Céline Sonnenberg – Pike & Hurricane

A Volunteer’s View of the Rio Olympics

Céline Sonnenberg — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 13:58:14 +0000

The 2016 Olympics have had a bad reputation from the start. Seemingly “doomed to fail”, reports about the first ever Olympic Games held in South America included the obvious safety concerns in a city like Rio de Janeiro with high criminality, drug problems and the almost law free zones in some favelas, as well as the horrific water conditions in the lagoon, the influence on the public, continuous corruption problems and obviously Zika.

I myself, as someone who applied to be a volunteer in the Games in 2014, had my own concerns, but I also questioned if my decision to work for free in this event would be supporting the wrong message and groups with my workforce while knowing that the money spent on the Olympic Games as well as the World Championship in Football could have been used for much more important issues such as the health care and education system in Brazil. But I had fallen in love with Rio and its people during my first visit and I was too eager to return.

And now – a little more than two months later – I am so thankful that I did go and so happy that I got to connect with so many amazing people from all over the globe.

Even before I actually started working I could see just how many foreigners were pouring into Rio, excited to see their favourite sports and happy to get to know a new country. I was extremely lucky to be able to participate in a sport I actually majorly enjoyed: horse riding. It was so easy to share the fascination of horse-riding even with Brazilian colleagues, who did not speak English; the excitement rarely needed translation. And while connecting with other volunteers through a sport we all loved dearly was wonderful and amazing, I do cherish the conversations with Brazilians about their country the most.

Céline (far right) with fellow volunteers in Rio de Jeneiro, Brazil for the Olympics.

Having a special relationship with South America after spending three wonderful months there after high school and working in a human rights organisation for indigenous people during an internship for my studies, I had soon realised how little South American topics played a role in major news in Europe. Maybe it is simply too far away, or maybe their role is not significant enough in global markets, but news from South America usually only makes it to European media in times of natural catastrophes or major political unrest.

So while I had seen some of the coverage about the protests in Brazil and the wish for an impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, I had never fully gotten just how fed up Brazilians were with the continuous problem of corruption in their country and how eager they were to talk about it.

While a large portion of my information comes from in-depth talks with Brazilians I actually got to sit down with in hostels or my Airbnb host Paolo, even when I got into an Uber and it was a simple ten minute ride, the huge problem of ‘corrupcão’ – corruption – came up. Having been to Brazil only three years prior, this huge change in attitude astonished me. While I had realistically not discussed politics at all during my first trip, now conversations about it started out of the blue.

First I believed this was only going to be the case in Rio, where people were directly impacted by the Olympic Games, but it ran like a red thread through my travels across Brazil and the huge gap between rich and poor, the feeling of helplessness against such a deeply rotten political system, but at the same time the strong wish to change something popped up everywhere.

I have rarely seen a people so passionately discussing politics on a daily basis.

Both the huge corruption scandal around the oil company Petrobras, in which even beloved former President Lula da Silva was supposedly involved, as well as a growing recession have shown the unfairness of the political system in which corruption has played and continues to play a huge role, which is especially hard on Brazil’s poor population and continuously widens the gap between rich and poor.

For my job in the Olympics I moved from Rio´s glamorous and touristy Zona Sul to one of its poorer suburbs: Coelho Neto, a much more realistic place to understand the reality of living in Brazil than the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. The huge apartment blocks and the growing favelas along the mega street Avenida Brazil are not what most tourists will see, simply because it is not the nicest looking and also because these suburbs can be really dangerous for foreigners. For the people living in these poorer areas, who are clearly the majority of the Brazilian population, life has gotten increasingly more difficult over the last years.

Rio from above.

As I buy some groceries, my Airbnb host Paulo raises his eyebrows, “This is really expensive.” My shopping is about 10 Euros, not something I would realistically consider ‘splurging.’ “Two years ago this would have been half the price,” he tells me. Prices have gone up majorly due to the recession and the poorer population is increasingly suffering from it.

Social initiatives proposed by the worker´s party, Partido dos Trabalhadores, over their presidencies, from 2011 until the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, have been able to close some of the gap between the rich and poor, but larger control of the state in the economy has slowed down Brazil’s formerly rapid economic growth leading to large scale unemployment and growing poverty. This dissatisfaction with the government and the perceived wrong spending of huge sums of money for the World Championship and Olympic Games have lead to large scale demonstrations all over the country.

However not all Brazilians think the impeachment of Dilma Roussef is the right call, in fact the words “Fora Temer” (Out with Temer) are visible in every city I visit during my travels in Brazil. Temer – the former vice president – took office without official elections after Dilma´s impeachment to serve until what would have been the end of Dilma’s time in office January 1st 2019. For some Brazilians despite the fact that it is in line with the constitution, this is a crime against democracy. Dilma was impeached over supposedly taking loans from state banks without congressional approval, however this has been quite common practice in Brazil and some voices wonder if this is not simply an excuse to end the workers party´s long time leading period. “I don’t love Dilma or her politics” Flora a film student I meet in a hostel in Florianopolis tells me “but I think the accusations are just an excuse to get her out of office, because her controlled economy kept the rich from making too much money”.

Brazil will probably need some time to recover from the unrest, the major political scandals and the Petrobras corruption scheme. It is certain that Brazil remains a deeply divided country for some time to come. And while volunteering for the Olympics might be still seen as supporting a majorly corrupt organisation, it has shown me not only the wonderful way in which sports and passion can connect people, but has given me a much broader and deeper understanding of the underreported political situation in Brazil as well as the struggles in this country that I could have never understood, had I not been there for the Olympics.

Céline Sonnenberg

Photo Credit: Céline Sonnenberg

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Missing Yet Another Chance

Céline Sonnenberg — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 08:12:14 +0000

When I heard about the mass sexual assaults on New Year´s Eve in Cologne, I was shocked, I was appalled, but, to be honest, I was not surprised. While much of the debate around the assaults has been along the lines of “How could something like this ever happen in Germany?” For me, and most other women, the equation anonymous large crowds + alcohol + men = possible sexual harassment made sense before Cologne and has been internalised by us long before the binomial formulas.

While the very organised way in which the attacks in Cologne took place may have added a shocking and frightening new character, being aware of large groups of men and feeling uncomfortable when surrounded by them is sadly not new at all for many women. Or as Anne Wizorek, part of the new outspoken generation of feminists in Germany puts it: “When large groups of men come together and alcohol is involved, women are often the subject of harassment. That happens in football stadiums, during Karneval in Cologne or at Oktoberfest in Munich.”

What made the aftermath of the incidents in Cologne stand out was the reaction to it. Except for the convenient and easily manageable tip by the mayor of Cologne to always keep men at arm´s length, there was very little victim blaming and a lot of support for the victims with many politicians speaking up against this sexual violence.

However, this time, the alleged rapists and assaulters were North-African men, which lead to many arguing that these violent acts were part of their culture, the dangerous belief system around Islam and the misogynistic practices of the “orient.” Pointing fingers after Cologne was easier than in other cases because there was no need to point at oneself.

This time speaking up for the victims could conveniently be paired with racist propaganda and that called surprising new advocates for women´s rights onto the stage. For example Horst Seehofer, prime minister of Bavaria and head of the conservative Christian Social Union, called the assaults in Cologne “disgusting” and was quick to call for harder punishment of migrants who violate the law.

Ironically, Seehofer did not seem to think sexual violence needed to be punished when he voted against classifying rape in marriage as a crime in 1997.

The general huge interest in sexual violence baffled me. I have rarely met men, who thought of the fight against sexual violence on the top of their agenda. Many men I talked to after the attacks in Cologne thought that this kind of behaviour had long vanished from the German public and was only done by horrible, horrible people in horrible, horrible places. Thus, the events in Cologne could only be explained by the different background of the aggressors and the backward thinking of Muslims.

The rhetoric of stigmatisation and racism against the Muslim men in the great tradition of Orientalism and the age-old racist story of having to protect your women against the strangers who will steal (or in this case harass) them, falls on fruitful ground, when talking about sexual violence has been a taboo for so long.

I truly believe that for many men, the fear of being sexually harassed is not a daily thought. Most men do not have to watch out for their bodies from the innocent age of 11, or have to take inventive and often round-about ways of getting home after parties. Most men are not incredibly conscious about their surroundings whenever they are out and about and most men do not know the feeling of your heart pounding whenever someone walks behind you on a sidewalk at night, while these scenarios are a reality in the daily life of many women. And maybe this unawareness of sexual assault and the former silence about this topic in the media makes so many of the racist allegations after Cologne so easily accepted.

Most men have never been made aware of the reality of sexual assault against women in Germany even -dare I say it- by German men, which makes it even easier to simply blame a different culture, a different belief system! The system behind rape culture, where there is an intense focus on the victim (What was she wearing? Was she drinking?), as well as the huge stigma and difficulty for victims of sexual violence to speak up, banishes the entire topic into a dark back room, far away from open debate.

And thus the events in Cologne were often described by politicians and the media as a shocking new step back to barbaric practices of sexual violence
brought into our secure Christian, occidental countries by dangerous Muslim, oriental migrants. The fact that there is still a huge problem with sexual violence in Germany with 58% of women in Germany saying they have experienced sexual harassment, and 40% having suffered physical or sexual violence from a partner (who are very unlikely to all have middle eastern husband) is being ignored in favour of a racist discourse. As Wizorek points out: “(… ) the core problem is not Islam, it is patriarchy. Perpetrators clearly need to be punished, but the problem of sexualized violence has already existed here for some time and can’t simply be “deported”.”

Conservative politicians speaking up for women´s rights would be wonderful if it would not only be done as part of a anti-migration rhetoric. The attacks of Cologne added even more fuel to the fire of hatred and anxiety towards refugees that is burning in Europe and we can already see first developments that stem from the propaganda around Cologne. Refugees who break the law are now to be send back to their home countries quicker and easier, even though it has become evident that only three of the 58 arrested suspects are recent asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq.

While the attacks have been used to further declare migrants and refugees as threats to our safety, little is being done about the underlying misogynistic practices that allow for such sexual violence to occur. There are neither additional programmes to help victims of sexual assault speak up nor a new discussion about sexual violence within Germany.

The victims of this whole discourse are the refugees and migrants, who never planned on breaking German laws and more than anything the women, who were assaulted in Cologne. They were not only grossly violated, but are now used simply as tools in racist propaganda they may have never agreed to. Using the attacks only as a way to further discriminate refugees and widen the gap between “us” and “them,” Germany has missed yet another chance to finally open up a debate about misogyny and sexual violence while finding efficient ways to counter them.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image Credit:

Picture 1: Jacob Surland licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Picture 2: Chase Carter licensed underCC BY-ND 2.0

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The Social Cost of Volunteer Work

Céline Sonnenberg — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 10:15:54 +0000

After I graduated from high school I was filled with the wish to see the world, to experience new cultures and to leave the dull day to day live in northern Germany. I was definitely not the only one, who decided to let university wait for another year (or two) and explore the world. In fact so many of my classmates went to New Zealand and Australia that they just accidentally ran into each other from time to time as, all following the holy lines of the Lonely Planet pilgrimage, the hotspots for the backpackers were often the same.

This likeliness of travelers is not a coincidence, it is the result of the huge industry behind it. Backpacking has changed. What was once the search for your own soul and far away cultures, today has become a big business, fulfilling every wish a traveler could have and offering services that range from organized trips and cheap flights for the ones looking for a nice getaway to the new trend voluntourism for the more philanthropic traveler. The sta travel group, a travel agency specializing in making youth oversea journeys as easy as booking an all-inclusive get away to Turkey, sold services for almost a billion US Dollars in 2011.

Next to simply experiencing new cultures and seeing new countries, collecting work experience abroad is the main goals of many young backpackers. A gap year after school is used to learn English, leave the rainy weather of home for a while and ideally make some money while you are at it. In fact the Australian fruit and vegetable industry is so sure that enough northern Europeans are willing to leave their grey day to day life behind to seize the joy of harvesting grapes and take care of kettle in Australian heat, that their sector pretty much relies on this work force.

While Australia keeps advertising their country as a great backpacking location and is happy to welcome the temporary workforce, which is assured to go back to their own countries, they keep intensifying the migration and asylum laws for migrants from troubled regions such as Indonesia. While Australia alone granted their work and travel visas to almost 250 thousand young travelers from all over their world, around 1000 migrants from Africa and the Middle East die each year on their boat trips to Australia, trying to reach a better life in the western country.

Next to the huge work and travel industry baiting thousands of Europeans to New Zealand, Canada and Australia, a new trend has risen, combining the wish to see a different culture, the wish to help and the awareness of the gold star that doing social work will add to your CV: voluntourism. Much like the work and travel industry this sector also focuses on the demands of the paying costumer instead of the people in need.

Voluntourism takes advantage of the young Westerners, trying to help in developing countries and their idea that without work experience abroad getting a job later on will be incredibly hard, by charging up to a thousand dollars for two months full of work, often exceeding the 40 hour week. For many of these so called charity jobs the volunteers also have to find their own accommodation and food- if they are not willing to pay a few dollars extra to the agencies, arranging the stays oversea.

Work placements with children or animals are the most popular ones, as nothing will get you as many facebook-likes as a picture of you holding a brightly smiling orphan or a little baby animal and as we all know: in the end these trips are about making your friends as jealous as possible, while looking extremely selfless. And of course these children should be okay with getting to know new volunteers every three months, as wasting more that two or three months of your precious time on working seems a little exaggerated. After all you still want to see something of the country you are visiting! However labeling these voluntourists as arrogant young westerners or suffering from the pressure of cramming as much extra curricular activities, hobbies and social work in their CVs as humanly possible, ignores that the organizations behind these work placements are anything but social companies. From the thousands of dollars that are paid to work in these project often nothing more than about 20 dollars are given to the actual people in need, running the orphanages or schools in which the voluntourists work.

While we may be sorry for the youngsters just freshly out of high school, spending their hard earned money on these trips and then being gutted about the wrong picture of glorious beaches, happy children and the possibility to be an important partaker in the fight against global inequality, presented to them, the real losers here are the people in the developing world. They are being cheated of money that huge travel companies definitely do not need and it are their children who are suffering from inexperienced kids toying with their education and the emotions, who will have to let go off their so called attachment figures after only a few months and are then expected to welcome the next person with equally open arms. These projects are not made to help the people in the developing world, they are structured to fulfill the expectations of the voluntourist and often at the cost of the people they are supposedly helping.

The real problem is not young westerners wanting to gain experience in other countries or their dreams not being fulfilled, the real problem is the greediness of companies and governments fulfilling these wishes by exploiting people who it will harm a lot deeper than these Western kids looking for an adventure. This ideal of making business of anything once again widens the gap between developed and developing world.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image Credit:

Picture 1: Michael McDonough, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2

Picture 2: ccbarr, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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Memories from the Middle East

Céline Sonnenberg — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 17:19:07 +0000

It is almost 12:00 PM, I have been on the road from Sweden to Germany for over 9 hours, and that alone is reason enough to be exhausted. But this time I got to enjoy not only a 30-minute delay and continuous anxiety about missing my connecting train, but also a drunken musician as my seat neighbour, who refused to stop playing music on a night train and absolutely had to pay his 80 Euro ticket in coins.

But just as the train finally enters my rail destination a woman with a hijab approaches me, holding the hand of a little girl, her husband anxiously waits behind her with their second daughter. They are from Iraq and according to the badges around their neck should now be in a refugee home close to Hanover and not about a hundred kilometres south of it. In the next minutes we establish not only that the family took the wrong train and that there is no train back for them tonight, but also that their third child is in the refugee camp they cannot get to.

I realise how luxurious having one stressful day of traveling is in comparison. After many calls and a lot of discussion, she and her family are finally safe on the way to a closer refugee camp for the night. But this occurrence makes me think. How can such an organised country as Germany allow a family of four to get lost, without anyone to contact for information? What would their situation be like if they stayed in a Middle Eastern refugee camp? Would it be any better?

Working with countries in the Middle East to improve the situation for refugees and, ultimately, keeping refugees from coming to Europe is not a new plan. The sudden readiness of the EU to cooperate with Erdogan to decrease the influx of refugees shows the dedication of Western countries to solve the crisis close to its base, as far away from Europe´s borders as possible.

But how realistic is this plan? When refugees in rich countries like Germany freeze in tents in late October and are missing shoes for the cold months in Sweden, how are poorer countries like Lebanon supposed to take care of the refugees from Syria and Iraq effectively?

Cassandra Carr is a Canadian student who worked with the Lebanese humanitarian organisation called  Blue Mission. With first-hand experience working in a camp, Cassandra has answers to some of my questions.

The Organisation offers psychosocial support, primary health care services, and informal education as well as access to libraries in 18 Lebanese refugee camps.
When I think of these camps, I imagine stability, but this contradicts the common notion of squalid and unequipped tent cities in the worst cases.

Cassandra says that “the camps are not permanent or set up by any organisation, at least not the ones we were active in. They just popped up or disappeared ungoverned, often in abandoned or half destroyed buildings, or were just people gathering with their tents.” Most of the refugees Cassandra worked with are Syrians and the majority are women and children.

She continues by saying that “the situation is really bad. Obviously some camps are off worse than others, but just in general there are so many sick people. And while there were organisations offering primary health care and medicine distribution, access to doctors and nurses was sparse. Many people needed a lot more than primary health care, but could not afford going to a hospital or doctor, who would offer that.”

Poor sanitation and overfilled camps lead to growing sickness within them, and Cassandra tells me that sometimes as many as 30 families use one bathroom. But the poor medical care is not only due to a lack of resourced. Cultural differences also play a huge role: “Lebanon in general is a lot more liberal, when it comes to contact between men and women, so it was not immediately obvious that many Syrian refugee women were not seeking medical care, simply because we had a male doctor, while the idea of masculinity kept a lot of Syrian men from talking to a female counsellor.”

With struggles to fulfil the basic needs of refugees, integration is far off. For example many of the refugee children cannot even attend Lebanese schools due to losing certificates and transcripts during their journey to Lebanon. Currently, Cassandra does not know of any programmes that can alleviate this issue and integrate refugees into Lebanese society.

Additional historical context makes interaction between the Lebanese public and the refugees even more difficult. Syria occupied Lebanon from 1976 to 2005 during the Lebanese civil war. Many Lebanese feel that even letting Syrian refugees into their country is a huge breech of national unity and trust in the Lebanese government. These underlying regional conflicts are not rare in the Middle East and are only fuelled further by religious disputes between Shiites and Sunnites.

Another huge challenge is the lack of infrastructure and cooperation between humanitarian organisations. Many of the local organisations compete for funding and numbers. Cassandra points out that “there is a huge lack of communication and often numerous organisations offer the same services in the same camps. There is no common approach and no coordination. The funds are being cut so programmes are not only decreasing in quality, programmes focus more on competing with other humanitarian groups for money rather than on working together.” Cassandra sees that the ineffectiveness of humanitarian work in the region is due to the constant threat of conflict or even war. “There is no certainty for peace, for a still functioning system even the next day, so a lot of work that is done is very short-sighted.”

It may seem like a good approach on paper as the EU supports Syria and Iraq´s neighbouring countries to take in the flow of refugees they do not want, but a lot is ignored when planning these refugee camps and the allocation of resources.: The poor infrastructure and coordination, competition between humanitarian groups, ethnic tensions, and the lack of training and background-expertise of many aid workers create long-term problems that do not have a quick fix.

For many refugees living under these circumstances, Cassandra believes that staying is simply not an option. “If organisations could somehow stabilize refugees’ lives by creating long-term opportunities for work and study, and gave access to health care, I think refugees might want to stay long-term.”

However this is a long-term process as currently “refugees simply can´t sustain themselves in Lebanon”, making a further flight to Europe so much more attractive. If the European Union really wants to make their dream of keeping refugees within the Middle Eastern region, there is a lot to be done.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image credit:

Picture 1&2: World Bank Photo Collection, Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

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A Breakfast Date with Kofi Annan

Céline Sonnenberg — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 10:00:19 +0000

“I am in the Swedish Parliament, Kofi Annan is holding a speech, the Crown Princess is only about 3 meters away from me and I am officially invited!” While this may sound like my description of a look into the Mirror of Erised, this is exactly what happened to me only a week ago.

I and four other members of the Malmö Association of Foreign Affairs were kindly invited to the 20th Anniversary of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) in Stockholm, also attended by Mr Annan and Her Royal Highness. IDEA is an intergovernmental organisation focusing on supporting sustainable democracy around the globe. The organisation celebrated its 20th anniversary with a commemorative session and a panel discussion with the theme “Democracy: Achievements and Challenges in the Past 20 Years and Prospects for the Future”.

IDEA´s goal is the production and distribution of knowledge about electoral processes, constitution building, political participation and representation, and democracy. This is done by conducting own research on successful electoral processes and democracy formation, publishing books on the same topics and developing IT systems, for example a software monitoring and mapping possible conflicts before or during elections. IDEA also works with local actors on the ground using its extensive knowledge to advise countries in formulating their constitutions, holding elections in unstable regions and supporting and enabling dialogue between parties to encourage democracy formation. IDEA also encourages diversity in politics and the involvement of ethnic or religious minorities, as well as equal representation and participation of women and men in the formation and lived reality of democracy.

IDEA believes that there is no single way and concept of developing and living democracy, which is why IDEA tries to find the right approach for each society it, is working with. This not only guarantees more participation and involvement of larger citizen groups, but ultimately allows a deeper identification with democracy in the society and a more legitimate government through the incorporation of the opinions and ideas non-elite groups.

Additionally to groundwork on the local level, IDEA also organises seminars, conferences and capacity-building workshops with various political actors and leaders on a regional and global level, aiming to a further exchange of knowledge.

While IDEA´s headquarters are located in Stockholm, just a stone´s throw from the Swedish Parliament where its 20th anniversary was celebrated, it is active all over the world. IDEA has regional offices in all global regions and is active even outside of the realm of its 28 member states.

We learned all this during our visit to IDEA`s headquarters in Stockholm after attending the ceremony for the 20th anniversary of the organisation.

I am in my third year of studying International Relations and naturally in international politics there are a lot of fancy pants events and I got to go to some of them, be it Model United Nations or an award ceremony for the founder of Doctors without Borders organised by the human rights organization I interned for. However, I have never in my life attended anything as formal and impressive as IDEA´s 20th anniversary. Anyone who knows me know that I may not necessarily the best suited person for anything fancy, I am famous for spilling things on my clothes or ripping them or tripping over nothing (and that´s without wearing heels). So naturally, I wasn´t necessarily calm when I stumbled into the Swedish Parliament in my friend´s high heels and a dress from Primark. Everyone around me seemed very important (I later on learned that most of the attendees were Swedish politicians or ambassadors from all over the world so they definitely were) and very chic. But a few steps into the parliament, I was simply too excited about being able to attend such an impressing and interesting event to worry about my looks or how fitting I was for such an event.

I just indulged in the beautiful architecture and the great atmosphere and I was honestly feeling like an excited little child.

The speakers, who were invited by IDEA were offering extremely interesting insights into democracy formation and I could see and feel in person that a great speaker like Kofi Annan is able to grab everyone´s attention and evoke an incredibly special atmosphere with a few words only. Whether you are interested in politics or not, his speech about democracy would excite anyone. Him acknowledging that there is no one right to democracy and that democracy just like human-beings needs to continuously evolve further seems very logical, but was something I have never really questioned.

Additionally to having him hold a speech, IDEA also organised an interesting panel discussion with representatives from all over the world, including Margot Wallström, the Swedish Foreign Minister, and Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, former Secretary General of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Hearing all of these different viewpoints from all over the globe, showed how differently democracy is approached depending on what region or even country we are targeting. One of the quotes that stuck with me the most was by Margot Wallström, saying that “democracy cannot be exported, it can only be supported”.

The whole event was very intriguing and captivating and I am really happy IDEA also let us visit its headquarters. I am really happy I got to take part in this experience and learn about IDEA, even if I had to take of my heels behind my desk halfway through, to stop my feet from killing me. If you are interested in IDEA’s work, you can browse its free online database of publications or order books through IDEA´s website.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image credit: UF Malmö

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There still is Hope in Greece

Céline Sonnenberg — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 22:19:18 +0000

I have a special bond with Greece. I was only six months old, when I first set foot onto Crete, the beautiful Greek island my aunt decided to live on. I have since then been back almost every summer and every time I do not visit Greece I dearly miss the beautiful white houses with blue roofs and the amazing countryside of rough mountains and white beaches.

Obviously due to having very fond memories and family in Greece, the financial crisis that shook the country so deeply was especially interesting to me. Being German I was honestly shocked by the deeply negative and often racist reporting on the events in Greece. Stereotypes of lazy Southern Europeans were reproduced, the situation of normal people was often completely ignored and most mainstream media painted a black and white picture of the crisis, marking Germany as the honourable donor and Greece as the unappreciative child, that just could not behave.
Talking with both my aunt and friends we have in Greece, I had a different picture of the crisis, with a population deeply affected by the harsh economy measures. Now after the election of the new government I had the chance to talk to my aunt again and share an inside view of the situation in Greece.

How long have you been living in Greece?

I moved to Crete in 1991.

How has the daily life changed due to the financial crisis?

Especially the extremely low wages have changed our lives drastically. In the private sector wages went from formerly 750 Euros to around 540. My husband, who works fulltime on an airport, earns around 740 Euros, including extra pay for working Sundays and nightshifts. He often works overtime, most people here can only dream of having a 40-hour week, especially during the touristic season (May to September). Working conditions are extremely hard and often wages are not even payed, but no one dares to speak up, since unemployment is so high and you are in constant fear of loosing your job. It really is sink or swim, there are so many other people waiting to take any job they can get. Especially for young people there are no jobs, no perspective.

How are the economy measures visible in the daily life?

Basically all welfare measures have been cut off. There are no unemployment benefits, seasonal workers which is almost everyone on the Greek islands, get about 360 Euros for three months and that’s it. Even health funds have been almost cut of completely and medicine has gotten extremely expensive due to that. Some prices have doubled, we used to pay 30 Euros for my husband´s medicine, now we pay between 50 and 70 Euros every month, 10 percent of his wage during the summer.

What are your hopes for the new government?

We hope to get back to the old standard and living conditions. Our hope is that Alexis Tsipras as a young, credible politician and his combatants who has nothing to do with the old government can finally introduce a new start. He has promised to target tax evaders and to give us back a life in dignity.

Greece once again did not manage to fulfil tax goals. Is the population not willing to pay taxes?

I think the main problem is in retail. With such low wages people just cannot shop for pleasure, many shops closed and thus no tax money from sales. Additionally to that with so many people unemployed not enough people pay their tax on wages or pay into health and retirement insurance. Everyone who works pays their taxes immediately, but they are just so few. Also I am beyond disappointed from major enterprises. There is no solidarity from the rich families. Tax fraud and corruption exists everywhere, being a freelancer both here and in Germany I am very aware of that, but not in this scale.

Demonstrations and protests mainly show dissatisfaction with the European Union and often Germany, why is this anger only seldom openly directed towards problems within Greece?

I am proud of the Greeks, who have accepted their fate without huge violent riots. There was huge election participation, which shows that the Greek population wants to change something and to take a stand point.
Sadly biased media coverage and obviously the stupidity of some people both in Germany and Greece ends up just shifting the blame back and forth. It’s a fact that we are in a worldwide financial crisis and that we need to rethink the model we set up for Europe. There should be the same duties, but also rights for everyone living in the European Union, or we do not need this Union at all.

What do you think are realistic steps out of the crisis, that are also bearable for the Greek public?

We need to invest in our social system; there is no way around that to get out of this crisis. We need higher wages and better welfare to get the consumption up

again. We also need to raise taxes on the few who earn a lot and finally use our own resources such as oil and gas and sell them.

Is leaving the Eurozone a realistic alternative for Greece?

For me it is not an alternative, but sadly it is not impossible. The population just needs to be aware of the harsh consequences. I personally think the Norther European countries should share their knowledge on the taxation sector with the Southern European Countries. We do not need finger-wagging or lectures, but mutual respect and cooperation to finally change our crooked system.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image credit:

Picture 1 & 2: Céline Sonnenberg

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Like Apples and Spinach

Céline Sonnenberg — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 12:07:19 +0000

I care about Human Rights. A lot. I have been to Anti Homophobia demonstrations, I do not back off from discussions about abortions, racism and feminism. If someone had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have said I feel like I am pretty well informed about social justice questions.

And then Jared Leto won an Oscar for portraying a trans woman suffering from AIDS in the blockbuster “Dallas Buyer’s Club”. Like many other people I saw this as a giant step towards equality and thought it was a great sign of Hollywood to honor such a controversial role. Just like the director of the film it did not even occur to me that an actual trans woman instead of a male actor could have played that role. And while I think his answer to the question, why he did not cast a trans actress for the movie, sounds a bit rude (“Is there any transgender actor? To my knowledge — I don’t know one. I didn’t even think about it. There’s like five, or three, or what — two? I never thought of that. I’m not aiming for the real thing. I’m aiming for an experienced actor who wants to portray the thing.”), I will admit that I have never really thought about this issue.

While homosexuality is represented in mainstream media (not saying that the representation is always done politically correct or in good way) and women, gay and racial rights and issues are openly discussed, I have gone through the past 21 years of my life without actually thinking about transgender people and their struggle.

I wanted to change this, I wanted to understand this complex topic better and I wanted to understand it on a more personal level.

Being the internet addict that I am, I decided to look for answers there and soon found the blogger, Kylie a 24 year old freelance artist and animator at Hallmark eCards from Los Angeles. Her comic strips about her transition were very relatable and after watching a few of her vlogs, I decided to ask her some questions and she was so kind to help me out:

While the age of recognisng oneself as transgender and the start of transitions vary, many transpeople, including Kylie take until they are around 20. “I didn’t know I was a trans woman until after college. Before that I thought I was a gay guy. Labeling myself gay always felt off to me, but then I just thought I was trying to come to terms with being gay. Long story short, after some therapy sessions and soul searching, I realized I am a woman all along!”

As I am telling her about my experience and my sentiment that transrights are often neglected, Kylie agrees and talks about the problems she has with including transgender people in the umbrella term LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans). “The letters “T” and “B” of “LGBT” are often neglected. It’s like, America is picking the carrots and peas out of their salad. Also, putting “transgender” in a group with gay, lesbian, and bisexual makes the general public subconsciously think that it’s a sexual orientation, it’s not, it’s a gender identity. It’s like grouping apples together with spinach, kale and bean sprouts. Yeah, apples are good for you like spinach, but it ain’t a veggie!”

However Kylie is amazed by the trans actress Laverne Cox, who is portraying a trans woman in the series “Orange Is The New Black”, which airs on Netflix. Her outspokenness about trans rights, her intelligence and fierceness have really impressed the young woman. “She is a role model! There is definitely not enough trans representation in mainstream media, but I think Orange Is The New Black is doing a good job at representing a positive trans character in TV land. I can´t wait for the second season!”

I also asked Kylie which tips she would give to someone, who is dealing with a trans person for the first time. “Just be polite and genuine.” she tells me. “Address them with their preferred pronouns and name. Don’t ask or discuss any body part. Except, if you’re going to compliment on their pretty eyes, then go ahead in full force!”

The transition process trans people have to undergo is often extremely lengthy and challenging both physically and mentally. But for Kylie one of the hardest parts about the transition, is another one. “Picking a freaking name! I can be super indecisive when it comes to certain things, and picking a girl name is one of those.” Which is why her current name Kylie might not be up to date anymore, when this article goes online. “And also, voice! I’m so bad at making my voice sound more feminine. Also, sometimes when I meet new people and introduce myself, I’ll have to come out, because I still look and sound like a dude, but I have a female name, so I’ll have to explain to them; and that gets tiring.”

I imagine sharing an experience as personal as her transition with a lot of people must be hard. “Seeing other trans people vlogging about their transition gave me a lot of information and encouragement, and I want to do the same thing for other trans brothers and sisters in transition. I also just want to put myself out there, because I honestly believe if the world saw trans people as often as they see the Moon rising and setting, everyone would’ve just gone, oh yeah, transgender people are people; the Moon rises and falls.” Kaylie tells me and I think that this is a wonderful conclusion to this story. Transgender should be discussed as openly as other human rights and while I, again, come from a very privileged position and live in a country, where the rights of homosexuals and women are openly discussed, I really feel like we can improve in providing information about transgender. I really found the informative, yet very funny and personal vlogs and comics of Kylie helpful and hope this personal insight might get more people closer to this often-neglected topic.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image Credit:

Picture 1-3: Kylie Wu

The post Like Apples and Spinach appeared first on Pike & Hurricane.

The Pink Elephant

Céline Sonnenberg — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 14:27:20 +0000

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the world blind” This quote by India´s most famous social leader Mahatma Ghandi, shaped India´s fight for independence. But times have changed and in the current battle of India´s women, the approach of peaceful opposition seems to lead nowhere. Again and again western media and people are shocked by the violent crimes against women, be it the gang rape of two women by the seven coworkers of their husband and son or stories of the suffering of child brides. Despite having passed various laws against inequalities and being led by female president Prathiba Patil until 2012, India seems to be unable to win the battle against sexism and domestic violence.

A group of women in Bundelkhand, one of India´s poorest regions, is fighting against violence and corruption in their life with an approach that Gandhi might not have been fond of. These women take their fate in their own hands and stand up against rape, abuse and exploitation with the same violence that is used against them.

They call themselves the Gulabi Gang, which translates to the pink gang. Pink is a colour not used by any religion or political party and was therefore chosen by the gang´s leader Sampat Pal Devi; a child bride, married at only eleven herself, mother of five and basically illiterate, she is the heart and the voice of the over 20 000 women, who are part of the gang today. Since her early childhood Sampat´s interest in equality and justice has shaped her life. After making her brothers show her how to read and write basic words, she persuaded her parents to send her to school as well. Even though she only completed four years of education, this is still more than most young girls in the rural areas of India achieve. While she only formed the actual gang in 2006, by giving them a uniform and a name to gain more influence, she understood the power of many long before that and motivated women to stand up against their abuse united, as a gang for justice.

Quite an ambitious goal for the women, who usually have no access to education and in majority stem from the lowest caste, the untouchables, living in the poor villages, far away from the capital New-Delhi. India´s old caste system stems from Brahminical texts and grouped the population in four casts: Brahmins (priests and religious high class), Kshatriyas (political leaders, rulers and the military), Vaishyas (merchants and farmers) and Sudrahs (the assistants and servants to the other castes). Excluded from this caste system and at the bottom of India´s social and economic system, stand the Dalits or untouchables. Even though the caste system has no legal support in India´s law and discrimination against members of lower caste is a crime anchored in the constitution, discrimination against and exploitation of Dalits is still taking place, especially in the rural areas.

“Nobody comes to our help in these parts. The officials and the police are corrupt and anti-poor. So sometimes we have to take the law in our hands.” tells Sampat Pal the BBC. Next to corruption, bribery and misinformation for example about governmental aid, the unawareness about their rights is a big problem for many low caste Indians. Sampat and her gang members, who often face combined discrimination not only for being a woman but also an untouchable, stand up against domestic violence, forced marriages and rape. Sampat takes a leading role in all of the missions, as the figurehead and spokesperson of the Gulabis. Her charisma and convincing speeches are often enough to solve the problems. Even though the Gulabi Gang achieved public interest through using pink bamboo sticks (laathis), the traditional self-defence weapon of India, to beat unsagacious husbands and ward of police officers, they try to solve all problems with open communication first. “When I go around with a stick, it’s to make men fear me. I don’t always use it, but it helps change the mind of men who think they are more powerful than me.” The gang´s real power, much like the Indian elephant, stems from their size.

Their activities range from helping old women to get their pension, threatening corrupt officials, making sure food rations reach the right people, stopping forced marriage, domestic abuse and the exploitation of women by their husbands and in-laws. And if reaching those goals means hijacking food transporters or beating policemen they will do it. With the help of funders all over the world the gang even managed to open a school in order to start with the trigger of many problems: missing education. Teaching not only math, reading and writing, but also sowing, the school makes sure their students will later on be able to make their own basic income. School uniform and even chalk are – of course – pink.

The reaction to the womens´ activism by men is surprisingly positive. “Let good come, be it through men or through women. We have to survive” says one of the men, attending the recruiting of new members. Another one claims: “I feel if we support the Gulabi Gang there will be great progress in our village.” A number of men now also take part in the gang and support their wives.

Their influence and attraction did not go unnoticed, not only by various local and international newspapers, authors and film makers, but also by India´s political parties. Sampat Pal was invited by a number of representatives to join them, but until today did not choose to step up to that. Luckily for the Gulabi Gang one might say, as it is not easy to see where the movement will go without her. Currently there is no obvious successor for their leader and the gang is highly dependent on her influence and name. Sampat Pal encourages and strengthens the other members, however especially in film scenes showing the gang large differences in their attitude are visible. Most of the women are happy to leave the stage to their charismatic leader and the question, if this gang will be able to survive and keep influence without her, must come to mind. Finding a follow up proved to be hard for Sampat since the respect she has gained in the villages usually come from her persistent and open character. She does not back down and she keeps insisting on her and others´ rights. Sampat´s passion and persistency are rather unique and the large amounts of time she spends revisiting officials and families again and again are honourable. In such a corrupted state as India without constant control the walls she brought down, could soon be built up again.

By Céline Sonnenberg

Image Credit:

Picture 1: Michael Coghlan, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Picture 2: Allessandro de Tufo, licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

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