does not matter any longer where I will live in Kurdistan, I just know one thing; I need an interesting and somehow a rewarding job to keep me going on here. I hope we, the next generation can contribute to a positive peace building.

Positive C..

On track?

Work ended on a good note. I think I am begining to be known as the joker in the office.
Today we had one of those typical Kurdish discussions about our own city and how superior it is to other cities. Regionalism is something to joke about, but I do enjoy to provoke smug Suleymanis.

I had my first meeting with the field officer of the Cultural Development desk.
Mr. Muwafaq as he is called, had a gathering with three trainers, one of them being me. Currently we are planning a workshop on gender and sexology. I was given the task of putting together a presentation about gender and the aspects of it which are constructed. I told Mr. M that my approches are academic and that I will include De Beauvoir and Kant, but this seemed to excite him more. The only really difficult task is now to translate ontology and feminism into Kurdish.
I will appreciate any help I can get.

I'm going out with the family for some night shopping. The stores are open past midnight so this is a normal ritual.
Give my love to the West.
/H

Monday

Yesterday I was finally informed on what my tasks will be in this organization. Basically I will write and hold seminars about gender and gender equality. I can also work with the other trainers in forming other workshops on cultural aspects. C and I will also have our own parallel schedule going on, as we will work with different departments/desks in this organization, such as women's rights, youth and human rights monitoring.
I believe that we will also travel around Kurdistan to see how the other offices of this organization works. It's all very exciting because I will basically set my own rules, and be in a position to make a few changes while I'm here. Time to see if my talk can be put into action.
/H