WEEKEND

Hey thereeeee! OK, let's see if someone really reads my blog :D


Do you girls have plans already for Saturday night? 
Would you be up for a night out together?
Let me know!

P.S. Prof, a more appropriate post coming soon, I promise :)

WELCOME MAGHREBIZZ!

Arkadaşlar,

this week I am going to introduce you to the Maghrebizz, a Moroccan musical group who raps on the streets of Milan, in Italy. What I like the most about Maghrebizz is the message they try to convey: just like some other immigrants who emphasize their timeless nostalgia towards their homelands, or who like Aziza.A, live in the so-called 'third dimension' (a new spaceless space which is neither their homelands nor the new country, but instead more like an elusive identity that encompasses both of them) these guys rap about the difficulties of being a foreigner in Italy, but they add to the well-known recipe a new, unexpected ingredient: their love for pasta!  'When you get used to eating pasta, it means you have become Italian' - Youssef Chibani (aka You Swaag, 27, the lyric composer) jokes, but he means it. Despite spending their childhood in Morocco, they belong to a generation that really wants to become more and more integrated in the new country. No third-dimensions, no need to find a way to escape from themselves, no denouncing Italians for not letting them in. Rather than finding differences, these guys desperately want to belong and they try to do so with their music.

''Often Italians do not understand that after more than ten years here, I don't want to go back to Morocco. It would be almost like a foreign country for me now. I have many friends from Sicily (South of Italy, translator's note), and when they make jokes about my ethnic origins, I remind them than my skin is whiter than theirs! - He laughs, and he adds -  ''Once we went on holidays to Naples and, when there, some local guys began making jokes about our Milanese accents! '' (2)


The group is composed by two other guys: Nawfal Sakr (aka N.I.M, 24, music composer) and Adil (aka Pappoz,20, beat maker). Their stories do not differ so much from many other foreigners' in Italy: they left their country in their teenage years together with their families with not much more in their luggages than the hope of finding better job opportunities in Italy. ''We talk about real life, about everything and everyone. - Yousseff explains - When we decided to become a music group, we chose the name Maghrebizz because we liked the way it sounds and because it connects us to our fathers' land.'' Of course, as much as they want to live in Italy, their country is still in their thoughts. '' (1)

Their Arabic rap speaks Italiano and shouts 'Wake up!'. They plan to write songs which speak more and more Italian: '' We will reduce the Arabic words in our next lyrics: of course we do not want to get rid of our ethnic identities, but we feel are Italians and we want everyone to be able to understand our songs.  Our goal is not to become successful. What our music hopes to do is conveying a message. We would like to offer our music to the new generations (or foreigners) born in Italy, we want one day to be able to tell our sons :'My son, listen, this is your father, this is his life''. (2)

Adil ''Parroz''

Of course, despite their eagerness and energy, they don't try to obscure certain sides of their lives as immigrants-- dualities are always two-faceted, after all.

FREDDO D'ASFALTO (Asphalt-like Coldness) , for example, talks about being different and the loneliness one feels because of it:

<<
  Hey kho gli anni passano e i tempi cambiano / gli amici restano chissà se ci ricordano, / e dove sono l'amicizia riassunta in una foto.../ soldati senza grado / malgrado questo freddo d'asfalto giuro che che vi ricorderò,/ giuro che combatto,/ la solitudine mi rende pazzo,/ chiedi alla luna quanto ho pianto.../ Hey gioia scusami il tuo nome non lo faccio,/ dove sei/dov'eri così bella/ così celeste / she's my baby / ti ho perso l'altro ieri / c'est ca la vie/ ero troppo in extasy /non ti prego ma perdonami.

(...)

Non so più cosa dire o cosa scrivere / non so più nemmeno come fare a vivere / è da troppo tempo che non riesco a ridere. / Mi sento solo in questa società / sembra un incubo questa realtà /ho tenuto duro per così tanto / ora sono solo veramente stanco. 
 >>
 
 English: Hey Kho years go by and times change / real friends stay and who knows if they remember / and where are them? / friendship summarized in a picture.../ Soldiers without ranks / despite this asphalt-like cold I swear I wıll remember you / I swear I am fighting / Loneliness drives me insane / Ask the moon how much I cried... / Hey baby sorry I don't say your name / where are you / where were you so beautiful / So delicate* / she's my baby / I lost you yesterday / C'est ça vie / I was too excited / I don't beg you, but forgive me if you can.

I no longer know what to say or to write / I don't even know how to carry on / I haven' t been able to laugh for too much time / I feel lonely in this society / It feels like a nightmare this reality / I have been holding on for so long / Now I am just really tired.


Likewise, in ZERO PROGRESSI (Zero Improvements), they sing 

'' The crime pours on poor areas / (You have to) Kill to have an impact / Be a criminal to survive / Don't talk to me about equality'' . '' I did not choose this life / I didn't / It made me grow up quickly / It doesn' t give you time / It does not wait for you / The society does not accept you / you speak, scream, cry and nobody cares / Loneliness tears you apart''.

Their music hopes to shake people and urge them to improve their conditions: ''I was listening to an Arab guy once, he was telling me about how he ended up living on the street, and I began crying. This is what the Arabic intro of Zero Progressi means: we should not be quiet, if you don't speak, nothing will ever change'' - Nawal adds - ''This is why I am writing a song titled ''Wake up!''. True, some of our songs are sad, they denounce negative life experiences, but we do so in an attempt to improve things. Rap is kind of a revolution''.


The positive remarks and comments to their article on stranieriinitalia.it (foreigners in Italy) and their songs video on YouTube definitely show that these guys have many followers among their peers, both immigrants and Italians. I will follow their next steps and keep you updated. For now, let's all wish them good luck with their mission!

Notes:
(1) translated into English from: http://www.stranieriinitalia.it/nuovi_cittadini-maghrebizz._il_rap_milanese_parla_anche_arabo_16283.html

(2)  translated into English from: http://lacittanuova.milano.corriere.it/2013/01/30/maghrebizz-il-nostro-rap-arabo-parla-italiano-e-dice-svegliati/

* They refer to a famous Italian song written by the artist Zucchero (aka Adelmo Fornaciari), titled ''Cosi celeste''. The word ''celeste'' means in Italian ''baby blue'', but also ''celestial / delicate / heavenly''.

STRANGERS TO OURSELVES

Two quotes from Julia Kristeva:

1) ‘The foreigner comes in when the consciousness of my difference arises, and he disappears when we all acknowledge ourselves as foreigners, unamenable to bonds and communities.’

2) 'Without a home [the foreigner] disseminates on the contrary the actor’s paradox: multiplying masks and “false selves”, he is never completely true nor completely false’ ...

Is there anyone out there, a student of CULT 554 or not, who has something to say at this regard? 

:)

LONGING FOR BELONGING?

In this post I am going to talk about foreiggness.

I really liked Can Candan's documentary Duvarlar. What about it? As our professor suggested, he brings up an issue that I find really interesting: when it is that a foreigner stops being a foreigner.  Does him/her really? I have been doing some thinking. First, let's start with a question: What is foreiggness for you?

When I was a little child, foreigner used to mean "immigrant". The concept of foreigness was to me pretty straightforward: a foreigner was someone coming to my country in search of a (better) job. My criterion for deciding whether I liked him or not -- please notice that I'm saying "him" because at the time the only ''database'' of foreigners we could boast was filed by darkish-skinned men, for women were imaginary creatures supposedly kept hidden at home cooking meals for twelve kids or so-- was based on whether he could speak my language or not. 

Speaking Italian meant ''good person'' and most likely involved a job. Not speaking Italian meant some sort of a criminal, possibly a drunkyard or a drug dealer. Simple as. Embarrassingly enough, the so-called Boogeyman is translated into Italian as "Uomo nero", Black man. Meaning that when kids do not behave well, they risk a black man coming to their rooms and to kidnap them. No wonder little Italians are quite distrustful of tanned people.

I was only a kid, but the truth is, in most of my people's minds this stereotype still exists. Of course, if, say, you foreigner hang out with Italians, people are a little less suspicious. If you dress stylishly, we are a little less suspicious. If at the pub you offer your Italian friends their drinks, you're one of us. 

Is it all about it, then? Are things just "the way we see them" or is there more? I will try to be more precise: are there only two kinds of foreigners, the ones integrated and happy and the ones who are not? I am talking about the space in-between, the tricky place where some of us live. The examples are many (in this post I am not going to talk about the so-called ''second generation'' of foreigners, I will later on). If you all remember, towards the end of Duvarlar, a Turkish man who went to Germany looking for a job and who ended up staying there says: "I don't belong here, and I don't belong in Turkey. When I spend much time with Germans, I miss Turks. When I hang out with Turks, I miss Germans. I am different than Germans, but if I went back to Turkey, I would be different than them there too." 

The rapper Seyit Yakut ''C.it'' describes the same feelings though in a very different style: ''Burda zaten yabancılık çekiyorsun, kötü olan Türkiye’ye gidiyorsun orda da yabancılık çekiyorsun. Hani şimdi nereye gidelim Marsa mı?” (quote 8, in his Facebook page)

 “Here you already feel like a foreigner. The bad thing is you go to Turkey and you feel like a foreigner there. So now where should I go, Mars?”

Let's talk about students. Many Turks, like Can Candan, go to America for a Master or a Ph.D, for example. They acquire a new language, probably even a new name (normally when abroad hardly anyone is able to pronounce your name properly. People tend to adapt it to the sounds they know). Strange lands bring to estrangement, after all.

What do all these Turks, students or not, become after a couple of years? How much Turkishness will be left in them? Have they become anything near to American? Or do they live in that two-faced space in-between, not totally Americans yet no longer Turks, forever trapped between two languages, two cultures, sometimes two religions? We should ask them, perhaps. Perhaps everyone reacts to estrangement in totally different ways. If you guys like novels and you're interested in this topic, you might like Elif Şafak's The Saint of Incipient Insanities, about Middle Eastern students in Boston dealing with their ''foreignness status'' in totally different ways.

As for me, I find this in-betweenness simply fascinating. Does spending years abroad open your mind and make you a citizen of the world, or does it confine you to an in-between limbo, populated by those who no longer know what place to call ''home''? - I wonder. Perhaps estrangement and belonging are not related to one's passport or visa. How much can an ID tell about yourself really?

I would like to listen to your opinions about it. Think about this: even if you learn a second language perfectly, can you really stop being a foreigner in a foreign land? Can you give up your identity?

And is it possible to be more of a foreigner after a lifetime in a strange land than what you might end up becoming in your home country once you have gone back?

Have a nice weekend everyone ;)

Hello!

Laura