Change the World

When I say I want to change the world and when my roommate Sibu from South Africa says she wants to change the world we probably mean different things. Sibu told me that in her batch at her old school in South Africa she knows of 6 girls that are pregnant out of 200 in her batch. These girls are 16 or 17 years old. During my high school time in Germany I haven’t heard of anyone in my entire school who fell pregnant before graduation. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but when it happened, no one talked or knew about it. It’s possible that I am mistaken to generalize from this and to say that early pregnancy is not an issue in Germany at all or even just in my city. That there were no pregnancy-cases in the past years at my school may depend on the fact, that it is a school in a relatively rich area of the city and the students who visit this school have a certain social background that may prevent them from early pregnancy, but I think I can still say that early pregnancy is in any case by no means a problem of the same significance as it seems to be in South Africa. Sibu told me that her school has even a good reputation like my school back home has but there are still 6 girls out of 200 in her batch who are pregnant. And there might be more who had abortions. I cannot imagine this. 21.5% of South Africa’s population of the age 15 to 49 years is HIV positive. AIDS is close to Sibu but so far away from me. This is true for more than just the AIDS-issue. Also our awareness of for example poverty is different. Germany is a country that has the time to have “luxury problems” such as the clash of the climate change problems and its car industry. When people go demonstrating they demonstrate for minimum wages and against atomic waste. I am not saying that climate change is an insignificant issue or that it is a waste of time to demonstrate against atomic waste. I think these are good and important reasons for demonstrating, but I do think that when people have the time to go for such issues on the streets it shows that there is no need anymore to fight for ones basic rights for example.

Sibu’s perception of the world’s problems must be so different from mine. That has for sure also an impact on our perception of the UWC movement. People come here from so many different backgrounds. I sometimes can still not believe it.

Religious Reasons - A Response to Elinor

I think the comfort someone gains by believing in god is indeed enough. There is clearly no rational reason for example to believe that you go to a heaven when you die, but it’s a believe that comforts you when you are the one left behind on earth, missing the dead person or being scared to die yourself. I don’t believe in god, but I have other sources of hope. I believe in myself and think that I am able to achieve things, make a change, I think a can make things better. But I am also “young and healthy”; Life is going well for me. I am in a situation where it is easy to believe in oneself without needing an external power to keep being optimistic towards life. I mean, why do so many old people become more and more religious or start being religious at all? Maybe because they cannot see themselves as their source of “energy and hope” anymore, because they have experiences too many disappointments in life. And why not then taking god as your source of hope? I actually think, if your believing does not make you fell better than you should not do it. The feeling of comfort is maybe the only good reason for being religious.

Awareness of Racism

A few days ago I was watching Sex in the City with my black roommate Sibulele. That she is black is significant in this context because in the episode we were watching the mother in law of one of the main characters made a racist comment that cracked her up, but I didn’t even notice that it was made. First I was shocked that in such a popular series like Sex in the City racist jokes where made so openly. And then I was even more shocked that I didn’t notice it. I always considered myself to be a very sensitive person and I thought I would be someone who is “aware of things” and who is critical but the racism in Sex in the City just past me. It made me wonder how much more I miss out. I guess I didn’t notice the racism because it didn’t regard me whereas for Sibu racism against black people is probably more of an issue she deals with in her life. If the character made a comment about Germans being Nazis or so I probably would have given it more attention. But does this mean you have to be pre-sensitised to things to notice them?

This issue reminds me of the language-thought-reality-problem, even though it’s farfetched - I know. But according to Whorf our language shapes our perception of reality and we are only able to see what we can name. Maybe my example indirectly proves that we need to be aware of things in the first place before we can be sensitive for them and this awareness might be influenced by our ability to name things.