middlepeace.com

First Impression makes us believe whether we can start a relationship with some one or whether we have to wait. Read this memory about a fist impression part of how we communicate with one another. Sometimes entering from back door. You know what it means!

www.middlepeace.com

We all have many Wants and Hopes.

Many years ago, as a newcomer to Sweden, I was trying to register for a language course. The lady behind the desk asked me, “What courses would you like to register in?” I was shocked and stunned: I had never before been asked what I wanted! I had always been reminded of what I did not want!

Say what you want and what you do not want!

Giving choices in our communication and having choices for being clear is my point. We can learn new skills and stop wasting time with this “back-door” policy.

We need to learn:

To express our wishes, hopes, and dreams in direct words, gently without offending or devaluing others.

To be able to say what happened, when it happened, and how it happened, and what are the concerns.

To use direct and clear language with our children.

To remember the fact that we model this language for our children; indirect language causes difficulties in problem solving for everyone.

To differentiate between our own needs and those of others: family, children, parents, relatives, and whomever else we are relating to: I want, I need…

To answer questions in positive terms but still be able to say no if we do not like something.

To say sorry if we have made a mistake, yet, not apologize for being the direct person we want to be.

We need to learn that:

Clarity in our communication prevents harm.

We are safer when we admit we are in pain or that we fear something.

We do not need to be superheroes.

We can be happy for who we are and how we are. We do not need to find excuses.

Sometimes we use too much sarcasm, put down others, and make trivial jokes in order to make a communication happen.

We can complain about everything if we want, yet, we have to be aware our way of communicating. In a conversation, do not transfer your negativity; instead be the positive energy that you expect to receive from others!

May 31, 2007

www.middlepeace.com

Our Global Identity and Culture of Migration. What is that?

Some of us have moved around the globe, yet, we are missing something.  Some of us are always in move, from continent to continent, country to country, and city to city.  We have not found our global identity yet.  We Iranian live around the world now. Our lives are influenced by this Diaspora life style we have all been accustomed to.
This new style of life has changed our world views forever.  In the good old years, mothers and families made a big deal when their daughter or son would attend university in another city than the home town!  It was considered to be too far! If a girl was going to marry a man from another town, it was also a big deal. Mothers use to say; we do not give our daughters to strangers.
Life in “gorbat”or “a strange / unknown place was considered to be damaging and dangerous.  Mothers use to say “gorbat” is hard!
We called it going to a stranger city or which was the unknown type of life for us.  The Iranian literature uses this concept in many places, creates a structure for the concept of “gorbat” in relation to the pain and suffering it causes.
Rumi, Hafez, Saadi and our contemporary poets use this topic of “gorbat” which is an embodied experience and a hard reality for many families and individuals today.  Migration causes that “gorbat” to become an internal reality of many people’s life while having an external function and social structure.

It is interesting that everywhere we live in; we always refer to the host countries citizen as “strangers” or “foreigners.” These are the terms we kept from the time going to strange / foreign countries was very unknown and European or American people coming to our home country were coming from outside so they were “foreigners and unknown to us.”  Now we are the one who are foreigners in these countries we have chosen to live or we have been given chance to live in!
May be this is the reason for our ability to adjust very quickly in the societies we enter in.  We call ourselves as insiders and the others as the outsider/ foreigner/ strangers, referring to people from outside of our geographical space and also psychological borders.

We have a Diaspora life and culture. The positive aspects of this Diaspora are how we have learned about various cultures all over the world.

Diaspora is refereed to any group of people or ethnic groups who are forced to leave their home countries.  Middle East people are a good example here. People from those areas all have been forced to try the bitter taste of migration when no choices have been offered. Yet, many families choose to migrate because of the unstable socio-political situations in the home countries.
In every family (with the Midwestern definition) you will find members living in at least 4-5 different countries. A mother here in Canada, son in Denmark, parents here and children in the state, an aunt in Germany and an uncle in England, one cousin in Sweden, and another cousin in France.

It is interesting to see the family interactions when they live in different parts of the world, yet try to get together. Some people prefer a not teaching their children the mother language.  Some other parents work hard that children attend some Persian language courses. Children may have hard times to interact with cousins who live in other cultures, other countries, and speak other languages.  That is a show sometimes to see two cousins with Iranian parents, when children speak only the spoken language in the host country.

It is time to write and document the multifaceted experiences of this Diaspora.  Our next generations would have hard time to understand why this happened and how to resolve identity crisis!
What is your experience like?

May 31, 2007
www.middlepeace.com