Hometown Baghdad on the Sundance Channel this Thursday night

Hometown Baghdad, the web-based documentary series that I wrote my thesis on, will be making its debut on the Sundance Channel on Thursday March 19 at 11:30pm. It's airing coincides with an important date--the 6th anniversary of the war in Iraq. Let's take this opportunity to re-reflect on the costs of war. For international viewers, look for it listed on the National Geographic International channel. I hope to catch it there!

From Chat the Planet's email blast:
"Hometown Baghdad follows three Iraqi college students based in Baghdad as they try to maintain a semblance of normal existence amidst the escalating violence and chaos around them. The online version of Hometown Baghdad drew over 3 million viewers worldwide when it launched in March 2007. The series won three 2008 Webby Awards, and in the categories News and Politics Series, Public Service and Activism, and Reality. In an article about the online series for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, pop culture critic Cary Darling wrote that the series' scenes of ordinary lives "offer a glimpse into a society few knew existed: young Iraqis who are clinging to a global, middle-class identity while the world around them crumbles into chaos."

Waterfire and the Providence SDS

Last Saturday on the way home from watching Iron Man at the $2 theater, we drove through Providence's acclaimed summer weekend activity: Waterfire.
Waterfire, created by Barnaby Evans, lines Providence's rivers with bonfire sculptures that are lit as a symbol of its renaissance. Held every other weekend, the event brings out tourists and locals alike to enjoy a summer evening downtown.
While we were walking through the city streets looking for somewhere to eat, we met with 20 or so people dancing in the middle of Kennedy Plaza. From a distance, it looked as if a impromptu rave was taking place, but on second glance they were dancing to a homemade speaker sitting in a shopping cart while holding up protest signs. A dancer approached me and handed me a flyer: "Tonight's Waterfire is brought to you by Textron:Your neighborhood Cluster Bomb Manufacturer." It turns out, Textron's headquarters are located a block away from Kennedy Plaza.
The dancers were from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) which has been active in the Providence area since the summer of 2007. Sadly, my phone ran out batteries so I wasn't able to get a picture of them but it surely warmed my heart to see a youth peace movement in action. Having just come from seeing Iron Man, where a pre-transformed Tony Stark naively believes his multi-billion dollar weapons manufacturing company only equips the "good guys," the "Funk the War" dance protest very clearly brought home that weapons manufacturing is not just an issue for the big screen but an every-day reality for even the people of Providence.

photo credit: hlkljgk

I'm boycotting Victory Day

Today is Victory Day in the state of Rhode Island. It is a state holiday and many Rhode Islanders have the day off. Why you may ask? to celebrate their victory over Japan 63 years ago. I just learned about this holiday a week ago and I'm none too please to hear that RI is the only state left in the US that celebrates this day. The last state to remove this holiday was Arkansas back in 1975. For as liberal a state as RI supposedly is, any attempts to remove this holiday has been met with strong reactions from WWII veterans. Even attempts to change the name to World Peace Day (which I would still have a huge problem with), Remembrance Day( much better) or RI Veterans Day have been met with opposition.
While I know that August 15th is a controversial date for many around the world, choosing to celebrate it as a victory over another country is what I have a problem with. Korea commemorates this day as their liberation day- this is understandable to me. People have a right to celebrate their liberation, their freedom from oppression. However, to glorify the defeat of another country, especially to glorify a day that came just a few days after one of the greatest crime against humanity- the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki-- must be questioned.
Of course, the average Rhode Islander most likely is just enjoying the day off from work and doesn't think twice about the meaning behind the day. Well, at least its cold and gloomy today, so people can't enjoy it that much. Hrmph!

Pangaea Day

Last night at two in the morning, fifty people gathered at the United Nations University's Media Lab to participate in Pangaea Day. Pangaea Day was a world-wide internet-streaming film event in which 24 films were shared over the course of four hours in the name of global awareness and cultural understanding. Broadcast live across the globe, Japan had the lucky fortune of receiving the internet stream at 3 am and I came fully prepared with a sleeping bag to enjoy the cinematic spectacle.

The brains behind this event, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim (producer of the documentary film Control Room) won the TED Prize of $100,000 for her idea that would change the world. The idea, Pangaea day, was a mix of films, music, and speakers who focused on our common humanity while celebrating our diversities. I particularly liked that the event started with planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, reminding us of the wonder and amazement that we as human beings have come to be on a tiny pale blue dot in the vast sea of the universe. Some of the other highlights included an Israeli mother,whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper, read a letter of reconciliation she wrote to the sniper's mother; artist and computer scientist Jonathan Harris who created the website "We feel fine" which aggregates human emotions by scanning people's blogs and photos for how they are feeling; and former child soldier Ishmael Beah.

While it's certainly possible to call elements of the event bordering on cheesy and not one particular film stood out in my mind in being outstanding (I admit I did nap a little, so I may have missed somethings), what is incredible about this event is how many of us were able to come together to simultaneous share this movie-going experience. Thousands if not millions of people gathered in front of their computers or attended one of the major event spaces in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro.

Here we see technology as the grand facilitator of this global gathering. While using satellite television is not new, (ie. Spacebridges during the Height of the Cold War), today's streaming video capabilities brought this event into our internet-equipped private homes at an unprecedented scale. When the Laughter Yoga founder, Dr Madan Kataria asked everyone to stand and join him in laughter, all of us at the UNU media lab stood up and laughed. Can you visualize thousands of people around the world standing and laughing together at the same time? This is the power of technology. As I have witnessed over the past year through the cases of Dropping Knowledge and Hometown Baghdad, I see this event as just one more example of how technology can connects us in new and deeper ways, creating awareness of our unity as one world, and allowing us to join in conversation with one another.

It's not too late to watch the event and to continue the conversation online. Just go to Pangeaday.org .


Here's a clip of our Tokyo event:

Tokyo: Injured Soldiers Exhibit

This afternoon I took the train to Ebisu to visit the "Injured Soldiers" exhibition at the MA2Gallery. Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, usually known to photograph celebrities and porn stars, powerfully captured the images of 13 wounded Iraq veterans. This photo exhibit is part of larger documentary for HBO called Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq which examines that lives of the newest generation of veterans.
Hung on the stark white walls of the two-story MA2Gallery, the photographs were accompanied by a booklet describing the personal stories of the veterans. Most of them were in their 20s, younger than me, yet by the expressions upon their face I would have assumed they were at least in their 30s. The photographs are simple portraits with all of the subjects looking directly at the camera. Some seemed proud of their battle wounds, others have seemed to have found new meaning in their life, and others seem lost and defeated. As best put by HBO, these photographs/film "puts a face to some of the many soldiers and Marines who've come back in record numbers suffering from severe injuries and trauma, and who, in many ways, have been hidden from the public's view."

The exhibit will continue until the 30th of April. Once exiting the East exit of Ebisu station, continue straight along the main street on the map provided by the gallery (unlike me who took a 15 minute detour...) and you will eventually get there. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday form 12-7pm.

Women's Active Museum on War and Peace

Since my summer in Berlin, I have been wondering about the differences between how the Germans and the Japanese dealt with their war aggressions in the aftermath of WWII. Take a walk around Berlin and it is easy to see the remembrances to the Holocaust- the Jewish museum, the Jewish memorial, names of Jews embossed on to the pavements- but here in Tokyo no such memorials are to be found.

Sure, Japan is all about peace. Earlier in 2007, I traveled to Hiroshima with my classmates to learn about that atomic bomb and meet with hibakusha-radiation victims. (See my film on this trip here.) I've also heard somewhere that Japan has supposedly the largest number of peace museums in the world. Yet, due to the devastation of the atomic bomb, the Japanese state has perpetuated a victim consciousness that still remains strong today. Japan has never properly come to terms with the its responsibility for its past deeds.

However, there is one museum here in Tokyo which is aimed at educating the public of Japan's World War II aggressions against women. Over the weekend, my friends and I visited the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Waseda. WAM is dedicated to the issues of comfort women which is one of the most controversial topics when it comes to the Japanese aggression during World War II.



These comfort women were recruited through out the Japanese empire from rural areas to work in "comfort stations." Often under 20 years old, these women would be repeatedly raped throughout the day to "comfort" the Japanese military men. Even after the war was over, these women lived in shame and remained in silent suffering until 1991 when Kim Hak-Soon from Korea spoke out.

Demands for apology and compensation continues even today. Every Wednesday in Seoul, the comfort women victims from South Korean demonstrate in front of the Japanese embassy. While an apology was offered in the 1992 Kono Statement, the Japanese government has refused to claim any legal responsibility. As recently as March of 2007, when US Congress demanded that Japan offer a formal apology to the comfort women, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated, '"There is no evidence to back up that there was coercion as defined initially" in the role of "the Japanese military or government" in the recruiting of comfort women. '1



At the museum, you can browse through portraits of the comfort women, read their stories, learn about the fights and tribunals on their behalf, and watch an array of films in their library. Unfortunately the museum itself is only in Japanese, and due to size constraints it seems unlikely that much effort will be made to incorporate information in English. But there are a few videos in English that may be helpful in familiarizing you with the issue.

Source:
1. Norhteast Asian History Foundaiton, The truth of Japanese military "Comfort Women" 2007