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anyMeta 4.6.58 - Atom module 0.3.2 2017-05-11T16:56:39+02:00 http://www.couscousglobal.com/feed/atom/56/en?q_objectany=176%3A%3Aauthor%2C176%3A%3Aactor Search result http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/973 2008-08-17T10:35:39+02:00 Queensea big shark maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTEFACT film http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/1692 2008-11-04T15:23:25+01:00 4 november maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/3900 2009-07-01T11:56:08+02:00 America and Iran washingtonpost.com NEWS Obama, Siding With the Regime By Robert Kagan Wednesday, June 17, 2009 The turmoil in Iran since last week's election has confused the foreign policy debate here in the United States in interesting ways. Supporters of President Obama, who until very recently had railed against the Bush administration's "freedom agenda" and who insisted on a new "realism," have suddenly found themselves rooting for freedom and democracy in Iran. And in their desire to attribute all good things to the work of President Obama, they have even suggested that the ferment in Iran is due to Obama's public appeals to Iranians and Muslims. If so, this will be one of those great ironies of history. For, in fact, Obama never meant to spark political upheaval in Iran, much less encourage the Iranian people to take to the streets. That they are doing so is not good news for the president but, rather, an unwelcome complication in his strategy of engaging and seeking rapprochement with the Iranian government on nuclear issues. One of the great innovations in the Obama administration's approach to Iran, after all, was supposed to be its deliberate embrace of the Tehran rulers' legitimacy. In his opening diplomatic gambit, his statement to Iran on the Persian new year in March, Obama went out of his way to speak directly to Iran's rulers, a notable departure from George W. Bush's habit of speaking to the Iranian people over their leaders' heads. As former Clinton official Martin Indyk put it at the time, the wording was carefully designed "to demonstrate acceptance of the government of Iran." This approach had always been a key element of a "grand bargain" with Iran. The United States had to provide some guarantee to the regime that it would no longer support opposition forces or in any way seek its removal. The idea was that the United States could hardly expect the Iranian regime to negotiate on core issues of national security, such as its nuclear program, so long as Washington gave any encouragement to the government's opponents. Obama had to make a choice, and he made it. This was widely applauded as a "realist" departure from the Bush administration's quixotic and counterproductive idealism. It would be surprising if Obama departed from this realist strategy now, and he hasn't. His extremely guarded response to the outburst of popular anger at the regime has been widely misinterpreted as reflecting concern that too overt an American embrace of the opposition will hurt it, or that he wants to avoid American "moralizing." (Obama himself claimed yesterday that he didn't want the United States to appear to be "meddling.") But Obama's calculations are quite different. Whatever his personal sympathies may be, if he is intent on sticking to his original strategy, then he can have no interest in helping the opposition. His strategy toward Iran places him objectively on the side of the government's efforts to return to normalcy as quickly as possible, not in league with the opposition's efforts to prolong the crisis. It's not that Obama preferred a victory by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He probably would have been happy to do business with Mir Hossein Mousavi, even if there was little reason to believe Mousavi would have pursued a different approach to the nuclear issue. But once Mousavi lost, however fairly or unfairly, Obama objectively had no use for him or his followers. If Obama appears to lend support to the Iranian opposition in any way, he will appear hostile to the regime, which is precisely what he hoped to avoid. Obama's policy now requires getting past the election controversies quickly so that he can soon begin negotiations with the reelected Ahmadinejad government. This will be difficult as long as opposition protests continue and the government appears to be either unsettled or too brutal to do business with. What Obama needs is a rapid return to peace and quiet in Iran, not continued ferment. His goal must be to deflate the opposition, not to encourage it. And that, by and large, is what he has been doing. If you find all this disturbing, you should. The worst thing is that this approach will probably not prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. But this is what "realism" is all about. It is what sent Brent Scowcroft to raise a champagne toast to China's leaders in the wake of Tiananmen Square. It is what convinced Gerald Ford not to meet with Alexander Solzhenitsyn at the height of detente. Republicans have traditionally been better at it than Democrats -- though they have rarely been rewarded by the American people at the ballot box, as Ford and George H.W. Bush can attest. We'll see whether President Obama can be just as cold-blooded in pursuit of better relations with an ugly regime, without suffering the same political fate. Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post. maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/1031 2008-11-14T14:30:47+01:00 Finally the Olympics

22-08-2008 Beijing

After Gabrielle stood in line for three hours, we finally got tickets...I do not get it,: it is very difficult to get tickets, but there are lots of empty seats and we hear crowds of Chinese seatfillers are hired to look better on TV. Any way we are in and enjoy the Olymic spirit in the flesh, after seeing it the whole day on TV like you guys everytwhere. Especially the womens volleyball seems to be on everytime we have to eat. Boxing is OK, the crowd is nicer to look at. All the happy nationalism everywhere is quit entertaining...the flags, the winning the audience for you(the Turks are very good at it) the dressing all up like the Thai people, dancing in the streets. Also the graphics on the big screens are very nice. The best thing is the French guy losing, crying like a baby and having a total fit. As you can guess Sports isn't really my thing. But we have music again at night. "Life Journey" is called the band of Wei wei we met before. They are playing above the "Cool record shop" best CDshop in Beijing. Little round maps from coconut are put on the floor and in comes the audience, mainly girls, chatting and p-leying woith their laptops, camera's and telephones. I learned today that besides backpackers you now have Flashpackers, backpackers with camera's , Ipods and laptops in their backpack. The audience looks like local flashpackers. After a live song everybody looks at the clips on their laptops from the new CD untill the band falls in again with the laptopclips.....they are all having a good time photograping eachother, having a drink, swaying on the music. Interview with the band later:(whole interview will be available in a few weeks, here on Couscousglobal) Whats the songs about? Being happy, we want to make people feel happy, no angry. Also lots of songs about love and girls. And about how we hate school and education, it is all to hard for us.(2 bandmembers are still in highschool, where they have a very hard examn at the end before goiing to university which is more free than highschool) So it is a little bit like hippies? What is a hippie? I try to explain this ,. "Oh" someone suddenly says" I know, I saw once a hippie on a dvd, with the long hairs". I suddenly realize, that a hippie is a very Western type of man, and part of our very Western society. China dealed completly diffrent with bourgeois elements in the sixties as the hippies did. They had their cultural revolution. So the people I am talking to never saw images of the hippies, not in the news, which was closed, not in the familyalbums, no parents or grandparents in hippie outfits, diffrent images. What do 20 year olds in the West know about the Chinese images in those days? "We want to be free and have fun, love the girls, no more angry things, no polotics, just be happy." So we hang out and chill with them. It is nice. Later in the Hutong II buy the magazine 0086 and it is like an illustration of this generation, or is it the other way around? In a window I see a nice Chinglish text( Enlish coming from Chinese translations..)The Chinglish is a great poetry anyway.Happy everyday to you. I hope everybody has. maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/2495 2009-01-13T12:40:55+01:00 13-1-2008 AMSTERDAM HELLO GUYS, We are restructuring the site again. Last friday we had a discussion with Artschool Amsterdam, the film will be on line in a week. Subject was Art, Intenationalism, and identity. Is identity a Western obsession? Than: check new edited movies from Singapore and also 2 new debate chains: the music-clips you guys posted, and the Palestine-Chain. Since no journalists are allowed in Gaza, not even our friends:) journalists, we strongly feel we have to make room for the few people who take the trouble and have the courage to write to us and let their voices be heard. Freedom of speech is our core buissness from Couscous Global so feel free to email us your movies/texts etc from Palestine, Israel or whatever country you live in.............. maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/440 2008-08-03T14:27:05+02:00 dreamteam

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maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTEFACT film http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/1338 2008-10-02T11:49:40+02:00 Vagina monologue Palin

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2-09-2008 ]Subject: Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin / Author of Vagina Monologues I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears. I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story --connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war. I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fallout may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God. Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be. I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust > between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life? Eve Ensler maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/2721 2009-02-04T09:26:03+01:00 Tehran, 5 faces at least

Iran, Febr. 4 , 2009

Eating with an Iranian composer in the Blue Duck, a wonderful restaurant in a shopping mall. For a moment I had the feeling I was walking in Beijing in the mall on 77th street. Almost the same shops. Anyway the composer tells me that he always tells a joke when asked about the nature of Iranian people: A boy koms home crying. His father asks hm what is the matter? My teacher gave me a bad grade in school. Why, the father asks. because he asked " how much is 2 x2?" And I said " 16". The father says;" How can you say 16? You know it is not 16, 2 times 2 is 4, or at most 5........ Later that evening I talk to another guy. He asks me how I like Iran. When I answer that I think it is pretty schizofrenic, he says: " Normal people are schizofrenic. You need to have two faces: one private and one public. Biut Iranians have 5 or 6 faces.....at least. We need to, one for the street, one for the work, one in official meetings etc Last days in Tehran. On the CNN news we see the rocket goiing up...we somehow missed it while beiing here. If you use Iranian Cell, the cellphone company we use here, you understand very wel that Iran needs a sattelite up there to get the phones working .... to have contact the second time you are calling...at least. It is snowing this morning. Anothetrday with 5 faces, another day of calling someone 6 times before you can have a conversation, another day of having fun and meeting terrific people , and suddenly everything changes and life appears to be an absurd nightmare. Here are some pictures of a collegue of mine: Hamid, he works with Aganian refugees and makes theater with them. And another wild group og Iranian kids I had dinner with Also Sara, a beautiful dancer from Tehran. More about them soon...... Pictures all by Neil van der Linden, my ambassador here in Tehran. maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/974 2009-01-12T11:57:27+01:00 Queensea big shark <object width="407" height="306"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/g-SvXh5pCDw&fs=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/g-SvXh5pCDw&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="407" height="306"></embed></object> maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTEFACT film http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/1742 2008-11-06T05:33:13+01:00 The day after

miami 5/6 november

Miami, USA, 5/6 november As Alex wrote so beautifully it was a great night. For the whole world….It was truly fantastic to get the emails from Kenya, Amsterdam and Beijing as meeting so many people from other countries The symbolic meaning of Obama, man with so many roots in so many countries, religions and cultures, is beyond measurement. I even filmed a girl from South Korea who hoped that since he connects the black and white he might also connect North and South Korea….. For one long night we all felt hope and endless possibilities. Today everything went back to normal more or less and it feels almost surreal how connected everything and everybody was last night. But it was there, and we al know that it is possible. 4 years ago at USA election night I stood in the middle of Amsterdam grieving with hundreds our friend Theo van Gogh, filmmaker in the Netherlands, killed by a muslim fanatic. Today I was celebrating with hundreds the first black president of the USA with a muslim middle name. 4 year ago everyone was connected by hatred and fear, last night everyone was connected by hope and love. On a certain level the intensity felt the same. Back to last night: We went to Generation Engage party on the roof terrace of the Gansevoorthotel. Very hip and cool but no sound on the big screens, and we really wanted to hear everything. Besides there was a very arrogant crew of “ Real World” tv show who forbid me to film since the whole party was under “their copyright” and that made me very angry….People who know me, know that I hate the copyright issue it is killing the creativity in the world. So we left and went to our Obama stand in 8th street where we were just in time to hear Obama being elected….After hugging der Erika,we all went to Jungle Island to celebrate while hearing the best speech in years of this fragile man with his great charisma. When th 2 families hugged on stage I could not stop crying: if this is possible, anything is possible. It was all very touching, people crying, old people from 90 years old who were active in the civil rights movement living this day as a dream conclusion of their life. All the volunteers were happy, touched and proud. They have done the most amazing job. Even the reporters and filmcrews were genuinely touched and it all created a fantastic atmosphere with great hiphopmusic as you can see in the little movies on his site. Best things were the taxidrivers, we had about 6 in the 4th of November: from Haiti, Russia, Ethiopia and Cuba. The last driver came from Iran….had a great interview with him, will be on line in 2 weeks. Florida is not only the biggest swingstate of the USA, but also the biggest mixstate. Than we have the ongoing story of reporter “Adam Smith” from Birmingham who hopped on a plane on Friday to be with history. He became a Obama volunteer and was celebrating in Jungle Island as well. Well, I made 2 little movies with him who are on this site. I ran in to him a few hours ago and he became famous overnight, all journalist love him but he is fired and in problems with the BBC. But he still is proud of the movies so we keep them on the site. As for us: We think he is a hero and says very true things about the lation between Europe and USA. Actually never heard it said any better. Indeed award winning prose. So we all go back to do what we do, but for a brief moment in time we have seen a glimpse of that what we are as well: very and deeply connected. maartje nevejan http://www.couscousglobal.com/id/176 ARTICLE news