The List

v.

1.   Music –NY is the TESTING ground for music. There’s a misconception that that’s where all the good music is. There’s TONS of crap. And while you’re looking for a gig to see on Friday night, there’s too much for the average person with a job to peruse through and decide on something good. And, there’s too many hipsters corrupting the mix. Just because a hipster says you gotta see X band, doesn’t mean objectively they’re good. It could likely mean the opposite-that they are so obscure, with one good riff, to make them hipster-worthy. Since coming here, I have discovered more good music than my two years in NY. What makes it out of NY is prescreened by normal, non-self obsessed members of society as decent tunes. Its also an amount significantly cut down to let working people get a handle on it. Think of music discovery as the converse of job apps in NYC –we need a filter. If it made it out of hipster-land, similar to if it says NYU or Columbia grad under Education, we can start to consider it.

2.   Smell –Here has smells. Actual good ones. Not ones that we have to convert to good based on inference-what they mean. Here smells like woodsmoke, like spices from chai tea, like pine, like unbelievable fresh air, so fresh its dense and heavy, like mountains, like crispness in the cold (not bitterness). That’s at least what I smelled tonight on my bike ride home (see below). I’m sure there’s more. I used to love the smells of NY. And I was nostalgic for them this weekend. But they really aren’t good smells. They’re people smells. Smells of cells, of bodily secretions, of dirt, but not good dirt, grimy dirt. People dirt, not nature dirt. And of course, LOTS and LOTS of smells of smoke. Car exhaust, bus fumes in your face in the bike lane, heavy, heavy, smog, cigarette smoke. Everyone’s smoking. Subway exhaust blowing up your nose from the grates even if your not walking on them but next to them. And industry smells. Metal, rust, sweat on metal, creaking, grinding, squeaking, welding smells, construction smells, road work smells. And trash. And subways. Which is all of the above, condensed, and not aired out for a hundred years. No, NY does not have good smells. They actually give me a headache, which I don’t notice as much because the stress of everyday life gives me more of a headache. I converted them, inferring from them a city alive with the best people on the planet. A city with layers of stories, people living on top of each other for hundreds of years. A city where some of the most significant history, some of the most poignant vignettes have occurred. All this is true. But the smells are not actually that good.

3.   Feel –In addition to smells, here has a tangible feel. Of course, so does NY. NY has

4.   Biking –People here like us bikers. We are the children of this city. They protect us, they usher us, they foster us and guide us in the right direction. They stop for us WHEN THEY DON”T HAVE TO. They are constantly aware, in the back of their mind, of our presence. They look for us before they move, they turn, they stop. We are part of their every consideration. Most importantly, they don’t want to kill us like the Hasidic Jews do. There’s no equivalent of the East Williamsburg death run in my daily ride home from work. In NY we are the enemy. We are the nuisance. We are the crazies. No one seems to remember that we are there –and they spew profanities at us at the mere suggestion that they should. Cabs use our lane as an extra one for their personal use. No one uses blinkers. Emergencies allow veering into our direct path as an option-as if knocking off a biker is a consequence not even worthy of registering for consideration.

5.   In shape people –People here are healthy. Healthy-looking. Tan –but not excessively so. Toasted by the sun. Muscles but not like the Situation. Muscles that show days outside –not at the gym. Those natural type muscles I honed my ability to love in Senegal. Even their hair, their skin, their smell, seems to give off the natural, not the chemical. Fuck those skinny ass white hipsters. Starving because their art doesn’t make enough to give them a decent meal. And because nature is not their drug.

6.   The mountains –Duh. Heaven on earth. Unbelievable moments of surreality that unwaveringly will give you an experience that will affirm anything positive and usurp anything negative. Depending on your natural bent, they will make you believe in God, save you from suicide, clear your brain of clutter, restore you after a bout of stress, detox your body, mind and soul, remind you that your life is insignificant and assure you that it is ok not to care, demonstrate the highest form of art, awe you to tears, humble you…I could go on, but I meant to write nothing here at all.

7.   Skiing, hiking, biking, sports, rafting, kyacking, climbing –Networking. Didn’t think that one was coming, did you? But this city offers incredible opportunities to network. People get bored talking about the same old shit. And they like skiing. Or if they don’t, they like some other idealistic outdoor sport. Or if they don’t, they harbor a respectable awe of those sports, or the people that do them. It’s a part of our culture, its part of being American, and perhaps more importantly, it is an important ID card for upper class, largely white society. CEOs go on ski trips to Stowe. So it’s a great way to strut your prowess, and to make people jealous that you have somehow found a way to work hard, but play just as hard and in a more authentic and awesome way than people who just party hard every weekend. Because we definitely party hard (arguably harder), but only after we’re done skiing.

8.   Art –Just to let you know, there is a legitimate art scene here.

9.   S* –While I was studying for the LSATs in NY, my brain almost bled from frustration of not being able to find a good coffee shop to study at. Really. My motto is that you can find absolutely anything your mind can contrive in NY. Minus the above mentioned. I biked to literally every viable candidate sans Inwood. NY is just too crowded. And its coffee shops are trying to be too hip –offering music, bars, and other crazy noise-inducing activities that, although awesome (I hailed the advent of being able to drink wine at a coffee shop while doing my hw), do not allow for good studying. Small places where the door opening in winter causes shivering convulsions. Heat turned off in hipster Williamsburg. Coffeehouse turned into bar past 11. Closing early because they don’t make enough money in the late nights. Too many schools and libraries to study at that don’t offer access to non-students. NY apartments are just too small, and people to poor, to be able to have adequate study space in their personal living space. Coffee shops for non-students who need to study are essential. But lacking. S* is my sanctuary.

10.        Human rights –NY does not have too much for human rights anyway. Would have to go to DC for that.

11.        Money –Rent is cheap! You can pay for yourself (Jameson!) and your friends, and still have your bill be under $25 on a Friday night! No cabs! (Or, less cabs.) Less temptation to eat out or eat snacks at atleast 5 stops during your walk from point A to point B. (My ATM statement confirms this…just as many charges in a weekend as in a couple of weeks in this city.) NY made me depressed, stressed, and have a headache trying to survive financially. Sometimes, I didn’t eat. For weeks and months I ate only pasta, ramen, and rice and onion sauce. Ask my room mates. I constantly felt pulled in too many directions and unable to fulfill my obligations in any one of them. I also always felt bad about my reliance on others. I felt it this weekend. I should have stayed in a hotel. I wanted to pay for our whole dinner as Annemarie did. How many times could I afford to pay for cab rides if we took on to each place we went? In sum, I think NY is only a place for me mid-career. I don’t want to start my career there. I don’t want to ever be that poor again. Its not health for me or my relationships.

12.        Time spent at first few jobs –Not to mention, the time expected in your first few jobs. I would be the equivalent of “yenoo”-ing in NY for my first few jobs. Though I don’t doubt that I will work ridiculous hours anywhere else, I think it will be significantly more tolerable than NY. I would almost not survive. And I’m too old for that.

13.        Too much to do –I would have been so torn in school. I would always have the feeling of not giving enough to school and not giving enough to my social life. Here, life comes in a much more swallowable dosage. It’s a good retreat for school.

14.        The International School

15.        More my style of dress

16.        More my style of people

17.        Guys, not metrosexuals.

I am perturbed...

So some d-bag, sniveling NY lawyer told me I should transfer from this school to a NY school if I had any hopes of getting a job in NY. I am too harsh –he apologized profusely for seeming cynical. And I told him I completely understood what he said –I knew it when I left NY. It scares me that I may never be able to return home or to my beloved city. I cried on my way out of Brooklyn.

But I say sniveling because there’s something to be said for the individual. This experience just emphasizes that I need to develop myself, just as I am doing but even more so. I need to attend every conference, make sure that I sleep so I can talk to every person I need to, read and study civpro to make sure I am at the top of my class, review my notes and work on my outline after class, maximize my time, work on my art and my blog.

There’s also a lot of room for personal action to make sure that this school gets its name up there in the international law arena. This is a good pitch –they would get more students and more recognition if they developed their already strong IL program. This is something I can do personally but also for this school. So this school offers me opportunities to be a leader in my field that a school with a more established program would not. If I was around all these amazing international law students, I would be poor in comparison. But here, I have an opportunity to leave my mark. This school’s IL students are also not obnoxious.

It makes me really sad and I just want to document that this will be a period of intense self-reflection, option-considering, and growth. Is this where I really want to be? And if it is, what do I have to do to ensure that my options for the future are still open? I have to talk to Professor G, to Professor N, to my fellow students, to the admissions office and anyone else at the International school, to dual-degree contacts, to my professional mentors and anyone else I can meet in this city’s legal community that can tell me about IL opportunities in the city, to IIE, to the Peace Corps crowd, maybe to other ILS members.

And is NY where I want to end up?

The one thing I do have to say that is legit is that I definitely felt out of place among the NY crowd. Whether this has to do with me, or them, is important to distinguish as opposed to whether or not this is a real situation and what I have to do about it. Is it me? Have I not spent the appropriate amount of time learning about the ICC, the other tribunals, international criminal cases, histories of conflict, history in general, current events, the Arab spring, Arab and Islamic culture, Islamic law, movers and shakers in IL, etc.? Should I know more at this point in my career or did the other students just know more because they were 2Ls and 3Ls? How do I know that this is even what I want to do or is it another situation like development where I have an idealistic view and once I actually practice I will figure out its not what I want to do? No matter what the answer is, I know that if I want to be competitive, I need to step up my game and start researching in my free time. I need the internet.

Is it them? Are they typical gunners in that they make themselves appear to know more than they actually do? Are they wrong for their relative sneering or blank looks of boredom when I tell them I am from here and not from NYU or Columbia? (Am I even imagining their reactions…or is my overly-cheerful answer indicative that there is some problem, that they’re reacting to?)

Or is it real? I feel like NYU and Columbia students are surrounded by an environment of incredibly unbelievable students –the best students with the most insight, working the hardest, with the best experiences from around the world. The international mix at the conference worried me –we don’t have a lot of international, or even diverse, students at this school. I think we are disadvantaged because of that. They also get the most amazing teachers –retired members of the ICC, of the U.S. gov, of the UN, etc. Impassioned teachers, with excellent classroom presence, unlike some of our teachers here. Should I tolerate subpar teachers? They also get a lot more opportunities, both through their school, and through being in NY. Events, visitors, conferences, etc.  Can I do enough personal work to keep up with what just comes to them effortlessly? (Their effort already being previously exerted on the LSATs.) Oh, why couldn’t I have done well on the LSATs? And was senior year worth it? Damn climatology.

Anyway, in the coming days/weeks/months as I sort through this in my head, I have decided to compile the following list about the benefits of this city over NY. I will continue to add as I go along. This I think will be a fun project for readers from here, readers from the ponderance of the meaning of life, etc., but also useful to me in deciding where I belong.

Winning story for People Building Peace 2.0

The 25 Winners

A Women's Grassroots Peace Movement in Sulawesi, Indonesia

Published: Tue, 09 Aug 2011 05:27:00 +0000

Consult conventional history of the brutal communal conflict that lasted from 1998-2007 in Poso, on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, and prospects for a lasting peace in the region are pretty grim. It was part political battle, part religious crusade between Christians and Muslims, part scramble for natural resources, and part grab by investors for influence in the region, all steeped in an intricately tied community with a small enough population and a long enough history to make tensions run deep.

But Lian Gogali, a native of Poso, is determined to rework this record of history to reflect the real story of the survivors of the conflict – one that is vastly different from the one that outsiders looking to use Poso for their own purposes have shaped. Reporters, politicians, and religious leaders fanned the flames of religious reprisals by calling to arms Muslims and Christians to avenge the deaths of their loved ones and to train for combat to protect their homes and their villages. But Poso residents tell of courageous demonstrations of friendship – Muslim women sending their Christian friends headscarves to wear during village raids, women from both sides teaching each other their religious language to cover their identity during genocidal sweeps.

In addition to her personal ties to the region, Lian has dedicated a lifetime of research on how to end the conflict there. She lived in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp for over a year where she conducted research for her Master's thesis on women and children's perspective on conflict. One woman asked her "After you write your research, then what will you do for us?" Statements like these proved to her that it was with the women that she belonged. She learned that only when these women's stories were brought into the local and national dialogue on the conflict could it be permanently put to rest. She decided that working through large international development organizations or applying theories learned through her research were not anywhere near as effective as simply sitting with the women, listening to their stories, and creating an environment where they could generate their own ideas to restore their community. The key to a seemingly impossible peace in the region would be recreating the history to reflect the experience of those actually involved in the conflict –who, when removed from outside influence, just wanted peace on their land and for their children.

Therefore, Lian moved back home and opened her porch to the women of Poso, creating Institute Mosintuwu (Mosintuwu means togetherness), a place where post-conflict victims, former combatants and women of any religion can come together as friends, first and foremost. The result has been multifaceted –part healing and new reflections on the conflict, part social and civic training, and part peace building. So far, Institute Mosintuwu has trained over 100 women in eight different villages. Trainings range from interfaith peace education, domestic violence prevention and intervention, household economic analysis, women and politics, and public speaking. In one village where school children had recently been decapitated because of religious vengeance, field visits by Muslim women to a church and Christian women to a mosque helped demystify each other's faith. After the trip, one Christian woman said "I thought that Muslims were evil, but now I see that there is no difference between us." These simple, cost effective activities are key to ending the cycle of distrust and violence in Poso.

But the vision for Institute Mosintuwu doesn't stop there. Lian hopes that eventually the women of Poso will connect with other women around the world in conflict areas to brainstorm about ways to help their communities achieve lasting peace and elevate women's voices in the household and political arena. This is a slow, organic process. Every day women show up on Lian's front porch to find solutions to their problems, to participate in trainings, or just to talk. The peace process multiplies when women are taking what they learn at Institute Mosintuwu back to their families. These women's strength is a force to reckon with. They have already convinced Lian, who as a single mother is somewhat ostracized from her community, and who suffered for two years from a motorcycle injury that left her entire calf-bone exposed (and subsequently gave her tuberculosis) –to move back to Poso, raise her daughter, and work tirelessly on one leg and a pair of handmade crutches to get their community, and herself, back on two feet. With the guidance of Institute Mosintuwu and Lian, the women of Poso have chosen to set the course of peace, reconciliation, and gender rights themselves, for Indonesia, and hopefully, the whole world.

For all the stories: http://www.peaceportal.org/web/stories-contest

A good article....

A new rallying cry

Why the concept of justice - not freedom, not democracy - is becoming a potent tool for political reform in the Muslim world

Imran Khan, founder of the Pakistan Justice Party, speaks at an October anti-government rally in Pakistan. (Getty Images)

By Shahan Mufti  |  October 28, 2007

PAKISTANIS ARE USING the Urdu word zulm a lot these days. The twin suicide bombings last week in the port city of Karachi that left hundreds injured and dead were zulm. So is a deal between political rivals that left millions of dollars stolen from the state unaccounted for. The Pakistan Army's continuing military assault on the tribal areas is being termed zulm. The bombing of girls' schools by Taliban militants in the same tribal belt along the Afghan border, the US military's operation in Iraq - all zulm.

The word signifies severe cruelty or injustice. The Arabic root implies doing wrong, and is used in the Koran as the most basic reference to sin. Zalimeen are sinners who commit zulm. Allah does not guide them, it says in the holy book - their abode is a fiery hell. In Pakistan, a country caught in the middle of several wars, the words are read in the press and heard on TV and in tea-stalls on street sides every day. There is much zulm in the world today, and many zalimeen on all sides.

The antithesis of zulm is adl, the Koranic word for justice, and insaf, the Persian equivalent. The demand for adl-o-insaf, for justice, has emerged as a compelling rallying call in Pakistan. It has become a vital tenet of the nationalists and of Islamist party rhetoric, it is built into the spirit of the civil society movement for democracy led by lawyers and championed by Supreme Court judges, and it is the platform for the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, or Pakistan Justice Party, a political party led by Imran Khan, a onetime cricket star.

In many postcolonial Muslim states, a new call for justice is catalyzing a process of transformation. Political fronts with Islamist roots and leanings based on justice are making rapid inroads to power from Indonesia to Kosovo, from Morocco and Turkey to the Maldives. The concept of justice has sparked a new conversation between Islam and governance in these countries, creating a third way that recognizes the universal notions of freedom and equity yet casts them in an indigenous, sometimes explicitly Islamic light. It is a potent political formula that appeals to economically depressed classes by addressing issues of social injustice while also drawing in the growing middle classes, who are frustrated with rampant corruption in their countries.

The call for justice is striking a chord with broad swaths of the Pakistani public: with the religious who hear the divine in it, with the secular and urban educated who are frustrated by the blatant corruption in bureaucracy and government, and with the country's economically depressed majority.

"We are living in a society where the strong are crushing the weak, where an avarice elite has become a parasite on us all," said Khan, sitting in his sparsely furnished, bare-walled office at the party headquarters in Islamabad. "A system based on justice would liberate the people, give them true freedom, and unleash their real potential."

Western rhetoric - concepts such as freedom, democracy, and liberty - are being rejected in favor of the more incontrovertible "justice." The West's efforts are often dismissed as insincere, but it matters little, since concepts such as democracy and freedom are often partly lost in translation. In many cultures, freedom is incomplete without responsibilities. Some orthodox religious scholars might even argue that true freedom is found only in the complete submission to the will of Allah - a far cry from how the concept is appreciated in the West.

In Pakistan, the movement for justice has the potential to redefine the discourse of religion and politics. Come the elections in January, it could emerge as a powerful contender for power. In the second largest Muslim country in the world, which has been struggling to reconcile its secular foundation and Muslim identity since its creation, some are hoping that this new movement could cure a decades-old political schizophrenia that has brought chronic instability. And, of course, it could also pull Islamist politics, which has always tended toward extreme rhetoric and militancy, closer to the mainstream.

At a time when Pakistan has become a front-line state in the "war on terror," the United States is throwing its chips in with Pervez Musharraf. It hopes the "moderate," pro-American leader will be able to keep a lid on what seems like a country on the tipping point of change. But by supporting the general, American policy is suffocating a robust and eclectic opposition movement - Khan's movement, elements within the Islamist coalition, nationalists, a growing secular civil society movement led by lawyers in their black suit and ties - based on justice.

"Americans," Khan warned in a recent newspaper column, "are pushing people who are in favor of democracy at the moment towards extremism."

. . .

Justice has long been an important element of classical Islamic social and political thought. Two of the 99 qualities of Allah described in the Koran are al-Adl, "the just," and al-Muqsit, "the most equitable." Words with the root a-d-l are used dozens of times in the book, most often in reference to establishing social order. At one place the Koran instructs: "And let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety."

In Muslim countries the political emphasis on justice has traditionally been garbed in calls for social welfare and focused on social inequities. The pro-West Justice and Development Party of Turkey, which holds power in both the Legislature and the executive branch, is an offshoot of Necmettin Erbakan's Islamist Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) established in 1983. In a country in which the separation of religion and politics was militantly guarded, the Welfare Party cloaked its Islamist ethos in the call for Adil Duzen, or "Just Order."

Similarly, the Justice and Development Party of Morocco is the only legal Islamist party in the country and forms the main political opposition, having secured 46 parliamentary seats compared with the winning party's 52 in this year's election. Its leader, Saad Eddin Al Othmani, fashions the party along the lines of the Christian Democrats in Europe and claims that "efforts, such as combating bribery and corruption, are based in sharia." The Islamist Prosperous Justice Party in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, is now a major political force, working off a strong anticorruption platform.

Imran Khan was a newcomer to politics when he founded the Pakistan Justice Party in 1996, but he was hardly an unknown. After studying politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford alongside political rival Benazir Bhutto, he embarked on an illustrious sports career. He was captain of the Pakistan cricket team that brought home the World Cup in 1992, becoming a minor deity in a country in which the sport might as well be a religion. His rugged good looks and larger-than-life persona made him a global heartthrob and to this day he is haunted in his political career by allusions to his "playboy" past. Many never really forgave him for marrying British heiress Jemima Goldsmith. (Khan and Goldsmith have two children, and were divorced in 2004.)

After retiring from cricket, Khan wrote a book on the tribal areas of Pakistan (he is of tribal Pashtun decent). When his mother succumbed to cancer, he raised funds to establish Pakistan's first and largest cancer hospital, which provides free cancer treatment to the poor. Only after carrying out the largest fund-raising campaign in the country's history did he decide to enter the political arena.

The Justice Party's manifesto includes detailed reform proposals for every institution of the state - an anomaly in a country in which slogans and cults of personality are usually enough to rise to power. But the cornerstone of the Justice Party is the establishment of an independent judiciary. This alone can begin to cure Pakistan in profound ways, the party states, by keeping its rulers in check.

. . .

Initially, Khan's call for establishing a free and independent judiciary found little popular support. But this year, things started to change when on March 9, Musharraf attempted to remove the chief justice of Pakistan to clear his path to a reelection. The activist judge had earned a reputation as being pro-poor and had aggressively prosecuted corruption, embarrassing Musharraf. But Musharraf's move backfired; public rallies attracted antigovernment crowds of the kind that hadn't been witnessed in the general's eight-year rule.

"After 9th of March people began to understand what it means to have an independent judicial system," Khan told a private television channel recently. "Eventually, if the civil society and the political forces stand behind an independent judiciary, you will have a revolution in Pakistan."

Khan is now contesting a political deal between Musharraf and Bhutto in the Supreme Court, which granted the ex-prime minister amnesty from charges of stealing millions of dollars from the state and allowed her to return from exile this month. The country, he says, is struggling to shake off a feudal system in which the government bureaucracy attracts only two kinds of people: those who want to get involved in crime and those who are already criminals and need protection.

The young Justice Party holds only one seat in the Legislature. But Khan has built alliances with the lawyers' street movements, some prominent Islamist leaders, and the nationalist Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), which has twice swept elections in Pakistan. When the elections come in January, he has high hopes for his party - and, more importantly, for the idea of justice behind it.

"It's not something particular to Islam or even Pakistan," he says. "It's the basis of every civilized society."

Shahan Mufti is a freelance writer based in Islamabad.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Link: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/10/28/a_new_rallying_cry/

Remembrance and Reconciliation

Here is my final essay for my school's memorial session today...and I won! (That means you should do what I say in my essay.)

I was eager to speak about today’s theme, “Remembrance and Reconciliation” because reconciliation is what brought me to DU, and that journey began on September 11, 2001. My cousins, Timmy and Johnny Grazioso, were killed in the World Trade Center.

Kathryn and Kristen, Johnny’s two daughters, are now teenagers, and they’re stunning. But no matter how many highlights they put in their hair, or how many scandalous comments they post on Facebook, I can’t erase the images of them, 7 and 4, crouched under the sink anxiously waiting for their dad to come home. My sister and I had lost our own father just a year earlier to cancer, and so we formed a bond with Kathryn and Kristen because we empathized with their grief. But I don’t think we can ever fully understand how it feels for the families of the victims of September 11^th. They not only have to deal with grief, but the surrounding circumstances of this grief that ushered in a new era. They not only have to deal with death, but with murder, and a history of hatred that long preceded the attacks. I only had to deal with one type of reconciliation –reconciliation with death. But for those who lost someone on 9/11, or in the subsequent wars, there is also reconciliation with the perpetrators, and the surrounding circumstances.

As I studied the history leading up to September 11^th, and I observed the direction we took afterwards, I could see the cycle of violence was a chain threaded throughout history. What most consumed me at the time was the loss of lives in Iraq –both Americans and Iraqis. I realized the cycle of violence would never be stopped unless there were no longer perpetrators and victims. We must work together to ensure that the situation that is causing us to take up these roles is annulled.

Theories of justice have gradually expanded from being largely focused on the offender –retributive justice –to restorative justice, which takes into consideration the victims, the offenders, and the surrounding community, and more recently to reconciliatory and transformative justice. Reconciliation means confrontation between the perpetrators and the victims. Reconciliation requires honest acknowledgment of the harms done by each party, sincere remorse, readiness to apologize, readiness to ‘let go’ of anger and bitterness, commitment not to repeat the injury and sincere effort to redress past grievances that caused the conflict.[1] Reconciliation extends as far as reconstruction of the community, in this case the global community, construction of non-exclusive ideologies, and promotion of intercultural understanding, respect and development[2]. Transformative justice works to reconstruct our societies to make sure that there are no beds to sow the seeds of violence in. It goes beyond the justice system, into the fibers of our society, where we all have a role in rooting out and correcting the things that are causing the injustices. We must all take responsibility for the state of things and devise an action plan to fix what’s broken. There are two underlying values involved in transitional justice: justice and reconciliation. Although they appear to be at opposite ends of the spectrum, the goal is an end to the cycles that perpetuate war, violence and human rights abuses.[3]

As lawyers, we have many roles. One path I am suggesting is that we use our skills to advocate for peace to lessen the likelihood that tragedies like September 11^th happen here or anywhere else. Promoting rule of law, helping disadvantaged people advocate for themselves, providing alternatives to violence through public policy, and strengthening forums for the peaceable resolution of grievances are all options. They will all help transform our world into a place where violence is not a viable option for having your voice heard.

             All of us standing here today, but particularly those of us who lost someone on September 11, 2001 have been chosen as guardians of our generation and those to come. By light of our experience, by light of the grief that we have suffered for the past ten years, we have been given an insight that many others who are shaping policy for our nation and our world have not. These ten years have shown us that the process of grieving is similar to breaking a bone. The initial loss is sharp and all-consuming, and time –the only healer –takes away this sharpness, replacing it with a dull ache that, on rainy days, pains us down to the core. Loss is permanent and so is the pain that accompanies it.

We are the keepers of this tragic insight. We are protectors of others who have not experienced it. Nothing can change our pain or our loss. But we can harness our grief, and gain strength from it to make every effort to make it less likely that others shall have to suffer grief unnecessarily or for unjust reasons in the future. Transformative reconciliation is our obligation, if we don’t want to leave the mess we are in now for our loved ones in the future. We must change the environment of our world that allows many young Muslims, poor and with limited options for the future, to be vulnerable to religious fanatics that would turn them into terrorists. We must make sure the grounds are fertile to sew with seeds of peace –not seeds of violence.

Most of the time I fear engaging in conversation about these ideas with my family because the hurt still runs too deep to suggest the personal strength necessary for reconciliation. But the more time that passes, the more seeds are sewn for future acts of violence. In essence, I am asking my family and fellow Americans to make immense personal sacrifices not for ourselves as much as for future generations. But ––it is worth the cost. Nothing is more important than a human life –your own and the lives of those you love. This is our one universal human goal –everything else is inconsequential. So, on the 10^th Anniversary of 9/11, I think it’s a good moment to step back and remember and reflect on that. I began by saying that my own personal journey has been a journey of reconciliation –it has been guided by the spirit of my two cousins. Their voices are gentle and remind me to never forget, but also, to never let this happen again.

---

[1] European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation; “The Meaning of Reconciliation”; http://www.gppac.net/documents/pbp/part1/2_reconc.htm

[2] “Transitional Justice and Reconciliation”; http://www.huntalternatives.org/download/49_transitional_justice.pdf

[3] ibid

Sept. 11

So, there’s a contest to enter an essay for the 10^th anniversary of September 11^th that will be read at the memorial ceremony here. At first, I thought I would enter, but when I started thinking about topics they were all about me. “I wanted to come to law school because…”, “Ten years ago I started this journey….”

And so I guess my essay would belong more on this blog. But, I have to say, for this being in the top 25 schools for international law, I am 8 days in (or 12, or 15 if you count orientation and weekends), and I still don’t know how I fit in to this whole picture. So, I started thinking about it myself. If I am not working as a grassroots legal advisor with Lian, how do I picture myself within the scope of “international law” –what role could I play between nations that would be relevant to both law and conflict resolution? Well, I think I would have to start by being an American advocate for U.S. accountability in international legal arenas. Cause I started to think about what I would like to encourage as far as international standards for criminals or for holding a ‘state’ (country) accountable to some kind of “world order” as states are at least somewhat accountable to the federal government here, and I realized, anything I could think of that might coax a renegade African leader out of his bunker, or even less than that –the U.S. is not going to subject itself to. It might make up an esoteric standard –like the Model Penal Code, or the OECD, but by hell or high water when push comes to shove, when sh*t hits the fan, it is not going to let itself get bound up in that.

          A People’s History of the United States is a good testament to that. (See subsequent blog for my thoughts on this.) Undoubtedly, I am going to face some anti-American accusations. So how could I convince the People of the United States that holding themselves accountable in the international legal arena is in their best interest? Yes, it might mean everything gets more expensive. Mostly, its going to mean that someone is actually going to tell us what we can’t do…America is growing into adulthood. But, I feel like in this Sept. 11 essay I am entitled to wax dramatic –it is worth the cost. Nothing is more important than a human life –your own life and the life of those you love. And every living person on the planet is in this same basic human condition. So, on the 10^th Anniversary of September 11^th I think it’s a good moment to step back and remember and reflect on that. As a lawyer, I only hope I have such an opportunity to demonstrate to people that this is our one universal human goal –everything else is insubstantial. 

The Frugal Law Student –on Why Bali

Let it be here DECREED: There was a good reason for Bali.

I was crossing the surprisingly civil crosswalk the other day on my way to Hogwarts, musing on the December inevitability.

Friend A: Hey, you want to go downtown for drinks on Thursday?

Me: (sketchy eyes, internal paddling, externally smoothing of feathers) Um, yes?

(later, much much later, like 1:00 am)

Me: (in my head, while looking in wallet and fishing in pockets) Oh no.

Friend B: (joining me at the bar, where I have been holding post for a good 10 minutes) Hey, I’m going to get another drink. Do you want one?

Me: Um, no?

Friend B: (sketched out) Are you sure? Its on me!

Yes, that time when I will be broke. I’ve figured it out in my budget. I already know I will be. I have $44.74 per week. Good thing this is not New York and there are, amazingly, NO TEMPTATIONS on the walk from my place of work to my place of residence. This should cut back a lot. But, as I usually do, I felt flooded with the pang of guilt.

This guilt is partly residual. And for a long time, I took refuge in that. I was brought up, among other things, without any spending money. It didn’t occur to me that this was normal to even after college. But for all that was expected of me to be ‘of a certain class’ (Italians) I certainly didn’t have the means to be there.

But that time is way over. 6 years over to be exact. I could be a millionaire by this point if I had followed the path of some of my other peers. So now that guilt is all real, and all deserved, and I have to re-train myself to accept it as my own, and change it if I want to.

I do to some extent. But then we come to questions of Bali. And why it was necessary, even though I absolutely in no way negatively could afford it. Who knows when I will pay for it, or even from my last ‘essential’ adventure (Jen to Senegal).

We’ll see how this all works out, but the biggest lesson I am hoping to take from Bali is to follow your heart. If this does not in fact turn out to be the lesson, well I will have some serious reckoning to do. But what is that voice you hear ‘in your heart?” Now, don’t run out on me just yet. If you looked up “heart” in my thesaurus, you would get “instinct,” “wisdom,” even “collection of all the advise of people from whom you’d take it,” or so far as “sum of your collection of experiences leading you in this certain direction.” It could be “life force,” or “spirit” or “energy.” If you wanted to go the other way into mush-dom, you would find “guardian angel,” “voice of my father,” or “God.” The point is, I think we all have some inner voice that bugs us like an itching for a cigarette. Thing is, it dings off every 5 seconds for all of our lives, so many of us have done a really good job of telling it to shut the f*ck up or otherwise throwing the pillow over it.

Something itched in me to go to Bali and I just couldn’t shut it up. I fast-fowarded myself into law school and knew I would feel like a lamo and a sell out if I hadn’t gone. There always has to be room in my life for the impossible, the spontaneous. But its more than that. Sue’s making a peace documentary for f’s sake. How could I not go?

So, this is how my “follow your heart” theory will either work out or, well, take another turn. While everyone is sitting in these info sessions wheels ticking about where to find a public interest law opportunity for the summer to get the $3,500 stipend, or how they could rack up 4 credits through the externship program and qualify for some $8,000 financial aid package, I just need to think about how I can best serve Lian and her community. Maybe the Water Law Journal? I can look for ways that I could get back to Senegal and continue my chicken project research. Maybe this does not put me ahead of anyone else, but it reminds me why am here and makes me über motivated to study Crim Law.