Posters and posers

If there is one thing that has been annoying me the most in the last week, it is the wall posters of Chennai. There are many reasons for this like the place it is stuck, the messages they carry and the way it is designed. As I drive along the subways of Chennai, the posters of politicians dot the mosaic walls. Making the whole place look like a huge advertisement board. In a about three days, they are torn or others appear on top of them. Over a period of time they become permanent places for posters.

Posters on direction boards, posters on sick no bills signs, posters on private wall, public walls, electricity transformers, telephone distribution junction boxes, temples, churches, mosques, schools, colleges, and all places that you can imagine.

these posters are meant to convey several messages. For birth, death, puberty, party meeting, movies, dissent, information regarding health especially hydrocele, viagra, sexually transmitted diseases, claiming cures for impotency and many other things the posters are the only way to communicate.

In this era of digital communication, posters still are popular and are considered to be one of the most effective tools. Attractive posters do draw attention, while ugly ones do not fall short of it. There are posters that cost several thousands,  while there are those that cost very less. Either way they are meant to make people stop and see the happenings.

When we see some posters of some persons it is not difficult to say that they made it themselves to display their sense of popularity and power. Bigger the poster the better it is for the party concerned.

Posters have been a source of controversy. In 1997 in the City of Coimbatore, just before the riots there was a poster war between the communal elements. In other places the poster wars have resulted in actual violence.

From being an element of information it has transformed itself to a powerful tool that can make or break the peace of society. As of now it is the negative face of Chennai. If a little care is taken to allot place for posters and those sticking it can adhere to it the city will be a much better place.

Coburg Chronicles 7

It was a bright day. For once the sun was shining on our faces. There was no rain and the wind was not too cold. A good day for an outing. As planned we started to set out for our day's venture to visit some refugees who were staying in Coburg. The moment the word refugee is pronounced my ears go up almost automatically like an Alsatian. Obviously I was in that team.

The first stop was at the residence for refugees as they called it. It was a building that had individual rooms and some apartments. In the individual rooms the single men were housed and in the apartments there were families. There was also a dormitory where young people stayed while they were in transit or waiting for a decision on their status.

Interacting with them two sets of stories emerged. One, the migrants and the other on the refugees. It was really important to understand the difference. In the case of Europe they only consider political refugees. Another point to note is that, if a person is claiming asylum in Europe, he/she must claim it in the first country of entry into Europe. They cant claim it in a place like Germany as it is surrounded by other european countries. One has to get though one of the European countries to get to Germany. So the claim for asylum in Germany is almost out of question. This doesnt stop people from claiming asylum.

The case of afghans was particularly interesting. They traveled from Kabul to Germany via all the countries in between and were either enroute to the scandinavian countries or wanted to settle in any country where they had their families and friends. This journey is undertaken by young men and women who are ably assisted by agents. They pay huge sums of money to make their way out of their countries. When they reach countries like Germany the hard reality hits them. They are termed as illegal migrants who are not supposed to be here without documents. Seen with suspicion and anger they are usually met with contempt. They are most likely to be deported to their own country or a country that they entered in the very first place. The agents cant help them any more and they cant tell anyone how they got to Germany.

But, while in germany they are housed and taken care of. Thanks to the efforts of community volunteers like Ms Dood who tirelessly campaigns for a the rights of these people. She has played an extraordinary role in trying to secure rights of those who live in the margins. A campaign she organized drew the attention of the Bavarian Parliament to address the issue of the housing. Though they started with the painting of the exterior and then the interiors, it is work in progress.

The Afghans told their moving stories. It made me think, is so much risk really worth it at a huge cost? I am really not sure about that.

The visit also exposed us to the situation of the others like the Ethiopians, Chechenyans and those from Azerbaijan.

There was a family consisting of three members from Azerbaijan, they were housed in two bedroom apartment. Summarily they were suddenly joined by two ethiopian young women. They had to give away a room to them. They share the hall kitchen and toilet. This does not sound okay even to a South Asian. Where we have large joint families sharing rooms and toilets.

Despite these living conditions, they get their rations and about 120 euros a month for living expenses. In the first year they are not allowed to join for language classes but are however taught bu community volunteers. This makes integration very hard for them. For children, it is better because they can have access to schools and other facilities.

While they live here, they have all filed for asylum and have to wait for the entire process to be completed. It starts with getting an interview date. This may take even two years. After the interview the decision is not made immediately, it may take another year or so to hear about the status. In most cases till now it has been negative. But people wait in hope.

In one case that we encountered, there seems to be a positive outcome. Going by the genuineness of the case, despite all the laws of fortress europe there seems to be a possibility to stay and get asylum.

Coburg Chronicles 6

Who likes to work on a Sunday! The poori breakfast, a load of news papers, catching up what was missed during the week on various issues and definitely a quick nap in the afternoon. All this was just in the imagination and sounds too regular. But today was a day for faculty meetings. It was at the spectacular home of Dr Claudia, located on the third floor a beautiful apartment with views on three sides. Huge windows and a neat balcony.

Before that we took a quick trip to the church of the 14 saints. Not too far away, was an old catholic church built in honor of 14 saints. Each saint was responsible to take care of an ailment. The only person I could recognize was St Jude the hope of the hopeless. No doubt that the

Imagine a dozen social work faculty members from diverse cultural, ethnic, linguistic backgrounds from Chile to Chennai gathered around a table to reflect the process of the summer school and to come up with ideas of collaboration in future. Believe me 5 hours is just not enough.

Positive ideas flowed about the Summer School. So creative suggestions were also tabled to improve the next one when it is attempted. The theme was quite impressive and invited a new dimension of thought departing from the clinical approach to Social Work. Inclusion and Human Rights need to be part of our social lingo. And, it was actually happening. Many years ago when we were planning the Specialization of Human Rights in Social Work, we had people laughing at us. Now minding that and working on it has helped us a long way in the process. In India, we have a long way to go.

Coming back to the ideas of collaboration, the plan was to bring out a publication, carry out joint research and also advocate for Human Rights based approaches to Social Work and concentrate on advocacy on systemic issues. More than 15 ideas popped up. Each one was interesting and relevant. As usual not all were practical. But there was no need to worry about the practicality of it right now.

It would all be compiled and circulated shortly. For me this was a confluence of ideas and a good chance to initiate a dream project; tell the story of social work around the world. The emergence of it and how it has diversified and contextualized itself to situations. The ideas was well received and I really hope to be working on it very soon.

It was now dinner time hence we tried to wrap up the business. But as we all very well know the business session surrounded the dinner as well. We could not stop with our ideating minds till we actually departed.

Coburg Chronicles 5

Reflection and sharing

It was hard to believe that the weekend was already here! But in the summer school there was no real difference. It was a working weekend. The day was to be spent with a lot of reflection. Students had to present their reflection of Flossenberg and the Nuremberg. By now I was totaled out, could no linger sit in long sessions and concentrate. I loved to hear the students speak. I was part of the earlier discussions in small groups. Holding myself to attend the day long presentations was out of question.

I sat through the first round of interesting reflections where they spoke about the impressions that the concentration camp created. The ideas were predictably different from culture to culture. The Namibians related to the genocide that took place in their own land, while the Chileans referred it to the Pinochet episodes.

In my mind the atrocities that I have read about all came back flashing, I could call it an action replay and on the top was the killing of the innocent Tamils who were caught in the conflict.

While all this was going on I was just waiting for a break. But it never came. So I decided to look for some green tea and retired for some time. It always surprises me what a 20 minute rest can do to you. I was up and running and feeling much better with my cold, leaky nose, head ache, a slight fever with severe body pain. Could have been a flu, a paracetamol really helped along with a jelly like capsule- courtesy Gaby!

Coburg Chronicles 4

Nuremberg

The word Nuremberg is very familiar to most human rights activists. It marked a new era of international human rights. For those who are not so familiar with this here is the reason. After the second world war ended, the victors, USA, UK, Russia and France set up a tribunal to try those who were accused of cooperating with Hitler for the genocide of the innocent people. This trial was held in Nuremberg. It marked a new beginning in the field of human rights where the guilty would be tried and punished no matter how strong they once were.

Now we were in this historic city. It was destroyed in the both the World wars and was rebuild to its glory. There is much more to the history of Nuremberg than just the wars and destruction. Our place of visit was the documentation centre of the Nazi Germany. It was in a magnificent red building with some spectacular modifications that gave ultra modern features.

The place was a visual narrative of the history of the evolution of Hitler as a force to be reckoned with. It was to represent the chosen trauma of the Germans in a very high tech manner. High definition photos, audio visual presentations with accompanied audio guides that were easy to use were just some features. The narratives created strong impressions of what had transpired in about 30 years from 1925 – 45. It stood as a testimony to the national frenzy that he created to feel proud of a nation that painted a completely new image to the world as the most dominant super power that could not be stopped.

The grandiose plans to build stadia to accommodate over 4,00,000 people, the parade grounds, war game arenas, parliament buildings and so on were all beautifully planned and were in the process of being executed. All this banked on the labour of those in the concentration camps. The quarries of Flossenberg etc that would supply all the building materials. This was called nation building! A process that systematically excluded a minority for the welfare of the majority.

The entire exhibition produced two reactions. Firstly, horror, secondly an inspiration to see the possibility of how a nation can be influenced by some simple emotional prodding. I guess the BJP/RSS combine try it repeatedly in India as it is the case of all the nationalist mobilizations around the world.

The exhibits end with the Nuremberg Trials. This also marked the beginning of a new phase of development of Human Rights.

Our next stop was the Human Rights Road located just opposite the Nuremberg Museum. The story goes that the place was acquired by the Municipal Council of Nuremberg, proposals were invited to decide to utilize the space. A novel idea of a human rights way was assigned to famous Israeli artist. He put up thirty pillars with 30 Article from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The articles were written in german accompanied by another language. Many languages found their place in on the pillar and obviously many did not. So after the 20^th pillar he planted an oak tree to represent all the other languages of the world. It was surprising to find Tibetan and Singalese among the thirty but Hindi and Telugu or Tamil were obviously missing. I guess that is was part of the tree.

In the free time that followed, a visit to the Church of St Lawrence, a magnificent piece of work that took 200 years to complete stood right in the heart of the Market place. Located closely was another church of Our Lady, that was built during the reformation and then was given to the catholics two hundred years ago. It was interesting to find that the images on both the churches were so similar in form but only different in size.

Nuremberg thus left a lasting impression to learn about what had happened in the history of Human Rights not so long ago.  

Coburg Chronicles 3

Day 3

Flossenburg

It was an early start. I was back in Gaby's house for breakfast. It was 7:00 am, She had alerady left for work. We had to cut into the really hard bread. Solidad was my only company for breakfast when we started. Soon Lucy joined us. Our conversations were around education in Chile and India. We soon left the house packing some sandwiches for John and Cecilia. The bus awaited us at the Mensa. It was fully loaded and off to Flossenburg.

Flossenburg was the location of a former concentration camp. It was a work camp and not an extermination camp. Work camps were places where people were brought in for hard labour. They were given colour codes to be differentiated. A green triangle signified a career criminal, a black triangle signified an anti social, a red triangle was political objector, blue was an immigrant, and pink was for the homosexual and purple was for the Jehova's witness. If the person was a jew an inverted yellow triangle was added to the existing triangle. So by seeing them one could be identified.

The camp existed from 1942 to 1945 till the americans liberated them. In 1945 there were about 100,000 prisoners in the camp and were liberated of which it is said that 30000 were killed.

The camp hosted citizens from 22 countries which included almost all of europe. To our surprise there seemed to be one chinese and seven from the USA.

The camp site was not eerie to see at first. The stories they said were not compelling in the beginning. But as we progressed, it became harder to hear. There is a place where it reads, “Work will set you Free”. It is really nice to hear this but it actually meant that, if you work very hard every day you will die fast and then you will be burnt in that oven and your smoke will be free. What an interpretation!

This was the place where bodies people were burnt in threes and fours as there were about 80-90 people dying every day and all of them had to be disposed. So the bodies would be kept on a table and their jugular vein cut off so that they bleed out all their blood. The golden teeth/filling was pulled out, their hair was shaved and then they were filled in the oven. The gold was melted to make jewelry and the hair was sent to make beds. The clothes were probably recycled.

The valley of death was a place where people were lined up and shot. Now there is a memorial of nations that underlines the suffering. Close to it is a church that has beautiful glass work with significant allegorical reference to the suffering. This church was built by the survivors.

A compelling fact about this camp was that Dietrich Bonhoffer a protestant theologian was killed here. I have read a lot about him and used his works extensively in retreats. In a book called Contact with god, Tony De Mello Quotes, Bonhoffer, “When Jesus says follow me, he is asking you if you are willing to die for me”. He joined the resistance against hitler and also planned to assassinate him. But in the process was imprisoned and hanged in Flossenburg along with eight of his companions. It was quite a place to be in.

A video of the survivors was very informative. It gave more intricate details of life in the camps. The survivors were filmed on the spot when they had gathered for a reunion.

The experience was very different from the Holocaust museum in Washington DC and the New York. Those museums gave an eerie feeling about the whole thing but this was less traumatic but had a whole lot of information that made you go through life as it was in real time. Associating it with what happened in Sri Lanka or Cambodia was easier.

The ride back was very relaxing as all of us slept in the bus except the Driver of course!  

Coburg Chronicles 2

Day two.

As usual I woke up at 5:00 am the only difference was that it was 5:00 am in India and only 1:00 am here. Rolling and wriggling in the bed went back to sleep, but was visibly tired for the day. Was ready on time for the walk to breakfast to Gaby's place. Bread, cheese, meat, milk, musli, yoghurt, jelly, honey, tea, grape fruit and apple juice greeted us on the table.

Had a quick bite and was ready to head for the sessions. The first half of the day had four presentations from Chile, Namibia, India and Germany. They presented by the students who had worked on the issues. It was really interesting to see their level of involvement in the issue. The real learning was from the presentation from Namibia. Where the apartheid was at its peak. Was similar to the South African case study but was very different in terms of the way in which it was dealt with. The Indians presented on on the situation of the Irulas in Guduvancherry. It was a typical class room presentation. All this while I was thinking of our students who could have been presenting here. Wondered how well Arulmani and Jerry would have pulled it off the whole perspective would have been different for the international community.

In the afternoon there was an interesting lecture by Dr Louis De Campo an expert on child rights working in Columbia. His case study was the rehabilitation of child soldiers. Bencosta was the name of is project. He gave several insights, on how things operated in that part of the world. A video demonstrated his work and the difference they had made in the lives of thousands of children amidst the ongoing conflict.

It was now about 5:00 pm and we were free till 7:00 pm for dinner which was at the Highlander Restaurant. I was totaled out, I just came to my room and hit my bed for nap. I had slept for about 40 minutes to renew my energy for the rainy day. Then walked down the mountain to the city centre for the dinner. It was an old restaurant, with a lot of character. On the way I picked up the russians and the chileans who were shopping. Though I was not the last to reach there. I was served food at the very end. Just like what happened yesterday. But I was in no hurry but very tired. The place was supposed to be the best for Burgers in this part of germany. Hence Burger it was for dinner. The burger lived up to the wait. The fries was really good.

After chattering, I was ready for my uphill walk.