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HOMEWARD - May 2018 Tuisku "Snow" Curtis-Kolu

Home of the Global Citizen

Posted on May 28, 2018
 

Written by Tuisku ‘Snow’ Kolu

The world is more interconnected than ever before, and while most still have some sense of home that is tied to a singular location – a family home, a city, a nation – this growing interconnectedness has created new groups and waves of people whose idea of home can be more convoluted.

Expatriate communities have been growing at an exponential level in recent years, leading to a new phenomenon of home identity. In 2017 there were an estimated 258 million people living outside their nation of origin according to UN statistics, compared to the 154 million in 1990. This is more than three and a half times larger than the population of the United Kingdom and about half the population size of the EU. While it is accurate that many of those living abroad may still have a sense of home tied to their origin nation, there is one particular group resulting from such migration trends that illustrate how the changing nature of global society has altered the concept of home –  Third Culture Kids (TCKs).

TCKs are individuals who spent some or all of their formative years in one or more countries outside their parents’ home country. The name comes from the idea that such a child would have three cultures – their parent’s native culture, the culture of the country they partially grew up in, and finally a combination of the two. This combination is a mixed identity that combines their parents’ culture and the culture(s) they grew up in. Many who feel an affinity with this definition have lived in several different nations by the time they are adults, allowing their cultural identity to include ideals and values of different origins. TCKs can develop into adults with a sense of global citizenship, belonging everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Many TCKs can find the traditional concept of home with its ties to a location unfamiliar, perhaps even uncomfortable. TCKs often experience discomfort with their identity on return to their nation of origin. Some psychologists discuss this as ‘cultural homelessness’, as many TCKs find it difficult to associate with a singular culture. There is a sense of otherness that develops from this. Personally, I found returning to my native country to be more confusing and alienating than when moving somewhere unfamiliar. To an extent, this often comes from an experience of ‘otherness,’ feeling foreign and disconnected. While I still felt some affinity with certain cultural elements, much was at odds with my identity. As such for many TCKs the concept of a singular location as a home can be inconceivable. There is an abundant amount of memes online attempting to put words to this experience – from the question ‘where are you from?’ setting off a full-blown identity crisis, to the confusing attempts at explaining why your accent seems to fluctuate between 3 or 4 different vocations.

However, much of this discomfort may come from the pressure to feel an affinity with the traditional concept of home. In a childhood where your head is cracked open beyond this notion – allowing the creation of an identity which attempts to compile an understanding and relationship to completely different sets of histories and peoples – this concept of home has to be explored in a different way. Because, once it is cracked, returning to a familiar national identity is easier said than done.

When releasing the concept of home from nationality, one can begin to assess the less tangible elements associated with it. This can be explored in how we discuss home. The idiom “in the comforts of one’s own home” suggests that people tend to associate home with a feeling of comfort; of familiarity. Moreover the saying “home is where the heart is” suggests a need for loved ones and community. I would also argue that this ties in a sense with our traditional understanding of home being tied to a nation, as home appears to be seeking the feeling of being understood.

Attempting to understand comfort and familiarity in relation to the life of a TCK can feel inherently flawed. There is not a lot of stability/consistency in the life of a TCK due to the often changing environment. However, life is change. Change is now one of the most familiar and comfortable feelings I experience in adulthood. This feeling of excitement for the unknown and the approaching change is wonderful. Arguably many TCKs are accustomed to change, understand it better than most, and are generally considered highly effective at assimilating to new situations and cultures. Hence many of us feel most comfortable in a migrating lifestyle and continue to do so into adulthood. As such, change is home because it feels consistent due to its inherently inconsistent nature.

Photo by Milada Vigerova

By understanding home in relation to community and loved ones, constant movement can once again feel at odds with such a development. As I discussed earlier, TCKs can find a considerable feeling of foreignness in relation to the country of their origin. Studies show that TCKs are often quick at developing friendships and creating a community in new surroundings, due to their ability to assimilate. As such much of the feeling of a sense of belonging can come from these ties with friends and family. However, I would argue that there is a further level understanding of your friends and community that is needed to feel ‘home’. Beyond your own assimilation, it is the feeling that someone else fully understands your identity. Arguably many TCKs struggle to find this as adults due to a migrating lifestyle and being surrounded by those who identify closely with nationality.

To an extent, TCKs have found new ways of achieving this with the help of technology and increasingly cheaper travel. TCKs have developed a considerable web presence, allowing individuals with similar childhoods to come together online and share their common experience. This includes discussion and advice forums, blogs, and a heavily dedicated meme culture. As such, there is a sense of a community of people who can come together due to a common set of TCK experiences. Occasionally you also get the joy of running into another TCK in real life and connect over the similarities in lifestyle. As such I would argue there is a similar bond between TCKs as there are between those that derive their sense of home from nationality. This is due to both groups sharing a common set of experiences. Cheap travel and social media also allow the TCKs of today to stay better connected to their friends and family.

I have been incredibly fortunate, meeting marvelous people throughout my travels that have given me a sense of community and understanding over time that has succeeded to allow a sense of home.

With regard to the changing nature of our society, it may be time to reassess our traditional conception of ‘home’. An exploration of the ideas related to home can allow those that may not seem as connected to feel more comfortable with their sense of identity, and less lost within such a concept. In taking time to reassess seemingly uncomplicated ideas such as ‘home’ in light of the changing nature of society, it may allow us to better understand and feel comfortable in this change. Although at first, it can feel at odds with what we traditionally consider home, it is arguably more similar than we may give it credit, in its seeking of comfort and community. There is some power in the ability to find home beyond a single nation, in seeking it in the large scale of fluidity of the modern global society. Being comfortable with such an identity can allow an exploration of ideas from several different perspectives – some call it a “three-dimensional” worldview.  

HOMEWARD - May 2018 Sarah Osei-Bonsu

The Siege of Eastern Ghouta: Crimes without accountability?

Posted on May 19, 2018

Written by Sarah Osei-Bonsu, Staff Writer

For weeks following the chemical weapon attack Eastern Ghouta had been on the front pages and then there was silence…

On Wednesday, May 2nd the silence was broken in a panel discussion called ‘The Siege of Eastern Ghouta: crimes without accountability?’. The conference organised by the War Reparations Centre – Amsterdam Centre for International Law (ACIL), Amsterdam Students Association of International Law (ASA) and the Syria Legal Network (SLN). It sought to revive the Eastern Ghouta discussion with “facts, law and diplomacy”. The panel was made up of Hussam Alkatlaby the director of the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre (VDC), Robin Peeters from the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, Joost Hiltermann, regional program director of the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Middle East and North Africa and Kevin John Heller, professor of public international law at the University of Amsterdam. The discussion was hosted by Frederiek de Vlaming from the Syria Legal Network.

The conference started with a video. It showed, in horrible bluntness, brutal episodes of Eastern Ghouta’s five-year besiegement. The images were shocking but not surprising. I think all of us crowded into this room squinting at the screen asked ourselves: What now? What can be done? The aim of the conference was to answer precisely these questions by seeking accountability for the war crimes, by finding the individuals and prosecuting them. But the video showed a pandemonium of crimes and human rights violations, making the prospect of finding accountability look like an insurmountable task. Before giving the panel the floor, de Vlaming wanted us to know why she showed this video: “it is about facts […] the way Eastern Ghouta was portrayed in the media did not show the facts. If you don’t know the facts you can’t enforce the law. You got the idea from mainstream media that the siege ended and the war was over… this is wrong.”

The suburb of Damascus has been under siege by the Syrian government since 2013, and in 2018 the world was witness to the unspeakable horrors that occurred within it, an ‘alleged’ chemical weapons attack that killed 70 civilians on 7th April, 2018 ensured Eastern Ghouta dominated the news for weeks. The alleged attack sparked international outrage, but this was too little too late. During the 5-year siege thousands of people had already been killed and numerous war crimes were committed. As a result of the attack the Syrian government concluded an agreement with Russia as part of a UN ceasefire and forcibly evacuated over 50,000 civilians from the area – another legally contested action.  The siege was declared over, however, doubts have been raised on the validity of this pronouncement. For instance, humanitarian organizations claim they arestill blocked from supplying aid. The saga was followed up on April 14th by airstrikes on Damascus and Homs by the UK, France, and the USA. The airstrikes targeted sites associated with Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities and were a direct response to the attack on Eastern Ghouta.  This attack was widely condemned, but now the dust is settling. Soon we will start forgetting how much has been lost in Eastern Ghouta, that for many people home turned into a graveyard and by the time this war is done the displaced might have nothing left to return to.

The war is far from over in Eastern Ghouta, and according to Alkatlaby, the town is still in acute crisis. The VDC he represents documents all human rights abuses on the ground, based on international human rights law, and human rights violations have not ceased since the siege ‘ended’. The VDC treats the conflict as an international conflict, not a regional one. Within this international conflict, Eastern Ghouta is specifically important, Alkatlaby argued. “What happened in Eastern Ghouta totally reflects the situation of [Syria].” Since the beginning of the Syrian war, which takes roots in the Arab Spring, Eastern Ghouta was an important hub for demonstrations. The besiegement of the town and Assad’s ‘starve and surrender’ tactic is symbolic of the regime’s strategy and force in the rest of the country. The use of chemical weapons here was a deliberate statement to the people of Syria, Alkatlaby argued: “The Syrian government is saying ‘we have the permission to do anything here’.” The international community’s outrage over this singular attack is duplicitous, it says ‘don’t kill your people with chemical weapons, but other methods are fine’ – is killing 150,000 people by barrel bombs not a threat to humanity?

Joost Hiltermann from the ICG explained that, indeed, chemical weapons are the graver of the two even if the casualties say otherwise. He waved away the notion of “alleged chemical attacks”, saying there are proven cases of chemical weapons. There are two decisive reasons the international community cares more about these chemical attacks than barrel bombs dropped. Firstly, there’s no danger of proliferation of barrel bombs. It’s simple: chemical weapons are a gateway to other biological weapons. It’s a different class of weapon. This is, of course, a meaningless distinction to people on the ground. However, the second reason there was such a foreign fixation on Syria’s chemical weapons is because the Syrian government can be held legally accountable for their usage. In dealing with an international conflict like this, and trying to consign accountability labels are very important. Chemical weapons are objectively not permitted under international law since the First World War. While investigative mechanisms such as the VDC’s essentially don’t work as a deterrent for the regime and rebel groups, this evidence could be used in future prosecution of the attacks. This is a likely outcome, because even Syria’s ally Russia has no interest in chemical weapon proliferation so there may come a time when this evidence collected will be of use to stop chemical weapons.

Chemical weapon attacks are of course not the only war crimes that have been committed in Eastern Ghouta. Other prosecutable crimes under international law include starvation as result of unlawful besiegement and forced evacuations or deportations. Yes, Eastern Ghouta was under siege for five years and siege warfare is in principle lawful, but the systematic criminality within this siege is not. Using a siege to starve a civilian population is a war crime; you need to allow for humanitarian access to food and care for the sick and wounded. That obligation applies to whoever is holding the siege. It’s a categorical obligation under international law and therefore the Syrian government can be held accountable.

So what forms of accountability are there for the crimes committed in Eastern Ghouta? The panel was split on this question. On the one hand, there were the believers in international organizations, and on the other hand, those who saw state-initiative as the only way. Robin Peeters, a Dutch representative at the UN Security Council, belonged of course to the former camp. Decisions at the UN level, he claimed, are always made on the basis of humanitarian considerations. The problem is that Security Council resolutions are often blocked. International rule of law on accountability is the ‘main priority’ – “We don’t think long-term stability is possible without accountability and justice”. According to Peeter’s, the most effective way to attain such justice is on an international level, for instance through a tribunal.

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo

Heller calls himself the “high priest of the futility of international law” and is accordingly pessimistic about the role of international institutions in holding the responsible parties accountable. According to him, the basic lesson of Syria, from an international criminal law point, is that international organizations don’t have access to Syria. An ad hoc tribunal “is simply not going to happen”. The Security Council as a legal body has almost no actual power. In his view, accountability is going to happen on a domestic level, any state in the world can prosecute what is going on in Syria under universal jurisdiction. If evidence collected by international mechanisms is ever going to be useful it will be because states used this in successful prosecutions. Our attention is focused on the wrong things.

I agree with Heller that accountability requires state action, but will France, the UK, and the US do more than authorize airstrikes? There are major issues under international law with this kind of interference. Russia has repeatedly been criticised for its involvement in the Syrian war, while we should be condemning France, the UK, and the USA. The states’ airstrikes on April 14th constituted a breach of sovereignty, whereas “Russia was invited there” (Hiltermann). It’s incredibly important to emphasize that there’s nothing humanitarian about airstrikes to stop chemical weapons. There are more and more efforts by powerful states like these three to make exceptions to international law, by cloaking their abuse of human rights with humanitarian language. That kind of rationale is extraordinarily easy to abuse.

The panel was in agreement that the correct response to what happened in Ghouta is not brute force, but instrumentalizing international law to prosecute those accountable. Although I agree this is the only viable option especially on a state basis, I couldn’t escape the prospect of the futility of finding accountability. It seemed I wasn’t the only one disheartened by this, as the conference ended on somewhat of a somber note. While we debate the possible ineptness of international organisations and the blunders of states, Eastern Ghouta is still a battleground. According to the VDC’s data, before the siege in 2013 there were 2 million people in living in Eastern Ghouta. Now there are less than 30,000. For those who have been forced to leave there is virtually no home to return to, and those that remain have lost any semblances of it. Something must be done to atone for this and the panel raised good suggestions of what this could be legally. I am grateful for their insights and this earnest push for accountability. Accountability is an important way of thinking about international law in the Syrian war. I hope Eastern Ghouta will be the case that finally brings retribution. What has happened in Eastern Ghouta and what continues to happen should not be forgotten or relegated to being a just another episode of the Syrian war.

Christian Hazes HOMEWARD - May 2018

Ilunga’s Game

Posted on May 1, 2018

Written by Christian Hazes, Staff Writer

Unintentionally, Zaire defender Mwepu Ilunga achieved football immortality during one of the group-stage matches of the 1974 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

Having lost against Scotland and Yugoslavia, Zaire had already been eliminated from the tournament. On the other hand, Brazil had already reached the second stage of the tournament after picking up two convincing wins. In other words, the final game between the two countries would be a mere technicality. While in the concluding minutes of that last game of group B, tournament first-timers Zaire were down two to nothing against reigning champions Brazil.

In these final minutes, Mwepu Ilunga succeeds in doing the impossible: leaving the divine team Seleçao flabbergasted. The Brazilians are preparing to take a free-kick, while Zaire forms a wall to attempt to block the shot. Shortly after the whistle by the referee that signals Brazil is good to go, defender Mwepu Ilunga breaks free from the wall, sprints towards the ball and before the Brazilians can blink, kicks the ball away as far as possible. Brazilian football gods Roberto Rivelino and Jairzinho looking on with their jaws dropped remains a unique scene. One of the strangest moments in football history just took place.

The fact is the reason for Ilunga’s action had nothing to do with ignorance concerning the rules of the game. No, Zaire’s players, nicknamed the Leopards, are perfectly aware of the rules. Instead, the daunting fear of going home is what drove Ilunga’s action. The clearance was simply a tactic to buy some invaluable time as well as an act of protest.

Zaire was a Belgian colony up until the year 1960, officially known then as Congo. As is the case for the vast majority of the exploited colonies on the African continent, the legacy left behind by former European rulers is far from convenient. Five years after gaining independence, Mobutu Sese Seko cunningly turned the precarious and inchoate Sub-Saharan state into a dictatorial regime. Mobutu’s Popular Movement of the Revolution dominated the one-party state that Zaire had become for over three decades, leaving the country devastated. Under the aegis of “the Father of the Nation”, the people of Zaire had been trapped in a totalitarian system dripping with Mobutism.

Mobutu’s influence also reached Zaire’s football culture by virtue of recalling players that had moved to Belgium, prohibiting playing abroad, and pumping huge sums of money in the game’s development. It must be admitted, though, that Mobutu’s intervention was highly fruitful, in addition to snatching the only African ticket for the contest after a grueling group-stage, the Leopards also became victors of the 1974 African Cup of Nations. As a sign of gratitude, the benign Mobutu awarded every team member with a house and a green Volkswagen car.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Zaire arrived at the World Cup ‘74 on a high. Some bookmakers even deemed the Africans potential outsiders.

The start of the tournament proved to be promising. Under the supervision of a vast Zairean delegate, including important ministers, high-ranking army officials and a battalion of witchdoctors, the team held up remarkably well against a strong Scottish equipe. Nevertheless, Zaire’s world cup debut culminated in a 2-0 loss.

Unfortunately, the close loss against the Scots turned out to be the apex of Zaire’s participation during that World Cup. Ahead of their next game, financial problems surfaced that proved to be the last drop to make pot boil over. The Zairean players did not receive their match payments.

In stark contrast with the present-day conditions, several decades ago football players often lived in financially uncertain circumstances. The fact that corruption was common in Mobutu-led Zaire made the players suspicious of the Zairean entourage. Mwepu Ilunga and consorts could assume the delegate had seized the match payments.

Photo by Jannik Skorna

The players of Zaire decided to strike back. Not merely because of the unreceived match bonuses, but also to address the larger problems of their home country. The World Cup would be the perfect stage to raise awareness concerning the fact that they were living in a full-blown dictatorial regime.

According to some sources, as a last resort to avoid a tarnished image of the tournament, the FIFA promised to pay 3000 Deutsche Marks per player as a means of compensation. All-out mutiny by Zaire was circumvented, but the tension didn’t fully dissipate.

The second match of Zaire with Yugoslavia as the adversary was amongst the worst in the whole history of the tournament. Exhaustion after days of arguing amalgamated with feelings of anger and resentment left the Leopards extremely demotivated. The result? Zaire experienced complete annihilation: 9-0.

This is when the situation really got out of hand. Mobutu was furious, Zaire had experienced humiliation on the international stage because of the players. Presidential guards were dispatched to threaten the team with a clear message: lose with 4 or more goals to Brazil and you better not come home.

The message surely resonated with the team. Knowing that their lives were at stake, the Zairean footballers gave it all they got against those Gods in yellow. In order for himself and his teammates to survive, Mwepu Ilunga was even willing to make a joke out of himself in front of the whole world.

The sacrifice made for survival is large. Abruptly breaking free from the wall of men in green, with a feral gaze that radiates determination, and hoofing up the ball across the pitch resulted in being universally ridiculed. But, when being able to see your family and home again are at stake, the “by any means necessary” mindset prevails.

When the final whistle had been blown, a score of 3-0 in favor of the Brazilians stood on the scoreboard. Mission accomplished.

Despite being allowed to go home, many of the ‘74 Leopards did not go home for the simple reason that they did not wish to live under a dictatorial regime which considered them pariahs.

After becoming aware of the true underlying motivations for Ilunga’s clearance, it might seem inappropriate to laugh about the incident. I do not fully agree. Obviously, the state of 1974 Zaire is not funny at all. Nor did Ilunga’s sudden action do much to increase the chances of not conceding a goal. But, the free kick farce is one of the best examples of political protest through sports. The metaphorical middle finger towards Mobutu is not only unique; at the end of the day, it is mostly very heroic.

And that is worth a smile.

HOMEWARD - May 2018 Laura Alexander

Portolaos

Posted on May 1, 2018

Written by Laura Alexander

Translation of the title of a book seen in the Benaki Museum:

“Portolaos, Namely book containing the seaports, the Distances between one place and another, and Other useful information for this Enterprise”

I was finally sitting down again to write after all the delicious laziness, in the dry heat where I fled the sun and moved like a sleepwalker, with things spread out so fine I only really did one thing a day, if anything. Hot hours drinking cold cappuccinos, sweet and strong with cold milk the texture of uncooked meringue, and later beer, on street corners, and then crashing to sleep naked in the heat. Crashing back into city life after a month of roughing it across the great scroll of Europe, a kind of self-hood had come back to me. Not a real self-hood of responsibilities and worries, still in the no-time of holiday, but my hitchhiker’s ghost feeling was melted away. I tried to look good, in clean clothes and the backless top I hadn’t worn all across Europe because it felt dangerous to be sexy while hitchhiking. I met people, and said goodbye to them expecting to see them again. I went to the café, and the bookshop, and the corner shop next to the cinema where the owner recognized me and spoke to me in Dutch because he’d once lived a year in Utrecht. Life was leafy and calm, easy to walk in, the streets patch-worked with graffiti and the cafes full of scruffy punks and gorgeous girls who sit with all the time in the world. At night, the open-air cinemas cast snatches of tinny dialogue in Greek or English over the walls onto the street like a football they expected to have tossed back.

Selves are formed by cities. Having discarded myself to travel through all that land between here and home I found a new self here, waiting to be slipped into like the red shoes I found waiting for me on a street corner in Paris once at two in the morning, neat and unexpected and precisely my size. In the same way, here in Athens I find a plausible version of myself, to be tried on and discarded, or to fuse so completely with all the selves I have been up till now that if I looked back in a few years it won’t be possible to make out the join, like with Paris, like with Amsterdam. Just like when you arrive in a new place, especially a city, how it feels like cognitive dissonance to remember that it was always there, that these streets were stretched out against the earth’s surface exactly as you see them now while you were still living for years before blissfully unconcerned with them, like Stephen Dedulus says, “there all the time without you: and ever shall be, world without end” – anyway just like that you have to face the fact that the person you could be here is already within you, lurking like a seed, and ever more shockingly, a seed already shaped and formed by all that’s gone before. So if I’d come here a year ago I’d have been calculating how to find a job in a bar here, how to scrape by and wait for adventure, wondering how many places would let you get along with not speaking Greek at first. Now after months of slightly fancier work I was looking at the local British Council, and cultural institutions here and whether I could possibly persuade them to hire me. So the potential self I can taste around me comes from me alone.

In Athens time was thick and golden. From one day to the next I could hardly remember what I’d been doing – the opposite of tourism.  One day I dragged together enough energy to get to the Acropolis museum, bright and sleek. Another night we went to a free outdoor screening in the gardens of the French archaeological institute, and while we were watching a minor riot broke out a few blocks away. The film was a French one, with Jean-Paul Belmondo. It was subtitled in Greek so I could only follow about half the plot, which turned out not to matter as the plot was very silly and the visuals were stunning, all long slow shots of Niemeyer’s half-finished Brasilia buildings. The riot was over by the time the film was, and the restaurants were moving tables back out into the street. From the balcony of the apartment all we could see was a huge pillar of black smoke and the reflected orange light on a building about a block away. When I went down to the square to get more beer the fire was burnt out and I stood and looked for a while at the slightly smoking, twisted and blacked remains of two cars. It was the first time I’d seen a burnt out car, though in Paris I’d seen the melted tarmac remains of where two motorbikes had been burned then taken away.

Photo by Matt Artz

Hot night under the glow of colored bulbs, speed and slowness with hours passed in drunkenness and shouting and cicadas loud as sirens fading finally silent. Endless unremembered conversations jokes and absurdities, and above all movement and heat in stillness. The taste of beer and ouzo, the dirt under the feet, the smell of the pine trees in the bar on the hill with the hill looming black and the barely payable bill. Fuck roughly when we get home, beer-drenched four-in-the-morning cunts, and wake to a sunlight so clear and strong, the pinkness of flowers and their sticky-sweet smell on the street.

I finished the last volume of Proust a few days later, sprawled topless on a rock that was digging into my thighs, with my head in a girl’s lap and a picnic of melons and bread spread out. Me and the girl I’d been living with had gone out to an island to camp. We fucked on top of my sleeping bag in the forest of night and then come back down to the stony beach to sleep. In the sunrise by the cool clear water I felt the weirdness of finishing nearly a year with one great mass of book (about a week later back in Athens I came across where Anne Carson has a character say reading Proust is like having a second unconsciousness, a formulation of words which allowed me to give a shape to my sadness). By the end of the book all the tiny hundreds of fragments of story come together, and the outcome is that you can see how over time all those little fragments do become a life.

When we took the boat back to Athens and were sitting on the top deck of the boat, some hippy kids were taking turns throwing little bits of bread up to the gulls. Following along with the speed of the boat they seemed to be stationary above the deck. Every time a gull managed to snatch a scrap out of the air the whole deck would clap and whoop. By this point the clouds had come in, and everything around was soft shades of grey, different everywhere you looked.

That tremendous observation; that there is only one world and that everything you see and read exists inside it at the same time. These are many things, and it’s difficult to put them together in anyway that feels coherent. Like Proust and his fragments of life, all these othernesses, in a way so simple it’s a cliche even to say it, come together and form the fact of all the things that are the case.