Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West by Behzad Yaghmaian
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was a wonderful combination of heart-wrenching stories and straight-forward statistics. Yaghmaian does a great job of combining the lives of the people he meets, with concrete information about the migration of thousands upon thousands of human beings. You cannot believe how these people have taken the journey that they have, how they live the way they do, and how they find strength and hope to keep going.

On my own previous trips to Europe, I have seen many of the people described by Yaghmaian - Africans selling knock off purses, watches, bracelets, etc. Street cart vendors. And I'm ashamed to say that I never gave them, or their stories, much thought. But who knows where these people came from and what caused them to take on this transient and fragile lifestyle?

We are all born into a set of circumstances, some good and some bad - for me, this book helps remind me that I am no better a human just because of where I was born and the circumstances that led me to my life today. And if I can help someone out, I should.

**

"We will never be normal...Of course we are different from other people. We live a different life. Normal is the way the majority lives. We are not a part of that. We hope to be normal, have a family and live the life of a normal person, but we cannot. I am young, only twenty-two years old. I see other young people in the rest of the world. I know how they live, how they look at the world. But I cannot be like them. I am not normal. I have been on the road with no return. The return to normal is not possible. See, some migrants die in the sea. Others die crossing the mountains. There are the fortunate ones. They die with no pain. The rest live to see their slow death. Dying takes different forms. Some shoot heroin. Some go with a baba. They are all the same, those who beg in Patras and those who go with a baba in Athens. Look them in the eye. You will see the same pain of not achieving the goal, not reaching the destination. You change when you go with men for money. You become a different person. You die."

"I knew the difficulties of the journey...What I did not know was that the journey changes you. You can never be who you once were even if you return to the same conditions. The journey transforms you. The person you were when you picked up your bag for the road dies. You are a different person when you put your bag on the ground."

This quote^ really opened my eyes. Again, going back to the immigrant sellers I have encountered on my trips to Europe, I did not give a thought to what led them to that place and time. Who knows what they have seen and done in order to get where they are? How many days they had to trek through forests or deserts, or mountains, without proper shelter, clothing, or food? How could such a journey NOT change a person? If we could look out for just one minute from the eyes of such a person, what would we see?

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Classical Musician at a Rock Show

I had the unbelievably good fortune to attend two brilliant performances today (Sunday, March 11, 2012 - although this will likely be posted on a different day). The first performance was of violinist Ray Chen and pianist Julio Elizalde performing the following works:

Mozart: Sonata for Violin and Piano in B flat major, K 454; Brahms: Sonata for Violin and Piano no 3 in D minor, Op. 108; Ysaÿe: Sonatas (6) for Violin solo, Op. 27: no 2 in A minor "Obsession"; Saint-Saëns: Havanaise for Violin and Orchestra in E major, Op. 83; and Saint-Saëns: Introduction and Rondo capriccioso in A minor, Op. 28. Chen and Elizalde played one encore: John Williams' "Schinder's List".

Chen was vibrant onstage and moved freely and passionately. Technically he is astonishingly precise, but he also featured a mature musicality. The Brahms was the centerpiece for me; the second movement was played with an unbridled emotion that left my heartstrings tugged at every phrase. The concert could have consisted of only that movement and I would have been left satisfied. Fortunately, I was treated to the full Brahms Sonata as well as the other piece that captured me: Ysaÿe's Solo Sonata no.2 ("Obsession").

The Q&A with the artists after the show was slightly disappointing as the performers did not speak as articulately as they played. Then again, they had just performed an intense concert and were likely tired...

But the concert I attended this evening was one that will remain in my mind as one of my fondest musical experiences. In the fulfillment of a dream that was been over 10 years in the making, I finally saw my favourite band on the planet: RADIOHEAD.

I first started listening to Radiohead when I bought the album Big Shiny Tunes 2 in 1997, which was a compilation of popular hits from that year. The Radiohead song featured was "Paranoid Android". I fell in love with the rich texture of the music, the contrasting sections, the funky lyrics - I would listen to that song over and over again. Maybe a year later, when my parents finally got cable and I started watching MuchMusic, did I receive exposure to Radiohead's over songs. Through a Spotlight on Radiohead, I saw several of their music videos including "High and Dry", "Street Spirit" and "Just". A fan was born. I went out and bought The Bends and OK Computer immediately and listened to them non-stop.

When Radiohead came out with Kid A and then Amnesiac, my mind was blown. "Everything in Its Right Place" entranced me the moment I heard the opening notes. I remember listening to those CDs in my Discman and staring out a van window at a changing landscape as my family drove across Canada to visit relatives.

Update/Downdate

Well, it's certainly been a minute, hasn't it? What's happened since March 2012...let's see: I've played a lot of music - Masters recitals in April, 2012; May, 2013; February, 2014; chamber music concerts galore with groups at UMKC, Regina Summer Strings, Black House Collective, Classical Revolution KC, etc; I got engaged, October 2012; I gained family - welcoming my little nephew, Noah, in October 2012; I lost family - bidding adieu to my wonderful Aunt Anne in September 2014; I gained friends - too many to name!; I lost friends - accepting reality when my friend and talented colleague Matt Siegel fell from a university parking garage in October, 2014; I got married on May 10, 2013, and organized a celebratory bash with family and friends a year later; I've been to familiar places (Regina, Calgary, Ottawa, Tenaga, PEI) and new places (NYC, Chicago, Montreal, Valparaiso, Hartford, Portland); and now I'm trying to make life work as a freelance musician. There seems like a lot to say and, at the same time, nothing to say at all. Life is life, and life has kept on going despite me not making huge announcements to the world via this blog. Is my commentary on what's happening out there important? Do my travel experiences and stories matter? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe people who blog really just do it for themselves...and anyone who happens upon this little online journal-of-sorts gets a brief peek inside my life before moving back into their own world. Blah blah blah Ciao for now

The Struggle for Power over Women's Fertility

I told myself when I moved to the United States that I would not get involved in politics. Well, after living here for just over 6 months and with an election on the way, it's been nearly impossible to avoid the utter bullsh*t and GONG SHOW that is American politics!

The Republican race is a baffling trio of Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney (and Ron Paul...but it seems he's mostly out of the contest at this point). These three men are all self-described "Christians". Their behaviour remains very un-Christian, however, with Gingrich having married three times; Santorum, a Catholic, is a war-monger intent on keeping troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; Romney, despite being a Mormon, demonstrates how un-Jesus-like he is by being unconcerned for the poor.

But these men have been putting their "Christianity" in the limelight in order to win over the extreme right-wing Republicans and hardcore Christians of America. All the candidates oppose same-sex marriage (Santorum likens homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia). Santorum is so anal (pun intended) that he goes so far to say that private sexual acts between married couples should mostly be for the purpose of pro-creation, and that the use of contraception leads to too many sexual liberties. Gingrich and Santorum oppose a woman's right to choose to terminate a pregnancy. (Super creepy aside: when Santorum's wife suffered a miscarriage, Santorum and his wife brought the dead child - Gabriel - home so their other children could "meet" it...W.T.F.?!)

What has really got my panties (white with black butterflies...someone please let Wayne Toews know...I digress...) in a twist are the efforts of the Republican party to block Obama's Affordable Care Act which basically provides birth control to women for free beginning in 2012. I do not understand why old, white, Christian men want so badly to have power over a woman's ability to control her own fertility!

Republicans want to make abortion illegal, cut funding to Planned Parenthood, make birth control illegal or highly regulated (in the case of Santorum). I was absolutely disgusted when I read a recent article where a Conservative radio host called a young university student a "slut" because she believed that birth control should be covered by health insurance at religious institutions:

www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1140095--radio-host-rush-limbaugh-labels-woman-a-slut-for-asking-birth-control-to-be-paid-for

Here's the thing: men want to have sex with women. That's a fact. Many men and women have sex outside of marriage. That's a fact. To avoid getting women pregnant, men may use a condom that they can purchase at a local drugstore. That's a fact. When a man uses a condom, he is responsibly taking control of his own fertility. Although men may purchase condoms for a small cost, free condoms can often be found at local health clinics, doctor's offices, etc. At times, however, a man and a woman (husband and wife, even) may want to have sex without a condom, but they also don't want to have a child. Or, perhaps a man and a woman may want to have sex but a condom is not available. Fortunately, a woman has an option of taking a hormone that will prevent her from becoming pregnant if she has unprotected sex. If men can take control of their own fertility, and do so for free, why are people wanting to deny this right to women?

Rick Santorum has five children. That means he has had sex at least five times without using any kind of contraception or birth control. I wonder if he has only ever had sex five times in his life. Does Rick Santorum view his wife as merely a vessel for carrying his children? Is Karen Santorum allowed to exercise control over her own fertility? (Perhaps not, as she recently had another child, at the age of 48....did they seriously plan that, or were they have unprotected sex *God forbid*?!)

I'm frustrated that I'm not expressing myself very articulately right now. My basic point is this: men and women have sex, and they don't always do it to create a child. If men can use condoms (and get them for free at times), why shouldn't women be able to obtain birth control for free, or for subsidized cost? And why are old, white men the ones who are making this decision for women?!

If by using birth control women are preventing life from starting and taking too many sexual liberties, then why should men be allowed to use condoms? Is that not also preventing life from starting? And what about having a vasectomy?!

I'm just so disgusted by this whole state of affairs! Of course this leads right into a discussion on religion, and religion + state which should be completely disallowed. Unfortunately, Rick Santorum is more than ready to drag religion back into the White House. It will be a sad day on this planet if this horse-blinder-wearing Bible-thumper ever gets into office...

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/leaps-of-faith/

STNA

Two years ago, I traveled to South Africa as an International Youth Ambassador with Toronto-based NGO: LetsStopAIDS. At the time, LetsStopAIDS was on a special project, entitled Spread Trees Not AIDS. The mission was to the raise awareness about the environment and HIV/AIDS.

Along with a fellow ambassador, I was placed in the small community of oSizweni, which is just outside of Newcastle in North Western KwaZulu-Natal. We were working at a community centre called KwaHilda. Over the course of several weeks, we held workshops on HIV/AIDS, the environment, leadership, sexual health, and hosted a community clean-up where we filled an entire dumpster with at-capacity garbage bags.

Two of our big initiatives when we left were: to start a community garden to feed not only the children who attended the community centre of KwaHilda, but members of a support group for People Living With HIV/AIDS; and to start a Youth Executive that would be responsible for giving talks in the community on HIV/AIDS awareness.

In order to start the garden, we had an enormous plot of land tilled.



This land used to be a garbage dump and the soil was pretty much ruined. Fortunately, KwaHilda community centre produced a lot of vegetable waste that was able to be composted and used as fertilizer. Additionally, we had donations of manure from several local farmers.

Although we worked hard, we were only able to dig one or two beds for future gardens. We had to explain to KwaHilda how they should proceed if they wanted to continue with this project.

To be honest, I really didn't know how the garden would end up working out. In South Africa, projects that are sustainable but don't churn out results immediately are not necessarily looked after. People in these rural communities are starving and have no money. They want results right away! So to leave our garden in such an early stage, not even having planted anything, seemed to be a bit of a gamble.

Well, three months after I left, the garden looked like this:



I couldn't believe how much work these guys had done!! I was almost brought to tears when I saw that picture.

One year later, summer of 2010, the garden looked like this:






This year, summer of 2011, there are two International Youth Ambassadors back at KwaHilda for 5 weeks! Here is a recent video of the garden I helped to start.

I'm so happy with the results of this garden...The KwaHilda Community Centre in South Africa has done an absolutely knock-out job of keeping up these gardens. I'm so proud of them. I can't believe this little project on a plot of land on the other side of the world that B.H-C and I started two years ago is still bearing fruit.

Puts a giant smile on my face :)

Asking for it?

I was astonished a few weeks ago to read a news article about a rape case in Winnipeg where the judge did not assign jail time to the offender because the female victim "sent signals that "sex was in the air" through her suggestive attire and flirtatious conduct on the night of the attack."

For Justice Robert Dewar to call the offender a "clumsy Don Juan" makes a farce of the claims of the victim. It also victimizes the offender by playing off his actions as an innocent seduction gone accidentally wrong. A rape is never an accident. A rape happens when a sexual act occurs without both parties consenting to the action. In this case, a man's penis forcibly entered a woman's vagina. I'm not a rocket scientist, but that kind of thing doesn't just happen by chance.

Additionally, how can you justify a rape due to what a woman was wearing or the style of her makeup? That's like saying "Well, this guy looked like he was going to rob the bank so I shot him." Then you'd just be a "clumsy Superman".

What about the mixed signals that the woman was supposedly giving off? At first rejecting the offender's advances, and then giving in to his kisses? Using her consent to kissing is in no way consent to having sex. While kissing may be a precursor to having sex, it does not guarantee that the act will happen!

Speaking as a woman, I cannot imagine the rage and hurt I would feel towards the rapist and the judicial system if I was this woman. Just imagine if you had been wronged in one of the worst ways possible. And then when you spoke publicly about this wrong, hoping that it would be righted, a public offical (a supposedly educated individual) in a great power of authority, turns to you and said "Sorry, you deserved it."

No one deserves to be taken advantage of or be forced into acts that they are not agreeable to. The fact that a judge in our courts would have this kind of reasoning displays a measure of callous heartlessness that is frightening.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/rape-victim-inviting-so-no-jail--rape-victim-inviting-so-no-jail-116801578.html

*****************************************

Speaking of being forced into acts, I have been following the story in Cleveland, Texas about the 11 year-old girl who was gang-raped by possible over twenty men ranging in age from 17-28.

This story makes my blood run cold.

Basically, an 11 year-old girl was picked up by a 19 year-old man and his two friends, taken to a trailer, threatened with violence if she didn't remove her clothes, and then sexually assaulted by numerous men. These men also took videos on their cell phones and began circulated them.

At this point, 17 men have been charged. SEVENTEEN!! I certainly can't speak from experience, but can you even imagine the pain you would be in if seventeen adult men had penetrated you!?

What is wrong with people?!? I have to ask this. At what point in someone's brain would you ever possibly think that it would be okay for you, as an adult male, to have sex with a child? And while you were in the act, would it never occur to you that this was something completely disgusting? Not to mention when you looked up to see your friends taking pictures and videos on their cell phone, would it ever cross your mind that this was a bad idea, even if only from a legal point of view (not to mention morally)? Or if you were the one holding the cell phone, while you were taping this obscene act, did you ever wonder how you would feel if you saw someone doing this to your little sister? Or when your friend invited you over to have sex with a young girl, would you stop and think - man, that sounds abhorrent and illegal?

Does the town of Cleveland possess such an astounding number of sex predators that this mind-boggling figure of between 17 and 27 men would find the idea of having sex with a child so enticing that they would be willing to risk their careers (two of the men charged are members of Cleveland's state-ranked basketball team) for this seemingly pleasurable thrill? How would you even look at yourself in the mirror knowing that you stole a child's innocence in such a disgusting and abusive manner?

I had to pick my jaw up from the floor after I read the defence lawyer's statement that "This is not a case of a child who was enslaved or taken advantage of." I understand that this man's unfortunate job is to find some way to possibly defend these horrific monsters, but how can your argument in any way entail that this child was not taken advantage of?!

There have been testimonies that the girl was wearing make-up and looked older than her age. Referring to my above post, I am astounded that this would/could be used as a way to lessen the punishment for this act. I repeat, there have been SEVENTEEN men charged! This was not an instance of one man picking up a girl he thought was older and taking advantage of her. This was an instance of several men picking up a girl and inviting all of their friends to screw her.

Some Cleveland residents have wondered where this child's parents were. This is a valid question, but there is no way that a parent can be blamed for the kind of abuse this child suffered at the hands of so many abusers. The blame lies solely on the incredibly disturbed men who chose to take a young girl, force her to take off her clothes, have sex with her, and document it.

I hope that the punishment for these men is incredibly severe. This poor girl will face a life-time of trauma.

If there is a God, I hope His retribution on these men is swift and harsh.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7459716.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7466774.html

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day!!

This is actually the 100-year anniversary of International Women's Day. It was started by the UN in 1911 when women in the Western world were petitioning for their basic political and employment rights. Since then it has become not only a world-wide celebration of half the population of the earth, but also a moment to raise awareness about harassment, lack of education, mal-treatment, and inequality facing women around the world.

I never considered myself a die-hard feminist before, but I have to admit that I don't take lightly any jokes (*hilarious* as they may be...) about the inequality of women (i.e. women belong in the kitchen). As a human, my place in this world should not be dictated by my gender!

Unfortunately, in many parts of the earth, women are treated incredibly differently due to the very fact that they are women! We are still not granted the same pay as men in many countries. We are not given access to education in many countries. We are treated as property, abused as sex workers, unable to attain positions in government, looked down upon, etc.

Why do so many people fail to realize that by neglecting a significant portion of the world's population, we are at once stopping the evolution of a healthy society, but also propagating so many of the world's problems, including hunger, disease, and lack of education.

If women were not treated as objects and given the right to say "No" to unsafe sex in Africa, the spread of HIV would slow down. If women in developing were given the same access to tools and technology as their male counterparts, they could augment the yields on their farms, producing more food for their families and villages.

Think of the most amazing woman you know...times that by several billion...that's the number of amazing women we *could* have on this planet if our world was not so obsessed with having male children that they will throw a female baby in the dumpster rather than give her a life; if our world considered females to have the same rights to an education that we give males; if our world wasn't so caught up with having women be child-care providers and homemakers.

Women are wonderful humans who do wonderful things and none of us would be here if it wasn't for a woman. So make sure to fully appreciate and *show* your appreciation for all the intelligent, talented, beautiful, and under-appreciated women in your life today and every day!