Jakobo.net

I remember promising Andreas and Katrine that I would expand on my life here instead of solely commenting on politics.

If you tuned in for Ahmadinejad, scroll down a tat.

Here goes a short summary of la vida nueva yorkereña- more to come. Some day.

-Neighborhood is still cool. Men playing domino on the streets every evening/night when I walk home from the subway on Broadway. And women hanging out on the side streets. Sometimes commenting me in Spanish.
-People are very cool at SIPA. I have met some really great peeps to hang out with (you know who you are. No you’re not one of them, Sahil)
-I still miss Denmark and you- yes, you who are in Denmark. But I don’t really have time for you to visit, so let’s just call it a friendship. Great knowing you.
-My knee is hurting, so I missed out on the beautiful game last weekend. Scheize!!
-I’ve bought vitamin- and fish oil pills (happy Mom?) and take them with taaasty orange juice every night along with 30 push-ups (simultaneous with Sahil) Are you keeping up, Sid? Feel free to take ten
-I feel like I’m reading, sleeping, eating, reading, readin, reading and reading. And yet I’m always behind. I suddenly the remember the internal guilt connected with being a student.

Ok, I think that’s enough of my banalities. The more personal stuff will be in email format.

So, he came. Ahmadinejad. I’m sure most of you have seen it on the news (and some of you were at Columbia with me).

There’s so much to say:

-Was it appropriate to invite the leader of a country that consistently violates human rights, and thereby giving him a platform to speak?

I believe it was. If living up to human rights was the merrit to judge leaders on, Bush wouldn’t get to travel much (no futher comparison intended). I believe that dialogue is the only way forward if we want to proceed in international relations (and most other aspects of life, really). it’s easy to talk to the ones we agree with- I found it important to be confronted with Ahmadinejad’s oftentimes distorted view on reality (as an example, he is the man behind the question in the title above). And equally important: to challenge him with our views. I actually think both happened.

Is he the second Hitler?

There were many, many demonstrators outside Columbia. Some were cool, some were fun, some were less fun, and some were quite frankly ridiculous. There were a big group of people who had posters with pictures merging Ahmadinejad and Hitler, shanting how the first is the resurrection of the latter. I think comparisons like that are not only silly; they’re stupid and potentially dangerous. I should have liked to see what had happened had I used Hitler to make a point about a leader I don’t like. I’m quite sure the same group of people would have haunted me down the street and accused me of many terrible things.

So, what did he say?

You can see most or all of the spech and questions here.

The points I would highlight are:

-There are no homosexuals in Iran (maybe true: according to human rights groups, homosexuals have been reported to be hung in Iran) At the same time, he explained why death penalty is a good thing.

-Iran is welcoming not only talks with the US, but also a Columbia University delegation to Iranian universities. (I know I’ll apply for a seat)

-He didn’t deny the holocaust, but he did question it. And rethorically asked why the Palestinians should pay the prize for a (potential) crime, they had no stakes in.

-He didn’t confirm or reject the idea of ‘wiping Israel off the map’. He said he believes the issue (whatever that is exactly) should be dealt with by democratic elections with participation by all groups in israel: Jews, Muslims and Christians alike.

-He talked, quite convincingly so, about the number and rights of jews in Iran and thereby tried to shake off the image as antisemite.

All in all a very interesting event, I thought. Some of you have probably heard of President Bollingers introduction - even my cousin Niels in Denmark did. I personally found it extensively rude and not very constructive. On the other hand: how should he have introduced Mugabe? Putin? (Bush?) Mostly, I found it weird to invite someone to speak and then treate him in such a condescending manner. I was looking forward to Ahmadinejad being confronted with hardcore criticism, but this was a weird, almost infantile way of doing it. See Bollinger’s intro here

Ok, I think that’s all for now. I think I will attach a letter Bollinger sent out to all Columbia students. Look for a page to the right. It (tries to) explain(s) why Ahmadinejad was invited in the first place.

Comments are very welcome. I know we have discussed this a lot at SIPA (most seem to agree on the basic points, though). Maybe the discussion can continue here.

Hakuna Matata

I really wanted to meet Mandela… How could Saddam kill him?

(se newest post below this video)

So, too long since my last post. Many things have happened:

Classes are now rolling like the night train- no stops, so you better hang on. So far I enjoy the Prof. in conflict resolution sharing his experiences from mediating in Colombia and getting the nitty gritty detalis of how and why states can breake free or ‘merge’ into one. Economics… Not so much.

BIG DEAL: Peter Singer, world famous philosopher, came by Columbia a week ago. I went to see him with Sahil. He spoke about the rich world’s responsibilty towards the poor worlds. Random facts about the terrible state of the world are always thrown out like rice for the pidgens in front of the Danish churches, but he mentioned one that actually caught my attention (and stayed there): 28.000, yes twenty eight thousand, children die EVERY DAY due to completely preventable and treatable diseases. Because their parents don’t have the money for medicin. Is it really fair, then, that we in our part of the world, spend money on luxury good every day? Even I, who am supposed to be an indebted , poor student, do it. Singer argues we should donate the money we don’t spend on necessities to aliviating extreme poverty. It’s our responsibility. I hated my ridiculous shirt with the little polo player on it..! Really, think about it, though. How is it we justify our consumerism? It is not just an imaginable trade-off: for the money we spend on something, anything, people’s lives could be saved. It’s that easy. So let’s start channeling our bad conscience into the NGOs we trust.

Here are the ones Mr. Singer recommended:
Oxfam
Unicef

Of course, I would recommend Amnesty, but that’s a little different…

Ok, last note on Peter Singer: If you’re interested in such moral issues as abortion, infanticide (yes, the killing of infants), vegetarianism, euthenasia and more, definately check out these short videos on youtube. You wont regret it- he’s veeery interesting!

Ok, that’s it. I will definately try to block again soon as a certain Mr. Ahmadinejad comes by Columbia to speek on… Hm, human rights? Homosexuality? the Holocaust? Israel? Time will tell, and I’ll tell you here afterwards. Wow!

Enjoy this sunny Sunday (probably more so if you’re in NYC than Copenhagen).

Allright, I finally got to go out and taste the American lager (according to my cousin Martin, it’s similar to the American coffee and both are similar to having sex in a canoe; f*cking close to water). However, it had the desired effect and I found myself with what the cool kids call hangover this morning. Really nice night out with Danish friend Jonas, and Clea and Merry from SIPA! I feel kinda cool when in the lower W.

Went out for Ethiopian the other night with my new amigo Sahil (I believe he’s been introduces to the site before), Clea and Teodora- all from SIPA. Someone raised an interesting question: If you were to categorize yourself by one -ism, which one would it be? (yeah, you think about that!)

I have probably been playing the longest football match in world history today, so am close to falling a sleep in this very moment. I love football (soccer for the Americans reading:). I love it!

I don’t love it so much that my girlfriend is not here. Or my friends and family. I guess these are the choises you make when you wanna become a successful man and make milions of $$! (did I mention that I checked the employment statistícs from SIPA the other day? So, the people who go out to work in human rights upon graduation are the people who make the least money over all. Great!)

My life is mostly reading added reading these days, so the abovementioned events have been nice break-aways! That was it- now back to the real life that involves int. law, int. pol., conflict resolution and no football nor beer!

Goodnight

Things are good in the city that must someday get tired from never sleeping! I’ve had my first classes and it truly feels good to observe my brain starting, slowly, to absorb knowledge after two years away from educational institutions!

On a very different note:

A lot of my friends are doing really cool cultural stuff at the moment (certainly not a reflection of my own capabilities). I thought I’d give them some free adds here:

Benny is in a band called Waking Life. They recently won a big ‘talent competition’ in Denmark, and I think they’re awesome! Check them out

Søren is a painter (and a lot more). I have one of his first master pieces in my bedroom (in CPH, that is, so Elly’s bed room for now, really) and am expecting it to make me into a milionaire one day. probably not until Søren dies… See his works here

Thomas, as Benny, is a skilled drummer and can bang faster than any other dude in town. His band is called Mia Mirror and they are releasing something soon. It’s indie; it’s noisy; it’s cool!

Laura is arranging (managing?) a tremendous project involving a wide variety of people from CPH. But most importantly, it involves a wide variety of music. It will all end up in a biiiiig koncert (that everyone in CPH must attend) and a film (which my friend Jonas is shooting). I believe one can go to the rehersals in ‘Huset’ on Magstræde (Oh, KBH I miss you already). See more here

Ok, that’s it. I actually do have a couple more friends who do cool, cultural stuff, or who have cool (sometimes also cultural) blogs, but they haven’t given me permission to ‘publicize’ them yet. So keep tuning in- they might be up soon.

Keep it rockin’

Went to the country side today w/ my land lady. Cute little place an hour north of NYC. The most exciting thing, though, was that we passed the garage from the film Smoke. The place where the kid sits and waits for his father for a whole afternoon, remember? It was exactly as in the movie. Veeery cool!

Yesterday, had dinner with Sahil and Clea, two new cool SIPA-friends, and Ellen (who’s also cool). This night Grethe and Morten had the pleasure of dining with me and for the second consecutive night I took advantage of the fact that one can embark in great sushi for less than $10 i this country!

So, classes start next week. Am a little ambivalent about Econ (am doing a math-test this weekend to establish whether I’m absolutely retarded in that regard). But especially conflict resolution should be great! Maybe after that course, I can settle and become a marriage-counselor…

Before classes start, tomorrow is devoted to the beautiful game of fodbold. Playing in the park with new SIPA-friends and listening to Brøndby beating the cr*p out of Odense on the radio! Can’t wait!

Today when I came up from the subway on 157th, my iPod (which was on shuffle) played ‘under the bridge’ for me, and though I think it was originallt intended for LA, I felt it right in the heart. Taken back to my teens, I felt a certain connection with this new city of mine. The city she loves me!
On that muscial note, I passed the Chelsea Hotel yesterday. Apparantly, when Leonard Cohen sings of a woman who’s “giving me head on the unmade bed, while the limousines wait in the street”, it is no other than Joni Mitchell he’s serenading about..!

Shalom Salaam