MY SABBATICAL

MOUNT KAILASH

2008-11-27T21:30:00.000-08:00

This is just my test of Blogger's Video Upload Feature.

Using Quicktime Converter
60.8 MB
Low Quality
240X180

Same clip using Youtube Embedding

WITH THE TORCH COMES FREEDOM

2007-05-28T22:46:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of weeks before I entered Tibet, a group of four Americans and one Tibetan-American had hiked to the base of mount Everest and unfurled a simple homemade sign. They were each almost immediately arrested by the Chinese authorities, but not before one of them managed to transmit a live feed of a video recording of their activities. The five individuals were detained for several days and then permanently expelled from China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that they were arrested for "carrying out illegal activities aimed at splitting China," and that they had been expelled according to Chinese law. Shortly thereafter the Chinese announced a new policy of travel restrictions for foreigners in Tibet. To travel out of the capital city of Lhasa now required a costly "Alien Travel Permit" and the hiring of an official Chinese guide that would accompany foreign groups at all times. There were a lot of pissed of foreigners complaining about their spoiled travel plans when I arrived. I found the whole thing fascinating.

How five people with a sign and a video camera were able to create such a disturbance and incite such a swift and drastic reaction from the Chinese Government is an indication of both the potential strength of this form of protest in the modern technical age, as well as the weakness of the moral ground of the Chinese position on Tibet. The sign read: "One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008," a strategic play on the slogan of the Beijing Olympic Games. Within hours of the incident, news of the protester's arrest was on the Internet along with a downloadable version of the footage through YouTube.

Timing was everything.

Organizers of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics were just about to announce the much anticipated Olympic torch route. What they had planned was the most ambitious in Olympic history, including the longest torch relay ever — an 85,000-mile, 130-day route that would cross five continents. The highlight of this remarkable route would be when a team of Chinese, bearing the Olympic torch, scaled the 29,028 feet to the top of Mount Everest.

At the time of the protest a Chinese team was already at Everest Base Camp looking into the practical aspects of bringing a lit torch to the top of the highest mountain in the world, as well as the logistics of broadcasting their progress to the world live. There have been some unconventional methods used in the past to transport the Olympic torch - it has traveled by elephant in India; camel at the Pyramids in Egypt; and by tram in Rio de Janeiro. In the 2000 Olympics the Australians designed a torch that could stay ignited under water as it was brought down to the Great Barrier Reef by scuba divers. The carrying of the torch has become an integral part of the Olympic tradition and perhaps the most widely viewed event of the Olympic ceremonies. The torch that the Chinese intend to bring to Everest will be outfitted with a special oxygen tank to keep it burning in the thin air and an igniter to re-light the flame when gusting winds blow it out. It will also be the first ever live-broadcast of an attempted summit of Everest. One thing is for sure - the whole world will be watching. So, the implications of the actions of the small band of protesters was not lost on the Chinese Government - if they are not careful, rather than seeing the glory of China on their carefully choreographed day, the world might instead be watching segments that highlight China's highly controversial occupation of Tibet.

Tibet isn't the only controversial stop on the torch's path either. China is also using the torch's route to make political statements about the status of Taiwan. Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade state and has claimed sovereignty over the self-ruled democratic island since the losing nationalists fled there at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. China has repeatedly threatened to bring the island back into the fold, by force if necessary. When discussing the Olympic torch route, the executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic organising committee, has repeatedly referred to Taipei (Taiwan's capital) as an "overseas Chinese city". Then it came out that the Taiwan leg of the Olympic torch relay has been designated a part of the "domestic route," thereby creating the misimpression that Taiwan is a region under China's control. Officials in Taiwan are furious.

But maybe some good can come from this in the end.

The very first Olympic Games were held in 776 B.C. at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. From its start the Olympics marked the beginning of a period of peace for the often warring Greeks. At the start of the Games, torch bearers would be sent out to travel throughout Greece, declaring a "sacred truce" to all wars between rival city-states. The truce would remain in place for the duration of the games, so that spectators could safely travel to the Olympics.

Perhaps the progress of the torch through the controversial regions of China's politics during this period of intense international attention will force issues to the surface that have until now had very little opportunity for public discussion within China. One can only hope.

A Curiosity in China

2007-05-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

This man sort of sidled up to me with a great grin and tagged along for a while as I walked down the street in Shanghai. I could tell he just wanted a good look. This kind of curiosity regarding foreigners is still very much a part of China. It's very common to catch someone taking a sneaky picture of you with their cell phone, or sometimes they have their friend take a picture for them as they get in next to you. You have to wonder who's scrap book you have made it into after spending any time in China. But, when it really sunk in that I was a physical anomaly here, was when I woke up on the train to find a girl tugging on my arm hair and making monkey gestures to her friends. I forgave her - it was probably her first close look at a hairy albino like me.

A big part of this curiosity is likely due to the tiny ratio of foreigners in China today relative to the enormous Chinese population. It is very easy to feel like the the odd drop in a sea of over a billion. But it's also due to the fact that up until pretty recently China was practically closed off to foreigners. I remember that when my next door neighbors visited China in the late eighties it was a very big deal to go to China then. They had to have a government minder with them at all times and their interaction with local Chinese were very restricted.

Historically the Chinese have a right to be a little suspicious of foreign influence, particularly Westerners. There was a time when foreigners took parts of china by force and in many cities in China you can still see the remnants of these concessions in the foreign quarters. In light of this period, when China was carved up into different spheres of influence by the west, it's understandable, if not excusable, that the word for foreigner in Mandarin is yangguizi and in Cantonese it's gweilo. Both mean devil.

The Other Great Wall: Censorship in China

2007-05-12T21:06:00.000-07:00

Late one night in an Internet cafe in Shanghai, as people were clearing out and only the owner and a couple of kids playing video games were left, I decided to give Chinese censorship a test. I took a look over my shoulder, typed in "Tiananmen square 1989", and clicked search. No Red Guard soldiers stormed the building, but the results were telling. Many of the sites that came up were of general tourist information, inviting me to visit the Great Hall of the People, the Monument to the People's Heroes, and Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. No mention of any protesters being mowed down by the Chinese military yet. A few sites with informative soundings titles did appear, but when I clicked on these, a window opened up telling me that the sites were unavailable. When I did a google search for images using "Tiananmen square 1989", I got nothing. Not one image!

The photo that is now ubiquitous everywhere else in the world, that of a lone man in a face-off with a row of Chinese tanks, has somehow been completely erased from Chinese cyberspace. I actually got the chills thinking about how a social event as significant as China's crackdown on demonstrations that took place in Beijing in the summer of 1989 could be so thoroughly removed from public awareness.

Just in case you forgot what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, I'll give you the short version of it:

For several months in 1989, a crowd of several thousand pro-democracy students gathered in Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, and staged a massive protest. Foreign journalists brought the protester's story to the rest of the world and people everywhere watched to see the result of the pro-democracy movement's stand-off with the Chinese government. Most memorable for Americans perhaps was when students built an effigy of the statue of liberty. When the protesters defied government calls to disperse, a split emerged within the Communist Party of China on how to respond to the protesters. Out of the party turmoil, a hardliner faction emerged and the decision was made to quell the protests. Army tanks and infantry were sent into Tiananmen Square to disperse the protesters.

Estimates of the resulting civilian deaths vary - 23 according to the Communist Party of China. 400–800 according to the CIA. 2600 according to the Chinese Red Cross.

Following the violence the government conducted widespread arrests to suppress the remaining supporters of the movement. They banned the foreign press and strictly controlled coverage of the event inside China (evidently to this day).

So, how does a government control information about an event like this? Relatively easily in a country with one political party that has control of all newspapers, television and radio. But how does China manage to maintain this control of information in the "information age"? What about the Internet?

Well, Access to the Internet is strictly regulated in China. Internet cafes, called Wangba, are required to keep detailed logs of their customers' online activity on file for 60 days. If a user tries to access forbidden Web sites, the Internet cafe must disconnect the user and file a report with state agencies. Penalties for violations include fines and even imprisonment. Also, every Chinese person who signs up for Internet service at home must register with his or her local police department within 30 days.

Once on line, personal e-mail is also filtered through a screening system. Text and subject lines are scanned and blocked if anything objectionable is found. So, if I were to send an e-mail with the subject "Free Tibet" from inside China, to someone in china, it most likely would simply not arrive. As a result it is very difficult for people in China to exchange information about certain topics.

What about trying to search the web for information from inside China? The companies like Yahoo and Google, have cut a deal in order to operate in China. In order for search engine companies to work in China they have to agree to censor certain topics. As a result the top 10 Google results using the key words "Tibet," "Taiwan China" and "equality" were all blocked, as were eight of the top 10 results using "democracy China" and "dissident China." Also, sites like Wikipedia, which allow people to contribute to them freely and are difficult to monitor, are simply banned all together in China. The result is a very effective control of information.

When it comes to politics, China has a media completely without dissenting opinions or any critical debate on subjects of real importance. Chinese people trying to find an independent source of information about Taiwanese and Tibetan independence, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, SARS, the Falun Gong movement, opposition political parties, and anti-Communist movements, won't find anything easily on the Internet.

When I cautiously spoke to Chinese people about some of these same subjects, they either had no knowledge of them, had a very different knowledge of them than my own, or I couldn't tell because they refused to talk. More than one person told me plainly that they were fully aware that the government censored their information. However, the most widespread reaction I got was that they just weren't really interested in politics or the news. Of course, why would they be? Any topic that is even slightly controversial isn't covered.

The Explorers - stories from the Australian frontier

2007-04-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

While traveling over and through Australia by plane, train and bus, I chose to carry along a copy of Tim Flannery's "The Explorers: Stories of Discovery and Adventure from the Australian Frontier". It was the perfect companion to staring out the window at the often barren and alien landscape that passed by. Flannery, the director of the South Australia Museum, has compiled 67 fascinating excerpts from the pages of explorer's journals, each one offering the experience of being a fly on the wall during remarkable moments in the history of European attempts to circumnavigate, traverse, and settle the harsh environments of Australia. It is perhaps the best look into these explorer's experiences, penned by their own hands and under some of the most extreme conditions imaginable.

Their words contain all the adventure and insight of the famous mission of discovery embarked upon by Louis and Clarke in North America. The most telling difference however, is that unlike their American counterparts, the explorers of Australia have a tendency to get killed. They die off in tragic accidents, in skirmishes with Aboriginals, but most often from their inability to extract the bare necessities of food and water from the strange and inhospitable land they encounter. Many of the stories in Flannery's anthology are wrenched from the accounts of sole survivors or found among the remains of failed expeditions. Together they paint a picture of a harsh and unforgiving continent, capable of destroying even the most thoroughly prepared team of explorers.

There is the story Charles Sturt, who's journal reveals his obsession with finding a mythological lake in the center of Australia. We learn of the daily misery of dragging a boat through a landscape so hot and dry that it bursts the party's thermometer. nearly his entire party falls to an extreme case of scurvy. Perhaps the most astonishing demise is that of John Ainsworth Horrocks, who is killed by his own camel, which apparently turned on him for having been dragged into such inhospitable a terrain. The most famous expedition however, is that of Burke and Wills who set out to be the first to cross the center of Australia from South to North. Despite being well funded, the team is soon divided and reduced to near starvation. It's leader made the fateful decision of attempting to mimic the modes of subsistence he observed among the aboriginals he had encountered. Unbeknownst to him however, the ngardu seeds he sees them eat must first undergo a complex process, without which they contain thiaminase which depletes the body of Vitamin B1. The mistake costs him his life.

This and other stories in the collection hint at a far more difficult story to tell - that of how the thriving indigenous communities that these adventurous explorers run into managed to survive for entire lifetimes in these landscapes that make such short work of even the most well provisioned expeditions. Indeed the various ways of life that aboriginal Australians developed in order to live in Australia's harshest environments is staggering. Gaining nutrients from unlikely plants, tiny grass seeds, stems of small flowers, sap and even the bark of certain trees, digging up hidden roots and even eating grubs and other insects - their diets reflect an extraordinary adaptation to the land. Some of these foods involve such complex processes to remove poisons and extract nutrients that one wonders how they were ever recognizes as foods at all. Burrawang seeds for example, are extremely poisonous, but because they are one of the only sources of starch in some areas of Australia, indigenous people pounded and soaked the seeds in water for a week, changed the water daily, then turned the pulp into a cake which is roasted over hot embers. Any mistake in this method could cost you your life.

Some of these recipes came to mind when I was visiting an exhibit in a Sydney Museum which stated that aboriginals "lacked agriculture". I suppose another way to look at it is that they were doing remarkably well without it.

For a really unique look at the Australian environment and a detailed explanation of what it can offer to sustain human life, check out the book "Bush Food" by Jennifer Isaacs.

Writing on the Wall

2007-04-17T23:27:00.000-07:00

I made it to the trendy city of Melbourne, in southern Australia, just in time to catch up with an old friend of mine who was having a gallery opening on that night. I hadn't seen my friend Sudeep in close to ten years. His exhibit was packed and it was good to find him doing so well. His photography was mainly of urban scenes and graffiti from around Melbourne. The gallery was full of artsy types who were talking about the values of graffiti as a public art form. One of Sudeep's shots was of a construction wall that ran along a street where someone had spray-painted "White Australia has a Black History". It was in the colors of the aboriginal flag. I was telling sudeep about how I was interested in studying the history of indigenous people's struggles in Australia, and he suggested I come along with him for a tour of some of the murals painted around Melbourne and its suburbs which he thought might interest me.

We spent the following day criss-crossing the city, photographing some of the art that has been put up to highlight issues and commemorate events in Australia's aboriginal history. Some of it was on the sides of buildings, in school playgrounds or at bus stops. It was interesting for me to see references to the things that I had been reading about displayed so prominently in these public spaces.

I took some pictures of my own and considered what an interesting historical source murals and other public art could be to a social studies classroom. Being created by community members and occupying such communal spaces, they have the potential to reveal the concepts and events a community wishes to remain a part of their shared public consciousness.

The Great Barrier Reef

2007-04-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

As I made my descent into the city of Cairns, in Queensland, northern Australia, like everyone else on the plane, I craned my neck to get a view of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a pretty remarkable sight even from this perspective.

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest structure on earth created by living things. It stretches over 1,200 miles, and supposedly, even if I had been looking out the window of the space shuttle it would have been visible from space.

Of course the best way to experience the reef is from underwater, but a trip out on one of the many livaboard boats that operate here does not come cheap. After a few days walking the docks and asking around, I managed get a standby fare when someone cancelled aboard the ship Taka. I only had a couple of hours to pack before the ship set out for a five-day trip to the outer sections of the coral sea. I had just enough time to throw my things together and rent an underwater housing for my camera.

As the boat pulled out and I started to assemble some of my dive equipment, despite stormy weather and ten foot swells, I was happy as a pig in muck. I learned to SCUBA dive in Burlington VT, in the cold of winter. It was often so cold that we would rent a UHAUL truck, park it on shore with a space heater in the back, and bolt strait into it after each dive. On some days we would have to waddle out along the ice with our tanks and fins, just to reach the slightly less frozen, frigged waters. Visibility ranged from five feet, to five inches in front of our faces, depending on how much silt got kicked up by divers loosing control of their buoyancy and churning up the murky floor. As far as things to see, Lake Champlain, where we did the majority of our dives, boasts such underwater wonders as several discarded dinner plates from the dinning service of the old Plattsburg ferry, a surprising number of shopping carts, and at least one toilet. Despite the lack of life down there, I came to love the experience. Even during our pool training I enjoyed the sensation of being underwater for prolonged periods of time. I remember the excitement of my first dive, when I turned upside-down and saw the light refracting on the surface. I watched as my bubbles floated up towards the light and I realized for the first time that I didn't have to make a dash up there for air. Just the feeling of weightlessness, being able to hover suspended in space, rising and falling slightly with each breath - it is one of those truly amazing experiences. Then of course there is the underwater world to explore.

The first time you descend into the alien world of a coral reef, teeming with life and bursting with color, some people find it reminiscent of the closest environment on land, a tropical rainforest. Flowing coral fans and the jagged branches of staghorn conjure up a vibrant jungle canopy. Instead of flowers, soft corals and anemones with their bright tentacles sway with every surge. Urchins, starfish, sea cucumbers, tiny crabs and tinier shrimp, crawl and pick over everything.Then of course there is the kaleidoscope of fish, they seem to take the place of tropical birds, and dart in and out of every crevice, or swarm together in massive schools. In fact coral reefs outdo rain forests in terms of biodiversity, and hold the world's record for densest and most complex concentration of life on earth.

On board Taka, we did twelve dives, diving around the clock. Even at night the reef is crawling with life. We did several night dives where only the beam of our torches penetrated a pitch black sea to reveal a whole different range of creatures. The highlight for me was when doing an early morning dive, right at dawn I found where a hawksbill turtle had slept, wedging its body under an overhang of coral outcrop. It slowly emerged and I followed it up as it glided to the surface for its first breath of the new day.

When not diving I sat in the ships lounge reading “Coral Reefs: Cities Under the Sea” by Richard C. Murphy. It’s a bit of a strange book - part marine science, part science fiction. The author draws insight from the relationship between different organisms within the reef and the way they collectively create an efficient system. In the “coral city” that the author describes there is no waste. The by-product of each organism is the resource for the next. Taking the reef's example, he considers how our own cities might better manage things like energy, resource management and waste removal. He also gives an interesting explanation of what the reef itself is.

What we call the reef is really a symbiosis of two organisms, one a plant and the other an animal. The animal is called a polyp, and the plant is an algae called zooxanthellae. The polyps actually evolved from a common ancestor of modern jelly fish. Its physical structure is basically that of a jelly fish that has rejected the strategy of floating with currents and capturing prey in the open ocean, and has anchored itself upside-down waiting for prey to come to it instead. These polyps have managed to form a unique relationship with algae cells, which is mutually beneficial to both species. The zooxanthelae use sunlight to produce food which they share with the colony of polyps. In return the polyps form a structure which provides the algae with shelter and access to more sunlight. Many polyps are also capable of preying on other drifting animals called plankton. The by-product of this type of feeding is shared with the algae giving it the nutrients it needs to grow.

The giant reefs systems we see today are a result of countless generations of these coral colonies piling up layer upon layer of calcium carbonate over millions of years. The hard part of the reef is really the shared skeletons of large colonies of polyps. The living part of coral is only on the surface. Many reef species specialize in feeding off this thin layer, like this parrot fish which uses its beak like teeth to break pieces of the reef off and extracts the algae cells inside. Although this destroys small portions of the reef, it is actually a necessary process in reef growth, as new coral colonies can only get their start on these bare patches.

Individual coral colonies can grow in size and number through cell division, and each polyp in a colony is an exact clone of other members. However, new coral colonies only form once a year, on a single night, usually two to seven days after the full moon of mid-summer, when a simultaneous mass spawning fills the reef with a sea of coral larva.

When you look at a large patch of coral you can see the separate species living on top of one another and guess where the founding polyp landed to form each individual colony.

For our final dive we motored into a section of reef closer to Cairns, and civilization. We usually had a dive briefing before each dive, where the layout of the reef was described as well as the types of life we could expect to see. On this last one, the ship’s dive master said it was just a “free dive” and that we should just explore it on our own.

After four days of basking in the explosion of life and color surrounding the outer sections of pristine reef, we descended into a coral graveyard. There are few sights in this world as depressing as a devastated section of coral reef. The bombed-out look of this sick section of coral was a complete shock. Some coral was bare and a ghastly bone white. Other sections were covered with a kind of brownish scum. Without the constant filtration that a healthy reef performs, the water had turned thick and murky, adding to the gloom. A few fish clung on, hiding in the shadows of the rubble of broken coral. It was quiet and lonely down there and difficult to have a full tank’s worth of air to consider what we were seeing.

When I surfaced and pulled myself up on deck it was quiet. After each dive over the last few days, the gear deck, where we took off our equipment and refilled our tanks, had been the scene of a festive and lively swap of accounts of the various creatures divers had spotted. It’s a time when the diver's excitement bursts out everywhere. After having been restricted to communicating through limited hand-signals, now they can finally tell their dive buddy how amazing that big shark was or find out if anyone else saw that tiny seahorse. After this dive however, it was as solemn as a funeral. When a couple of divers made some complaining remarks about the quality of the dive, the dive master made some appropriate comments about the importance of people getting to see this part of the reef too.

Nuclear Proliferation/Fun With Maps

2007-04-06T05:37:00.000-07:00

My interest in the story of the Rainbow Warrior led me to compile some maps that will be useful for me to include in a unit on the proliferation of nuclear weapons:

This one shows how many and where nuclear tests have been conducted around the world.

This one shows which countries possess nuclear weapons and how many they are believed to have.

This one shows where nuclear power plants are currently producing energy within the United States.

This one shows the position of monitering facilites set up to detect nuclear tests world wide.

The Wreck of the Rainbow Warrior

2007-04-04T02:24:00.000-07:00

On the night of July 10, 1985, the Rainbow Warrior, a 40 meter long, former fishing trawler, had been docked in Auckland harbour for three days while preparations for its next voyage were being made. The Ship belonged to the international organization Greenpeace, and its mission was simple -- sail straight into the blast zone of the French nuclear test site at Moruroa Atoll, disrupt the test, avoid being boarded by the French navy for as long as possible, and raise public awareness of the dangers of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

The world’s oceans at this time, with their vast expanses and murky depths, had very little legal protection, and even less actual oversight. The Pacific Ocean in particular, its immensity a cloak for the unscrupulous, had become a dumping ground and testing site for the powerful nations of the world. The organization Greenpeace evolved out of the desire of private citizens to protect these waters and their inhabitants, wherever governments had failed to do so. Greenpeace describes itself as “an independent, campaigning organization which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force solutions for a green and peaceful future.”

The first such “creative confrontation” that the Rainbow Warrior was assigned to, was the disruption of whale hunting, which its crew achieved quite successfully -- largely by deploying small inflatable crafts and getting directly in the line of fire between the whaling vessel’s harpoons and the whales themselves. Between 1978 and 1985, it had engaged in non-violent direct action against the ocean dumping of toxic and radioactive waste, seal hunting, and most recently nuclear testing in the Pacific. At this time the United States and France had made the testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific a regular occurrence despite international condemnation.

At 11:49pm, while the Rainbow warrior lay quietly birthed in Auckland harbor, there was what was described as “an electric blue flash” in the water beside the ship, which was instantly followed by a massive explosion. On board the Rainbow Warrior that night was Dutch freelance photographer Fernando Pereira, who was there to document the ship’s mission. After the first explosion, Fernando made his way down the stairs to his cabin with the aim of retrieving his cameras. It was a fatal decision. A second explosive had been attached to the hull. The goal of the first explosion was to sink the ship. This second larger explosion was to ensure that should the ship be raised it would be irreparable. By 4 am divers had recovered Fernando's body. He had drowned, trapped in his cabin, the straps of his camera bag tangled around one leg.

As it emerged that the bombing was a deliberate act of sabotage, there was little doubt in Greenpeace activist's minds who was responsible. Two days after the bombing the French Embassy in Wellington issued a statement echoing the flat denials emanating from Paris. "In no way is France involved," it declared. However, when two French agents posing as a traveling couple were apprehended by a local neighborhood watch, police soon assembled the neccessary evidence to solidify beyond a doubt French responsibility. The two captured French secret service agents eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and willful damage in Auckland’s High Court. The bombing and the ensuing French scandal sparked an outrage internationally. In the wake of the bombing, a flotilla of privately owned New Zealand yachts sailed to Muroroa to protest against the French test. As a result, French nuclear tests in the Pacific were suspended.

In 1987 the French Government agreed to pay New Zealand compensation of NZ$13 million and formally apologised for the bombing. The French Government also paid 2.3 Million French Francs compensation to the family of Fernando Pereira, the killed photographer. An indirect consequence was to help transform New Zealand's "nuclear free" policy from an unpopular minority position to something of a national icon. New Zealand remains to this day an entirely 'nuclear free' nation, even forfeiting lucrative alliances with the United States for its refusal to allow American ships that carry or are powered by nuclear material to enter its waters.

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There are so many things that I like about this story. What event could better provide students with a faith in the influence that a small group of dedicated and concerned citizens can have for positive change in the world? Just the idea of a private organization outfitting a schooner the size of a battleship for the sole purpose of sailing it straight into the blast zone of a nuclear test site in a heroic attempt to save the environment, not to mention us, involves messages that are not often paralleled in our history curriculum. Then there is the outcome, which is a potent demonstration of the power of direct action when waged in a just cause. Even as the Rainbow Warrior sank, it created an outcry which raised public awareness to its cause in a way far more powerful than if the French had left it alone. The influence of this event on New Zealand’s notional psyche is well embedded to this day. The sinking of the rainbow warrior and the further efforts of organizations like Greenpeace were also instrumental in pushing forth the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was eventually signed by 177 nations, and bans all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes.

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The Rainbow Warrior was eventually raised and patched, although not operational any more, thanks to the second murderous blast. On 14th December 1987, she was towed north and sunk again, this time as an artificial reef in a sheltered position near Motutapere Island. Resting on the sand at 25 metres and encrusted with sea life, the Rainbow Warrior is now home to hundreds of fish, a beautiful site for visiting divers, and a reminder of the beauty that an unpolluted sea is capable of displaying.

If you think Greenpeace is cool, check out this offshoot that is taking some drastic measures to disrupt the Japanese whaling industry.

Article on Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Geography of the Pacific

2007-04-02T00:09:00.000-07:00

A recent Roper Public Affairs poll painted a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most recent graduates of the American education system. Nine out of ten could not find Afghanistan on a map of the Middle East, and six in ten could not find Iraq. It's not just the outside world apparently, fewer than half could identify the state of New York. I like to think part of this is due to an emphasis on teaching social studies for the purpose of creating an understanding of the concepts behind events, rather than merely the memorization facts. But the fact remains - we suck at geography. Here's a very basic look at the geography of the pacific.

The Pacific islands are generally divided into three distinct geographic groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.

Melanesia stretches from Indonesia in the west, through the islands of New Guinea, the Solomons, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, to Fiji in the east. Melanesia is derived from the French ‘Melanesie’ meaning ‘black islands’ and is in reference to the darker skins of the inhabitants of these islands. The term was first applied to the region by a French scientific voyage in the 1830's.

Micronesia means ‘small islands’, and lies in the central western Pacific. Its most significant groups are the Palau, Carolines, Marshalls, Marianas and Gilbert islands.

Polynesia meaning ‘many islands’, stretches from Samoa and Tonga in the west, across to Easter Island on the far eastern side of the Pacific, and south to New Zealand. It includes, the Hawaiian Islands, Tahiti, the Marquesas, and the Cook Islands.

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Although these groupings are ethnic as well as geographic entities, it is important to note that the division is a Western idea. There is more cultural exchange between these groups, as well as diversity within them, than this simple division might imply.

Human Migration: into the pacific

2007-04-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

When European explorers first ventured into the Pacific Ocean they were surprised to find that even some of the most remote islands were already occupied by thriving societies. The existence of these Pacific people provided them with a mystery which has in some ways persisted to this day. How had a people who lacked any physical navigational instruments or even metals, preceded them into the Pacific by thousands of years? Thinkers of the time suggested that they must be the remnants of some simple people, blown of course by chance or dragged there by currents. If you look at the space allotted to Pacific people in history curriculum around the world today, I'm afraid you would probably find a similar story, if you found them at all. I set out to find a little more about the people of the Pacific, specifically a part of the answer to the question of how they got there. What I found out was that far from a chance occurrence, the peopling of the Pacific was a result of a giant technological leap, one that represented a massive change in the pattern of human migration. Our story of human migration begins less than 100,000 years ago, when homo sapiens, the ancestors of all modern humankind, evolved in Africa and began to move into Central Asia. Some headed West into Europe and others traveled around the perimeter of India and into Southeast Asia, eventually making their way into the archipelagos of Malaysia, Indonesia, New Guinea, and even Australia. All of this progress was made in small stretches over thousands of generations. It was also done on foot or in simple rafts that could only make very short journeys.

These early humans were able to make it all the way to Australia because in the last ice age water trapped in the polar ice caps lowered sea levels. The Indonesian islands were actually joined to Eurasia. New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania were also all joined in one land mass, which was far more accessible from Southeast Asia. Today we find evidence that people reached Australia as early as 40,000 years ago, but there progress was checked there. No other large land masses would be reached by humans for another 20,000 years.

The next major event in human migration occurred when people crossed a similar land-bridge connecting Asia to the Americas, along the Berring strait. There is some debate over whether this was a result of hunters following game on land or traveling along the coast in small crafts, or both. In either case it didn't represent a shift in technology, and the places on earth that required a true ocean passage, like the Pacific islands, remained devoid of human life.

Around ten thousand years ago, with the end of the ice age, sea levels rose again, isolating the archipelagos of the Philippines, Indonesia and New Guinea. Australia became detached from New Guinea and Tasmania, and these populations remained relatively isolated for thousands of years. Still, the Pacific and its countless islands remained beyond human reach.

Then around 6,000 years ago, for the first time in human history, a people escaped the confines of landmasses that could only be reached by foot or simple craft. They pushed of from the mainland of South East Asia and and made their way eastward into the Pacific and a world where no human had proceeded them. Eventually they reached as far east as Easter Island, likely the coast of south America, and astonishingly as far west as Madagascar.

The accounts of their individual journeys are not recorded in journals or captains logs as they were in later European voyages of discovery, but this does not detract from their achievements in terms of the seamanship that they required. These voyages spanned more than half the globe and took place at a time when Europeans had not ventured beyond the Mediterranian or the coast of their continent.

What made these first voyages possible was the invention of the sail and the "outrigger", an extension which stabilized their dugout canoes. However, as the gaps between islands grew from tens of miles at the edge of the western Pacific to hundreds of miles along the way to Polynesia, and then to thousands of miles in the case of voyages to Hawaii and the Eastern Pacific, these oceanic colonizers developed huge double-hulled vessels, capable of carrying large groups, as well as all the supplies they would require to colonize new lands.

For long voyages such as these Pacific peoples used a large double-hulled canoe made of two large canoes connected by lashed crossbeams. The two hulls gave the craft stability, and the central platform laid over the crossbeams provided the needed working, living, and storage space. Large sails made of matting allowed it to move swiftly through the seas, and long steering paddles enabled Pacific mariners to keep it sailing on course. A medium-size voyaging canoe, 50 to 60 feet long, could accommodate two dozen people for a month long voyage.

As they moved farther and farther away from the familiar flora and fauna of Southeast Asia and New Guinea, they also had to develop a portable agricultural system which would enable them to survive in the nutrient low environments they would encounter. Ethno-botonists today have determined that these early Pacific mariners must have travelend in intentional colonizing parties, bringing Pigs, dogs, rats, and fowls, as well as cultivated plants such as bananas, breadfruit, taro, yam, gourds, and sugar cane, into the Pacific Islands. All of these made ecosystems of the pacific livable, and turned them into the "natural paradise" that Europeans would encounter centuries later.

Recently computer simulations have also suggested that because of prevailing winds and currents, many of the inhabited islands of the pacific could only have been reached as a result of careful and intentional voyages of exploration. When looked at in conjuncture with the highly sophisticated systems of navigation still practiced in some parts of the Pacific, it becomes clear that these trips were deliberate colonizations. Armed only with a knowledge of the movements of the stars, the ability to read the signs from the ocean itself, the flight patterns of birds and other natural signs, the people of the pacific set out to explore and settle the most widespread and far removed regions of the earth.

This is an image of the earth taken from space. From this perspective you can really get the magnatude of the Pacific Ocean and an appreciation for the people who first explored it.

It's worth mentioning that the famous captain Cook, who mapped and explored so much of the pacific ocean for the European world, did so with a native Tahitian navigator on board. He and his officers made efforts to learn the Tahitian language, so that they would be able to communicate with Tupaia, who accompanied them for their voyage through the Pacific, and all the way back to England. From his diary it is clear that Cook was amazed by the polynesians ability to travel between distant points and across empty seas. He described Polynesia as "by far the most extensive nation upon earth."

New Zealand: Land Before Time

2007-04-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

About 130 million years ago, in the mid-to-late Jurassic period, the land that today comprises New Zealand was torn away from the southern supercontinent of Gondwana.

Because this split occurred prior to the evolution of marsupials and other mammals, and because New Zealand was so far removed from other land masses, it meant that throughout nearly its entire existence New Zealand would be devoid of mammalian life.

Other than a native bat, which presumably somehow flew here in geologically recent times, and sea mammals such as seals, New Zealand has gone through it's evolutionary past in relative isolation form the rest of the world and with out the impact that the advance of mammals has had elsewhere. As a result New Zealand has one of the worlds most unique ecosystems. In fact about 80% of the flora and fauna in New Zealand occurs only in New Zealand and no where else.

FORESTS

A walk through New Zealand's remaining native forests is in some ways like a real life "Jurassic park", and gives some indication of what the world was like millions of years ago. The progenitors of New Zealand's forests stemmed from Gondwana and its existing species have developed in relative isolation from the changes that have occurred in forests elsewhere in the world. In some areas massive kauri trees with diameters of over twelve feet wide still scrape the sky. Much of the forest is filled with the dense foliage of strange tree ferns that look to those who are not used to them like overgrown house plants.

BIRD LIFE

In the absence of mammals, birds came to occupy a dominant role in New Zealand's ecosystem. Up until just a few hundred years ago the largest herbivore in the New Zealand's forests was the moa, a giant flightless bird which reached 12 feet in height and weighed up to 550 pounds. Prior to human contact the Moa's only predator was the Hasst's eagle, the largest predatory bird to have lived, with a wing span of up to ten feet.

Today New Zealand's bird life remains exotic, with ground dwelling parrots, kiwis and other flightless birds. I found it particularly strange to be in an alpine environment in which snow occurs year round and at the same time being surrounded by group of Keas, large parrots that have adapted to living in the mountains.

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New Zealand's exotic flora and fauna are a major draw

for foreign travellers, however, the fact that these creatures have had no inherited defences against human predation, or against the other animals which humans introduced into their environment, has made them especially vulnerable. Both the Moa and the Hasst's eagle's extinctions are attributed to hunting and forest clearance by the Polynesian ancestors of the Maori, who for several hundred years shared New Zealand's environment with these giant birds. Only recently has the devastation that the impact of European settlers and the animals that they introduced have had on New Zealand's ecosystem begun to be understood. Today, travellers that arrive to New Zealand by airplane are run through a rigorous search and screening process. Having your bags run through a machine and searched is something we are all getting used to, but in New Zealand their primary focus is not drugs or terrorist threats, it's invasive species. My tent was quarantined until they could determine that the tiny grass seeds that they detected were not a potentially threat to native species.

Village Visit

2007-03-07T00:59:00.000-08:00

Wanting to get a closer look at village life in Fiji and an idea of what life was like prior to European contact, I made the necessary preparations for a trip out to the island of Nacula, one of the furthest in the island chain of the Yasawas group. I stopped off at several islands along the way and made friends with a German traveler name Henrick, who agreed to make the journey all the way to Nacula with me. For the last leg of the trip we had a local fisherman drop us off at a tiny cove on the southern edge of Nacula, and he pointed us to a trail that would presumably lead us towards the village itself.

The path took us over the spine of the island where only a tall grass grew, above which we could see the sweeping panoramas of this and other islands. After some distance the path dipped down into a valley and we began to see signs of farming, planted rows of sweet potato, banana and bread-fruit trees.

Then, through some foliage and into a sunny clearing we could make out a number of thatch-roofed homes and wonderfully colorful laundry hung out to dry. It was deftly quiet, and though we had been anticipating it, Hendrick and I found ourselves at a a loss as to how to make first contact with the village and its inhabitants.

For some time we just stood there and I had just begun to suspect that no one was around, when from out of one of the huts came a joyous voice which proclaimed - Bula! There was no mistaking its meaning of welcome, and we replied with the same. A woman emerged with a flower print dress and instructed us in awkward English that before we are allowed to visit the village we must first meet its chief. We soon found ourselves following her lead down the narrow footpaths that meandered between the fifty or so identical homes. By each dwelling we were met with the same greeting and families gathered at their open doors and windows and smiled out at us as we passed.

The Meeting House

At the other end of the village there was a slightly larger structure built of the same materials as the others, which we were invited to enter and then asked to sit on the many reed mats that were spread across the floor. This we were told was the village meeting house. The woman who we had followed asked us to wait here for the chief and instructed us that when he came we should make a sevusevu, a small customary gift. Fortunately we were prepared and I had with me a small amount of kava which I understood was the traditional gift on such occasions.

Kava bundle at market

After a while the chief entered and sat cross-legged before us on the floor. He was a robust middle-aged man in a t-shirt, but he still maintained some degree regalregality. He graciously accepted our gift of Kava, which I presented by putting on the floor in front of him. Henrick and I introduced ourselves, and he invited us to look around at the many pictures of him and his family that adorned the walls of the meeting house. In one was his brother who we learned was a captain of a large ship and could be seen posing in his uniform. In another there was a few of his nephews proudly displaying a rugby trophy. Our meeting with the chief was brief. At its end he said that he would appoint his niece as our guide for as long as we chose to stay in the village and he introduced the young girl that had been waiting at the entrance, then he left.

I looked up at what appeared to be a large bone or tusk hanging from one of the rafters of the meeting house. When I asked our new guide about it, she explained that this was the Tabua, or the tooth of a sperm whale. In Fiji they are presented to important guests and exchanged at weddings, births, and funerals she explained. The particular tabua hanging in this meeting house was very old and showed that it had been worn by the many times it had changed hands.

We soon found out that our new guide, though shy, spoke a fair amount of English. She attended a boarding school on one of the "closer islands", Mondays through Fridays, at which half of her instruction was in English.

We followed her out and began our stroll through the rest of the village. On the way we passed what we were told was the home of the "oldest man" in the village. He was half way up a tree nailing something down when we met him. He was pretty limber for an old-timer. I shook his outstretched hand and he gave me a broad toothless smile, and said Bula of course. I told him that I was a history teacher, here to study Fiji's history. I asked if a lot had changed since he was a child in the village. He got what I had asked, and through our guide who translated he said
"When I was little we would cut the bananas before they were ripe. It would take us over a week to sail our small boats to the mainland. The bananas would ripen along the way and be ready by the time we made it to the market. Now we wait until they are ripe before we cut them and we use an outboard motor."

So, that pretty much sums that up.

Our next stop was the "store" which was really just a couple of shelves in a corner of one of the village huts. To see how little was actually available for purchase in the village drove home just how self sufficient it really was. Only a few staples such as tea, sugar, and flour were imported from the mainland. The rest of life's necessities were either fished from the sea, plucked from a tree, or were harvested in their village's gardens. This village apparently planted only three crops - sweet potato, pineapple, and bananas, and none of these required much looking after.

The church was by far the biggest structure in the village, but was still quite small. It was made of concrete, with windows along its side which opened to let in the sea breeze. Outside sitting under the shade of some marvelous trees, the likes of which I have never seen before, there was a group of women who, hearing of our arrival, had laid out their wares on blankets for us to survey. Our guide explained that these women make jewelery and such out of shells, which they sell to the boatmen who bring the goods to their village store, who in turn sell it to the shops on the mainland. They seemed eager to skip the middle man in this case, but it was still a remarkably low pressure sale. I purchased a large nautilus shell.

Near the coast at one end of the village there was a group of young men busy around a bunch of materials sprawled out on the ground. To my excitement I found out that they were constructing one of the village homes which I learned was called a bure. They were a fun bunch and were happy to let us investigate their progress. I brought out my video camera and one of the more gregarious guys gave me a full narration of the methods and materials involved in creating one of these traditional structures. It was pretty amazing to see it all come together. In what seemed like no time the framework was completed and they were explaining to me how the reeds were woven together and tied up to create the walls and ceiling.

The thing that I found really fascinating was what the villagers did with these homes when a hurricane struck. They told me that their traditional bures could be untied, disassembled and covered, keeping the materials protected. When it was over they would simply reassemble their bures. However, the newer construction that included boards, nails, and concrete would be torn apart and have to be completely rebuilt.

Like the rest of my experiences in this village, this got me to thinking about the merits of simplicity. Wandering around the village was an interesting look at life in a comparatively isolated corner of the world. There were of course signs of change everywhere. Several homes had electricity which was supplied from a generator. Some of the boats appeared to be made out of fiberglass. People had radios and other things bought from the mainland. But not much!

Trouble in Paradise

2007-03-07T00:46:00.000-08:00

Gazing out the window on the short ride from the airport to my guest house in Nadi, I could see
the tropical beauty for which Fiji is so famous. In the distance were the great green peaks of the rugged interior and along the road were brightly colored homes on small plots with palm trees, and hibiscus and frangipani flowers blooming in their tiny yards. It was the spitting image of a holiday in paradise brochure. On the radio however, it was a different story. As my taxi driver and I careened around one beautiful vista after another, we listened in silence as a newscaster launched into a scathing rant about the inefficiency and negligence of the current interim government. For from without bias, it was absolutely merciless. It seemed that mud-slides during the recent rain had destroyed a number of villages on the north side of the main island, one of which had not received aid in three days. The newscaster made it abundantly clear that the blame was squarely on the incompetency of the current regime. After a good deal of this I turned to the driver and said something of the effect of "wow, that guy really has it in for the government" to which he replied, "yes, but of course here in Fiji we have a radio station for every persuasion."

He turned the dial, and after a few commercials, but right on cue, another newscast was releasing a statement that made it clear that the stranded village was a result of the previous regime's failure to modernize agriculture in the sector, and that the situation was further evidence of the type of mismanagement that made its removal necessary. It went on to describe the improvements that the current regime had already begun to implement in order to rectify the failures of their predecessors.

Not the kind of politicizing you would expect such a beautiful place to produce, but there was no chance that these mud-slides and the havoc that they the reeked could be left to blame on the rain alone.

In fact Fiji is no stranger to political instability - four coups in just 15 years have left their mark. The first took place at 10am on Thursday, May 14th, 1987, when Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka (number three in the Fijian army), and 10 heavily armed soldiers dressed in fatigues, their faces covered in gas masks, entered the House of Parliament in Suva and forced the legislators inside to board army trucks at gunpoint. The resulting chaos has been a severe blow to the islands' economy and strained race relations in an ethnically divided society. Like most current events these coups have their origins in much more distant historical happenings.

Much of the political instability in Fiji has its routes in the ethnic tensions that exist there, and the foundations of a multiracial Fiji were laid in the late 19th century, when Fiji was a British colony. The first colonial governor of Fiji, Sir Arthur Gordon, introduced Indian indentured laborers to work on sugar cane plantations. Indians began arriving in 1879, and by 1916, when Indian immigration ended, there were already 63,000.

To come to Fiji, the Indians had to sign a labor contract or girmit, in which they agreed to cut sugarcane for their masters for five years. During the next five years they were to continue to work on the plantation, but they were allowed to lease small plots from the Fijians and plant their own cane or raise livestock. More than half of the Indians decided to remain after their contracts expired, and today their descendants make up the Indo-Fijian segment of Fiji's population.

In a rare example of good natured concern for its native subjects, the British decided to safeguard Fijian culture by prohibiting indigenous Fijians from commercial employment and protecting their land by law. The result was that Fijian land cold not be sold, only leased. To this day 83% of the land in Fiji is inalienable native Fijian land which can not be sold. Instead it is leased out in small plots, mostly to Indians. The effect has been that the Fijian chiefdom system has been largely maintained and the traditional Fijian way of life can still be seen throughout most of Fiji.

But this system, with its European capital, Fijian land, and Indian labor, has had its consequences. Fijian's have had little motivation to modernize, accumulate capitol, or invest in business. Instead they have been content to sit back and collect off of leased land. Indo-Fijians however, unable to purchase native protected land, have invested in their own businesses. Today it is estimated that less than 100 of the 5,000 businesses operating in

Fiji

are native Fijian owned. By 1946 the census held that Indians had already outnumbered native Fijians 120,000 to 17,000. Add to this the fact that Indo-Fijians pay nearly 80% of all taxes collected in Fiji, and their cries for equivalent political representation becomes obvious. Yet, the constitution has explicitly reserved the post of president, prime minister, and army chief for ethnic Fijians.

Prominent Fijian nationalists insist that Indo-Fijians must content themselves to be second-class citizens, or at least let indigenous Fijians run the country. They claim political leadership as a birthright by virtue of their status as the indigenous people of the country. They claim that any government in Fiji must legally safeguard native Fijian's position as the "taukei ne gele" or "owners of the soil." Even prior to the first coup in Fiji, at a rally protesting increased Indian participation in government, Apisai Tora, a prominent Fijian Nationalists, stated that Fijians must "act now" to avoid ending up as "deprived as Australia's aborigines."

It is an interesting historical and moral dilemma in Fiji. On the one hand you have an indigenous peoples' struggle to maintain sovereignty over their land. On the other hand you have victims of a racially discriminatory system, who, if left to legitimate representative democracy, could only expect to play a significant political role in the society.

The Final Cut

2007-02-15T07:42:00.001-08:00

During the first leg of my trip I shot over thirteen hours of footage. It's been among my most safeguarded possessions during my travels and has managed to survive at the bottom of my backpack in these special water-proof cases. For the brief time I have been home between legs of my trip I decided to set myself to the task of turning these tapes into something I can use in my classroom. Just labeling and cataloging it all took days. A lot of it I took with the intention of using it to illustrate specific historical events. It's from the inside of museums which allowed me to film in them, and from major historical sites like the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and the Eiffel Tower. With a little editing these segments will help me tell their stories to my students.
Other footage that I took is more random and does not fit so obviously into any single historical topic. I tried to make a habit out of taking out the camera every time I saw something that I thought my students might find interesting. The result is thousands of clips that provide small glimpses of every day life in the various countries I visited. Some of this turns out to be the most interesting stuff in my opinion. It has the potential to give my students a sense of the things that aren't noteworthy enough to make it into a chapter in their text book, but that illustrate the material and cultural differences that exist in their world. Through this footage I can take my students on a walk through the narrow alleys of Cairo, into a bustling train station in India, and on to an orphanage in Rwanda. Having shot the footage myself, I can answer any question they have about what they are seeing. Suddenly my students can feel they have interacted with parts of the world that they had not before. I place a lot of value on this kind of experience in the classroom. At a time when our actions and decisions are increasingly felt by people on the other side of the planet, I think it's essential that a world history course introduces students to what life is like for others around the world. It has certainly been my experience that it is harder to overlook world events that take place in parts of the world that I have been to. The old adage "out of sight, out of mind" has a flip side - once you have seen a place and interacted with its people it is hard to not care about them. A major goal for me is to try to use this footage to extend this sense to my students.

To edit I use a software called Final Cut Express HD. Basically the interface has four main windows: the Browser, where the original source media files that you capture from your camera are listed; the Viewer, where individual media files can be previewed and trimmed; the Timeline, where media can be brought together into a sequence; and the Canvas, where the edited production in the timeline can be viewed. Then of course there are a variety of filters that give your footage different looks and transitions to help connect clips in a way that is easy for the viewer to follow. It might sound complicated, but within a few days of when I installed the program I had four short film segments that were in roughly finished form. It's a lot of fun.

Holy Sites of Jerusalem

2007-01-20T14:29:00.002-08:00

Discussing anything remotely connected to religion with students can be risky territory for a teacher to tread, but to avoid a subject for this reason has dangerous consequences. To teach a unit on conflicts in the Middle East and not include the religious significance that people have attached to specific sites within the region gives students an incomplete picture. My students come from different backgrounds - some are Christians, Jews and Muslims who have inherited their own cultural perspectives on middle eastern issues. Most don't feel any connection to the people or land involved, and seem frustrated by this lack of understanding. They hear people talk about "crisis" in the middle east and they see it constantly on the news. Without an understanding of it, I see students resigned to the assumption that people in the middle east are simply prone to fighting, that the situation is a "stupid mess". While in Jerusalem, I set out to take a tour of these sites and try a straightforward historical approach to the religious significance that people have attached to them. My goal was to make myself better prepared to answer my students' questions about "what all the fighting is about over there".

The Temple Mount ר הַבַּיִת‎ "Har haBáyit"

The Temple Mount is an area of only thirty-five acres in the southwest corner of the old City of Jerusalem, but it is arguably the most contested real estate on earth. It has been the epicenter of the Jewish religion for almost three thousand years. According to classical Jewish belief, the temples that have been built on this site have been the primary resting place of God's presence in the physical world. Today all that remains of these temples is the mount or raised platform on which they were been built. The First Temple constructed by the Jews in the 10th century B.C.E was destroyed in 587 B.C.E by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. The Second Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E By Titus of Rome. Lamenting the destruction of these temples is a central tenet of Judaism. According to Jewish scripture the mount is to be the site of the third and final temple, the rebuilding of which will signal the coming of the Messiah. Ever since the Second Temple's destruction, a prayer for the construction of the Third Temple has been a formal part of the thrice daily Jewish prayer services. Preventing Jews from carrying out the construction however, and a paramount source of contention between Jews and Muslims, is the existence of two of Islam's holiest structures that are built on top of the Temple Mount.

The Noble Sanctuary الحرم الشريف "Haram al-Sharif"
The same structure that is known as the Temple Mount by Jews is referred to by Muslims as "Haram al-Sharif" (The Noble Sanctuary). It is their third holiest site, proceeded in importance only by Mecca and Medina in modern Saudi Arabia. The primary reason for its significance to Muslims is the belief that Muhammad arrived here after a miraculous journey aboard the winged steed Buraq, and it was from this point that he ascended into heaven. For Muslims this is the place of Muhammad's last step in his religious journey before he met Allah and received the Islamic faith. Built on the site are two major Muslim religious shrines, "Qubbat as-Sakhra" قبة الصخرة (The Dome of the Rock) , and "Al-Aqsa Mosque" المسجد الأقصى (The Furthest Mosque).

The Dome of the Rock
The Dome of the Rock was built in 691 C.E. by Caliph Abd al-Malik, half a century after the death of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. It is the most visible structure in Jerusalem. It is not a mosque, but a shrine. Like the Ka'ba in Mecca, it is built over a sacred stone. This stone is believed to be the very place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven during his Night Journey to heaven. It is the oldest Muslim building which has survived intact in its original form. It also boasts the oldest surviving mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) in the world.

Adding to the tension, according to Judaism this same stone is the site where Abraham fulfilled God's test to see if he would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac (Muslims believe that this event involved Abraham's other son Ishmael and occurred in the desert of Mina where millions of Muslims offer pilgrimage every year). According to Jewish tradition, this was also the rock upon which the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the First Temple. During the existence of the Second Temple, the stone was used by High Priest who offered up incense and sprinkled the blood of sacrifices on it during the Yom Kippur Services. Rabbinic legend also alleges that the entire world was created from this stone, hence the name אבן השתייה, or Foundation Stone.

The Western Wall הכותל המערב "HaKotel HaMa'aravi"

A part of the Temple Mount known as the Western wall is regarded by many as the holiest location currently accessible to Jews. It is believed to be the last remnants of the fortifications of the second temple, and it is sometimes called "The Wailing wall", in reference to Jewish mourning over the destruction of their temple. Jewish men and women can be found praying at the wall at every hour of the day and night, though a "Mechitza," or divider, separates the men's section of the wall from the women's section. It is also a tradition to deposit a slip of paper with wishes or prayers on it into the cracks of the wall, and looking closely, one can see hundreds of tiny, folded papers left by visitors to the wall. Bar and Bat Mitzvahs are held here, and boys and girls of age travel from all over the world to have their ceremonies held by the Western Wall.

The Via Dolorosa
The Via Dolorosa (Latin for "way of grief") is traditionally believed to be the path that Jesus walked on the way to his Curcifixion. Along the path are nine of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which each mark a site where an event occur ed in the final hours of Jesus' suffering. The last five stations are inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. At each site there is a small church or shrine and some kind of depiction of the event that occurred, such where Jesus collapsed, where he met his mother, where his face was wiped, and where he was stripped of his clothing. The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make a spiritual pilgrimage of prayer to the chief scenes of Jesus' sufferings and death.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher:
A "sepulcher" is a burial tomb, and the Holy Sepulcher derives its name from the Christian belief that it is the place where Jesus was buried and resurrected. Control of the church itself is as contested as Christianity is divided. Three major Christian denominations; Greek Orthodox, Latin and Armenian, control their own coveted turf inside and manage the church by consensus. Upkeep of the structure has been neglected due in large part to disagreements between sects over who has jurisdiction over what portions of the church. For instance, the ladder that can be seen at the window over the main entrance has been there since 1852, and has not been moved because it was present when the status quo was officially established and to do so would require the consent of each denomination. Interestingly, worries about Christian rivalries run so deep that a Palestinian Muslim family has had custody of one of the most coveted portions of the church for centuries - the keys.

At the entrance to the church is the stone of Unction or of Anointing. It is a polished red stone about six meters long and one meter wide. According to tradition it was here that the body of Jesus was anointed and prepared for burial. Christian Pilgrims come from around the world to kneel and pray before the stone.

In the center of a large rotunda lies the empty tomb of Christ or The Edicule. It was built around the remains of the excavated cave that Jesus was believed to be set in before he was resurrected. The interior of the Edicule is lined with marble and decorated with pictures, hangings, lamps and candelabra, which are numerically divided between the different Christians sects that share its control. There is almost always a line of people waiting to enter the Edicule, and no more than four people can be admitted at one time.

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The tragedy is that these sites, revered for their connection to prophets of peace, have created such a volatile element in the situation in the Middle East. After conversations with people from various sides within Jerusalem, the one thing that was clear to me, was that an offense against one of these sights had the potential to cause an immediate full-scale war throughout the region. An indication of that potential can be seen by the reaction to Arial Sharon, the former prime minister of Israel's controversial actions on September 28, 2000. Accompanied by hundreds of soldiers, he made a walking tour of the Muslim controlled Noble Sanctuary. Palestinians perceived it as a threat to their holy sites and a confirmation of their fears that Israel intended to exert control over the entire Temple Mount. Days of rioting ensued, peace talks were disrupted, and violence spiraled into a full-scale intifada. It's one of history's great ironies that Jerusalem, which translates into "city of peace", has come to be trigger so much war and bloodshed.

Evidence of the conflict over these sites is everywhere, in spray paint on the walls and in the security present around each site.

The Militarization of Public Space

2007-01-09T08:10:00.000-08:00

For me, the most poignant indication that when I had entered Israel I had stepped into a society that perceived itself as under siege, was the teenage girls with machine guns. They're everywhere; waiting for the bus, in front of you at the check-out line, shopping at the mall. To me, they looked exactly like my students in every way; listening to their ipods, chewing gum, fussing over their hair - except these were teenage girls armed to the teeth, each one in uniform with a fully automatic machine gun slung over their shoulder. It drives home the the message - public space in Israel is militarized.

A few months before I arrived in Israel, Katushka rockets were raining into parts of the country on a daily basis. At the same time the Israeli Defense Force was busy with a bombing campaign that nearly leveled the entire infrastructure of its northern neighbor Lebanon. It was war, but it was also business as usual here. Within hours of Israel’s declaration of statehood in 1948, six nations declared war on it. A quick look at the modern nation of Israel's sixty years of history reveals varying degrees of armed conflict within its own borders, punctuated by periods of outright war with its surrounding neighbors.

It made me curious about the effects this constant state of heightened security had on "ordinary life" in Israel.

This was a display at an Israeli toy store. Further down the isle were the stuffed animals.

On the trail of the Mahatma

2006-12-11T01:53:00.000-08:00

I decided that beyond the larger context of studying the history of India's independence struggle, I would attempt to gain some insight into the life of its most central character - Mohandas K. Gandhi. I approached this goal in a variety of ways. I figured it would be important to let Gandhi tell his own story, so I decided to read his own book - Hind Swaraj or "Indian self rule". In it he defines the principles on which he founded his stratagey of Sattyagraha (non-violent non-cooperation). He explains the tactics he desired for Indians to deploy in their struggle for independence. He also explains how India's independence from Britian was dependent on the Indian people's ability to achieve self-sufficency and break their dependency on Brittish goods and obediance to Brittish laws. I believe that his writing is quite revolutionary for recognition of how Indian's own participation in the system constructed by Brittish rule prevented India's liberation and supported a political and economic systems that kept them enslaved. Reading his own words gave me a kind of insight into him that can not be duplicated by looking at other biographical works.

HISTORICAL SIGHTS
I also visited a number of sights in India that are historically significant to India's independence struggle and to Gandhi's life.

Gandhi's ashram: where he and his disciples planned their acts of resistance and from where he launched his historic Dandi Yatra or salt march; the event that signaled to many in India that Indians could break their domination by simply refusing to obey the injustices they saw in British laws.

I visited three Museums in Delhi, Ahmedebad and Mumbai that were dedicated to educating the public about Gandhi's life and works. In these museums I saw . Perhaps the most striking thing was the meager nature of his possession. The fact that someone could weild such power and influence over people, yet have sufficient self-control to limit their material wealth is incredible.

I also saw a number of sites that were connected to Gandhi's death. I saw the bullet that took his life, and the bloody cloth dodi that was the last article of clothing he wore(he hand-spun it himself of course). I visited a photo exhibit of the ceremonies of national mourning that took place after his death and I went to the site where that ceremony had its culmination and where he was cremated in front the perhaps millions of mourners.

I also visited a department store that was founded by Gandhi's followers and still attempts to adhere to Gandhi's philosophy in the conduct of all of its businiess transactions - a difficult thing to do and still compete in an economic system that favors profit motivated companies. In the process I'm sure I cemented my position in my history department as the resident "Gandhi-ophile"/dork, but having followed him around a bit and seen his belongings, where he lived, and the sights that were significant to the events of his life, I think that I have become more prepared to share his story and reflec on its meaning with my students.

Freedom at Midnight: and the story of India's independence

2006-12-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

I am glad that while in the course of traveling through India I stumbled upon the book "Freedom at midnight" co-authored by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins. Reading into their nearly hour-by-hour account of every major and minor event that made India's independence possible, while at the same time traveling within the society that is in large part a result of those events has been a unique way to gain perspective on what is in many ways the most remarkable independence struggle in history. The book is a worthy companion to anyone who is trying to understand the historically strange story of how the people of India gained their independence.

What makes India's eventual defeat of British rule in India so unlike many similar stories of struggle between colonizer and colonized people throughout history is of course the role that non-violent non-cooperation played in it. The thought that one can actually put an end to one's oppression by using methods that demonstrate to one's oppressor that they are unjustly causing suffering, and that this alone could be effective, is a notion that should not be overlooked by anyone proposing to teach valuable lessons in social studies. In no other event in history were as many individuals working with peaceful methods and in unity towards the overthrow of violent domination and oppression. the scale at which it was attempted in India and the variety of tactics which were developed there to achieve it, make the study of India's independence important for every society. As a model it provides an entirely different set of tools for creating positive change. Those strategies are practical for any institution or individual who is inclined to make something which they believe is "bad", be "good", and do so without being what they consider "bad" themselves. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the history of India's non-violent revolution is - that it worked.

"Freedom at Midnight" tells this story with such attention to detail that it reads like a drama unfolding. These two authors have created a portrayal of this revolutionary event that includes the perspective of every angle, not just the major players.

Getting Around

2006-11-08T21:31:00.000-08:00

Just crossing the street in India can be a challenging activity, especially when you're not familiar with its pace and etiquette. It can have a daunting look, with its constant flow of rickshaws, whole families piled on top of scooters, camel drawn carts, buses bulging at the seems, and of course a tranquil Hindu cow meandering through the traffic. Just when you think you know what to expect, a nine-year-old boy manages to drive his herd of forty goats straight down one of the busiest streets of the center of Calcutta, changing everything. I don't know what academic value there is to it, but I wanted to dedicate some space to a description of some of the more interesting ways of getting around in India.

AUTO-RICKSHAW

First, and perhaps a personal favorite, is the auto-rickshaw. It is the way to do local transport in India. If they were street legal back home I would import a fleet of them. Like little black and yellow beetles they whiz around on three wheels, turning on a dime. Powered by a two-stroke moped engine, they scoot through the chaos of Indian traffic, emitting there constant high pitched honk. The horn is used in India as part of a complex alert system that allows other drivers to know where everybody is at all times without anyone having to turn their head - or maybe they just really like it. When you get inside see if you can tell how the driver operates the brakes, the gas and changes gears all at once. A thirty minute ride should be about forty rupees (a little less than an American dollar).

CYCLE-RICKSHAW

A cycle-rickshaw is also an option in most of India, although it can be a slightly uncomfortable thing when you find yourself behind an elderly man straining to peddle you through the choking smog of India's streets. Almost all cycle-rickshaws are not owned by their drivers, but are rented out by the day from a larger company. They offer a great pace to tour an Indian city by, and I have sometimes arranged to stick with the same driver for a whole day of sight-seeing. On one occasion I had a driver let me take him for a spin and it was hard going, with only one gear. I can only imagine what it is like when you're hauling a whole family around back there, as they often are.

HAND-RICKSHAW

Last in the rickshaw family is the hand rickshaw, or jin riki sha in Japanese, literally meaning "man-powered vehicle". It was designed in about 1870 in Japan, and it soon spread throughout the colonial networks which were in Asia at that time. It is a light wooden cart with large diameter wheels, generally also in wood, drawn by a man running between two long shafts that project in front. Insofar as it required only one man to pull another, it was at the time an "advance" over previously available vehicles.

Today they are banned almost everywhere in the world, and the last sizable fleet

of hand rickshaws can only be found in Calcutta, where the rickshaw wallah union has resisted prohibition. In 1992, it was estimated that over 30,000 rickshaws were operating in the city, all but 6,000 of them illegally, or lacking a license. The large majority of rickshaw wallahs rent their rickshaws for a few hundred rupees per shift, so if they seem desperate for business it is because if they don't get enough customers it comes out of their pocket.

I saw hand-rickshaws when I was in Calcutta when the monsoon had first struck the city. No one was happier to see the rains come than them. Within days the street are flooded waist deep and hand-rickshaws become the only means of transportation capable of navigating much of the city.

BUS

You could take a bus, if you're crazy. Perhaps the most comfortable area inside is the small compartment for the driver which has seating for around five. The only drawback is your bird's-eye view of the near misses and potential head on collisions. And of course the blearing Indian duets that are blasted over the radio in an attempt to keep the driver awake.

Train
Indian trains are in a category of their own when it comes to travel in India. The Indian Railway System is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, and it is also the world's largest commercial employer, with more than 1.6 million employees. It manages to transport over six billion passengers a year - that's roughly the equivalent of the entire population of the planet. Then there is the almost 750 million tons of freight moved along it tracks a year. It's pretty amazing that it call comes together and for the most part works.

There is nothing quite like sitting by the open door of an Indian sleeper train and watching the countryside roll by. For three or four dollars you can take a train from one side of India to the other. It may take a few days to get there, but you may find that the trip there is as much fun as wherever it is you are going. Food and beverages are available at every stop, you just have to listen for the call of the different vendors who call out their trade along the tracks when you pull into the station. When you come to complete stop they'll streaming down the eisle and coming up to the windows. I recomend the tiny packages of biscuits, the somosas, and if you're feeling crazy the fresh fruit.

When it's time to sleep the back of the bottom bench smartly folds up to form the middle berth, and what was your little living room suddenly becomes sleeping for eight , although that's just an estimate. Depending on the diligence of the TTE (traveling ticket inspector) you could have any number of people sleeping in your compartment during the night. I recommend the upper berths as you can turn in early or sleep in late at your leisure. There are three little fans that operate from a switch down below. Bring a little blanket to use as a sheet or to cover you if it's somewhere cold. Don't worry, the gentle sway of the train, the long fading whistle, and the click-clack of the wheels clamoring down the track, conspire to form a rhythmic symphony that lulls you into a dreamy sleep. Don't be surprised when a group of traveling musicians wake you from your slumber - when you pay them they'll go away. In the morning you wake to the sing-song voice of the chai wallahs making their rounds, "Chai, Chai, Chai....". The train pulls into a tiny little village station and you catch a glimpse of the India between its cities; a place where the pace has changed little for thousands of years. Village women dressed in saris of every color and laden with jewelry from head to toe scramble on with their goods to bring to the market in the next village. There is never a dull moment.

The train is also the place to experience the remarkable generosity of Indian people. More than once I have had the happy chance to share my compartment with an Indian family that takes out their little tin lunch-box containing the food for their journey, and insists that I get my share and give everything a try. It is a great opportunity to get your questions answered about Indian history, the caste system, arranged marriages, religion, philosophy or anything else you are curious about. Don't worry, they'll have plenty of questions for you too.

This is the toilet on the train, don't use it when you're at the station because it's just a hole that leads down to the tracks below.

Getting your ticket

Getting a ticket for an Indian train is something that takes some getting used to. To prevent being cut, Indians que up without an inch to spare between them - don't be surprised if someone has a little lean on you or drapes their arm over your shoulder. Personal space has an entirely different definition here. At the front of the line there is a bottleneck of Indians trying get a hand into the tiny hole through which you are supposed to speak to the reservationist. If you're lucky enough to make it up to the reservation's he will give you about twelve seconds to make sense to him, if you don't it's on to the next person begging for his attention. In some stations there is a separate window for "freedom fighters" and "foreign tourists," so if you fit into either of those categories you could save some time, unless you are uncomfortable accepting special treatment when there are so many other who have to wait.

There are cars with a number of different classes in an Indian train. What was called "3rd class unreserved" when I was in India last, is now euphemistically called "general seating". It consists of wooden seats in rows. General seating cars are always the first and last on an Indian train and it can be a real battle just to get on board. Once inside it is perfectly possible for there to be absolutely no place for you to sit or lay down even if it is an overnight train. In my experience once you make it clear that you intend to stay, someone finds some space for you somewhere. Once settled people are remarkably tolerant of one another considering the conditions they are forced to share and if it's good enough for the mahatma, who always rode third class, it's good enough for me.

The Pushkar Camel Fair

2006-11-03T03:13:00.000-08:00

Although it meant a slight detour, when I heard that the Pushkar camel fair was going to be held while I was in India I could not resist. Pushkar is a natural spring oasis in the middle of the desert. It is actually one of the oldest sites referenced in any of India's ancient texts. Hindus believe that when Brahma, the creator of the universe (one of the three main gods among millions), realized that all the other major deities had earthly homes while he did not, he chose the middle of the desert for his. He dropped a lotus flower and there sprung up the sacred lake.

Whatever the case may be, it is a pretty spectacular place - picture a near perfectly circular lake, surrounded by 52 ghats (steps leading into the water), surrounded by over a hundred individual temples. During the religious ceremonies that coincide with the camel fair the lake is strewn with flowers and floating candles., and thousands of pilgrims come from all over India. I've been here three days now, and the chanting that comes from the temples that ring the lake, has not stopped, day or night. It apparently culminates on the fifth and final day, when the full moon is directly over the water, the chanting reaches its height and all of the Hindus wade into the water and believe that they are purged of all negative karma. The event is also a pilgrimage for sadhus (Indians who have renounced all worldly possessions), so everywhere there are these emaciated old guys with saffron robes, long white beards, and dreadlocks.

While all this religious action is taking place around the lake, in the desert dunes surrounding pushkar the camel fair is taking place. Semi-nomadic camel drivers from all over Rajasthan are camped out for miles. I've been going for walks out there among their little camps. During the day they converge around a big ring where there are all kinds of competitions - camel racing, horse dancing, ,snake charming, tight-rope acts, a mustache competition, a family of albino acrobats (not kidding), and every other imaginable form of entertainment. At night they each sit around their own little fire and the desert looks as though some medieval army is camped out.

Same, Same, But Different

2006-10-25T06:01:00.001-07:00

In India there is a wonderful litany of uniquely Indian phrases that are floating around the subcontinent that are in the English language but entirely indigenous in origins. A foreign traveler encounters them so many times that they become an almost constant soundtrack that follows them everywhere they go. Among them is the ubiquitous "Yes friend hello, for you I make good price" and the indefatigable "Looking is free, come look my shop". One phrase however has become my favorite, not so much due to its use by Indian vendors in their attempts to push their goods, but because it is an equally appropriate description of how nearly everything in India can appear to those unfamiliar with it. The phrase is "same, same, but different" and it is best explained through examples.

Take the foreigner's first trip to the bathroom in India - always an awkward and baffling learning experience. As often as not, one finds a simple hole in the floor, but in more posh facilities they may be treated to a raised platform with two footpads, a faucet, a small pale, and a vessel the size and shape of a measuring cup. Without being too graphic, it is enough to say that the sequence that properly follows is far from intuitive, and it is really necessary to be instructed on how to carry out even this most basic bodily function in India. For those accustomed to toilet paper (something that most Indians find unsanitary) the options are limited in India by the fact that almost nowhere is there the plumbing to handle this kind of waist. Even though the toilet in this picture has a basin allowing it to flush, it still has the equipment to be used Indian style.

Then of course there are the accompanying cultural norms which have come as a consequence of Indian toilet habits, including the strict division between what one does with their left and their right hand, which the failure to observe can result in embarrassment if not illness. For instance, a very orthodox Indian considers his navel the ultimate divider and restricts every action above it to his right hand and every action below it to his left.

Sitting down to eat is no more familiar an experience than using the toilet for a foreigner in India. With no fork and no knife you are on your own when the food arrives. Easy enough if you're enjoying a hamburger, but a different matter when, like most food in India, your meal has the consistency of baby food. Watch those around you, as there is a whole art to be learned before you can turn your hand into the utensil that Indians do. It is not easy at first, but it is all worth it as the Indian food has more flavors to it than any other food that I have tried.

One might guess that physical gestures would be the earliest form of communication to develop, and hence somehow provide some common ground on which to communicate between cultures; not so in India. Ask a 'yes or no question' in India and be prepared for one of the most baffling gesticular displays imaginable - the Indian nod. With their neck slightly tilted, there is a kind of wobble of the head, often with a brief close of the eyes. It's almost a perfect mixture of what would indicate yes and no in the West, suggesting a disappointing "maybe". However, without any difference perceptible to the unaccustomed eye it is capable of meaning "yes", "no" and "I understand". If I've painted a rather crazy picture of it, it is only because to me it remains pretty unintelligible, but to them of course it is a perfectly clear form of communication.

I guess my point is that different people have developed different solutions to the same challenges which life has provided us all with. Experiencing different cultures shows us the variety of ways in which we have met those challenges, but also shows us our similarities. We have colors that are associated with the sexes and so do they, there's just aren't pink and blue. We wave ways to indicate our marital status and so do they, there's just isn't a wedding ring. In the same way that a fish comes to understand water in a new way when it is taken out and allowed to flop around on the ground, immersing one's self in another culture helps us to see what makes us the same and different.

Environmental Determinism: A different look at the Rwandan Genocide

2006-10-16T00:45:00.000-07:00

In the chapter devoted to Rwanda in Jared Diamond's book Collapse, he explores the possibility that the tragic events that unfolded there could have been a result of over-population. His conclusion is that a basic competition for resources was among the major contributing factors in the genocide, and he sees in Rwanda a caution of what can happen when no preventative measures are taken to manage population growth. To aid him in the case Diamond calls upon Thomas Malthus, the 18th century economist whose observations led him to believe that human populations have the tendency to grow beyond the carrying capacity of their resources, at which point they are checked by either famine, disease, or war.

Diamond has no trouble qualifying Rwanda as a nation straining under the burden of its population; one with a population density even higher than developed nations, but completely lacking the import and highly mechanized farming that makes those nations sustainable, a place where farming is done by hand, with hoe, pick and machete, and each subsequent generation is allotted an increasingly small tract of land from which to eke out their existence. The undeniable picture is one of a country with too many people and too little land. The question is to what degree did these environmental pressures act as the underlying motives for the feelings of ethnic hatred that culminated in acts of genocide? For Diamond, the evidence is in, and Rwanda is a distressing model of what Malthus's worst-case scenario might look like; one in which population pressure reaches a breaking point, and manifests into the type of hatred that justifies humans wiping out other humans. If we agree to follow, and accept his brand of environmental determinism, it leads us into a strange and uncomfortable territory, where perhaps our beliefs, and the historical events that are driven by them, are not as much a product of our rational consideration as we would like.

Hutus Tutsis; Us and Them

2006-10-16T00:26:00.000-07:00

When the tragic news of what was happening in Rwanda began to reach the outside world it seems that to many it was just more bad news from a continent from which they had come to expect nothing but bad news. I get a good sense of what our impression of Africa is in the west, when I ask my students to list ten things that they can remember seeing in the news that related to Africa. Most can't list ten, but almost without exception everything that they do list fits neatly into one of the following categories - War, disease, famine, corruption, political instability and poverty. Placed together on a chalkboard they paint a pretty grim portrait of the continent, but perhaps scarier is what happens if I ask my students why these types of things seem to happen so often in Africa. They are at a total loss, and not having any historical explanation they stray into the dangerous territory of negative stereotypes. Words like "savage ' and "primitive" get used, and the general consensus is that Africa is "messed up".

Whether one decries the media for its superficial or unbalanced coverage, or one blames our schools for inadequately teaching Africa, the fact remains that for most Westerners, Africa is still in the dark, outside of their realm of understanding. In our minds dozens of sovereign countries are reduced to homogeneous "Africans," interchangeable parts from Cape to Cairo. Africa is pictured as a backward economic and political failure in need of our help, and Africans are seen as culturally monolithic, yet somehow bent on something called "tribal violence". How many Americans think that Africa is in fact one country? As far as many are concerned, even if they know it is not, it might as well be. Then terrible events like what happened in Rwanda occur, and they are viewed through the prism of these stereotypes rather than with the necessary historical context. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that when we dig a little deeper it seems like so many "African" problems have their roots closer to home.

The Colonial Legacy
Unlike most African states, Rwanda was not given artificial borders by their colonizers, it had been an established kingdom for many centuries. Because of its geographic isolation Rwanda was among the last regions of Africa to come under actual European influence, however when its time came it was at the strategic junction of three competing empires. Belgian's King Leopold II, who's personal acquisition of the Congo Free State had sparked the scramble for Africa, wanted the region for it's access to Lake Victoria and its link to Africa's east coast. Germany wanted the area to solidify its mittelafrika, or German central African empire. The British saw the territory as a necessary link in its dreamt of cape-to-Cairo railroad, essential in uniting British possession in the north and south of Africa. At the Berlin Conference of 1885, the fatefully meeting in which much of Africa's borders were haggled out, Rwanda was assigned to Germany as part of German East Africa (although at that stage no European had ever set foot within its borders).

When Germans finally did explore their new possession, they were surprised to find that their new colony included a centralized administration under the leadership of the Mwami, a Tutsi king. Germany concluded that the easiest way to bring the region under their influence was to offer military assistance to this Tutsi king, along with encouragement for him to launch a series of attacks on nearby autonomous Hutu settlements. So, promoting aggression between these two groups was a part of the original colonial strategy in Rwanda.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, Hutus and Tutsis had occupied the same land for hundreds of years. Their main difference was that they held different economic roles, the Hutu being principally farmers, the Tutsi cow herders. The two groups had the same language, the same belief systems, they intermarried, and it was possible for one's identity to change from one group to the other during their lifetime.

The German tactic of divide and conquer was largely successful and territories that had not traditionally been, were consolidated under the Mwami's control. The German presence in Rwanda was short lived however, and during WWI their numbers were too few to prevent a Belgian takeover. Belgium followed the same pattern as Germany, using the tutsi aristocracy to administer the territory, but managed to increase their control by deposing the king, and putting his more manageable 18-year-old son on the thrown. Again, Rwanda's colonial rulers found it beneficial to create and exploit a divide between the Hutu and Tutsi populations. Schools were created through the subsidizing of missionary work, and were intended to create a class prepared to fill administrative positions - Tutsi only.

Perhaps the action with the most detrimental effect on Tutsi-Hutu relations, came in the 1930's with the Belgian effort to create a census of their colony and officially categorize the identities of the native inhabitants. Victims of this onslaught of calipers, measuring tapes, and scales were issued identity cards, and required to carry and be able to produce this mark of their ethnicity at all times. When, as often was the case, an individual's physical characteristics were not enough to determine their proper place, the Belgians simply counted those owning ten or more cattle as Tutsi. The result was the creation of a firmly entrenched ruling Tutsi class, with an unequal access to education, wealth, and positions of power.
It is no surprise that when the wave of independence that swept Africa in the 1950's and 1960's reached Rwanda, the country emerged as a nation boiling over with internal conflict. The decades leading up to the genocide can be categorized as ones filled with either ethnic group fearing political domination by the other. At the time of the genocide Hutus had a narrow hold on power in Rwanda, but a Tutsi army lay just outside its borders desperate to reclaim the country. The Hutu extremists that escalated the ethnic hatred to its extreme, did so out of fear that they would again by dominated by a Tutsi elite. It is worth noting that the difference between the two groups was apparently enough to warrant the wholesale slaughter of one at the other's hands, yet was not enough for those wielding the machetes and the clubs to tell who was who without first looking at their identification cards (the same identification cards that had been in use since the Belgian era).

Of course underscoring the role that Rwanda's colonial legacy had in widening the divide between Hutus and Tutsis does not admonish any of the guilty parties that carried out the individual terrible acts that took place there, but it is a necessary part of the picture, and one that has it's parallels in other "African" problems. So, when we in the West view the bad news that comes out of Africa, it may appear far removed, a part of the dark happenings of the dark continent, but its roots may reach closer to home than can be seen from the surface. 'tribal conflicts' are not due to any African predisposition towards violence, but a result of separate cultural groups, having been thrown together by artificial borders made by far away men, with eyes on resources and no understanding of, or concern for, the welfare of native inhabitants. The 'political instability' that plagues African nations today is not as much a result of any innate inability to govern, but is the natural outcome of once separate groups, now forced to compete with one another for control of a system that must now somehow serve the interst of both groups.

Football with the orphans

2006-10-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most memorable experiences I had in Africa came by chance on a day without anything planned, when Simon and I decided to take a walk from the guest house we were staying in to a neighboring village. On a whim I decided to bring my camera along.

We had not taken ten steps up the road when the call "mazungo, mazungo" (white man) went out, and a steady stream of kids started pouring down to meet us. There was an orphanage that we had seen a ways up the hill, and I suspected that this accounted for the larger than normal number of kids hanging around, even by African standards. They were grubby little guys, with snot caked on their faces and not a pair of shoes between them, but their smiles were pure unadulterated joy. Some would run up purposefully and blurt "what is your country, what is your name?" then dart off once their English was exhausted. There was a lot of hand shaking and an almost endless round of introductions, then Simon and I started off again, but it was clear that our little entourage would be accompanying us.

As we walked along our little group snowballed into a sizable crowd, and we had a good laugh about the spontaneous parade we had somehow come to lead. After some time we came to a soccer field with some kids chasing a ball around. Everything came to a halt when we arrived, and kids keen on us playing were dragging us by the hand onto the field. I hadn't played soccer since playing soccer meant a swarm off kids in a clump around a ball kicking each other in the shins. These kids were something entirely different. They had serious footwork, and the game they played was graceful and moved with an incredible pace. Kids too small to play were on the sidelines practicing with a makeshift ball made from bundled plastic bags. Simon and I took turns playing while the other filmed. It was good fun. When one of them scored there was an immediate uproar. Kids jumped on top of each other and the place seemed to fall apart around us. When I made a sweet assist (which Simon neglected to catch on tape) there was a wild victory display - I guess it was the final point. I got caught up in it and it was all hi-fives from me for my team.

My video camera has a feature where you can spin the view screen around so that the footage can be displayed from the side. The screen was far to small for the mob of kids that were swarming around us to all see it once, so I had them line up on a dirt ledge by the edge of a field. When I got them settled, two rows deep and all squeezed in, I began to make slow passes with the camera letting them each get a little look. When the camera came by and they got a glimpse of themselves at play, a roar of excitement came out of that part of the line and kids crammed to fit in. It was an amazing feeling to be able to produce that much excitement. Their happiness was completely contagious. The screening of their little match created enough of a ruckus that soon a few farmers had come to see what all the commotion was, and they soon made up part of the line.

When the tape finished we made signs that we had to go, but the entire group decided they would walk us back. On the way two of the older kids told us that they had exams the following day, but had never seen the required book because they could not afford it. It sounded a little rehearsed and I was weary of a potential scam, but when we passed the little shack that was the school store it became more and more believable. Simon went in with the two of them, and they emerged, proudly displaying their new books, which they then clutched to themselves with a pathetic appreciation. These kids were ecstatic and they flipped through the pages with disbelief. I thought of the books my students leave sitting at the bottom of their lockers and the prodding that it requires to get them to look at them. I wondered what they would do if they could see these kids and the joy that a single book meant for them.

Arrived in Rwanda

2006-10-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

Me with the second best dressed kid in Africa

Just a short post to let people know that I have arrived safely in Rwanda. Believe it or not for a limited time only you can reach me here live thanks to these cellular pirates who unlocked my phone and put a bootleg sim chip in. Watching these guys at work is enough to fold up any stereotypical notions of African primitivism. Just dial 250 08807689. It's six hours earlier in the states.

Gorillas In Our Midst

2006-10-08T03:40:00.000-07:00

A visit to see the mountain gorillas is the reason why most tourists travel to Rwanda, and although I had come here to learn about the country's history and the chilling results of its colonial past, I could not resist the chance to see these remarkable animals in their natural setting. I should mention at this point that for this segment of my trip I have been joined by Simon, an old high school buddy of mine. With the exception of having a bladder the size of a nine year old girl he has proven to be an excellent travel companion. Best yet he came with a car, without which we would never have been able to cover so much of the country or reach such remote areas. To him I will always be indebted for the thrill of setting out by car through Africa.Rwanda is known by its native inhabitants as "the land of a thousand hills" and seen from the air it is a quiltwork of rolling hills as far as the eye can see - until you reach the West that is - there the Virungas, a massive chain of volcanoes dwarfs all else. Like jagged green pyramids they rise from the horizon with their peaks shrouded in mist almost constantly. Thier five major cones span the borders of three countries - Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are also the only place on earth where the mountain gorilla still exists in the wild.

The road up to the Virungas is really a rocky path between farms which in some places has waist-high ruts and soccer ball sized boulders which forces one to creep along at just a few kilometers per hour. As we scrambled up this track children came out of the woodwork to get to the side of the road in time to wave and scream out to our car. Many of them ran along side for as long as they could keep up. Some managed to thrust their crayon drawings of gorillas up to our windows as they ran, beaming with expectation. I could not resist, and not having any smaller notes was forced to buy the whole lot, making a few young artists very happy.

After some hours we reached the end of the road and were met by four armed guards. They would occompany us for our protection, "in case we meet the soldiers from the Congo," our guide explained. We were each issued a carved walking stick and then we marched off, two soldiers in front two in back, single file.

Being the most densely populated country in Africa, no inch of soil goes to waste in Rwanda. The base of the Virungas is no exception, and the beginning of our trek brought us through neatly terraced farm land. Because of its volcanic history, the soil here is dark and moist, entirely unlike the rest of Rwanda which is rather red and dry. We made our way through rows of potatoes and fields of permethrine - a plant used to create insecticide. Women working the fields stopped like statues and pivoted with their loads balanced on their heads to watch us as we passed by. We eventually reached a wall made of piled stones which marked the division of the cultivated land from the edge of the forest, and protected each from the other. Our guide stopped us here while he explained what we could expect once in the presence of the gorillas. We listened as he struggled to find the words in English to prepare us, often resorting to acting it out.

A low guttural sound almost like a belch would signal that the gorillas were comfortable, "like the cat's purr," he said. That sounded good. If they were agitated we would know it from the silverback, the patriarch of the entire gorilla group. First he would rise to full height and beat his chest, creating a pock-pock sound that could be heard from a great distance. Barks of annoyance would be followed by an explosive roar and a shrill scream and the bearing of his teeth. At this point we were all to assume the most submissive posture imaginable and under no circumstances run. This would normally constitute the end of the silverback's highly ritualized form of intimidation. If however, he felt his supremacy was not yet accepted widely enough, he would begin to pound the ground before him with both hands. This would signal that he was about to charge. There wasn't a lot of good that running would do at that point. That seemed to suffice.

We scrambled over the wall and crossed into the forest on the other side. We followed a muddy path up the mountain left by wild buffaloes, at some points having to crawl through the vine-tangled network of tunnels that penetrated the thick jungle. Stinging nettles left their odd bite on any skin that happened brush against these strange plants. We trudged on for close to two hours until we reached a certain elevation and the forest changed. Now we could walk easily through open glades of thin bamboo trunks. A web of animal trails meandered through the toppled colums and luxh foliage above concealed the sun. I began to wonder how our giude had any idea which way we were going. After some time he seemed to have arrived at some point and he cracked on his walkie talkie and began to speak in Kinyarwandan. There was a pause, and then a voice replied. These were the trackers that actually spent the night on the mountain following the movements of the gorillas. They were not far. We reached them in a clearing. They looked like part of the forest with their green uniforms, rubber boots and machatees.

The gorillas were very near now and we followed one of the trackers through the thick vegitation. Without warning, one of the trackers pulled back a layer of branches to reveal a hulking mass of black and silver fur. "Holy shit - it's a fucking gorilla," I think was my exact thought to be honest (any student of mine that should stumble upon this site - note that I did not say this out loud). Despite the morning's anticipation I found myself entirely unprepared for actually seeing a gorilla up close. But there it was, sprawled out right in front of me, massive. We were much closer than I had ever imagined, just a few feet away from him. It was the silverback of course, and there was more muscle in his head than in my entire body. He was laying on his side with his arm tucked under his head like a pillow. His eyes were groggy but they were open. I half expected him to have the jerky mechanical motions of an animated puppet from a them park ride, but he was real all right. He reached down to scratch the top of his foot and then raised his arm back to rest on the top of his head. Then he sat up, smacked his lips a bit, and had a look around. He looked sort of like a host who was slightly embarrassed that his guests had arrived and caught him in a nap.
We cowered in front of him, but he didn't seem the least bit disturbed. Most of all he seemed remarkably human and alien at the same time. His every little movement struck me as oddly familier. Here was this strange thing that spoke the same body language as us. When I collected myself enough to give him a good look I discovered the most incredible thing - when you stare into a gorilla's eyes, they stare right back. There was an undeniable recognition there - something not present in other animals. I had no problem understanding what it was that kept the famous primatologist Dianne Fossey compelled to stay among them as long as she did. Then there was the gorillas incredible acceptance of us. He could have run away as easily as he could rip my arms off, yet instead he tolerated our presense. I couldn't help thinking that if the mountain gorilla had the demeanor of another animal, or a human for that matter, this tranquil encounter could never be possible.

Under the careful watch of the silverback the rest of the group slowly made themselves seen. Directly behind him was a mother nursing a baby that peered out from her arms. Two other adult females lay off to one side with their heads propped up by a hand under their chins, starring. In the brush two adolescents tustled. We crouched in silence marveling at the family scene in front of us. Another adult male came into view and sat down right in front of us. It's left wrist stopped at a stub and our guide whispered that as a baby it had lost its hand in a poacher's snare. 'When this happens the silverback has no choice but to tear the hand off', he explained. I looked at the animal quitely eating in front of me, and thought about the strength and the pain involved in the events our guide explained. It made me think about all the bad things that go on down in the valley below and I felt as humble as if I had done it all myself.

Our guide broke the silence to tell us that we had five minutes left and that if we were to stay any longer it might stress the gorillas. Visitors are only permitted one hour among the gorillas and it passes quickly. Not wanting it to end, I placed my outstretched hand open on the ground next to me. I thought to draw back, but I had already sparked their curiosity. The two adolescents who had been sitting off a little distance cautiously made their way over to me. I tried not to move. together they leaned in to to give my hand a sniff.

Life in the Kingdom

2006-10-06T02:25:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that Swaziland is a Kingdom - Swaziland has been a monarchy ever since the Nguni people entered the territory where they lived under the leadership of Dlamini I. Today Dlamini remains the surname of the royal family, although I met Swazi citizens with the last name Dlamini that were not of royal blood. The country and people derive their name from a later king, Mswati I, who reigned during the mid 19th century.

The monarchy is dual, with the King or Ngwenyama (lion) ruling along with the Queen Mother or Ndlovukazi (she- elephant). The Queen Mother may be the King's natural mother which is presently the case or, on her death, a senior wife. The rules of succession are guarded secrets, but it is generally known that the king must be the only child of his mother and unmarried. Hence, the Swazi kings are always young men when they come to the throne.

The monarchy has endured throughout Swaziland's history. Even when Swaziland became a protectorate, when British colonial rule was established in 1903, the Monarchy was left intact. The British found it easier to rule indirectly through the existing power structure. They were interested in control of Swaziland’s resources, not the administration of its domestic affairs. As a result a trip to Swaziland is an exposure to a far more traditional Africa than say South Africa with its history of Settler rule.

The present monarch, King Mswati III ascended the throne in 1986 at the age of 18. He is regarded as the mouth-piece of his people and is described as umlomo longacali manga (the mouth that tells no lies). I heard one story in which the late king had said in a speech to his people that they must “open their ears”. The devoted population took his expression literally, and promptly set about having their ears pierced - a practice that had not previously existed in Swaziland.

With this kind of unqualified clout, imagine what he could do if the current king were to direct his influence towards Swaziland’s most pressing national crisis - the spread of HIV. He does not. Swaziland has just recently surpassed Burundi as the country with the highest percentage of HIV positive citizens in the world. The epidemic is confounded by a host of superstitious ideas, including the widespread belief that one can cure oneself from AIDS by having sex with a virgin.

King Mswati has made no public announcement or policy regarding HIV in the six years since he conceded publicly that it was a “disease”. Since then he has consistently ignored the issue, even redirecting foreign aid to finance the construction of another royal palace. What little assistance Swazis with HIV do get is provided by foreign aid and volunteers like Norman. With political parties banned and freedom of the press non-existent it seems unlikely that change will come soon.

King Mswati currently has fourteen wives as well as an extremely active extramarital life. In a country where 39% of the population is HIV positive it is more than likely that he will fall victim to his own refusal to face the problem that plagues his people. In fact speculations already abound, as in the very few recent photos of the king made public, it appears that he’s gained some substantial weight - a common symptom of the retro-virus used to treat AIDS patients.

My short visit to the Kingdom was enough experience with the monarchical system for me. The whole situation is sure to appear in the case for the merits of representative government in my classroom in the future.

Swaziland

2006-10-06T01:41:00.000-07:00

Back at the Backpacker Ritz I met an aid worker named Norman. He was at the end of a two year stint at an orphanage for children with HIV in the Kingdom of Swaziland. He and Tony, a Nigerian with a degree in micro-biology, had come to Johannesburg to do some shopping. Tony hadn’t been able to find work at home so he took a job teaching science in a remote village in Swaziland. I talked about an interest in seeing some of rural Africa and visiting a school. They were heading back in the morning and were happy to give me a lift. The next day we were off, driving in Norman’s mini-van across the border and into Swaziland. The trip took about five hours. I spent the first night in Manzini, the largest city in the tiny Kingdom of Swaziland. I slept in one of the empty volunteer’s quarters.

The following day Norman dropped Tony and I off at the bus terminal to catch a bus to Toney’s village. It was there in the dusty crowded Manzini bus lot that I had perhaps my most important moment in Africa. Norman’s departure made me suddenly aware that I was the only white person there. It was five o’clock. The place was packed. Radios bleared, horns honked, drivers shouted out there destinations. People held things out to me as they passed by trying to get me to buy them. Everyone was moving. Everywhere I looked there was a sea of black faces, and it seemed as though every single one was staring right back at me. It was the fact that I drew so much attention that made me begin to feel so acutely uncomfortable. It hit me. I’ve only known Tony for twenty-four hours. We could barely communicate. Now I was in the middle of a country I had barely heard of. I hardly knew where I was, let alone where I was going. Paranoia took hold of me. I tried to stay as close to Tony as I could as he maneuvered through the throngs of people to find the right bus. The scene was chaotic. I clutched my things. My eyes darted everywhere. I was resolved to see the danger that seemed inevitable before it struck.

Tony had me stand and wait while he went off to find a bus that still had seats. I watched the back of his shirt disappear into the crowd. I was alone. I was surrounded. It was ten minutes; an eternity. I could see a guy eyeing me. I looked at him then looked away, but I could see that he was coming over to me. I braced myself. He stood right in front of me and pointed at my watch. I recoiled a bit. Then he pointed to his own bare wrist. My fear turned to embarrassment. All he wanted was the time. I told him it was a quarter past five. We smiled and then he turned and hopped on a bus. It was enough to totally disarm me. It was funny. When I looked at the masses swarming around me now I saw a lot of people going about their business, mostly tired people trying to get home. I had not been prepared for the fear that came over me. This same feeling compounded over time is probably what made the racist Afrikaans I had met a few nights earlier racist.

Tony and I boarded a bus. Everyone stared at me. I waved. The whole bus waved back. We went to his village. I slept on the floor next to him, his wife and their two week old daughter.

Tony had me take a family portrait in every article of clothing they owned. This is just one in a long series.

He was also very keen to show me off around his village. A lot of the little kids cried or ran when they saw me. Most were curious.

Soweto

2006-09-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

A visit to Soweto is an emotional roller coaster, however, being the most famous of the “townships” created by the Apartheid government to segregate its population, Soweto is a must see for anyone trying to understand this chapter of South Africa’s history. Its grid of indistinguishable drab box homes are a testament to what happens when a government has no concern for the welfare of a segment of its people. It is also here that the movement that would eventually dismantle that system first took root, and its people talk with pride about the part they played in its undoing.

I spoke with locals in a shebeen (township bar). One guy told me about how he and other youth organizers had to pretend that they were a swimming club and meet in secrecy at the pool. It was illegal for blacks to assemble in large groups under apartheid. He laughed about how it was sometimes difficult to take one another seriously while standing in their bathing suits. “Not one of us could swim” he said with another great laugh. Another middle-aged man told me emphatically, "none of this was here", gesturing to the things in front of us, "the roads, the cars, that gas station, that market, none of it was here - it was only dirt." The others at our table nodded, and I could see them envisioning the Soweto of their youth. This was perhaps the most tangible impression I had yet of what had changed since the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Indeed the signs of improvement were everywhere in Soweto. There were still “unofficial settlements” within Soweto – shanty towns of currigated iron and make shift fences that illustrated a poverty that could not be denied. But the signs of development were everywhere - electric lines and sewer systems being laid out. There was a huge hospital, the largest in the southern hemisphere. People owned cars. It was clear that with the restrictions of apartheid lifted the material things were trickling in.

An old coal burning plant that had been beautified

Me and "grandma"- she said she was 86 and had never had her picture taken.

The Lure of Gold

2006-09-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

While taking care of the necessary task of exchanging travelers checks I stumbled upon an unexpected record of the cities sorted past. During the banks construction, right in the center of downtown Johannesburg, workers uncovered a vast network of tunnels running underneath the city itself. Beneath the tellers and the ATMs there is now a section of one of these tunnels which has been preserved as an exhibit. From the impressive marble lobby you can get into an elevator and when the doors open you are in a 19th century mine shaft. Lit only by lanterns, an iron cart sits on a track leading down a tight crack in the rock and onwards into the darkness below. Even more revealing are the black and white photographs on display - pictures of the mine when it was operational, with half-naked sweating Africans starring back blankly at the camera, or captured in their brutal task of breaking up the rock. In many pictures they are hunched over in the cramped spaces with knees bare in the rocky rubble, gouging at the rock with simple hand tools. In most they are not the focal point, but in the background behind a bunch of hard looking white bosses posing for the camera. In these pictures the words of Alan Paton, South Africa's most famous author, can be seen to be true - "the wealth of South Africa’s gold mining industry is not so much do to the richness of gold as it is to the poorness of black wages."

Nowhere is the vastness of the mineral wealth which has been drained from the African continent more apparent than in Johannesburg. The native name for the city - “gauteng” means “city of gold”. Of the metal estimated to have been mined in the world to date, around half has come from Africa, and the bulk of that has been from the nation of South Africa. It has been and remains the world's largest producer of both gold and diamonds. Its landscape is still littered with man-made mountains of mine waste and the hulking machinery of depleted mine-shafts. The demands of the mining companies for a guaranteed supply of permanently cheap black unskilled labor led to the legalized framework of racial discrimination. The origins of apartheid lays in large part in the mines and the lure of gold.

At the beginning of 1886 the undistinguished stretch of Transvaal highveld that would become Johannesburg was nothing more than open plains and sparsely settled farmland. All that would change when George Harrison, an Australian prospector, stumbled on the only surface outcrop of the richest gold-bearing reef in the world. Within months droves of diggers descended on the site, and a tent city was erected. Because the gold was deep and in reef form, not the easily accessible alluvial form, mining required heavy equipment, so mines were quickly concentrated in the hands of men who had the capital to finance large underground operations. From there the city of Johannesburg sprung up and is today the largest economic hub in all of Africa.

Though their conditions have been much improved miners in South Africa still do not have a life to be envied. Most begin their day by climbing into the metal cages that will take them deep into the belly of the earth where they will spend there shift in one of the narrow shafts that run as deep as 10,000 feet (nearly 2 miles). At that depth the temperature of the surrounding rock reaches 130°and it is necessary to pump refrigerated air in constantly. During my stay in South Africa the newspapers were filled with coverage of the current mine workers strike.

Apartheid Laws

2006-09-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

What makes South Africa's apartheid era different than the segregation and racial hatred that has occurred in other countries is the systematic way in which it was formalized through law. I spent some time looking into the legislation that the National Party used in their attempt to engineer a society with different roles for people based on race. It’s pretty scary stuff.

The Population Registration Act classified people as Bantu (black Africans), colored (people of mixed race), white (the descendants of the Boers and the British), and Asian (Indian and Pakistani immigrants). Classification into these categories was based on appearance, social acceptance, and descent. For example, a white person was defined as “in appearance obviously a white person or generally accepted as a white person.” A person could not be considered white if one of his or her parents were non-white. The determination that a person was “obviously white” would take into account “his habits, education, and speech and deportment and demeanor.” The subjectivity of these qualifications left a lot of room for the discretion of the authorities, all of whom were of course white. Another common method was the “pencil test” in which the authorities would place a pencil in a person’s hair – if it stuck they were black, if it dropped they were not. The large number of reclassifications on record is an indication of how inaccurate the notion of “race” really is.

The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act Forced segregation in all public amenities, public buildings, and public transport with the aim of eliminating contact between whites and other races. "Europeans Only" and "Non-Europeans Only" signs were put up. The act stated that facilities provided for different races need not be equal.

The Group Areas Act established separate sections for each race. Members of other races were forbidden to live, work, or own land in areas belonging to other races. A part of this was the dreaded Pass Laws which required non-whites to carry a “pass” to prove they had permission to travel in white areas. Failure to produce a pass led to imprisonment.

The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act created several small “nations” within South Africa for black South Africans. All black South Africans, regardless of where they lived, were made citizens of their “homelands” and thus were excluded from participating in the governing of South Africa.

Bantu Education Act established a Black Education Department in the Department of Native Affairs which would compile a curriculum that suited the "nature and requirements of the black people". The author of the legislation, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd (then Minister of Native Affairs, later Prime Minister), stated that its aim was to prevent Africans from receiving an education that would lead them to aspire to positions they wouldn't be allowed to hold in society. How thoughtful! Instead Africans were to receive an education designed to provide them with skills to suit their own capacities or to work in laboring jobs under whites. In this way it was ensured that no African could exceed the low expectations that their racist government had for them. As a teacher I found this one particularly disgusting.

The full extent of the damage that the apartheid experiment has had on South Africa’s people cannot be told. It is amazing to think that this was the way of life here as recently as the early 90’s.

Joburg City Tour

2006-09-21T01:37:00.000-07:00

On the morning of my first day in South Africa I spoke to the owner of the hostel I was staying in about my project. He offered to introduce me to a driver who he believed would be able to help me gain access to some of the areas I was interested in. He made a phone call and an hour later I was greeted at the gate by Arnold, a soft spoken South African who shook my hand and asked me what I would like to see. We spoke for a while in the comfort of his decades-old Mercedes and then we sped off into the city.

Hillboro, our first destination, had once been a prosporous area, famous for its pubs and restaraunts. It still bosts ironic names such as Greenwich village and times square. It was now disidedly the most crime ridden of the slums of Johannesburg. Arnold assured me that our visit would be short and relatively safe. It was obvious when we had arrived. The streets were teeming with people. Many of the buildings were literally crumbling.

He brought the car to a brief stop to point out a group of kids that he said sniffed glue. I sat there feeling awkward starring at the desperate looking kids sitting on the curb just a few feet away. Looking dazed, they graually noticed me, and when we made eye contact it was obvious that my presence was as strange a thing for them as it was for me. Not knowing what else to do I gave a little wave which was returned before Arnold sped off. In this way we moved through the city streets, pausing only long enough for him to point something out and then driving off once I had been noticed.

Arnold turned out to be an excellent guide and readily offered an explanation for everything we saw. For instance, if a man has a bit of goatskin tied around his wrist or a number of small parallel scars on his cheeks he is a Zulu. A Nigerian coke dealer can apparently be identified by his long pointy shoes. He described how gangsters use heavier cars to crash into cash carrying vans causing them to flip over, and then saw off the roof, shoot those inside and make off with the cash. Much of what he said hinted at the tension that exists between black south Africans, as according to him different ethnic groups were responsible for the various problems that plague South Africa.

At one point we stopped and he directed me to look down an avenue to where a number of people could be seen standing around. "I would not take you down there" he said, "Someone would approach the car believing that we wanted drugs, and then we could get into trouble." I was glad that he didn't and happier still when he said that we were leaving Hillboro.

Our next stop was houghton, just on the other side of the hill that gives hillboro its name. It would only have been a ten minute walk, but my guess is that few ever do, in either direction. The Juxtuposition is staggering; suddenly we were on wide tree-lined streets, craning our necks to catch glimpses of the mansions that could be seen over the high walls that surrounded each property. We got out of the car and peered through some of the gates to see manicured gardens, swimming pools, tennis courts and other signs of wealth.

When I asked Arnold what kept the crime from Hillboro from spilling over into here, he replied that "those people could not come here, because they would be recognized at once as people who did not belong." It was pretty obvious what role race played in this. He pointed to a shed outside of the entrance to one of the homes. In it was a security guard sitting watching monitor screens. "That man would stop any man walking on the street who looked suspicious. If they were not able to provide proof of their business here, as well as the address of where they were going, they would not be allowed. When a crime is committed here, the response from the police is so rapid that few get more than a block before they are caught." Indeed every house had a call box, an electric fence, and a sign displaying the various security companies whose services the occupants employ.

Our final stop was a visit to the tallest building in Africa. For seven Rand we took the elevator to the "top of Africa" and took in the panaramic views of Johannesburg. Even from this elevation you could make out the patchwork of poverty and affluence from the greeness of the trees or the drab brown of different areas. At the city's edge ochre-colored mountain ranges were heaped here and there. "These are not mountains" Arnold said, "they are the excrement of the mines that are the foundation of this city."

Vaccinations & Travel Medications

2006-09-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

During this pre-trip preparation time I scheduled a visit with a physician who specialized in travel medicine. The following is a partial list of the diseases for which I recieved a vaccine or medication.

Diphtheria is an extremely contagious and life-threatening infection that usually attacks the throat and nose. It is contracted by breathing in bacteria after an infected person has coughed or sneezed or from close contact with discharges from an infected person's mouth, nose, throat, or skin. Early symptoms are a sore throat and mild fever, followed by the formation of a membrane over the throat and tonsils and which makes it hard to swallow or breath. If not treated, the bacteria will release a powerful toxin into the blood stream that damages the heart muscles and causes heart failure or paralysis of the breathing muscles.

Hepatitis A & B are both viruses that attack the liver. Hepatitis B, the more serious of the two, causes lifelong infection, cirrhosis of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. Both are contracted through the transmission of blood.

Japanese encephalitis is a virus contracted from a mosquito which has bitten an infected domestic pig or wild bird. Symptoms include; fever, headache, and neck rigidity, which may be followed by convulsions, mental retardation, coma and death.

Typhoid fever is contracted by eating food or drinking beverages that have been handled by a person who has typhoid fever or if sewage contaminated with the typhoid bacteria gets into the water you use for drinking or washing food. A Person with typhoid fever usually has a sustained fever as high as 103° to 104° F, that is sometimes accompanied by a rash of flat, rose-colored spots. If not treated, the fever may last for weeks or months, and around 20% die from complications of the infection..

Typhoid fever is very common in the developing world, where it affects close to 21.5 million people each year. In the United States there are only about 400 cases a year, and 75% of these are acquired while traveling abroad. It is worth a moment to consider why, someone like me, who lives in a zone thousands of miles away from any real danger of infection from these diseases, is able to procure a reasonable safeguard against them in a single afternoon, while those who live with the constant threat of them are largely not.

Itinerary and Written Materials

2006-09-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

I received a moderate savings on my international airfare due to the fact that I was a student once again. Discount airfare is just one of the numerous advantages that exist for students which I cannot recommend highly enough. Whatever your position is however, I imagine most would be surprised by the low cost of air travel relative to its potential to yield learning and self-development. Despite my criminally low salary as a public high school teacher, the cost of airfare for my first three-month leg was slightly less than what I would make in just six weeks. So long as one is capable of finding enjoyment in activities whose costs are not too immoderate for their means, independent travel is within the reach of more individuals than one might realize. It has been my experience that once one arrives in a foreign place, the most rewarding and remarkable experiences often have no monetary cost whatsoever.

The web of airlines, routes, and hub cities that make up air travel is a complex and constantly changing system. It is necessary to learn some of the nuances of how airfare is determined in order to know what routes might be possible. For instance, when creating a international multi-stop itinerary one is sometimes shocked to find out, that in some cases, travel to additional unplanned destinations can actually save money. I spent a significant amount of time working out a route that would satisfy my interests and still be within my means.

With the countries I was going to visit and the dates that I would be there determined, I began the long process of planning the specific sites that I would visit and activities I would partake in once I arrived. Many of the things I planned to do within each country included visits to museums and other public institutions dedicated to educating the public. These sites often represent how a society remembers its own past, and offer insight into the collective memory of a people. They are invaluable as centers for the prevailing knowledge concerning certain subjects. They are the logical starting point for the understanding of a number of things that I hope to be able to teach my students. However, I wanted to be certain that my trip also included exposure to everyday life in different parts of the world, and the opportunity to consider how these experiences could be revealing about humanity and its past. This required an itinerary engineered towards interaction with various segments of each society I was to visit, and I gave much consideration to what it is that I would do in the limited time that I would have in each country.

I also wanted to avoid constraining myself, by over-planning to the degree that would not allow my path to be swayed by the circumstances I encountered on the road. The result is a list of sights and activities that I had researched thoroughly enough to help me gain access to them, but that I could adhere to loosely enough to allow the insight gained from being in each region still influence my trip. I am eager dive into the thinking behind my selection of particular items, but I would prefer to include their description where I narrate their encounter.

I also spent time making the final selection of the reading materials that I would carry along while on my trip. I wanted to bring anything that could provide useful information about the history and the culture of the regions I was going to visit. Of course, once again this would be restricted by the fact that everything I wanted to bring from home and read at any point along my trip I would have to carry on my back. To maximize what I could fit, I spent a few days in the public library and the school where I work, shrinking down and making copies of written materials using a Xerox machine. The result is a neat half-sized three-ring binder which includes a diverse range of materials I selected from a variety of sources.

Computer Solutions

2006-09-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Next I had to consider how I was going to write while on the road. My laptop looked like it had already survived a lot; it was covered with scratches and missing a shift key. It had endured almost constant use in a high school classroom and been jostled home and back for two years straight. My alternative was a personal digital assistant donated to the cause by my father. It was seven years old - ancient by today’s timeline of obsoleteness. However, the PDA was simple, light weight, no bigger than a small book, it loaded up at the push of a button and it has a battery life of 14 hours. Its drawback was that it was basically only good for word processing, and even that it did on a scaled down version of Microsoft Word that can apparently only be opened by some computers and even then seemed to work only about half of the time. In addition I wouldn’t be able to do anything else on it that might prove useful, like upload pictures or use the internet. My laptop could do all these things, but it could only be used while plugged in, and was too cumbersome to take out in most of the situations I envisioned using it anyway. As illogical as it sounds I finally came to the conclusion that taking both would be the best option. I could use the laptop and all of its features when I was in a secure place with a constant power supply. When I just needed to jot down a quick paragraph, or when there was no power in sight, I could use the PDA. As an added bonus, either one could break and I would still have the other to get by with.

Camera Solutions

2006-09-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

Next I turned to the camera which would be the primary tool with which I would capture the experiences I was to have and share them with my students. The video camera I had was a present given to me by a combined effort of my immediately family six years earlier when I graduated from college. I had dragged it on a number of adventures already, and had some experience with its pros and cons. For its time, it has outstanding picture quality in a number of conditions, but it is big and heavy.

It is equipped with an external microphone, however anything that it picks up which is not directly in its field or closer than a few feet can end up sounding muddled. Since I intended to conduct interviews it would be necessary to have a microphone that could be brought closer to the source of the sound. Professionals record audio onto a separate device and splice it in when they are editing, but since I had to carry it all on my back I was looking for a solution that would record directly onto the camera’s tape. I decided to purchase an inexpensive lavalier microphone that could be clipped onto a person’s shirt, and had a thin 12 foot cord running back to the camera. I figured that this type of mic was small enough to fit in my pack and could also be positioned to reduce background noise if necessary.

Next I looked into the use of different lens adapters. I went back to the camera store and experimented with the few that fit my camera. The lens that I believed would be most effective for what I was doing was a fisheye lens. A fisheye lens uses a series of concave lenses to bend the image in view. I found that with the fisheye I had a much wider field of view, which would be useful for capturing landscapes and larger scenes. It also created a sense of depth as the peripheral portions of the footage appeared to curve and move more quickly from the field of view as the camera moved towards a subject.

Then I considered a tripod. As it turns out a surprising amount of what separates the professional look of most film from the amateur look of home video, is the vantage point of the camera. The position of the camera determines the window into the scene that the viewer will experience. If that window is jerky or it seems like the camera man is trying to chase the subject around to keep it in the scene, it tends to annoy the viewer and detract from their ability to enjoy the footage. Having a tripod is a good start and is fine for still footage; however, as I found out when I experimented with an old tripod that I had, the real difference is in the head. A normal friction head, like the one that is used on many tripods for still cameras, will produce irregular choppy movement when used with a video camera. The smooth look that professional footage has is normally achieved through the use of a fluid head. A fluid head uses a viscous oil between the mechanical components and creates a smooth movement with clean starts and stops, as well as jerk-free pans. As I read into it and experimented with different things I realized that I was going to have buy I fluid head and a new tripod.

These are not typically designed with my style of travel in mind. Finding sticks (tripod legs) that would fit a fluid head, were a size and weight that I could carry, and were not made of some astronomically expensive carbon fibre material, was not easy. The solution I finally found was a used tripod in a camera store in a neighboring town that had a ball head that could lock. I found that I could mount a fluid head on top of that, and as long as I was careful about keeping the fluid head screwed on tightly it would give pretty smooth results. It was hoaky but it worked.
Even with the head attached it folded up to about 16 inches and with some nylon straps I bought at an outdoors store I was able to lash it down to my pack above the case for my camera. I then covered them with a nylon stuff sack to prevent scratches and damage.

Backpack Solutions

2006-09-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

My first order of business was to reflect on the nature of the backpack which would become my home while on this trip. I have had a substantial amount of experience traveling independently, and I have always found that despite any inclinations towards the contrary, the less one brings the more comfortable one usually is. In my first travels abroad, when I did not require the paraphernalia necessary to film and edit digital video or correspond remotely with an advisor, I started out with a 2000 cubic inch daypack and slowly streamlined it down to a small satchel little bigger than a ladies purse. In this way I had traveled to a number of very remote regions of the world and I had always found that anything that I truly needed for survival was available readily enough to the local population that I could afford some. However, my intention to document this trip in a way that could be shared with my students was going to require loads of equipment, and a pack that would provide protection from the harsh environments of the world.

The pack I finally found is unique enough to merit description. It was developed by a Swedish industrial designer named Jonas Blanking, who had worked in the automotive industry but had an inclination towards extreme outdoor activities. He was frustrated with conventional backpack designs that would render his books and papers soggy and his laptop casing occasionally fractured. His goal was something rigid that would protect its contents, could hold adequate volume, and still be worn comfortably. He employed the use of aluminum and ABS plastic to create the MegalopolisTM, a pack with an external hard shell designed to carry a laptop and other contents. It has an ingenious array of facets on the outer shell that can be used to cinch cargo down in any number of customizable ways, making the things inside safe and the things needed accessible easy to get at. New they cost around $200, but I found one used through an ebay auction.

My laptop fit perfectly into a protected compartment in the interior of the pack, but I still had to find a way to transport the digital video camera that I was going use in a way that would be relatively safe from damage. After abandoning a crazy scheme involving PVC pipe and memory foam, I found that a local camera store sold a carrying case for large telephoto lenses, which happened to fit my camera snuggly, and left room for the lens hood and the extended battery. It also fit perfectly into the recess left by the curvature of the lumbar support of my backpack. Now it just had to be secured.

The company that makes my backpack also sells a cargo bridge accessory which is designed to allow you to secure skis or a snowboard to the back of their backpacks. With a little modification it held the camera and case securely and even allowed me to reach around and take the camera out without having to take the pack off. I anticipated that this might be useful in situations that were crowded or when I needed to be discrete.

Introduction to my Initial Preparations

2006-09-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

The subsequent posts contain an account of the logistical work completed during the initial preparation phase of my study plan. Much of this period has been spent developing an itinerary that comprises of experiences that will provide insight into the history I hope to share with my future students. During this time I have also had to procure the necessary equipment to carry out these investigations, and figure out how best to transport it all. Those who know me will perhaps at first be surprised by what would appear a lapse from my normally narrow subscription to the monetary system. To this I will only state that each purchase contributes in some way to the efficacy with which I am able share what I gain from this trip with my students, and each is in keeping with my own notions of value and cost as they apply to me and others. Regarding consumption, I remain as conscientious and/or as cheap an individual as ever, depending on how one looks at it.

STUDY PLAN

2006-08-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

Fundamental to my study plan is the belief which I hold emphatically; that we learn best through our experiences. The path I wish to pursue to further my own professional development reflects this inclination towards experiential education, and essentially takes it a step further, by asserting that the fact that one learns best through experience is as true for the teacher as it is for the student. Hence, my study plan largely consists of subjecting my self to experiences, and the attempt to target those experiences that will further my understanding of the concepts that I believe are the most pertinent to my students’ understanding of their world.

The study of history provides a unique obstacle to the practitioner of experiential education. Direct interaction with the past would seem impossible. We have all missed our opportunity to interact with the American Revolution for instance. So, I seek the next best thing - the present - but specifically the present where it is the product of the past that I desire to better understand.
The type of learning I propose to undertake can be understood if one considers the example of religion. A lot can be understood about a religion by pouring over its sacred texts, or reading secondary accounts of its practices and beliefs; but something different is gained when one goes among its believers and experiences how those beliefs are played out in their daily decision making processes, their idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, and in the things that only manifest from direct human interaction. For where is a religion really; in a book or in the way it exists in the minds of those who follow it? Or both?

For a truly complete picture of that which one seeks to understand historically, it is wisest not to ignore the potential exposure to the truth that interacting with the results of that history may hold. One must become versed in the work of the best scholarly discourse on a given topic and spend sleepless nights dissecting those primary sources that can be had, but best to do so in the shadow of the setting that was where those events had their day. This is precisely what I intend to do.

The locations for my fieldwork are the essence of my study plan and the route that I have selected is one that has been in the making for three years now. During that time I have been teaching world history to High School students. I have outlined a route that will provide insight into the subjects that I believe are the most vital within the world history curriculum. Prior to my departure I will gather materials that are relevant to these locations and the themes I wish to explore in my travels. For each location that I visit I will develop lessons and activities inspired by my experiences and the people that I encounter.

The main way in which I plan to capture these experiences and share them with my students is through film. My past experience shooting and editing digital video is enough for me to realize that I do not intend to create a single full length coherent documentary. Instead I intend to create short segments that can be integrated into my lessons throughout my World History curriculum. This footage along with other materials will be incorporated into my future lessons to enhance my students’ understanding. One purpose of the film segments that I plan to create during my travels is to simply capture the look and feel of the places I visit in order to give my students a sense of how other people live around the world. However, I would also like to conduct interviews with people who can provide unique perspectives on the themes I seek to explore.

Much like Howard Zinn’s, A People’s History of the United States, was unique in that it presented American history through the eyes of those outside of the political and economic establishment, I intend to seek out the voice of “ordinary” people, and to show how events in history have impacted them. How will Russians of different generations and different backgrounds characterize life in communist Russia verses life in Russia today? How will different people in China answer questions about state controlled media and censorship? How will Israelis and Palestinians differ in their accounts of incidents in their current and past conflicts? I hope to capture the answers to these questions and many others in a format that allows me share them with my students. I intend to develop new curriculum based on these interactions and the experiences I have in each country. The final product will be individual units each complete with reading materials, student activities, assignments, assessments, and accompanying video footage.