The Seven Selves!

Hola,

I am finally back writing after more than eight months without updating my blog.  I am somehow sad that I didn't manage to keep writing during the last months, and that life has turned out to be so hectic that I have neglected one of the things I enjoy the most: writing.

There have been many changes in my life and many new experiences, trips, challenges, sad and happy moments, but most importantly a lot of growth.  I will make sure to share during the coming months many of the trips I did last year and several reflections about education, violence, relationships, work experiences and life.

Today, I just wanted to break silence and share with you a short reflection that is going on in my mind during the last months.  I couldn't find a better way to do it but through this beautiful poem of Khalil Gibran, The Seven Selves, that describes a conversation between the selves inside a madman, arguing with each other and feeling pity for their luck.  The poem ends when the seventh self, the do-nothing, speaks and questions them about their pre-ordeined fate and somehow makes them reflect about their own purpose in comparison to his.  Pure wisdom!

What an irony! and what a beautiful way to question the craziness inside ourselves, that most of the times takes our full attention, our discomfort or comfort, normality and way of living; keeping "nothingness" away from us.  Though "nothingness" remains there, empty, watchful, silent but alive. How often do we "talk" to this part of our self? How often do we acknowledge it? How often do we realize is through "nothingness" the other parts of our selves make sense? How often do we stop life to do nothing?

Read the full poem below.

Peace,

Malu

Chapter 9 - The Seven Selves

In the stillest hour of the night, as I lay half asleep, my seven selves sat together and thus conversed in whisper:

First Self: Here, in this madman, I have dwelt all these years, with naught to do but renew his pain by day and recreate his sorrow by night. I can bear my fate no longer, and now I rebel.

Second Self: Yours is a better lot than mine, brother, for it is given to me to be this madman's joyous self. I laugh his laughter and sing his happy hours, and with thrice winged feet I dance his brighter thoughts. It is I that would rebel against my weary existence.

Third Self: And what of me, the love-ridden self, the flaming brand of wild passion and fantastic desires? It is I the love-sick self who would rebel against this madman.

Fourth Self: I, amongst you all, am the most miserable, for naught was given me but odious hatred and destructive loathing. It is I, the tempest-like self, the one born in the black caves of Hell, who would protest against serving this madman.

Fifth Self: Nay, it is I, the thinking self, the fanciful self, the self of hunger and thirst, the one doomed to wander without rest in search of unknown things and things not yet created; it is I, not you, who would rebel.

Sixth Self: And I, the working self, the pitiful labourer, who, with patient hands, and longing eyes, fashion the days into images and give the formless elements new and eternal forms-it is I, the solitary one, who would rebel against this restless madman.

Seventh Self: How strange that you all would rebel against this man, because each and every one of you has a preordained fate to fulfill. Ah! could I but be like one of you, a self with a determined lot! But I have none, I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and nowhen, while you are busy re-creating life. Is it you or I, neighbours, who should rebel?

When the seventh self thus spake the other six selves looked with pity upon him but said nothing more; and as the night grew deeper one after the other went to sleep enfolded with a new and happy submission.

But the seventh self remained watching and gazing at nothingness, which is behind all things.

Khalil Gibran

Embracing change

Hola,

Changing the World! That's the name of this blog and it is and has been for many years a vision of what I want my life to be everyday, what I want to contribute to and what I see myself working on.  It is a vision, a belief, and yet something more concrete than that; it is a force that moves me to embrace change, to believe in the power of transformation and gives me determination to go through the many changes that life places before me.  

Changing the world seems like a utopian task; though you can also look at it as a creative and empowering goal with very concrete components.  It you place change in a spectrum - a continuum with a range of moments, phases, inner and outer experiences-, we can see how we are normally changing, developing different capacities, challenging our ideas, becoming more or less flexible, strengthening our personalities in varied directions.  Change is not what things become when they move from one state to another; it is a process made of continuous transformations that help us move along within the spectrum - I don't believe change is about a radical difference between the past, the present or the future - It is about embracing the interweaving experiences that we go through, and reflecting on how each moment of our lives is deeply founded in those experiences.  

Change for me is not about the result; it is about the processes, the connections, the nodes we plug in - like in a circuit - and the realizations we experience! 

I see change as the transformational processes that manifest in my life in several ways:

1) Through relations with others, experiences I have, new knowledge I gain that shape the way I see the world; 

2) Through the difficulties I go through and the struggles to move and be outside my comfort zone;

3) Through the appreciation of "beauty" that allows me to see the intangible;

4)  Through silence when I am able to find myself with myself;

5) Through love when I manage to see myself as a vulnerable individual.

6) Many more...

I believe changes happen precisely when you realize that something is going on inside yourself and you are also able to identify how external influences shape you. I believe that embracing change is about acceptance, detachment from the past, the present and the future, self-empathy and determination. 

But how does this relate to Changing the World? Or how can embracing change help changing the world? I guess by simply becoming more aware of our connections with others, with the world, with nature, with ourselves, we become more responsible with our behaviors and actions, less selfish, more sincere, more respectful and more creative - thus creating a multiplying effect that inspire others, influences systems and structures, and help changing the world!

Peace,

Malu

Colombia in April!

Hola,

Finally some time to write about my trip to Colombia and share some photos with family and friends.  Things are happening very quickly lately and I am still struggling to balance my life between work and family and taking time to do other things that make me happy.

I went to Colombia for Easter in an impromptu trip.  My sister gave birth to her second baby and I couldn't wait for much longer to meet him and visit my family after more than a year without seeing them. 

Here is Pablo, my fourth nephew born in March 2012

My sister with Pablito

My sister and her family!

My other nephew: Tomas.  Isn't he the cutest?

After spending a couple of days in Bogota I went to Ibagué to see my parents.  I also took the opportunity to meet some of my friends from high school and just enjoy the lovely weather in Ibagué.  For those who have never heard about Ibagué, it is known as the Musical capital of Colombia due to its long history of high quality music education provided by the Musical Conservatory and the several musical festivals held during the year. It is a small city with so much unexplored potential for development. 

Here I am with several of my friends from high school at Kalamaria restaurant, created and served by Aura Maria, one of my friends.  As always it is great to meet friends, learn about their lives, laugh with them, remember good old times and just enjoy the moment. Short but joyful!

I happened to be walking close to the school where I did my primary and secondary education and by chance one of the nuns who teaches there was outside.  The school is called la Presentación, a catholic school located in the center of Ibagué just by Bolivar's square.   The school was closed but she allowed my mom and I to enter and walk around it.  What a great experience.  Memories flashed back: playing with friends, faces of teachers, festivals, masses, books, music, gossips, laughs, long lasting friendships!

Eating a delicious catfish in Ibague with my dad

Here with my mom spending a great day together: getting tanned, pampering each other, catching up and just enjoying life

Me...Just happy to be in Ibague

A breakfast in Ibague with eggs and platano - green banana

Went back to Bogota for a couple of days more.  I met with some friends and spent the last days with my sister and her family.  Here I am with Ornella, a very good friend of mine.

Orne and Nico from Belgium! Beautiful friends whom I met through my previous job

A delicious chicken with rice that my sister and her husband made

My mom preparing a cheese cake

 With my friend Marcelita, who recently got married.  See her big smile! Happy to see her smiling and enjoying her new life!

Here with another good friend who is expecting a baby! Exciting to see her belly, to talk about being pregnant and to see her again after a long time.

On the 9th of April I went to Bolivar's square in Bogota.  This is where the President's house and office is located and where Bogota's major's office is.  There was an exhibition about disappearances and war in Colombia with pictures of hundreds of people who have disappeared due to the war.  I wanted to visit this exhibition, talk to people and learn about projects on peace education, historical memory and forgiveness.  This is a very touching topic for me and one that has not been given enough attention in Colombia.  However, things seem to be changing, now the 9th of April has been declared the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia.  Some acknowledgment at last.

 

The 9th of April is an important day in the history of Colombia because it was the day when Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, one of the most charismatic political leaders of the country, who spoke openly and genuinely about economic, social and political injustices and challenged the political structures and thinking in the country, was assassinated.  A great man that was killed by the clientelism and oligarchy of Colombia.  I speak about this and Colombia's history in my thesis, which you can download here

Information about education projects in Bogota promoted by the Major's office

Father of a former soldier who was killed by the Colombian military according to him who has been fighting to uncover the truth.  One of the many hidden stories in Colombia. 

Displacement of Colombian Afro-descendents - those whose voices are silent by the Media and the Government and whose rights are denied

Feeding the pigeons in Bolivar's Square! Lovely experience that manages to take away at least for some minutes, the images, words and stories heard and seen during this day.

Intense and amazing time in Colombia to reconnect with family and friends, with the reality and with my roots!

Already looking forward to Christmas and New Years with Paul in Colombia.

Peace,

Malu

A long weekend in Madrid

 Hello,

This time I am blogging about our trip to Spain in March to celebrate Paul's birthday.  We went for a long weekend to Madrid where we hadn't been before together.  It was nice to walk on Madrid's streets holding hands, discussing history while visiting museums, seeing friends and just taking some time for ourselves away from little and sometimes monotonous Geneva.  As with other posts, I will walk you through pictures and tell you a bit of each experience. 

On our first day we visited Alejo, one of Paul's friends who used to work at CERN and now has his own company called Biobike, the first shop in Madrid specialized 100% in electric bikes. 

Paul and Alejo joking

Reunited after almost four years

At Puerta del Sol listening to Mariachis! I just love Mariachis' shows: the combination of guitars, violins, trumpets, strong voices, sombreros, lyrics and the attire, make the entire performance unique. I enjoy just listening to the sound of the music and the always smiley faces of Mariachis.   I wish I could rent one of those shows here in Geneva, for a reasonable price, and have them for a party!

At Plaza Mayor after doing some shopping! I was surprised by how cheap clothes are in Madrid compared even to some places in Colombia. 

Paul at Plaza Mayor before having tapas!

Tapas and sangria!

On our way to Prado Museum

Creativity

Inside the Naval Museum - Paul really wanted to visit this museum, which ended up being interesting and worth visiting.

Had a delicious paella and steak in a very busy and not so well-attended restaurant

St. Jerome Royal Church, built in the early XVI century.  According to Wikipedia, the church, which has undergone numerous remodelings and restorations over the centuries is the remaining structure of the Hieronymite monastery that once stood beside the royal palace of Buen Retiro, of which a portion now serves as the Prado museum. Its proximity to the royal palace also underscores a connection to royalty, serving for centuries as the church used for the investiture of the Prince of Asturias.

Before entering Prado Museum where we spent almost three hours and yet didn't have enough time to go through all the thousands of paintings and sculptures they have.  It was interesting to see their new discovery of a copy of the Mona Lisa produced by a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci and fully restored by the Museum. 

 

Beautiful St. Jerome Royal Church at night

 

After a long day, met Paul's friends at a typical Spanish restaurant where we ate traditional Spanish food!

Next day we met Alvaro, a friend from Colombia who lives in Madrid. It was a great encounter after almost eight years.  Here we are in front of the Royal Palace. 

Alvaro and Paul

In a park near the Temple of Debod

An Egyptian Templo in Madrid.  This is the Temple of Debod close to the Royal Palace gardens.  It was given in 1968 by the Egyptian Government to the Spanish Government as gratitude for their help saving the temples of Abu Simbel that were threatened by the construction of the Great Dam of Aswan.   

Paul and me!

In front of the Almudena Cathedral.  According to Wikipedia, when the capital of Spain was transferred from Toledo to Madrid in 1561, the seat of the Church of Spain remained in Toledo; so the new capital – unusually for a Catholic country – had no cathedral. Plans were discussed as early as the 16th century to build a cathedral in Madrid dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena, but construction did not begin until 1879.  The cathedral seems to have been built on the site of a medieval mosque that was destroyed in 1083 when Alfonso VI reconquered Madrid.

Inside the Almudena Cathedral - beautiful, calm and peaceful.

 

After a long walk we went to an Asturias restaurant.  Here Paul with the owner!

Alvaro and Paul ready to eat a delicious lunch - chorizo, squid, salad, cheese, potatoes!

It was a great time in Madrid; a good opportunity to meet friends, enjoy the beauty of the city, celebrate Paul's birthday and enrich our knowledge, perspective of the world and other cultures.

Hugs,

Malu

Peace Education in Colombia: A Contribution to Positive Peace

Hello,

As I promised I would be writing about my Master's thesis titled Peace education in Colombia: A Contribution to Positive Peace.

Brief summary 

In countries affected by protracted armed conflicts where violence seems to have been normalized and established as part of the systems and relationships between members of society, peace education is not only a necessity but also a compelling force that can support the transformation of violent structures that fuel direct violence, inequalities and discrimination.  This document examines the root causes of violence and the armed conflict in Colombia since La Conquista, exploring the different collective imaginaries that support cultural violence and justify violent structures.  

The author analyses the different current manifestations of structural violence in the country and presents six grass-root peace education initiatives selected after an intense field research in areas in Bogotá, Cajibío, El Tambo, Medellín, Popayán and Soacha in Colombia, that highly contribute to deconstruct violent structures.   Based on these examples and on some challenges and gaps identified through the research, the author argues the possibility of peace education to evolve into peace building education that can contribute not only to reduce the level of direct violence but to more equitable relationships, dialogue among different members of society that do not have contact among them, to the creation of holistic systems that support inclusion, quality education and the development of solidarity.   

A model is proposed to be applied by already established peace education initiatives that can allow scaling up their impact on society, with concrete examples to further its implementation. The author invites peace education practitioners and academics to rethink peace education in Colombia, to work collaboratively with other organizations, to create synergies and make peace education a fundamental block in the process of peace building. 

In contexts of protracted violence, armed conflict and high levels of inequality and injustice, education can be easily used as a tool to either exacerbate or mitigate violence.  Peace education provides opportunities to learn cooperatively with others and creates spaces that can be utilized to support social cohesion.  However, for peace education to create a higher impact, it needs to be ingrained in a more holistic approach to deal with the structural causes of violence in society.  It needs to be informed by a conflict analysis of the different structures that normalize violent behaviors and the attitudes that justify them. 

Hundreds of peace education programs have been created in Colombia since the last ten years; most of them serving underprivileged communities and displaced populations. They aimed to empower those who are discriminated against or are victims of violence.  Those programs range from youth empowerment, citizenship, democracy and human rights, economic development, values-based education and forgiveness and reconciliation, among many others.   

The increasing number of peace education programs, however, is not proportional to the decrease of direct or structural violence in the country; on the contrary it can be seen as a sign of the need to counteract the rising effects of the armed conflict and violence in the population, especially in those more marginalized.  As the inequalities and injustices in Colombia also become more prominent and untouched by public policies, the social divide increases and the fragmentation of society deepens, the role of peace education becomes more important in providing avenues for building positive peace, understood as the absence of structural violence reflected in exploitative and repressive structures. 

This thesis addresses the following questions:  Are the current peace education programs in formal and non-formal settings in Colombia contributing to transform the violent structures that have generated the armed conflict in the country and that continue to fuel and generate more violence? Can peace education help transforming the violent structures that grip the country and if so what needs to be done and improved, by whom, how and where?

The premise of this model is that if Colombia suffers of a severe case of structural violence that fragmentizes, marginalizes and segments society then peace education programs need to affect the content and form of educational systems, social structures, relationships and violent cultures in society.  The proposed model emphasizes the importance of creating more peace education programs for upper socio-economic groups, bringing people of different socio-economic and ethnic groups together, enhancing the content and form of peace education, creating alliances with public and private institutions and developing a network that can help scaling up the impact of peace education in society.

For peace education to truly contribute to peace building in societies like Colombia, affected by a protracted violent conflict, it needs to be embedded as part of the peace building strategies of the country and conceived as peace building education.  As such it can play a fundamental role in 1) creating inclusive education systems, 2) preparing conducive environments for different segments of the population to come together, 3) breaking the dichotomous thinking prevalent in society and encouraging critical thinking about the root causes of conflicts, and 4) helping the process of decoupling from violent structures and fostering mobilization to create alternative economic, political, social and cultural models that are more equitable.  

This thesis was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Advanced Studies in Peace and Conflict Transformation - University of Basel - World Peace Academy - Basel, Switzerland.  

* Note from Johan Galtung, regarded as the founder of academic peace research and peace studies, and who was my Thesis adviser: 

"I have rarely had such a pleasure reading a thesis that just as well could have been for a PhD.   The thesis has everything:

• an excellent statement of the problem: the extreme direct. structural and cultural violence in Colombia;
• a history of the extreme brutality of the Spanish Conquista, a shame for the West and for Christianity - ...
• an analysis of the famous La Violencia from  the murder of Colombia's hope. Gaitan, April 9 1948.. through the pact between the two parties consolidating the leadership on the top and fomenting the three guerrilla movements;
• an excellent definition of the task of peace eduction, a discourse to explore the three types of violence and their negation, clearly showing that the UNESCO culture of peace is not enough, there has to be attention to the structure too, the Achilles heel of Colombia;
• a methodology, exploring the strength and weaknesses of six empirical cases--with 24 elaborated in a very rich appendix;
• a conclusion with concrete proposals.

She does  not put her foot wrongly at any place, she is equally sure-footed in her own country, her mastery of theory and her practice. That I recommend the thesis accepted with the highest note, 6-six, goes without saying. If there ever were a prize available, on top of that, this is would be an occasion.

In addition she has considerable pedagogical talent, writes clearly in both languages and would be a pride for any university.  And for any practical program in this vast field of creative nonviolence".

Johan Galtung

  

Click here to download the full thesis and do not hesitate to contact me for further information or any questions.  

Click on the following links for further information on the field research in Medellin, El Cauca and Bogota. 

Peace,

Malu