A Social Experiment with Refugees in Berlin and Head Coverings

This video poem ask an important question.

I write my country love letters but I don’t think she receives them

I’m told America ignores them;

doesn’t want them,

doesn’t want me

I say

She’s just shy; afraid of reactions to our affair.

They tell her

I’m a daughter of the enemy; I will hurt her

and betray her love

Daggers of antipathy and mistrust fly from their eyes and stab me;

my blood stains her like red punch on white carpet

and bruises complete my red, white, and blue.

I write my country love letters,

But I’m told to write apologies instead

the taste of postage stamps

lives on my tongue

and ink stained hands

wait for they day when they can hold

apology letters in red, white, and blue.

by Rawda Fawaz

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A Social Experiment with Refugees from Amnesty International (Poland)

When talking about the problem of refugees, we use dehumanized language, which reduces human tragedy to numbers and statistics. But this suffering concerns real people, who – just like us – have families, loved ones, friends; their own stories, dreams, goals… Only when you sit down opposite a specific person and look into their eyes, you no longer see an anonymous refugee, one of the migrants, and notice the human before you, just like yourself – loving, suffering, dreaming…

20 years ago, psychologist Arthur Aron discovered that 4 minutes of looking into each other’s eyes can bring people closer. Using this discovery, we decided to carry out a simple experiment, during which refugees and Europeans sat opposite each other and looked into each other’s eyes. Clearly, it is most important to give each other time to better understand and get to know each other.

[Amnesty International - Poland] The experiment was conducted in Berlin: the city, which – first of all – is a symbol of overcoming the divisions, and secondly, seems to be the centre of the contemporary Europe. We wanted the movie created on the basis of the experiment to be as symbolic as possible – and to touch upon the general divisions between people.

The experiment participants were ordinary people. The situations were not staged; we wanted to get natural, spontaneous reactions. The people sitting opposite each other had not known each other before and saw each other for the first time during the experiment. What is important, the refugees mostly came from Syria and had not been living in Europe for longer than a year.

A Challenge to Stereo Types with Head Coverings

Before the ranting and raving begins with all the hate mongers out there let us consider what the good Christians and Jews are upto who are so keen to cast stones.

Wearing A Headcover Will Change Your LIfe!

How has wearing a headcoving blessed you?

Why so much hate when a Muslim female covers her head, but here you have Christians and Jews covering their heads and there is no controversy or issue at all? The summer of change is at hand and it is time we challenged our deepest fears and biases.

The Commandment was for all Women and Men to cover their head whether Muslim, Christian or Jewish so it rather odd that only one group is singled out for vilification and hate? Real Jews call it the Tichel, but how many of us even know that name or what it means, but the word Hijab evokes an immediate unveiled response; how odd?

For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. King James Bible  1 Corinthians 11:6 [http://biblehub.com/kjv/1_corinthians/11.htm]

Sources:

• http://mpacnational.tumblr.com/post/145670068195/i-write-my-country-love-letters-but-i-dont-think
• https://youtu.be/xmpCj8G–2M
• http://mashable.com/2016/05/25/video-refugees-europeans-look-borders/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_RX9jCg46M
• http://www.headcoveringmovement.com/study
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObFUB8shVOU
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4OhxEDEb94
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7XhrXUoD6U