Category Archives: Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Activism isn’t a new concept for Smith women, as Smithies have been involved in efforts to better the world since the early years of the College’s conception. Details regarding the stories of individual Smith activists can be found in documents preserved in the Smith College Archives. One such student, Esther Follansbee Greene, class of 1901, volunteered with Smith College’s effort to the war service during the aftermath of World War I, many years after her college graduation. Working as a missionary and as a caregiver in orphanages in Armenia, Esther was able to provide direct aid to those devastated by the war. Esther’s role as an activist was less an outward protest to the horrors she heard of and witnessed and more of an attempt to actively better the lives of those who suffered due to the war.

In her student record folder in the Smith College Archives, there is little paperwork detailing Esther’s life as a Smith College student. However, we do know that she was a part of Smith College’s class of 1901 and that she later became a member of the faculty of Smith College’s School for Psychiatric Social Work (today’s Smith College School for Social Work), where she utilized both the training and practice of her experience in Armenia, applying it to working with individuals, families, and groups in a clinical setting in the United States. Originally from Peace Dale, Rhode Island, Esther ventured abroad in February 1919, recognized as a member of the relief expedition to Armenia and Syria.

The Near East Relief handbook, which describes projects and locations of volunteers, states clearly the mission of the Relief Unit: “The immediate object of the Near East Relief has been physical relief…the distribution of food and clothing to save men, women, and children from death through starvation and exposure, … to save children made orphans by massacres and deportations, … [and to distribute] medicine for the thousands suffering from diseases.”

The main focus of Esther’s personal mission was to aid the Armenians, who, as the chapter, “The Case for Armenia” in the handbook notes, were “… in dire need and imminent danger of complete destruction. One million Armenians were deported, and eight hundred thousand massacred during the early years of the war and those who escaped [had] been in constant imminent danger of death through starvation.” Her missionary work involved the orchestration of the organization and treatment of patients at the Smith College Relief Hospital in Malatya (a city in modern-day Turkey), as well as a caregiver position at an overcrowded and under-supplied orphanage for 500 to 600 Armenian children left parentless during and after the Armenian Genocide.

Hagia Sophia. Photo by Esther Follansbee Greene.

To be more effective at her job, Esther had to learn Armenian, a task she found quite difficult, as she observes in a letter to her friend Mary B. Lewis: “Armenian is my greatest trial now … learning it is like working with your fingers and ties to find a foothold in a wall.” Even in the wake of the aftermath of a war, Esther still experienced a common sentiment shared by many who move to another country, immersed in a different culture and language. As the photographs she took of cultural monuments such as Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) and the Islamic cemeteries show, Esther was intrigued by the culture she now lived in, despite the destruction around her.

Esther’s other letters and photos show the devastation and suffering caused by the turmoil of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, in particular the effects on the Armenians. Her work at the orphanage plunged her into both the culture and the reality of the political and social situation. In a letter to her friend Mary, Esther mentions, “Our worst enemy here is malaria.” Having suffered from the disease herself while abroad and seen many children succumb to the illness, she recognized the dangers it posed to society and the necessity to improve the living conditions of those around her as well as to move the healthy away from disease-ridden areas until they could be deemed safe again. In another one of her letters, she writes to a colleague back in the United States, “The other day, I saw a plot and mound of five thousand human bones … I also saw a cemetery where three thousand children were taken in batches and either killed there or left to starve … I went to these places not for the gruesomeness, but because I wanted to say I have seen them myself…” Her experiences opened her eyes as she strove for understanding of the consequences of World War I in the post-Ottoman Empire region.

The letters and documents that Esther left behind provide a personalized perspective that gathers insight into a historical moment of great turmoil and confusion. Esther utilized her skills to help those in need and traveled to the area in need in order to provide the most direct aid. Esther’s story demonstrates the determination shared by countless Smithies to create a global community and to bring about social change through action.

References

Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 12. War Service Collection, World War I 1914-1918, Near East Unit, 1918-1920, Box No. 30, Esther Greene 7.1901

Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 12. War Service Collection, World War I 1914-1918, Near East Unit, 1918-1920, Box No. 30, Esther Greene 1901: Correspondence to the war service board (1919-1924)

Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 12. War Service Collection, World War I 1914-1918, Near East Unit, 1918-1920, Box No. 30, Esther Greene, Photographs, Box 30

Kaitlin Burns is a senior Psychology and French Studies double major at Smith. She discovered her passion for travel, languages, and all things global through her experience as a Global Stride Student at Smith as well as her time studying abroad in Paris, France. She is interested in education and art and hopes to combine her global studies with these passions in the future.

Chelsea Orefice is an Engineering (BS) major entering her senior year in the fall of 2015. Chelsea was a Global Stride Scholar when she entered Smith. Through this program, she wrote about Esther Follansbee Greene’s life and service involvement during WWI. She is enthusiastic and passionate about women’s empowerment as well as the inclusion of more women in STEM fields.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Where Are We? Remembering Colonialism

Image April 27, 2015 Lili Mundle

Where am I? One way to answer this question is that I’m sitting in a room in Ihnestraße 22, Berlin, Germany. Another way, I’m sitting in a classroom in the building that houses the Political Science department at the Freie Universität Berlin. But I feel this information is not enough to inform you of the real meaning behind my first question. The inspiration for the first query may shed some light: I’ve just been told by my professor that from 1927 to 1944, a collection of human remains encompassing some 5,000 items were housed in the attic of this very building. So when I ask, “Where am I?” it is not simply a matter of physical location, but one of history and more importantly, the interconnectedness of one building’s life with colonialism and with it the first genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated thousands of miles away in what today is known as Namibia, and another, perpetrated in Germany and across Europe thirty years later.

MUNDLE.Lili.I22 Picture (1) — Front entrance of Ihnestraße 22. Copyright Lili Mundle.

Constructed in 1927, the building was home to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, otherwise known as the KWI-A. Research conducted at this institute is infamous for legitimating racism both scientifically and politically. As a small plaque outside the front entrance informs us – Ihnestraße 22 housed Mengele’s mentor and other researchers who both scientifically legitimated the Holocaust and benefited from its atrocities. Its final line warns that scientists are responsible for the content and consequences of their research.

While this history is remembered, albeit on a small and difficult to read plaque, there is another history that has not been remembered. Let us return to the human remains in the attic, in particular 30 that had been stored there. Where were they from? At the time they had been shipped to Berlin, their colony of origin was known as German South-West Africa (DSWA). Today it is known as Namibia. From 1904 to 1908 a genocide, which to this day has not been recognized by the German government, was perpetrated against the Nama and Herero peoples. Both were nearly obliterated. One practice, documented on a postcard of the time, describes women in concentration camps – Germany’s first use of these – being forced to scrape flesh from the skulls of the murdered. The picture accompanying the text shows German soldiers packing skulls into boxes to be sent to Berlin for research. While these 30 skulls cannot for certain be traced specifically to the genocide, we know their origins were made possible by the context of colonial violence.

But it is not simply the presence of these skulls that connects Ihnestraße 22 and the research at the KWI-A to colonialism. As the plaque warns: scientists are responsible for the content and consequences of their research. However, Dr. Eugen Fischer, first director the KWI-A, most likely saw the consequences of his work being fortuitous rather than gruesome. For the reason he had been called upon to lead the institute was due to his own research in German South-West Africa in 1908. There he had studied the “Rehobother Bastards,” children of Dutch settlers and local Khoikhoi women, to determine the heredity of “race.” While in retrospect his proof was unsubstantiated, his work would inspire, among others, Dr. Wolfgang Abel, another researcher at the KWI-A. Abel’s research on the “Rhineland bastards,” children born of German women and French colonial soldiers from WWI, would lead to the forced sterilizations of 385 youth. The consequences of these men’s research are not limited to what has been written here. These descriptions are simply to give a first impression of the close relationship between colonialism, science and racism.

What does this have to do with activism? Sitting in that classroom in Ihnestraße 22, in what today is a university, and hearing my professor speak of our intimate proximity to colonialism inspired me and four other classmates – friends – to embark on a journey to remember and reveal this interconnectedness. Our method: an exhibit. Titled, “Manufacturing Race: Contemporary Memories of a Building’s Colonial Past,” this exhibit was displayed on numerous occasions in various locations, receiving positive feedback and publicity. Its contents address not only history, but the way in which this history is, or is not, remembered. Not wanting to have this knowledge lost after we graduated, we successfully applied for funding from the university to make our work permanent. Elements include an online version of the exhibit, a large memorial plaque in front of Ihnestraße 22 documenting the continuity between colonialism and KWI-A’s racist research, and finally an international conference on colonialism, science and racism in a broader context to be held in the fall of 2015.

In closing, I would like to offer the opening lines of the exhibit: “This exhibit was born from the knowledge that every site in Germany has a colonial past and the conviction that this knowledge needs to be made public. Not only did we want to know about the colonial past of Ihnestraße 22 – we want everyone to know. We hope that this research will bring others, here at the Freie Universität and beyond, to engage with the colonial reality that exists in all spaces. While we hope the knowledge we have exhibited will reach beyond the university, we specifically chose to host the exhibition at the very site where this knowledge was produced and where we are still studying today. In doing so we want to remind everyone that the so-called distant international and colonial are in fact local. We also want to remind that they are relevant to us all here, today. In doing so, we want to bring the question of ethics and research to the fore.”

As this text reveals, the hopes in creating such an exhibit are not just that history be revealed and remembered. That a website, or a plaque, or a conference be funded. But more fundamentally that we locate ourselves in the world by constantly asking: “Where are we?”

Lili’s interest in global issues and inter-cultural experiences is an inherently selfish one: having parents from two different countries and growing up in both countries herself, the aforementioned issues constitute an essential part of successfully navigating day-to-day life. Over the years these day-to-day issues have become a part of her academic interests and work, leading her to pursue a graduate degree in International Relations and work in the international arena. Underlying these academic and work activities remains her primary impulse: to continue exploring and communicating with the world around her.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

“What’s up with feminism?” – “Quoi le feminism?” Project

April 27, 2015 Pauline Pelsy-Johann

It all began on March 8th, 2013: International Women’s Day. The French Ministry of Women’s Rights organized an initiative, Every Day is the 8th of March, that invited stakeholders, ranging from established organizations to newly-formed collectives, to organize an event every day of the year that highlights issues of gender and women’s rights. Each day, they featured one of these events on their website « Le 8 mars c’est toute l’année » (www.8marstoutelannee.fr).

Robert Dorit, Professor of Biology and Smith College’s Director of the Paris Study Abroad Program in 2012-13, was invited to contribute to this initiative. He had the idea of creating a website featuring interviews with a broad range of participants, each discussing how they interpret and relate to the concept of feminism.

What is Feminism Screen shot version 2_4 — Screenshot of quoilefeminisme.org

Upon my return to France, Robert Dorit approached me with the plan for this site. We assembled a film team – myself, Sarah Oquendo and Nathan Mauvois – to realize the proposed series of interviews, where participants, both men and women, give their personal definition of feminism. We enlisted the aid of a small internet design firm, Ow-Lab, to help imagine the website. There, web designer Rony Turlet and data managers Guillaume Amangoua and Delphine Gauthier created the site (whatsupwithfeminism.org / quoilefeminisme.org), which launched nine months later. This site was a team effort, and the members of the team behind this project have been invaluable. It would have been impossible without the effort, creativity and energy of all involved.

This project has given me the opportunity to meet courageous women and men willing to confront their personal doubts, struggles, and convictions. While I was filming the interviews, I realized I too was searching for my own response to the word “feminism.” The term and its implications seemed complex and, at times, contradictory. As I recorded the reflections of over 100 interviewees, I discovered a vast array of interpretations that have served to deepen and nuance my own reflections of the topic.

I believe our project lifts the veil on a topic that has once again become taboo. Today, the word “feminism” has been devalued and has come to be seen as old-fashioned or irrelevant; it is hard to even raise the issue of feminism without having to justify oneself. It is time to once again take back the debate and to offer each of us a space in which to express our own definitions of and interactions with the word “feminism.”

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www.whatsupwithfeminism.org aims to provide a rich and animated comparative perspective on what it means to be a woman or a man today. We urge you to visit the site and to contribute to the conversation. If you wish to participate in the debate, please contribute to the site by submitting your own video commentary (1-2 minutes maximum length) to pauline@quoilefeminisme.org. The last word is yours.

Pauline is a French film director. Her films, documentary or fiction, show the part of women in the world. During her study at Smith in the American Studies Diploma Program, she directed a movie about another student in her program, Yuanyuan Liu, who was doing a research for a thesis on Chinese women learning Mandarin and English in the early 20th century at Qinling College, a sister-college of Smith. This movie, ‘A New Chinese Woman,’ is available in the Smith Archives.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Zait Zaytoun w Zaatar (Oil, Olive and Thyme)

April 27, 2015 Andrea Tanco

After a three-hour drive we finally arrived in Mafraq, a town located in northern Jordan. As we were driving through the settlement I saw families buying groceries in the local stores and men and children coming out of the local mosque after attending the Friday prayer. As I observed the interactions in the streets of Mafraq and found it hard to believe that 10 miles north of this town was the Syrian border, let alone that the distance to Daara, the town where the Syrian conflict started back in March of 2011, was only 19 miles further!

We continued driving and shortly after leaving Mafraq behind we took a right turn off the main highway onto a narrower road. This road was completely surrounded by acres upon acres of olive trees. The temperature was so high that the shapes of the olive trees became distorted as I looked through the window. The dust thrown up from the road as we drove obscured their shapes even further, yet I was able to discern that the leaves were dried out and the exposed tissues of the olive trees were dark brown. The landscape anticipated what I was about to encounter at the end of this road. Fifteen minutes later we arrived to the Zaatari Refugee camp.

This was my first time at the refugee camp. I had come along with a group of four other students from the University of Jordan. In January of 2014, I decided to study abroad for a semester at the University of Jordan in the city of Amman. In March, I began volunteering with a local organization called Generation Foundation that, among other activities, distributed clothing items to the refugee community at Zaatari on a monthly basis. Thus far, everything I had learned about the Syrian crisis and its effects had come from media outlets or reports from various international organizations. However, what I witnessed in Zaatari was beyond what any article or report could describe.

A close of view of the Za'atri camp for Syrian refugees as seen on July 18, 2013 (State department photo - public domain) — A close of view of the Za’atri camp for Syrian refugees as seen on July 18, 2013 (State department photo – public domain)

The Zaatari refugee camp is immense and has only kept growing at a stunning yet unsustainable pace. With an area of 1.274 mi² and a population of more than 100,000 Syrian refugees, Zaatari is considered the second-largest refugee camp in the world behind Dadaab in Kenya and it is the fourth largest city in Jordan.

The offices of all the main international organizations such as the United Nations and the Red Cross are located right after the main entrance to the camp, along with distribution stations located next to the offices where items are delivered to the refugee community on a daily basis. A tall, lengthy wire fence separates the administrative offices and the distribution stations from the area where the refugee community lives in tents and concrete houses. The main route through the camp is a long, bustling concrete street that has come to be known as the Champs-Elysées. Here, more than 3,500 shops and stands have opened up – coffee shops, barbershops, bakeries, perfume shops, and more. Trade and commerce have always been important components of the daily lives of the people of Syria, and these refugees were able to develop and express that aspect of their culture even within the constraints of a refugee camp.

TANCO.Refugee Camp, Jordan version 3 _4 — Zaatari Refugee Camp. Copyright Andrea Tanco.

When we arrived at the Zaatari camp, it was the busiest time of the day. This street is not only a place where people buy goods, but it is also a public space where people seek to socialize and normalize their lives at the camp as much as possible. Families were strolling around the Champs-Elysées, children were playing soccer, and men were carrying different items from shop to shop. Yet, what struck me the most was seeing children, likely only eight or twelve years old, walking around the Champs-Elysées with two-wheel carts. I approached one of these children and asked him what the carts were for. He told me that his name was Mahmud, he was 9 years old and that the cart was for his work. Mahmud, like many other children in the camp, wanted to assist his family economically. These children have been able to make a profit by carrying the items that people purchase in the Champs-Elysées back to their tents or to their houses, because while the Champs-Elysées is a long street, it is not nearly the length of the camp itself. Some of the refugees who live at the furthest point of the camp have to walk for as long as three hours to get to the Champs-Elysées. Mahmud told me that he really missed school. His favorite subject back in Syria was mathematics. There are some schools run by international organizations at Zaatari, but when I asked Mahmud why he did not attend one of these schools, he said that class time coincided with the busiest time at the Champs-Elysées and that he chose to help his family instead.

I often read articles that describe the Syrian Refugee crisis as the worst humanitarian disaster of our time. It is not unusual to read that more than a third of the Syrian population has fled the country or become internally displaced, or that more than 600,000 Syrians have sought refuge in Jordan. Half of them are children. These numbers are an attempt to quantify the impact of the Syrian crisis. Yet, the refugee crisis is more than just a number or headlines in the newspapers. The Syrian refugee crisis is the changing and evolving realities of many Syrian children like as Mahmud, of men and women who left their homes and dreams behind in Syria due to circumstances beyond their control. The Syrian refugee crisis is the resilience and perseverance to strive in an environment where no individual ever imagined or sought to live in.

The olive tree is a symbol of hope and life in the Middle East. The olive trees that lead to Zaatari may have become withered and dry, but they are still standing.

Andrea Tanco is an international student from Veracruz, Mexico. Yet, she considers herself a world citizen after living abroad in Hong Kong, Jordan and the US. She has a ceaseless passion for traveling and photography. She has traveled to extensively across the Middle East and South East Asia. She is currently a senior majoring in Government and Arabic. She hopes to pursue a career in journalism and academia.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Celebrating Ajima

April 27, 2015 Haisley Wert

I know many, many words in English, and a good number of “many” words in Spanish – or at least, as many words as my hungry mind has managed to pull in, mull over, and digest into my now commanding cadence. But I only know one word, with absolute certainty, in Quechua, the language of an estimated 8 million indigenous people in South America. “Ajima,” I can imagine Royner, my guide-turned-friend, saying in his low, resonant voice. It is a catch-all for everything that is good, bright, and beautiful in this world. A village elder with a radiant smile can be described as ajima simply because, despite her weathered skin and weary soles of her feet, she is still emanating joy. And a good crop, too, carried home in weighty kilos, has ajima within it. Resilience, however, is to me one of the truest forms of ajima and a testament to universal human spirit.

Preparing to build the biochar oven. Copyright Haisley Wert.

I spent my last two summers in Lamas, Peru, an Amazonian town with nearby indigenous communities. My first summer was a study abroad experience that catalyzed an internal paradigm shift. My second experience was the product of funding from Davis Projects for Peace, which allowed me to work in partnership with the Sachamama Center for BioCultural Regeneration (SCBR).

At the request of indigenous communities, the team from SCBR and I built four biochar ovens, which produce a carbon absorbent component that makes up 15% of terra preta or, as in the local language, yana allpa. Recently rediscovered by archeologists, terra

preta is an indefinitely fertile, super-compost that has experimentally yielded 880% more harvest than the local rainforest soil with fertilizer. The production and subsequent use of terra preta provides an alternative to environmentally destructive slash and burn, establishes permanent agriculture, and provides food security.

Although the startup costs to build the biochar ovens prove unfeasible for indigenous communities without external aid, once established, they decrease the costs of terra preta production to $10/metric ton. With these biochar ovens, over 220 families in four communities can more easily practice sustainable agriculture, benefiting the global environment and their community health. In the long term, these communities have the potential to exemplify the transformative power of this anthropogenic soil, thus spreading its production and use.

The team was brought together by our local affiliate Dr. Frédérique Apffel Marglin, Professor Emerita at Smith College and founder of the Sachamama Center for BioCultural Regeneration. Dr. Apffel Marglin’s longstanding connection to the local communities of nearly two decades made the partnership possible, and her extensive collaboration with the oven designer, Randy Chung, in the preceding months made the four-week timeline feasible. Before my arrival, they communicated with the village leaders to do two things: 1) Reaffirm that each of the villages wanted a biochar oven as they had readily expressed in the project design phase. 2) Confirm that the village’s designated oven sites were conducive to terra preta production (accessible, central, and near a water source).

In an unanticipated difficulty, communications with two of the villages prompted us to reconsider whether we should build ovens in those particular communities. We did not want to build an oven in a village unless the villagers were wholeheartedly enthused by the prospect, both on the principle of morally-sound aid and bearing in mind that there were other eager, potential recipients. In Alto Pucalpillo, only one very large extended family committed to the use of terra preta. In Molosho, community members had initially chosen a site that failed to meet any of the predetermined qualifications; it was neither accessible, nor central, nor was it near a water source. In a turn of positive news, Alto Pucalpillo decided that they did indeed want the biochar oven and, in addition to the family who was originally interested in the oven, a majority of community members committed to using it.

Getting to know the community members, whether through participating in their planting ritual, playing with the local children, or learning phrases in Quechua, was integral in understanding their way of life. By their graciousness, we were welcomed into the fold of daily life, and caught a glimpse of the hardship they had endured. When this group was conquered, they were pushed to the steepest land with the least fertile soil, where growing conditions were the most difficult. I met community members who walk up to six hours daily to reach and return from their gardens, sometimes carrying loads of nearly 130 pounds on their back. Without other options, adult community members turn toward manual labor to provide enough money for their families to purchase even the cheapest food. In these communities, there is extreme food insecurity and malnutrition on top of devastating, almost irreparable environmental damage.

Ultimately, it is the feeling of connection I shared with those communities that committed me to fighting food insecurity before I even fully articulated it as a career goal. I am even more eager now and unafraid to tackle questions of how and why cycles of destitution are perpetuated. I seek to experience and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit, so universal and particularly tenacious in many pockets of third world countries. I hope to write, blog, and share my experiences to reaffirm the ajima that I believe is present in all beings in the world.

Let this be a call for all of us to tap into our shared humanity, and address the human story with dignity, truth, and a call to action.

Haisley is passionate about food security, particularly in Latin America. Last semester, she studied abroad in Córdoba, Spain to contextualize her Latin American and Latino/a Studies Major through PRESHCO. This semester, she is studying abroad in Cochabamba, Bolivia through the SIT Multiculturalism, Globalization, and Social Change program. She is currently researching the effect of global quinoa exportation on quinoa-producing families. Haisley completed her work in Peru through the Sachamama Center for Bicultural Regeneration. You can find more information on this center at their website here.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism, Uncategorized

The Koyal’s Cage

April 27, 2015 Afreen Gandhi

Editors’ note: The following are the final scenes of Afreen Seher Gandhi’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, set in modern-day Islamic India, which she presented as her honors thesis in the Theatre Department. The play recounts how eight years ago, Maha borrowed money from and signed a promissory note with Khizir, a friend and rival of her husband’s, forging her dying father’s signature, to pay for an operation to save her husband’s eyesight. Maha’s loving but overprotective and conservative husband, Ali, believes that the money was a gift from Maha’s father.

Characters

Ali – 30 years old
Maha – 26 years old
Asha Baji – Maha’s longtime servant
Noor – Maha’s and Ali’s young daughter

SCENE 18 – The Big Reveal

Ali storms in the living room from the main door and puts his letters away in the bureau. Maha enters behind him. They have just returned from the Eid party.

Ali: You shouldn’t have danced at the party with Dr. Sharma.

Maha: How could I have refused, Ali? It would have looked so rude.

Ali: I don’t care. Don’t give me your silly excuses.

Maha: So I should have said no? Told him to get away from me? Ali, he is such a close family friend. How would he feel?

Ali: He is still na-mehram for you, and you should not be seen in the arms of another man, let alone in public! So what if he’d feel bad?

Maha: He and Sara are the only dependable friends we have in Mumbai and so I am concerned about how he feels.

Ali: And since when have Doctor Sharma’s feelings become so important to you?

Maha: Now you are just being ridiculous, Ali. (Waves hand in denial.)

Ali: Ridiculous? Don’t forget that Allah has made me your protector, and, so, I have every right to stop you from making a fool of yourself and shaming me. If anything unfortunate were to happen to you, I’m the one who will be affected the most!

Maha: Ali, it was just a five minute dance. Why are you getting so insecure?

Ali: Insecure? (Scoffs.) Everyone was looking at me as if I was the most senseless husband ever! For God’s sake, Maha, (grips her) I didn’t think you were so immature. Did you once think about my honor and image in society?

Maha pulls away from him.

Ali: Stop pulling away from me! Look at me when I’m talking to you.

Maha tries to leave.

Ali: Stay here and finish this with me–

Maha: Ali, I’m not feeling too well.

Ali: (Calms down a bit.) Maha, are you expecting again?

Maha: (Irritated.) No, Ali, please let go, I’m really tired.

Ali: (Sarcastically.) Yes, the dance must have been really, really tiring.

Maha: Don’t forget to read your letters.

Maha exits towards her bedroom. Ali sits on the sofa and tears open the first letter. The letter paper is colored light blue. He reads it twice to believe what is written.

Ali: Maha! Maha!

Maha hurries in, a red shawl wrapped around her (the one gifted by Ali).

Ali: Maha! Is this true?

Maha: Yes.

Ali is shocked. Beat.

Maha: It’s true that I have loved you more than anything else in the world.

Ali: Rubbish!

Maha: It’s alright, Ali. You won’t have to save me! I’ll take the blame!

Ali: Oh, you’ll take the blame?! Oh, oh, then what am I worried about?! (With fake delight.) Everything will be just fine! My God, you’re just like a child – you have no i-dee-a what you’ve done!

Maha: Yes, I do.

Ali: No you don’t! You couldn’t! Eight years of our Nikaah – you who were my pride, izzat, my joy – now a hypocrite – liar – and worse! A criminal! Ugh! I can’t bear to think how you will rot in hell after what you’ve done, and you are acting like you broke a dish. (Beat.) I should have seen this coming. (Beat.) You’re just like your father – no morals, religion, or sense of duty! And this is how you reward me for protecting you all these years?

Maha: You? Protected me?

Ali: Don’t change the subject! You’ve ruined my future! Khizir can do whatever he pleases with me, and I will have to take it – all because of you! Our family has been shamed because of a ruthless, senseless woman.

Maha: When I am no longer in your life, you will be free.

Ali: Oh, more of your fine phrases. What good would it do to me if you were gone? Khizir can publish your story all over if he pleases. I might even be suspected of corruption! People will think that Ali Omar Shah was behind all of this and used you as a scapegoat! All thanks to you – you whom I have done nothing but pet and spoil all our married life! But of course (mocking) when you are no longer in my life, I will be free! Really, Maha, show yourself to a doctor!

Long moment of silence. Maha stares at Ali and he notices something new about her.

Ali: Take this shawl off! You don’t deserve it. Take it off! (Snatches it from her.) I didn’t buy this priceless gift for someone like you. I must make things right with Khizir. One way or the other, this must be kept a secret. As for us, we must live as we have always, but of course only in the eyes of the world. You can live here, in some corner of the house, but Noor will be kept far away from you. You are no longer fit to raise my child. I do not trust you anymore.

The doorbell rings.

Ali: Hide yourself Maha, perhaps it is Khizir. I don’t want him to see you.

Maha wipes a single tear.

Maha: Asha Baji! Asha Baji!

Asha Baji enters and Maha whispers something to her. Ali receives another letter at the door and tears it open.

Ali: (With fake delight.) Oh look, another love letter from Khizir! How wonderful! Maha, just leave my sight. I do not want to open this letter in front of you.

Maha exits towards the bedroom upstairs and Asha follows. Ali reads the second letter that he has just received from Khizir. He is happily relieved at the end of it.

Ali: Maha! Maha! Look what Khizir wrote! I’m saved!

Maha enters. She is shabbily dressed: with no make:up, and wearing a plain nightgown.

Ali: Maha, look! Khizir writes that he will not tell our secret to anyone; he regrets and apologizes for everything, and he even returned this wretched promissory note with the forged signature on it! Let’s just get rid of it first! (Tears the note.) There! Nothing can harm me now, I mean, nothing can harm the both of us now!

Maha: I’ve been fighting a hard fight these past few days.

Ali: Don’t get stuck on the negative Maha? It’s over, it’s all over! Our miseries have come to an end! Why that harsh look on your face? I have forgiven you. And I understand now that you did everything out of love for me and to protect me.

Ali tries to hug her tightly, but she does not return it.

Maha: Oh? You realize that now?

Ali: Yes! You loved me like a dutiful wife. You just took the wrong path to save me. But now I will counsel and guide you at all times. I’ve forgiven you, Maha, I really have!

Maha: I thank you for your forgiveness; that’s indeed very generous of you.

Maha tries to exit right. Ali holds her back.

Ali: Where are you going, Maha? Oh. You are upset because I asked you to take off the shawl, (Picks up shawl and hands it to her.) isn’t it?

Maha: (Refusing to take it.) Oh, Ali… Let’s just forget about this? I’m going to bed now. We can talk about this tomorrow.

Maha exits into the bedroom. Ali follows.

Scene 20 Nikaah

The next morning. Ali waltzes in the dining room happy and relieved. He sits on the table to read the morning news paper. There are two bags packed and kept in the living room area.

Ali: Maha! Maha! Please bring me some chai! I’ll get late for work.

Maha enters. She is dressed in her nightgown. She hasn’t slept all night.

Maha: When I was at my Abba’s place, he would impose his opinions on me all the time. About everything! Even if I disagreed with him, I hid my feelings, because he’d get very upset.

Ali: (Busy reading newspaper.) …hmmmmm… (Looks up.) Good morning. Let’s have chai, please?

Maha: He used to call me his songbird. It’s so funny… but I realized that I’m still just a songbird. But now I’m your songbird instead of Abba’s.

Ali: What…what are you talking about, Maha?

Maha: You always keep telling me that I’m like my father, but guess what? You’re the one who is just like my father. You decide everything for me, and I am forced to go along with it. When I look back at all these years of our marriage, I realized I’ve been living like a beggar, and I lived by performing tricks for you, Ali!

Ali: (Stands.) What nonsense, Maha? Aren’t you happy here?

Maha: No. I thought I was, but I’ve been lying to myself.

Ali: You’re not happy? (Scoffs.)

Maha: No, I just deceived myself into believing that I was content and happy with whatever made you happy and that you have always been so kind to me. But our house, it was nothing more than a cage. And I was the little birdie that you and Abba played with. At home, I was Abba’s songbird and here I was your little Koel. And as a result, our daughter has become my songbird. This has been our marriage, Ali.

Ali: Well maybe there might be some truth to this, but now it will be completely different. Play time is over, Maha, and now comes the time for education.

Maha: Whose education? Mine or Noor’s?

Ali: Both, Maha.

Maha: Oh, Ali, you cannot teach me how to be a fit wife to you.

Ali: And why do you say that?

Maha: Am I even fit to educate our daughter?

Ali: Maha —

Maha: Did you not say two minutes ago that you don’t trust me at all? I am not even fit to raise Noor!

Ali: I just said that in that heated moment. Why are you harping upon that one sentence?

Maha: Well, because you were wrong! The problem is not that I am not a good wife or mother, the problem is that I still need to be liberated. I need to open my eyes and enlighten myself. I realize that you are not the man who will help me solve this problem. I must set out to do this alone. And that is why—

Ali: That is why what, Maha, what?

Maha: That is why, Ali, we must separate. Our marriage must end for now. We can no longer stay under the same roof. Asha Baaji, Asha Baaji! Please bring all the stuff that I asked you to pack.

Ali: You’ve gone mad, Maha! You’ve lost your mind!

Maha: I have just come to my senses, Ali.

Ali: You mean to say that you are leaving me?

Maha: Yes.

Asha Baji brings a duffle bag and a carry-on and lays it next to the two bags near Ali.

Ali: You are leaving me, this house, and our daughter?

Maha: No, who said I was going to do abandon my house and child? I would never do that, not in a million years.

Ali: Oh, thank God, Maha, I am so relieved to hear that.

Maha: This doesn’t mean are marriage is still going to continue.

Ali: What? What do you mean Maha–

Maha: If someone will leave this house and Noor – it will have to be you, Ali. You, not me.

Ali: What?

Maha: Yes. Have you forgotten that father willed this house to me? Ali, this property is under my name. It is I who has been sheltering you, protecting you all this while.

Ali: You can’t be serious when you say that, Maha! I am proud of who I am- I am the bread winner of this house. I am a self-made man who has never turned to corrupt means to make a living.

Maha: (Gently) Ali, you would have no vision if it weren’t for me who scraped the money and had you operated on in time! (Beat) Yes, can you imagine your self-made self blind and miserable? Not being able to see Noor’s face when you hold her in your arms?

Ali: So, so, so you are ending this marriage because you think I was unfit for the sacrifice you made? Because I couldn’t repay you in the same way?

Maha: All I am saying is that this marriage isn’t going to work. I can’t live with you under the same roof anymore.

Ali: Maha, what are you saying? You’re turning me out of my own house? Have you forgotten the laws of our religion? Is this what Islam teaches women? To treat their husbands like shit and throw them out of the house after a small fight?

Maha: This is not one of our small fights, Ali, it just my sacred duty towards myself.

Ali: What rubbish? What duties are you talking about?

Maha: Am I not a human being, Ali, just as much you are? Don’t I have a will of my own? I know that your version of Islam is just what you think is right and proper and suits your needs. But from now on I shall not be satisfied with what you think, say, and believe. I will think things out for myself and try to be clear about them.

Ali: Are you not clear about your position in your own home? Do you not fear Allah? Have you no insight as to what your religion bids and forbids you to do?

Maha: Without you, I will look into all this as well. For now, my thoughts and beliefs have been clouded by your words. I will see if our religion is true for me, and what rights Islam gives women.

Ali: Maha, even if you fail to believe in our religion, let me appeal to your conscience- for I do suppose the woman I have been married to for eight years has some moral feelings, some ethics? Or answer me- do you have none?

Maha: It’s very easy for you to say these things now, Ali, according to you a moment ago, a woman had no right to spare her dying father or save her husband’s life. I don’t believe you anymore.

Ali: Maha, you’re talking like a child! Don’t you understand our society?

Maha: No, I don’t! But I shall try to, and make up my mind – which is right, society, religion or me. Leave, Ali, just go.

Lights fade as Ali picks up his bags and walks out of the door. Noor enters the room with Asha, and Maha (center-stage) lovingly picks her up in her arms.

Fade Out.

Glossary

Nikaah: The Islamic Marriage contract
koyal: a member of the cuckoo order of birds
haraam: an act forbidden by Islamic law
chai: tea made with milk, sugar and cardamom
nikah: a Muslim marriage
izzat: honor

GHANDI.Cast of Koyal's Cage.IMG_0936 - Copy — Cast of the play

Afreen Seher Gandhi is a theater major with a South Asia Concentration who is focusing on Directing and Playwriting. Afreen has acted in and directed plays in India, and this is her seventh direction piece at Smith. She wrote and directed Smith’s first South Asian play, ‘Family Duty,’ based on a short story by Nighat M. Gandhi. Her work also includes her direction of the first Indian main stage play for the theater department in Spring 2014 and her adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar’s ‘Kamala,’ based on journalism and human trafficking in 20th century India. Afreen would like to pursue an MFA in directing after Smith.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

The House-Shaped Box

April 27, 2015 Anya Gruber

I used to keep a small, wooden, house-shaped box on my bedside table. It had a red roof supported by tiny columns, a bright orange and blue door, and painted-on window boxes decorated with tiny flowers. In this box, I would keep change that I collected from returning soda cans and plastic bottles at the grocery store. After I’d saved up a few dollars, my mother would take my sister and me to Staples, and we’d pick out a few notebooks and boxes of crayons. They weren’t for us, however – they were for the kids in El Salvador who we had heard so much about.

Since the 1980s, my family has been involved with an organization called ASAPROSAR, the Asociacion Salvadorena Pro-Salud Rural or, in English, the Salvadoran Association for Rural Health. ASAPROSAR is based in Santa Ana, El Salvador’s second largest city after its capital, San Salvador. The organization was founded by Vicky Guzman, an incredible Salvadoran doctor whom I admire immensely. ASAPROSAR organizes several projects, two of which my family has been particularly involved in: the Eye Health Clinic, an annual week-long event providing Salvadorans with free eye exams, glasses, and surgery, and the Barefoot Angels program, which provides children with a safe place to go after school.

After a Salvadoran man came to their church and introduced them to Dra. Vicky’s work, my grandparents traveled to El Salvador on a yearly basis to volunteer at the Eye Clinic. As it was and still is dangerous to travel to El Salvador and because few Salvadorans speak English, my family decided that my sister and I were not to travel there ourselves until we were in our teens. As such, it was only after I turned 15 that they decided I was old enough to tag along and volunteer at an Eye Clinic.

Seeing how ASAPROSAR operated and its impact on regular lives, I gained a much more nuanced view of ASAPROSAR’s work. While my main job in Santa Ana was to work at the Eye Clinic’s dispensary fitting glasses, my favorite job was acting as a translator. I found it the best way to have conversations with all different kinds of people, from other volunteers to native Salvadorans.

A few afternoons during the Eye Clinic week, my sister, a handful of other volunteers, and I were able to visit the Barefoot Angels. We brought along crafts to do with the children, duct tape to make flowers, bows and embroidery floss to make friendship bracelets, as well as letters that my sister’s high school Spanish class from back home had written. After writing back, the Barefoot Angels acquired their own one-letter pen pal. We even brought supplies to color eggs for their first ever Easter Egg hunt, and I was able to restring some guitars they had received as a donation a few years prior.

Volunteering with ASAPROSAR has been a huge part of my life ever since childhood. Having grown up with stories of El Salvador and the people my family worked with, seeing the people and places I recognized from photos, while surreal at first, quickly became the highlight of my year. Since my first visit in 2011, I’ve visited El Salvador four times, and, now, every year I look forward to attending Eye Clinic again so I can see all my Salvadoran friends.

Through my involvement, I’ve gained a much more comprehensive view of the world outside the small town where I grew up. Here at Smith, I continue to keep my little wooden box house on my windowsill, but, instead of keeping change in it, I store notes and drawing from the Barefoot Angels. I always make sure it’s in a safe spot, because it holds memories from a country dear to my heart.

Anya hopes to be a journalist, teacher, or both. Here at Smith, she is an Art History and Archaeology major and an associate editor for the Sophian.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Asking the Right Questions

April 27, 2015 Jennifer Pekol

During the summer of 2014, I completed an internship in Tunisia with the International Center for Transitional Justice. I was halfway through my senior year as an Ada Comstock Scholar and anxious to finally embark into a future a long time in development: human rights work in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region). In 2006, I traveled throughout the Middle East and finally started to define my passion more deeply. I came to understand that one couldn’t care about human rights while ignoring politics and the environment. Much less can one espouse such a conviction and yet never have taken the opportunity to listen to the people most directly affected. All of my naive beliefs were shattered in Palestinian refugee camps, slums in Cairo, and a clinic for asylum seekers in Istanbul. These experiences inspired me to educate myself by enrolling in community college, transferring to Smith, and applying to graduate school.

My studies had always focused on anthropology, politics, and human rights in the MENA region. So, when political change began sweeping the region, I could be found glued to Al Jazeera’s live stream and jumping wildly on my bed as nations flooded their streets and dictators fled their countries. Within two years Tunisia had democratically elected a multi-party government and ratified a new constitution. I first traveled to Tunisia during that process, in January 2014, to participate in a two-week “crash course” political conference. While there, I began to make plans to return in the summer using my Praxis funding.

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) is a New York-based NGO that works with populations who have experienced dramatic political change, whether physically or structurally violent. In Tunisia, ICTJ works with the government as well as civil society organizations to create systems to investigate Tunisia’s history of human rights abuses, ensure accountability, and create a reparations program. ICTJ will do this via a 15-member Truth and Dignity Commission that was created through the passing of the Transitional Justice Law. Before traveling to Tunisia, I didn’t understand any of this; I didn’t know what transitional justice was; and I had never heard of the ICTJ.

Tunisian Jasmine Revolution — Jubilant demonstrators on steps of Municipal Theatre, Avenue Bourguiba, Central Tunis. January 20, 2011. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

To prepare for my internship, I read everything I could find on transitional justice. But of course, as we all learn one way or another, what we read in books usually doesn’t adequately prepare us for life outside the classroom. As soon as I arrived, I was asked to dive right into my project: to dissect the Transitional Justice Law and identify points that needed clarification for foreign researchers and journalists. After identifying 27 questions, I went to work writing answers to each one. In many ways this was the perfect project for me. Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that my favorite activity, and probably the source of my activism, is asking questions. My project was a straightforward Frequently Asked Questions document, no “why” or “what if” questions.

I had the opportunity to see how an organization such as the ICTJ functions during periods of major change like Tunisia’s democratic transition. I walked away cautiously optimistic. I deeply appreciate the work the ICTJ does and was inspired by the staff I met, both from the Tunis office and from around the world. That said, I also boarded my flight with “why” and “what if” questions swirling in my head that were critical to the process and foreign involvement in it. Two of the most important lessons I learned “in the field” were how to ask critical questions in the most constructive ways and that as American, especially as a young one, just how overwhelmingly important it is to listen and show restraint. While writing my senior seminar paper, I came across the phrase “obscuring local particularities.” My position in life makes it easy for me to think I know how to vote or how to be a feminist or how to protest injustice. I like to think that I was never unconscious of this privilege, but I am now even more aware of how often I must reexamine my motives and opinions. Tunisia taught me that “local particularities” are what make social change effective. That I can ask “why” and “what if” all I want, but unless I can dislodge myself as much as possible from my point of origin, I won’t be of any support to people who are far more passionate, knowledgeable, and desperate about their own fight than I could ever be. I don’t need to speak for them; their voices demanded that their dictator “GO,” and he did. I don’t need to teach them how to organize; their protests overwhelmed the capital and forced a dictator to flee. I don’t need to give them a lesson on agency or victimhood; they know what they have endured. That is why they stood up to a dictator. Who am I, who are any of us, who call ourselves activists, to assume that we could have any more at stake than those we are trying to help?

When I went to Tunisia, I knew this. I didn’t have an emotional “I see the light” moment. What did happen is that I came home with the ability to turn my “why” and “what if” questions on myself in deeper ways than I could before. I learned how to better engage the “local particularities” of communities I work in, and to question myself constantly.

Jennifer is an Ada Comstock Scholar from Seattle, Washington. She is most at home when she is living out of her suitcase. Her next adventure is attending graduate school at SOAS in London.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Glass Houses and Barbed Wire

April 27, 2015 Sarah Muffly

“You work in international education? Why don’t you work in education in America?” When in the States, I get asked that question a lot when I tell people what I do. Mentally, I respond, “why don’t you work in education in America?” Out loud, I give various reasons: I am interested in comparative approaches to research and practice; I haven’t ruled out working domestically; international and multicultural perspectives are important in education no matter where you work; I want to see the world while I’m young and have minimal familial obligations—all of which are true. I try not to sound too defensive. Of course, I wouldn’t feel defensive if I didn’t agree with, at least partially, the question’s implication: what right do you have to go to other countries and purport to advise on anything? How can you think you can improve education in foreign lands when education in your homeland faces so many obstacles? People in glass houses ought not to throw stones.

View from a private residence in Port-au-Prince. Copyright Sarah Muffly.

I currently live in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and am pursuing a Fulbright-Clinton fellowship. Unlike traditional, research-focused Fulbright grants, this is a public policy fellowship; although I am conducting research as part of my grant, my main assignment is working in the Haitian Ministry of Education. At the Ministry, I work in the Secondary Education Division, strengthening English programs in high schools. Given my prior experience as an ESL teacher, and, since I am probably the only native English speaker at the Ministry, I feel comfortable with this particular project, fairly confident that I am “in my place,” filling a need and not taking away anyone else’s job.

Still, given the controversial history of the United States’ involvement in Haiti, I often struggle with feelings of guilt over my right to be here at all. In the 20th century alone, the U.S. occupied Haiti for nearly 20 years, quietly supported the Duvalier dictatorships, and clandestinely contributed to the ousting of a democratically elected president; a few years later the U.S. led efforts to forcibly reinstate him. Furthermore, the life I live here occupies a very small and privileged section of the society and economy in Haiti. Income inequality is a problem around the world, and Haiti is an extreme case. Wealthy Haitians and foreigners live in a bubble of security: we reside in properties enclosed by metal gates and barbed wire, drive or are driven to work in SUVs, and shop for groceries at stores guarded by men with machine guns. There is little social overlap with the vast majority of the Haitian people, many of whom live in extreme poverty.

It is this latter group—average citizens—that drives nearly all of the political and economic activism seen recently. In the past six months, there have been countless demonstrations in the streets of Port-au-Prince protesting government inaction regarding elections that should have been held three years ago. There have been transit strikes protesting the price of gas. These demonstrations have had real impact: the prime minister resigned in December; elections have been scheduled for later this year; the government agreed to subsidies on petroleum products. Of course, these changes do not conclusively solve problems. The new prime minister is not much more popular than the former one, elections could be postponed or canceled, and gas subsidies might not be all that beneficial. But the protests are still effecting change.

Or so I’m told. I almost never see them. As a participant in a U.S. Government program, I abide by the security restrictions set for U.S. Embassy employees. I’m not allowed to take public transportation, and there are certain parts of Port-au-Prince that I’m not allowed to visit. I have a 1 AM curfew. I get text message alerts about where demonstrations are, and I am told to avoid the area. These restrictions are not without reason; protests can turn violent very quickly.

And yet, sometimes I think about bursting the bubble, to bear witness to what’s happening on the ground. But I won’t. I’ll live here the only way I know how and do my job to the best of my ability. Perhaps that’s all I can do, all I should do.

Sarah is an international education professional currently living in Haiti. Her work interests include language and literacy development, teacher training, and education as a means to heal from trauma. Her time at Smith, most notably her experience with the Junior Year Abroad program in Paris, inspired her to work globally.

Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

Recycling: A Photo Essay

Gallery April 27, 2015 Deborah Slavitt

My mother, Mary Lewis Slavitt, Smith College class of 1936, was an immigrant and grew up in Western Massachusetts in the 1920s and 1930s. As a child in Lithuania, she and her family wasted nothing. She was a passionate and creative recycler, and that’s how I grew up. I couldn’t imagine it any other way besides hand-made and often repurposed. In the many years since I graduated from Smith, I’ve worked and lived around the world, beginning in 1973 in Chile where my first house gifts were a couple of empty milk and wine bottles without which I would not have been able to buy any milk or wine! After returning to the US to study art therapy a few years later, I moved with my family to France, Germany, and Taiwan with breaks in New York in between. Overseas and in Boston, I taught young children, focusing the curricula I created primarily around local culture and on the environment and recycling. I wanted the students, both local children and the expatriates who’d only live there for a year or two, to notice and learn the importance of caring for the environment. We recycled in the classroom and art projects often used repurposed materials. The children played joyfully with the unexpected: telephone wires creating hanging sculpture, packing cartons becoming a dragon costume for Chinese New Year, bottle caps and candy wrappers turning into a self-portrait collage.

After many years overseas, I returned to the US and continue to work in the education of teachers and young students, most particularly in art and reuse. I spent several years as a teaching artist at Materials for the Arts in NYC, and now give workshops in western MA and organize reuse art events as Reuse Art Coordinator of the Northampton DPWs Reuse Committee. My dream come true, full circle: a mini art and reuse depot as part of Northampton’s ReCenter “swap shop and more,” opening on April 25 at the Glendale Road Transfer Station. My work there will be inspired by what I have seen and learned about reuse, repurposing, and zero waste as a resident of Chile, France, Germany and Taiwan.

As a photographer and among many projects, I’ve recorded images of recycling efforts around the world. I appreciate the passion, color, and humor I’ve seen that encourages recycling in these different communities. Here are a few examples.

A few years after graduation, Deborah Jane Slavitt ’69 set out on what would be a lifelong exploration of the world, teaching in early education programs at international schools, writing, raising a family, all fueled by a lifelong curiosity about people and their lives and a commitment to reuse and zero waste, planted by her mother Mary Lewis Slavitt, 1936. Deborah Jane’s Smith studies in child development, education, and photography supported her in these pursuits, and she went on to designing environmental elements in her curricula and to record images of recycling around the world through her photography.

Global Impressions

Category Archives: Summer 2015 Issue IV: Activism

From the Archives: Working in the Aftermath of the Armenian Genocide

Where Are We? Remembering Colonialism

“What’s up with feminism?” – “Quoi le feminism?” Project

Zait Zaytoun w Zaatar (Oil, Olive and Thyme)

Celebrating Ajima

The Koyal’s Cage

The House-Shaped Box

Asking the Right Questions

Glass Houses and Barbed Wire

Recycling: A Photo Essay