This morning I read a very interesting interview with Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss born Muslim and one of the leading intellectuals about the Islam. When they came to talk about the freedom of press in European countries, Ramadan said that many Muslims in the Middle East think that the governments are responsible for the caricatures printed in the press, because in their countries the president controls the press. When asked by the newspaper, if he also thinks that many people might not be aware of the fact that there is even in European countries a huge debate about the caricatures, he said that he thinks so, but added one important thing: He said, that we in Europe are not much better in this respect as we see the people in the streets of Islamic countries, who smash the windows of European embassies and demonstrate against “the West”, as the Muslims.

We don’t differentiate either. And I must admit that he is certainly right. One reason for that is the one-sided press in our countries (which is in fact something that Tariq Ramadan mentions in the interview as well). It’s the same as with young people in the press: The bad and ugly is portrayed all day, but nobody talks about those who can be seen as role models - or even just normal people (cause I don’t believe that every Muslim is supporting the violence these days as much as I don’t believe in the common view that young people are supposedly not interested in anything societal and rather watch TV or play video games the whole day than contributing to their communities).

For that reason, I started searching for literature that is presenting me with another view – I’m fed up with the daily bad news that I have to read when opening the newspaper in the morning (or rather looking up the headlines on the Internet). So far I have found two books that I really liked and that gave me a new view on people in countries you usually only hear bad things about. One book was a biography of Wangari Maathai. A very short and simple description of her life, how she grew up, why she started the Green Belt Movement and how she became active in the political arena. The reason why I liked the book was because it was presenting me with a fascinating and courageous African woman who dared fighting against her corrupt government even though that meant that she was constantly risking her life. These are the stories we need to hear! I’m sure there are many more people like Wangari Maathai on this vast continent – journalists, where are you? Find these people and tell us about them!

The second book that I read in December already is a book called: “We are Iran: The Persian Blogs” (the German subtitle is even more interesting: Rebellion against the Mullahs – the young Persian Weblog-scene). The book basically consists of hundreds of quotes, taken from weblogs of young Persians who similarly to Wangari Maathai risk punishment for publishing their opinion on the Internet. Nasrin Alavi uses these blogs to present the reader with a completely different picture of Iran: Young women who write about love, friendship and their admiration for Shirin Ebadi (another one of these great people we should hear more about!); young people who are fed up with the politics of the ayatollahs in Iran and who clearly say: “our enemy is not the US, our enemy is our own government!” and students who fight for human rights and the freedom of press.

While western newspapers only report about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s newest speeches in which he either denials that the Holocaust ever took place or offends western governments in some other way, this book allows us a glimpse behind the curtain of hateful speeches and gives us an understanding of the struggle and endeavors of ordinary young people in Iran.

Let me cite a book review that I found on amazon.com:

Any who would understand the people and culture of Iran must read We Are Iran: The Personal Blogs: it gathers the country's Internet diaries and translates them from Farsi to provide quite a different view of the ordinary people's sentiments and experiences. Much of what comes to the U.S. in newspapers comes from reporters or politicians: We Are Iran comes from the people - in particular, from an educated, youthful, literate segment of the country which doesn't condone Islamic fundamentalism and which is eager to embrace a new era. Supplementing these blogs is commentary on these people and their concerns, providing the background and cultural insight necessary to appreciate the voices and their place in modern Iranian society.

Of course, there hasn’t only been positive critique for the book. As one critique points out: “The vast majority of Iranians do not have access to the web. As in most countries, Iranian bloggers represent the views of a very limited demographic group - affluent and otherwise privileged individuals." When reading the book, we have to remember this. But I’m nevertheless extremely happy to have found this book. I wish, more people who are quoted in the book were given the chance to appear in western newspapers and magazines – I’m sure it would help a great deal for a better understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims. To end with the words of Tariq Ramadan:

“If it should come to a clash of the cultures, both sides will lose. If it comes instead to a dialogue of the cultures, then both sides will profit. We must understand that whether we win or lose, we will do it together.”

Usually a year ends with reflections. But for me, it seems as if I postponed this moment of the year to the beginning of the new one. Over the last days, I’ve started reflecting about a lot of things (and I say I started as I have the feeling that this phase will still last some time). I’ve reflected about personal things - such as myself, what I want to achieve in 2006, about love and friendship - but also about “external” things, such as “the world in general”, TakingITGlobal, youth participation and youth structures in Germany…

This weekend I attended a seminar organized by the Servicestelle Jugendbeteiligung to give input to the NAP-Report, a paper, which provides the German government with feedback to the German National Action Plan for a World suitable for Children (Nationaler Aktionsplan für ein kindergerechtes Deutschland 2005 – 2010). We were about 20 selected young people from all over Germany, divided in three groups to give input to the chapters “youth participation”, “living standard” and “international responsibilities” (another seminar will deal with the other three topics of the NAP next weekend, these are “equal opportunities through education”, “growing up without violence” and “promoting a healthy life and environment”). Due to my background in international youth work and especially my knowledge about the MDGs, I was invited to participate in the third group about international responsibilities. We were a great team of young people between 16 and 24 and I’m generally very satisfied with the recommendations we came up with. One thing I’m especially happy about is that the group decided to recommend our government to support and promote the MDG and Youth Report. But even though I enjoyed the policy work, the weekend made me realize again that I’m slowly getting old and soon won’t be “youth” anymore. I also felt strange at some times given the vast experience I was able to gain over the past years and I strongly believe that I shouldn’t participate in such meetings anymore, rather should I support younger people to get involved (for a similar experience check my blog about the World Youth Congress 2005). I also realized that I’m getting old when I returned home yesterday evening: Two nights with barely five hours of sleep, alcohol in the evenings and full working days – I seriously can’t do this anymore… ;- )



Beyond these personal reflections, there are, however, also a few things that are more general and which I would like to share here:

First of all, I must say that I’m positively surprised by the fact that the German government initiated (and funded) this process, which gave young people the opportunity to give feedback to the report and provide concrete recommendations of how to expand or concretize it (the recommendations we developed this weekend will be handed over to our Minister of Youth in March and will then be discussed within the government). Looking back at the past 3-4 years, this has almost become a standard procedure in Germany, but more generally in Europe I think. For example, in 2002 I attended a German youth conference (organized by the same Ministry) to give input to the European Commission’s White Paper on Youth. Also, at the end of 2004, young people from all over Europe were invited to give input to the European Youth Pact. More and more, giving young people the chance to provide input to policies that are directly made for them, is becoming a standard procedure in Europe.
Given this fact, one of the recommendations we developed in our group this weekend, and which I strongly believe in, is that the German government should play a leading role in guiding developing countries in the same direction. Showing developing countries, how youth policy is made in Europe and providing them guidance in how they can work towards setting up similar procedures is something that Germany should see as a responsibility towards children and young people in other countries.



Beside the official seminar, I had the chance to discuss, brainstorm and plan with a few other TIG members and youth activists from Germany the future of TIG in Germany and “the good, bad and ugly” about German youth structures. It is amazing for me to meet people like Hodg or Marc, who are so full of enthusiasm for TIG and want to support us in getting TIG more widely known and used among young people in Germany. At the same time, though, there were quite a few people who had visited TIG before and were simply overwhelmed with the vast opportunities the site offers – so overwhelmed that they never came back. While I’m happy that we are meanwhile a small, but enthusiastic group, which is interested in translating TIG into German, I must say that there are limits to promoting TIG in Germany if this problem is not being dealt with.
While TIG is growing in other regions, Western Europe has a well-established culture of youth participation and it is much more difficult to convince young people here about the value of TIG. I also think that Western Europe is much more inward-looking than most developing countries. While European young people repeatedly say that they are interested in the world and care about the well-being of people in other countries, most youth organizations are still dealing with local or regional problems – and not so much with international ones. This is of course an opportunity as much as a problem for TIG.



It will be very interested for me to see into which direction German youth structures will be heading in the coming years. A growing resistance among newly set up youth organizations (but also government structures I imagine) in Germany towards the National Youth Council, which is not able to react in any way flexible, the growing need (at least in my view) to focus on international work and the growing interest of the Ministry of Youth to involve young people in policy making – all these challenges will have to change the existing youth structures in some way sooner or later. Let’s see when and how these changes will happen :- )

A few days ago I finished reading (the German translation of) the book “The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness” by Nigerian Nobel Prize Laureate Wole Soyinka. It is not an easy book to read. The texts are lectures that Soyinka gave at Harvard University in 1997. But I managed to last through the whole book, probably in hope for more lines about this one thought that Soyinka already describes very early in the book... The questions he raises all focus around the three words: truth – reconciliation – reparation.

Throughout the book Soyinka refers to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and sometimes to the similar institution in Nigeria, which has dealt with the atrocities of former dictatorships such as the one of Sani Abaja. In these commissions, truth is perceived as the road to reconciliation: If only the perpetrators admit their atrocities and speak out the truth, reconciliation is possible and in most cases accepted by the victims. But what role does reparation play, asks Soyinka? He questions, weather reconciliation can take place without reparation and he refers to the Holocaust as one example – reconciliation without reparation would have been impossible to imagine in case of the Holocaust.

The point that he wants to make in the book is that reparations should be paid for the slavery system during colonialism and I think this is an interesting point. Interesting not in the sense that I say: Yes, that’s what Africa needs. Rather interesting in the sense that it makes me think.
I’ve been reading a few customer reviews on Amazon about the book and in fact, most people there (although, all Americans) are arguing against any form of reparation. Let me quote a few lines to discuss what I find interesting about the idea:

“[…] though we lament the truly horrific thing that was done to black Africans, their enslavement, and though we must never forget the truth that, for all it's humanistic rhetoric and ideals, our Western Civilization perpetrated this evil, we must also recognize that it was Western Civilization which was responsible for ending the horror. We must recognize that the generations which committed these acts should not be judged by our modern standards and that, in any case, they are long gone.”

“[…] the more important question for Black Africa and for it's intellectual leaders like Mr. Soyinka is: Does this obsessive focus on the past help to create a brighter future for Africa? Although it is a truism, the future is not about the past. In making the case for monetary damages, the author alludes to Holocaust survivors and their quest for reparations and for restoration of lost bank accounts. There's no need to rehash the issue of actual victims and actual wrongdoers, the more significant fact that he's missed is that European Jews did not sit around waiting for these damages to be paid. They seized the moment, fled to better lives in America and established their own nation in Israel. They moved forward and are a stronger, better people for it.”

There is one thing I agree with: No doubt, Africa shouldn’t be looking back – it should be looking forward, because this is the only possible way out. However, I wonder about one’s ability to simply forget the past. The person I just quoted is saying that European Jews didn’t just sit around waiting for the damages to be paid. It is true that they didn’t, but nevertheless: would Jews today really be as strong, if the world, and Germany in particular, would have just offered the truth for reconciliation? Weren’t the reparations paid to European Jews an essential part of the reconciliation process? I believe it’s not even a question only to be asked the victims. As a German, I would still feel a tremendous guilt for my grandparent’s generation if Germany had never apologized in such a way for its past as it did (I still feel guilty btw, but to a much lesser extent – I guess, this is part of my German identity). In the same sense, I would feel guilty and ashamed as a Japanese in front of any Chinese person as Japan missed to apologize in the same way for its atrocities in China during WWII.

Africa, however, never had the chance for such reparation and even the awareness within the colonizing countries seems to be missing. Maybe it is just due to my general bad memory when it comes to history, but was there ever a time when Europe was reflecting about colonization? I just remember taking a course about migrants at university about two years ago. During this course, we did a city tour “on the footsteps of migrants in Hamburg”. One stop during this tour was the Africa House – a trading center from which once Germany decided much of its politics in its colonies in Africa. Amazing for all of us during the tour – the same company which was leading the center 100 years ago, is still having its headquarter in the house today. Accustomed to reparations that were paid to Jews, we were all shocked that nobody ever questioned the integrity of this company and that no reparations were ever asked for.

Another quote:

“The course that Mr. Soyinka counsels, backward looking, grudge nursing, scab picking, entitlement claiming, as it is, must surely be a recipe for continued stagnation and even decline in Africa. The cold hard truth is that the West will send aid to Africa, not for reasons of guilt or of obligation or of cosmic moral justice, but for that most basic, most Western, of all reasons: because Africans represent a huge underutilized customer base for Western business. It is the height of folly for the best minds of Africa to waste their time on such a notion as Western reparations to Africa. It's over. You have your freedom. You run your own countries. Your destiny is once again in your own hands. Enough of looking without for the answers to your problems; look within; to do otherwise is to remain dependent on the West.”

Looking within. A lot of problems that African countries face today are remains from the colonial time. Of course we can say: but nevertheless does the continent have to live with it now and move ahead. “Yes – but”, I would respond:

Last summer, my ex-boyfriend broke up with me in a very ugly way. I was hurt for several months, I couldn’t think clearly let alone look ahead into the future. It was only until the day I forced him to meet with me and talk to me, tell me the reasons (that he didn’t have) for breaking up with me. Soyinka is right when he says that victims need to know the truth at least. It is only after a victim has faced its tormentor that it will be able to move on with its life. But Africa never even had this chance of facing its tormentor.


I don’t know if this all makes any sense. It’s a huge topic and would probably fill a whole evening to discuss. It’s also a very philosophical topic and actually goes way beyond the question about reparation pays to Africa. To me, and that’s why I lasted through the whole book, the general question about the relationship between justice on the one hand and truth, reconciliation and reparation on the other hand, is just a really interesting one. As I just said, I had to remember my own personal situation last year and there are surely several other situations in my life when I wanted to know the truth, if not even a “reparation” or compensation for what I experienced. Sometimes such compensation is more important for us than we want to admit.

Sorry guys for the catchy subject line.... I had an actually very nice experience yesterday that I wanted to share with you - especially because it made me ask myself a few questions…

Yesterday evening I took the airport express bus to pick up a friend, who is visiting me for a couple of days, at Toronto's airport. I was the only person on the entire bus. After we drove for a few minutes, the bus driver was asking me if I would like to have some ice cream. As I was actually pretty hungry and knew that I had nothing to eat at home I told him that I would love to have some ice cream if he had some. He then told me to follow him and we left the bus to a nearby street-vendor, where he bought me a delicious scoop of vanilla butter-scotch ice cream -yummy ☺ !

After I had told him that I would love to have some ice cream I felt quite awkward though for a moment. I was remembering the words of my mum, that probably every girl is been told when a child: "Never say yes if an older man wants to buy you ice cream!". I later regretted and felt ashamed that I had this thought at all. I mean this guy was so nice, he didn't know me at all, but he wanted to get some ice-cream for the late night drive out to the airport and so he invited me, his only passenger, for a scoop as well. But instead of being grateful, the first thing that came to my mind after agreeing, was that he might want to buy me ice-cream to kidnap me afterwards… how ridiculous!

However, it's weird how little things like this sentence keep stuck in your mind. I believe I'm old enough now to take care of myself, but still I remember these words of my mum and apparently they still seem to make me distrust people who just want to be nice to me. Isn’t it sad?

What would interest me is if guys ever feel the same way? I could imagine that it's a problem that only girls have, as we get educated in a way that make us be afraid of men, who must always be seen as possible rapists. I really don’t like to think that way, but if you are always told as a young girl, that there are men out there who want to kidnap and rape you, then you don’t easily forget about this. Are there any guys here who want to share some thoughts on this question? Maybe it’s also just a cultural thing and girls from other cultures are not being educated in that way?

I would like to invite everyone to have a look at the website of the Guluwalk and sign the petition in support of the children of northern Uganda. I received an e-mail this morning about this initiative and think it's a great idea as well as another excellent example of what people in developed countries can do to raise awareness about issues that concern people in parts of the world, where they might not have the chance to speak up for themselves and get their voices heard.

For those of you who are too lazy to go to the website :-) here is an extract from the site that describes what Guluwalk is all about:

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The 'GuluWalk'

GuluWalk is the effort by two average Canadians to raise awareness and support for the 'night commuters; the children of rural northern Uganda, who, to avoid abduction by the rebel army, walk every night towards the safety of larger cities, like Gulu, from as far as 12km away. And every morning they return to their homes to work or attend school.

Starting on the night of July 1st, Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward will walk 12.5km from the east end of Toronto into the city centre to sleep outside and will return home every morning at sunrise. Adrian and Kieran are committed to this journey for the entire month and will continue to work and attempt to maintain their normal lifestyle while adding to it a daily 25km walk (775km in 31 days) and an uncomfortable five hours sleep.

The children of northern Uganda, the real 'commuters' walk for their lives every single day. Adrian and Kieran are walking to tell their story.

Canada can, and must do more for the children of northern Uganda. They need our voice and our support, while the government of Uganda needs a stronger and more urgent push towards peace from the international community to end this needless 19-year civil war.
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