EIArticles

Writing and journalism
A selection of articles on peace, culture, sustainability and education
published in:
peacenews.info http://www.wasafiri.org andhttp://www.sgiquarterly.org and http://
www.japantimes.co.jp
Jody Williams’ ‘Peace Jam’ in Winchester March 2015 published 9 April
2015 http://peacenews.info/blog/8009/jody-williams-peace-jam-winchester
The Peace News log is a space for reflection, reportage and analysis, by activistsfromthe UK and
beyond. It is the blog of Peace News, the grassrootspeace movement newspaper. If youhave an
article that youwould like to contribute to the Peace News log, pleasecontact us.
NobelPeace Prize laureate Jody Williams spoke recently at Winchester University.
Jody Williams spoke at the university of Winchester’s Peace Jam event on 13 March. Peace Jam is
a new programme launched by Winchester centre of religions for reconciliation and peace (WCRRP)
who have facilitateda new partnership with the ‘Peace Jam Foundation’ (PJ) this academic year.
Originating in the US, the Peace Jam organisation is a global organization to empower and
inspire young people to become active citizens and agents for positive change. It has deviseda
‘peace curriculum’with an innovative and unique educationprogramme for schoolsand youth
groups. Peace Jam staff work alongside Nobellaureates and teachersto recruit youngpeople to
participate in devising and implementing small scale projectsintended to bring about positive
change.
Jody is joint winner, with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, of the 1997 NobelPeace
Prize. Since then she’s been keen to use the accolade to promote peace around the world
including the international campaign to stoprape. She is now professor of Peace and Social

Justice at the graduate college of social work at the university of Houston, and a visiting fellow at
the university of Illinois in Chicago. She has also co-foundedthe Nobel Women’s Initiative.
In her talk at the University of Winchester, she focusedon some of the key achievementsof the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL): ‘When we became an organization of 1,300
NGOs, the diplomats were agitated because we were changing the way diplomacy was being
conducted. The reasonwhy I shared the prize jointly with the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines was because the committee hoped the model would be replicatedaround the world.’
ICBL is an associationof partnerships startedover 20 yearsago, and now 162 nations are part of
it and 40 nations are now landmine-free. Jody’spartner Steve Goose, executive director of
the arms division of Human Rights Watch, who was also present, corroboratedthat, ‘whereas
26,000 people were killed each year because of landmines only 4,000 are being killed now.’
Jody spoke of her current work on banning killer robotsand she had some key points to convey
to youngpeople. ‘I think peace should be taught the moment that children go to school; that
there is something other than a violent response to aggression. The destructioncausedby war is
not heroic…. but we allow that heroism through, for instance, Hollywoodmovies,’she said.
Finally, she encouragedyoung people to take action, while remaining true to themselvesand
their beliefs.
‘In a world of phenomenal confusion, it becomesharder and harder to believe in the possibility of
sustainable peace,’ she said. ‘Youhave to be active in change, and the more active youare the
more fun it is. Use your energy and righteous indignation to change the world. In the Nobel
Women’s peace laureate initiative we have pooledour strengths together to support women. Has
there ever beena NobelMen’s peace prize initiative?’
As Jody says, in her book, My Name is Jody Williams, she went frombeing an ‘average woman’,
who decided to volunteer two hours a week, to someone who ‘through perseverance, courage and
imagination could make something extraordinary happen.’
Editorial on Renewable Energy
http://www.sgi.org/resources/sgi-quarterly-magazine/1404_76.html
Renewable energy is definedas energy derivedfromnatural resourcesthat are replenishable,
such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, biomass and geothermalheat. It thus fundamentally differs
from fossilfuelbased energy or nuclear energy. The Industrial Revolutionwas fueledby excessive
mining and burning of fossilfuels, causing an undesirably sharp rise in the concentrationof
carbondioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, which in turn has caused global warming and climate
change. The secondhalf of the 20th century saw considerable, incremental effortstoward
conservation, the use of cleantechnology and renewable energy, and environmentalprotection.
Now, renewable energy sourcesand their attendant technologieshit the headlines on a daily
basis as more secure solutions for providingrenewable energy are found. Energy lies at the heart
of all human development—advancesinenergy productionhave powered industrial economies—

yet currently, some 1.6billion people live without access to modern energy servicessuchas
electricity. By providingaffordable, renewable waysto generate electricity, the renewable energy
sector is helping to realize the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for poverty
reduction. And as more people become producersof energy, powering their homes and
businesses themselves, the economic and socialfabric of society will also change. Rural
communities with closer geographicalaccessto renewable energy sourcesmay also become the
suppliers of energy to the urban sector. Willwe be able to supply all of the world’s energy needs
with renewable energy this century? What is certainis that if we do not take action to further
promote the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions, we will limit the prospects
for our future and those of succeeding generations. The question of energy is therefore not simply
a technical one, but one that has profound ethicalimplications. The traditional wisdom of the
indigenous Iroquoispeople of North Americaurges us to act having “always in view not only the
present generation but also coming generations . . . ”
Interview with the Director General of the International Renewal Energy
Agency
Adnan A. Amin is the director-generalof the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)in
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Founded in 2011, IRENA’smission is to promote the
widespread adoption of renewable energy. See http://www.irena.org/dgbiography/dg.aspx
Why is it important that we make a transition to renewable sourcesof energy?
Adnan Z. Amin: We are living in an era of fast moving global change. In less than 40 years, the
global population is projectedto grow fromseven billion today to an estimated nine billion. This
will have far-reaching implications, such as an expected33-percent increase in global energy
demand, particularly in fast developingand populous countries, and a 60-percent increase in
global power demand. These trends, as well as the need to reconcile themwith env ironmental

concernsand the threat of growing greenhouse gas emissions, are sharpening global focuson the
necessity for a transition to a cleanand secure energy paradigm. Renewable energy representsa
truly unique opportunity to simultaneously tackle these issues. Realizing the poverty alleviation
potential of sustainable energy, the United Nations SecretaryGeneralestablishedthe Sustainable
Energy for All(SE4All) initiative in 2012, with the aim of achievinguniversalaccessto modern
energy services, doublingthe global rate of improvement in energy efficiency anddoubling the
share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. The International Renewable Energy Agency
(IRENA)has been nominated as the Renewable Energy Hub for the SE4Allinitiative acrossthese
three interrelatedobjectives.
SGIQ: What role do yousee IRENA playing in promotingcooperationto alleviate energy poverty
in developingcountries?
AA: Since our formationin 2011, IRENA’sglobalengagement has expanded to over 165
countries. Throughthis rapid membership growth, as well as our work to developknowledge and
tools, we are becominga hub for cooperationfor the international community. Renewable energy
and decentralizedsolutions represent a readily available and reliable solution to address the fact
that eventoday over a billion people globally lack accessto modern energy services. Successful
deployment approachesexist, but there is a need to substantially upscale these by creating the
enabling conditionsnecessary to extend electricity accessrapidly and sustainably, especially in
rural areas, as well as to involve the private sector, and in particular local enterprise.
Seeing an area which could benefit from IRENA’sconveningpower and expertise, the ECOWAS
(Economic Community of West AfricanStates) Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and
Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) and the Alliance for Rural Electrification(ARE)co-organized the
first ever InternationalOff-Grid Renewable Energy Conference (IOREC) in Ghana in November
2012. After the successof this event, we are working to organize a secondconference in the
Philippines in June this year.
More broadly, as the international community’sunderstanding of potentials, technologies, costs
and successfulbusiness models increases, so doesthe uptake of renewables acrossthe globe, and
this is where I see IRENA making a substantial contribution. To enable easy accessto this
information and data, we are developingan online portal—a global renewable energy knowledge
gateway—to serve as an entry point to our work as well as that of our partners and membership.
What is the role of efficiency increatinga sustainable energy future?
AA: The cheapest and cleanest source of energy is the energy which is not used in the first place.
More efficient systems, technologiesand demand-side management regimes can all effectively
create new sourcesof energy that can be divertedelsewhere to enable more sustainable growth

and development. There isalso a necessary and inseparable link between renewables and energy
efficiency, andtogether they will play a vital role in both reducing and sustainably meeting
energy demand. Under the umbrella of the SE4Allinitiative, IRENA is working with Denmark in
their capacity as an Energy Efficiency Hub to help achieve the initiative’sobjectives.
How can renewable energy targetsbe integrated into the post-2015 development agendaand how
vitalare these targets for our transition to a low-carbon economy?
AA: Renewable energy target setting is an important processfor countriesto undertake, and in
recent yearsthere has been a considerable increase in the number of countriesrecognizing the
potential of renewable energy and the importance of establishing targets. In 2005, at least 43
countrieshad a national target for renewable energy supply, including all 25 European Union
countries, whereas by 2013 the global number had risen to over 138countries. Thisclearly attests
to the growing global recognitionof the essential role that energy plays in development. Thisis
due, in part, to the megatrends which I spoke of earlier, but also to the mainstreaming of
renewables through a virtuouscycle of fast learning rates and significant, sometimes rapid,
declines in costs. Thischange has also been driven by a greater appreciationof the socioeconomic
benefits of renewables. Therefore, the globalposition has shifted to a place where people believe
that any elaborationof the global development agenda for the post-2015 period, which has
sustainable development as its core, must include sourcesof sustainable energy, and therefore
renewable energy. Yet, while renewable energy targets have been effective for settingaspirational
goals in countriesaround the world, they cannot alone drive explosive renewable energy growth.
To reachthose targets, additional policy and regulatory mechanisms such as tax incentivesor
tariffswill encourage investment and increase the uptake of renewable energy.
What do yousee as the greatest impediments to more rapid development of renewable energy?
Each market and each technology facesits own set of challenges and opportunities. For some
markets the primary challenge is a lack of capacity or mobilizing the necessary finance, whereas
for others it couldbe the lack of a framework capable of enabling and encouraging deployment.
But these are all challenges that can be overcome. IRENA worksto support countriesto identify
and act upon boththe areas that are restrictingdeployment and the actions that can help advance
the deployment of renewables.
What do yousee as the most encouraging advancesin technology, financingand implementation
mechanisms that offer hope for competitively pricedrenewable energy?

AA: Please let me start by saying that renewables already supply the least cost electricity source in
a growing number of settings. For example, where oil-firedgeneration is the predominant power
generation source, such as on islands and in off-gridsituations, a lower cost renewable solution
almost always exists today. Further, hydropower and geothermalelectricity producedat good
sites still remain the cheapest waysof generating electricity out of all generating sources. With
technology pricescontinuing to fall and innovation improving, considerable gains still exist for
renewables to make. The trajectory of technologicalinnovationis one of the game changers
evident within the industry. Also interesting is the democratizationof energy that is taking place.
It is fundamentally transforming the power productionsystemas we know it. It is an amazing
thing to witness electricity consumersbecome producersand sell electricity back into the very
grids they used to buy it from. Understandably, this is adding to the waves that the accelerating
deployment of renewables are already creating throughout the industry, and with numerous
examplessuch as this taking place across the world, it is clearly not an outlier, but instead affirms
the existence of sweeping change. ❖
Interview with Nasir El Bassam, President of the International Research Centre
for Renewable Energy Germany (IFEED) and member of the Council of the
World Congress for Renewable Energy. He recently coauthored a book titled
Distributed Renewable Energies for Off-Grid Communities, which was
published by Elsevier in 2012.
What are the positive expectationswe can have of renewable energy?
Nasir El Bassam: There are two key issues. First, nuclear energy and fossil energy supplies are
based on limited resources, while renewable energy resourcesare unlimited. The resources
available from solar, biomass and wind can provide severalthousandtimes more energy than any
foreseeable future energy demand, evenif the distribution of solar, biomass and wind resources
does not comply with the present distribution of the populationworldwide. Second, we should be
prepared to meet challenges in the future through a change from exploitingresourcesto
developingtechnology that harnesses renewable energy. The countriesthat invest in renewable
energy technologiesand endorse these technologieswill be the winners in the future because the

development of renewable energy is essential to ensuring the supply of energy to humankind. For
instance, there has been considerable development of technology in Germany to ensure the
reductionof industrial pollution and boost the supply of renewable energy. Thisensures
employment in different fields. Germany is the biggest economy in Europe, and now gets 25
percent of its energy from renewable energy resources, including bioenergy , solar energy, wind
and biomass. The sector also employs430,000 people!
Are there any specific examplesof where youfeel this switch is already taking place effectively?
NEB: India has been the world leader in terms of family-size biogas plants for decadesand is
today among the world’s top 10 performersin terms of wind energy because it has a
manufacturing sector. India is better positionedthan the industrialized nations to take advantage
of the emerging transformation. It has little to lose. Its infrastructure needs fixingbadly. In terms
of population, more than 300 million people in India have no electricity. The rest have
intermittent supply. Yet in India only 1 percent of the total energy supply is producedby
renewable energy. Other countriesaround the world that are investingin renewable energy
include Ethiopia, China, Kenya, Mali and Burkina Faso. The share of the world population
without accessto the power grid is increasing because the populationgrows faster than the
constructionof new power grids. Renewable energy is now spreading, not necessarily for
idealistic reasons, but because it is the only available option. For many developingcountries, the
import of fossil fuels already represents50 percent or more of their foreigntrade balance. In the
future, with the increased costsof oil and gas, it is realistic that energy imports will not be
affordable for many low-income countries. The populationwill suffer accordingly. Energy
investments are for 20- to 40-year periods, which means that a renewable energy project can
ensure long-term price stability.
How doesthe switch to renewable energy work in terms of centralized or decentralizedpower
supply?
NEB: Rural and urban areas have unique issues and needs. Usually, urban areas have an energy
grid already set up that can be utilized, but in some rural areas there is no grid, and therefore
there is a different set of problems and solutionsthat entails a shift fromcentralized energy to
decentralizedenergy. Solar panels can be installed on every building, biomass is available from
agriculture and wind turbines can be constructedwhere there is wind. Rural communities and
regions will become energy producersand suppliers instead of remaining as the energy
consumers they are now. In this way, new income will be generated at the local level. To collect
the economic benefits, local communities must own the energy generation equipment. State-
guaranteed loans for localinvestments can pave the way for new rural prosperity. Inthe future,
the rural sector will supply cities with power and other forms of energy. In India, 350 million
people have no accessto electricity. Unfortunately, these people cannot be supplied with
electricity throughthe old system. A decentralized systemis needed for these regions, and
without considering the energy questions in rural areas, poverty andhunger will never be

eliminated. Yousee, poverty isthe result of energy poverty in these rural areas. In India, the
ability existsto developsolar, wind and biomass technology. If the poor are given opportunities
to work together in producing energy to supply their needs, they will not have to give up
anything— renewable energy can be incorporatedinto their lifestyles. Inunservedareas with no
power grid, which is about 25 percent of the world population, off-gridsystemswill be the norm
in the future. Considering that lamps and appliances use less and less power, investment in large
generation capacity and national power grids can no longer compete with individual and local
power productionand distribution. Costs of photovoltaic (PV)and wind energy have been
reducedby a factor of three to five during the last 10 years, while costs of fossil fuel-based
electricity are constantly increasing. In industrialized countries, householdshave so far delivered
renewable energy to the public grid using feed-in tariffs. Thisis changing now because home
power productionis becoming cheaper (up to 40 percent)than power from utilities. When using
solar PV and small battery storage, an average German family can produce 60 percent of its
annual demand for electricity withthe balance coming from utilities. So renewable energy can
exist in tandem with the existingsystem, which will make it easier to build up renewable energy
supplies and slowly move away from finite energy.
What is an Integrated Energy Settlement as promotedby the United Nations?
NEB: IFEED has installed IntegratedEnergy Settlementsin Germany, Bulgaria and Iran—energy
is only one element of these settlements. Without improving incomes and education, and creating
jobs, we can never alleviate hunger and poverty. Nowat our center in Kirchweg, Germany, using
up-to-date technology, we have integrated a 1.8MW generator into the community to supply
people with electricity. We canrealize all these socialaspects within the community and we will
open in May this year. We have also made business and manufacturing developments, and
numerous job possibilities have been createdalongside new educational facilities. We will finish
with a greenhouse to produce foodfor the integrated energy settlement. Thisis greatly satisfying.
We have employedspecialist researchers, technicians, educators and other professionals. It took
two yearsto developthe settlement. The 1.8 MW generator supplies electricity to 4,000 people. It
has been made possible only because people working here are convincedthisis the only way to
survive, basedon our current way of living and environmentalchallenges. Idealism without any
revenue is nothing. Without improving the social and environmental conditions, renewable
energy is nothing. But there cannot be a “one size fits all” model. Each settlement will have to be
individualized for each community or climate. Renewables will be a long-term solution that
constantly lower costs, ensure security of supply and therefore lead to a more peacefulworld.
To what extent do youthink that the revolutionin renewable technology isalso a revolutionin
development?
NEB: The need for proper financial schemesand programs is huge. Innovative financialschemes
that match the situation of the rural population and the decentralizedcharacter of renewables

can be seen in Bangladesh. Grameen Shakti is a successfulorganization that has provided
hundreds of thousands of citizens with electricity fromsolar power for basic energy needs at
affordable costs. Many other countriescan adopt similar solutions which, however, are often
blockedby vestedinterest in conventionalenergy supply and lack of information among the
population. The Indian All Women’s Conference is tryingto establish biogas plants on the home
scale—there are millions of them in India. Those involvedare poor, but they have idealism. In the
future, we will see a wide variety of technologiescombinedin many different ways, depending on
income, consumptionpatterns and resourcesavailable. In most Africancountriesand rural parts
of India, Bangladesh and other countries, less than 10 percent of the population have accessto
modern energy services. Ina West Africanvillage, a 150 Watt PV panel and a truck battery supply
the schoolor the clinic with lighting for four hours per day. Thismay be the first but very
important and affordable steptoward providing electricity to those who are currently without it.
In more developedcommunities, a combinationof solar, wind and biomass energy can forma
reliable localpower supply. Aid for developingcountrieswas very gooduntil the first oil crisis in
1973. The aim of world leaders was once to really assist, developand help, and then after 1973
there was a shift in the developedworldtoward controllingrather than simply giving aid. That is
very sad. At the moment, many countriesfeed renewable energy to the grid with some small
benefit to the consumer. National governmentshave also been trying to developtheir economies,
but it is also their duty to listen to other voices. There are so many intelligent people in India and
Africainvestigating and publishing research—but the leaders are busy with other things. They are
preoccupiedwith how to keep control, to continue, to govern, and so on.
ow feasible is it to provide the two billion people currently without accessto modern energy with
renewable energy?
NEB: I think that in the short term this issue cannot be addressed. It will take many yearsand
significant commitment to provide renewable energy to the two billion people without accessto
modern energy. But, in the short term, effortsto do so can be started—evenif only on a small
scale. Implementation of renewable energy will continue to spread because finite sourcesof
energy will be depletedsooner than we think. During the last two decades, a wide variety of
advancedrenewable energy technologieshas emerged which did not previously exist. These
technologieshave also become cheaper. Just as legislation pavedthe way for conventionalenergy
forms with colossalpublic subsidies and infrastructure, a change to clean decentralizedenergy
forms will require massive public involvement as well. While fossil fuels will be exhaustedduring
the coming decades and cause enormous damage to the environment and climate, renewables
will be a long-term solutionthat constantly lower costs, ensure security of supply, and therefore
lead to a more peacefulworld. A great proportionof the military costsincurredby many
countriescan also be avoidedas a result of less conflict to secure the remaining fossil fuels. ❖
Music Therapy and Health
From an interview with Cybelle Loureiro http://www.sgi.org/resources/sgi-
quarterly-magazine/1404_76.pdf

Music therapy has an ancient tradition, going back to Hippocrates, who, it is said, playedmusic
for his mentally ill patients. It also owes a debt to shamanic traditions where medicine men
employ chants and dances as a way of healing patients. Similarly, in the United Kingdom after
WorldWars I and II, musicians would travelto hospitals to play music to soldiers sufferingfrom
war-related emotional and physicaltrauma. Nowadays, music therapy uses the components of
rhythm, melody and tonality to provide a means of relating within a therapeutic context. Inmusic
therapy, people work with a wide range of instruments and voicesto create a musical language
that reflectstheir emotional and physicalcondition, which enables them to build connections
with their inner selvesand with othersaround them. I myself am a trained classicalpianist, but I
decided to devote the last 20 yearsof my career to establishing music therapy in Brazil.
Music is one of the greatest culturalexpressionsof Latin Americanpeople. Brazil especially has a
rich and vibrant musical culture. The rootsof Brazilian music are very diverse, andeach
subculture has its own typicalmusical identity. The strong influence of Africanrhythmsand the
way music and dance combine is characteristic of Brazilian music. Song lyricsrelate the history,
suffering, love and happiness of the everyday life of our peoples.
Music therapy was first applied to public health programs in Latin Americaat the end of the
1960s. At the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, the Music Therapy programbrings in
lecturersfrombiology, psychology, anatomy, neurology, psychiatry, pediatricsandgeriatrics, as
well as from the humanities. The programgives accreditationto musicians fromaround the
world.
One early modern recognitionof the efficacy of music in medical treatment was in relationto the
relief of pain. During WorldWar II when there were shortagesof medication, music was used to
soothe patients’ pain because music can distract patients from pain and put the brain into a
different state. Neurologistshave since recognizedthe efficacy of music in controllingpain and
aiding the rehabilitation of patients with variousneurologicalproblems.
Music can also be used in the treatment of mental health problems, helping patients express
emotions nonverbally;it has the ability to elicit a range of different emotions and to enable
people to set aside their worries.
In Brazil there are music therapy researchprogramsin public hospitals and philanthropic
institutions for treating children with cerebralpalsy and a variety of neuro-developmental
syndromes. Music therapy can help with neuroplasticity and brain development and is therefore
useful for children who are not able to concentrate or who have not developedin the usual way.

As therapists, we learn patients’ musical preferencesto be able to apply these to different
therapeutic objectives, suchas working on memory with Alzheimer’s patients, working with
rhythmto offer symptomatic relief to Parkinson’sdisease patients or helping patients with
cerebrovascular andtraumatic brain disease patients to relearn.
Music is part of our experience at each stage of life–as babies, children, adolescents, adults or
older people. Music therapy can therefore findeffective applicationat each stage of the life cycle.
I believe that music contributesto our well-being right to the end of our lives.
From an interview with award-winning garden writer Penelope Hobhouse
Water and Gardens in Islamic Desert Culture
Water is the spirit and essence of life, particularly for the desert-dweller. Gardens in ancient
Persia were based on the availability of water. The manipulation of water was the key to a settled
way of life in the desert, fundamental to a non-nomadic way of life. Without water, people could
only live by a natural spring or where they couldsink a well. Originally the nomad tribes were
dependent on natural oases.
At first the gardens were used to grow orchardtrees for fruit and shade, as well as cropsfor
sustenance. The water was obtainedfrom springs or sinking wells and transportedby
underground conduits called qanats which were introducedto Persia in the seventhcentury BCE.
All of these things required quite a high degree of hydraulic manipulation and skill. After the
coming of Islam in the eighth century CE, the Persians inventedthe water wheel to raise water for
irrigation, utilizing fast-movingriver water or oxenand sometimes ostriches. Thiswas how the
ancient gardens of Baghdad and Samarra were made.
The earliest example of these desert gardens was that of the Achaemenid king Cyrusthe Great
(590-530 BCE) at Pasargadae built in 550 BCE, at least 1,000 yearsbefore Islam. Pasargadae was
set on a very aridplain, but excavationshave shown that an aqueduct brought water from a river.
Rills (small channels) about 40 centimeterswide, fed the water through basins at 15-meter
intervals. The rills were narrow to prevent too much evaporation.
Ingenious Technology
The Achaemenids also made qanats by sinking a shaft down to the water table beneath the
mountains to create a tunnel which might run for 80 kilometersto a desert settlement. Thiswas

essential on the high plateau in Iran as there is very little rainfall and river water, and the water
table is dependent on snow melt. The qanats fed water into a reservoir which was slightly higher
than the highest point in a garden.
The water was put to multiple uses. Some rills were very narrowand used for irrigation, others
went underground and were used for periodic flooding of the sunken flower beds, and still others
were there to coolthe air. If there was a plentiful supply of water, youcould have cascadesand
waterfalls as in the later Mughal Emperors’ gardens in Kashmir constructedin the early 17th
century. Fountains required greater water pressure but helped coolthe air and drown noise,
while also keeping insects at bay.
Qanats were constructedby first sinking a series of verticalshafts, then tunneling between them
to the water source.
Today inIran, now that the climate is evendrier due to the activitiesof humans and goats which
have devastatedancient forests, people are restoring qanats and using them again after many
years. These ancient conduitsare the best way to accesspreciouswater which lies under the
mountains.
When the Arabs came fromthe west to Persia, they brought with them their new language and
their new faith, but they adoptedPersian and Sassanian habits of life. Althoughthere are no exact
images of the first Islamic desert gardens, manuscript sourcesgive us a clear idea of the general
layout. In the Qur’an (written around the seventhcentury CE), there are many descriptions of
“paradise,” which literally means “a wall around,” based on ancient Persian gardens which
became the symbolsof paradise and spiritual inspiration.
A paradise garden was based on the classic chahar bagh design by which the garden was divided
into four by water channels. In Islam this representedthe four riversof Paradise. The plantations
of fruit trees, roses and other flowers lay in geometrically arrangedbeds below the levelof the
flanking pathways, so making irrigation simple and giving a sensation of walking on a carpet of
flowers. The shapes of these gardens are recognizable fromPersian and Mughal miniatures and
in garden carpetsdating from the 15thcentury. There isoftena contemplative figure sitting
beside a fountain and a cypresstree entwined by almond blossom as symbolsrespectively of
immortality and rejuvenationin spring. Poetsdescribedgardens in exaggeratedverse to please
their kingly patrons and oftendescribedindividual flowersin romantic terms.
Islamic people expanded and exportedtheir gardening techniques all over the world. Babur, the
founder of the Mughal Empire that coveredmost of the Asian subcontinent fromthe early 16th to
the mid-19th centuries, made gardens in Afghanistan and India, and his descendants became
famous for their magnificent tomb gardens and more luxuriouslake-side gardens in Kashmir.
Although the religious significance of gardens often declinedas the Mughal civilizationbecame
richer, the magnificent tomb gardens where an emperor was laid to rest in a vast mausoleum at
the center of a chahar bagh reinforcedthe original sacred element, connectingthe Emperor in
death with God. The TajMahal, built by the Emperor Shah Jahan for his belovedwife Mumtaz

Mahal between 1630 and 1648, was not only a great homage to her, but its architecture and
layout reacheda peak of perfectionnever surpassed. These great tomb gardens were not just
private gardens but were open to the public for prayers.
All over the world gardens have been developedin the chahar bagh style, very oftenwithno
direct religious significance. But today if someone makes a paradise garden they definitely imply
that it is a sacredplace for meditation. Perhaps all gardens are sacred spaces. Without gardens a
lot of people would be very unhappy. They are very therapeutic placesto be in and if there is
some spiritual connectionto God, this is where youcan find it.
Penelope Hobhouse is an award-winning garden writer and designer whose booksinclude Plants
in Garden History and Gardens and Plants of the Mughal Emperors(forthcoming).
Paving a Way to Dignity
From an interview with Khadija Al-Salami
Khadija Al-Salami, born in Sanaa, Yemen, is the first female filmmaker and producer fromthat
country. Her early yearsas a youngwoman fighting for her own independence in extreme
circumstancesare describedin her autobiography, The Tearsof Sheba(2003). She has produced
severaldocumentariesabout women in YemenincludingAmina (2006), A Stranger in Her Own
City (2005), Yemenof a Thousand Faces (2000)and Women of Islam (1995). She is also the
press and culturalcounsellor for the Embassy of Yemenin Paris.
When I first read the first article of the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights, which states, “All
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and
conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood,” I thought it was
quoting my own thoughts. I have always said, “Everybody wasbornfree and has the right to live
in freedomand live with human dignity.” That is what I have been saying for so long. It inspired

me to be what I am right now. In fact I cannot live without these things–if I didn’t have my
freedomor my dignity or my human rights.
In my films I allow women to tell their own stories. Women in Yemenhave some difficulty in
telling their own stories freely without being afraid of what people are going to say, or accuse
them of. For me, making films allows women to expressthemselveswithout any fear. In our
culture women are not used to being given a chance, and when I give them a chance, it is a shock
for society, but then people get used to it. That is the only way to get rid of the bad habits.
I don’t want people to see me as a female–I want to be seen as a human being. We are all bornin
the same way, and we both have the same mind, and men and women complement eachother,
and that is important, but it doesn’t mean that he is better or that I am better. From what I
learned as a child growing up in Yemen, Islam doesn’t distinguish between females and males.
The Qur’an addresses both sexes;it shows the equality already. A story fromthe Qur’an that they
don’t tell so often is that the Prophet’sfirst wife was a businesswoman. The Prophet used to work
for her, she was older than him, and she was a businesswoman. That is the biggest example for
me; women had a role, with independence and dignity, and they were equal to men. From what I
learned, Islam taught freedomand dignity for everyone andthat everyone isequal.
But there have indeed been times in my own life when I felt that my dignity was not being
respectedat all. When I was 11 yearsold, I was forcedinto an early marriage, but I did not accept
the oppression and I am glad that I did not, because I am really happy in my life right now.
Otherwise I would not be able to travel, and instead I would be a grandmother already.
Changing Perceptions
However, after this long experience, I now feel that I am truly respected. At first I wanted to show
that I was different, but people could not understand me, because I was a girl, and a woman.
Even my own family couldnot understand why I wanted to do these things. But later on when I
attended school, I startedto gain their respect and their admiration.
I feelgreat now because I can see that there are changes: people now look at me with a look as if
to say, “Youare different,” but at the same time I am also successful. Men were the ones who
really opposedme, but now women fromour family and other families wish their daughters to
followthe same path that I did. It was very hard, but in the end youreachyour goal, and that is
important. My goal is to be free, to be dignified.
I look for the basic things. We are all born free, we all have choicesin our lives. I asked for basic
needs and I got them. But in my culture it was not easy at that time; I had to fight for them. I
used to be the bad example, now I am the good example.
I receive alot of e-mails these days fromYemeni girls, saying, “Youare our example, and when
we grow up, we want to be like you,” and that makes me happy. I would never have imagined that
one day I would be the example. I just wanted to live my own life and have my own choice. But
it’s great that I became an example for these girls.

I believe educationplaysa vitalrole. Until 1962 there weren’t even schoolsfor women in the
northern part of Yemen. Thenwe had the revolution, andschoolswere built by the government.
Girls and boyswere both encouragedto go, but unfortunately the families were afraid to send
their daughters to school. For them it was a new experience andit was bad. My grandmother told
me that schoolis dangerous. I asked her, “Why is it dangerous?” And she answered, “Because if
youlearn to write and read, youwill start writing love letters.” People were ignorant, they did not
know any better, but now youwill see that most of the girls are in schools. The more girls are
educated, the more they know their rights, and how to protect themselvesand how to defend
themselvesand also how they can live and be useful to society, themselvesand their families.
If I could do one thing to change the world and make human rights a reality, I would establish a
firm law that education is an absolute obligation, because through education we can make better
people. I would also really apply it strictly. Statesthat didn’t apply it would be punished. They
always apply punishments to the countriesthat make weapons of mass destruction, but
ignorance also breedsa lot of destructive behavior.
Saving Seeds, Feeding the Future
Interview with Vandana Shiva
Dr. Vandana Shivawas born in Dehradun, India. A renowned physicist, she later trained as an
environmentalist and is now director of Navdanya(Nine Seeds), a program of the Research
Foundation for Science, TechnologyandEcology (RFSTE). Navdanyaisactively involvedin the
rejuvenationof indigenous knowledge and culture and campaigns for people’srights. It has 52
seed banks acrossthe country and an organic farm spread over an area of eight hectaresin

Uttarakhand, north India. Dr. Shiva’spublications include Earth Democracy:Justice,
Sustainability and Peace (2005)and Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed (2007).
Visit www.navdanya.org
What did your upbringing teach youabout life?
Vandana Shiva: When I was growing up in Dehradun, India, as the child of a Gurkha family,
although the local families might have starvedto death during a time of famine, they did not eat
the seed. In the ethics of the seed and its relationship with society, yousave seedbecause it
embodies the future and youhave to defend the future, rather than consume it. The history of our
region has thus definitely had a very powerfulinfluence on me.
Your Navdanyamovement has created bija satyagraha seed banks so that farmers can freely
exchange and preserve agreat variety of seed. What successeshave youhad with this movement,
and what obstacleshave youfaced?
VS: I startedseed savingin 1987. The laws that prevent us from saving seeds are immoral laws.
So, just as Gandhi did not cooperate with the salt laws which would have made salt-making
illegal in India–through the salt satyagraha(nonviolent protest)–we have also createda
movement for non-cooperationwith any law that makes it illegal for us to save our own seeds. In
most parts of the world, there is now a law that requiresevery farmer to get permission froma
registering authority that licenses and registers seeds. So farmers’varietiesare made illegal
because they are not approvedin the list, and then they are wiped out from the face of the Earth.
When the Seed Licensing Law (2004)was being brought to India about five yearsago through a
new seed act, we did a satyagrahaacrossthe country and stopped the act frombeing
implemented.
It is our duty to save the diversity of our seeds. We have about 52 seed banks in different parts of
the country, whichhave had two very important contributions:First, the seed banks mean that
localseeds are available that don’t need chemicals and are goodwith organic farming. The
creationof a community seed bank also builds community awareness, so farmers don’t get
trapped in the cycle of using hybridnon-renewable seeds. The so-called improvedvarieties
require more chemicals, so farmersare induced to buy both the seed and the chemicals. Then
they get into debt and go hungry because they sell everythingthey have grown in order to pay
back their loans. The result has been an epidemic of farmer suicides.
The secondpositive impact is that we have seeds that help us deal with climate change. So, in the
state of Orissa, we have seeds that can help us deal with saltwater and cyclones. InBihar, where
the Ganges floods, we have rice varietiesthat can grow six meters tall to survive the flooding; in
the desert areas we have seeds that survive droughts. But the corporationsare greedy and try to
patent all this rich diversity.
The best seeds are bred when scientistscooperate with farmers, and the best biodiversity
conservationhappens when localcommunities partner with taxonomists;the best organic
farming happens when soil scientists work with producers.

Finding Food Security
How is helping small farmers preserve biodiversity linkedto developingfoodsecurity?
VS: It has been assumed that monoculturesproduce more food. In fact they produce more
commoditiesthat can be sold in the global market-place–they produce lessnutrition and less
foodsecurity. Foodgrown by industrial agriculture also has more hazards linked to
micronutrient deficiency. Realfoodsecurity is to let the small farmers of the world grow more
biodiversity. Fromthis comes more foodand nutrition for the farmer and the family. Some of the
foodis sold locally, some of it is traded long-distance, and then youhave genuine foodsecurity
for all, based on goodfood and high nutrition.
We have had a whole generation of people who have forgottenhow to farm with biodiversity. We
run farmers’ training coursesat our farm in Dehradun, a conservation, teachingand research
farm, and I run a schoolabout seed called Bij Swaraj. Fifty-year-oldfarmerssee the different
cropsand respond like children: “Thisis what the sesame lookslike; this is what the tuber looks
like!” The richest source of biodiversity isthe soil, which is least known by humanity because so
many of the organisms are so tiny that the eye cannot see them; it is wonderful to show the
farmers under a microscope how rich and living the soil is.
How doesreturning to biodiversity fit in with the global trend toward renewable resources?
VS: All economic science in recent times is based on linear calculuswith externalities, which
means youget raw materials, ignore their cost and the cost of fossil fuel in the fertilizer and the
environmentalimpact of all of this. Youmeasure the commodities, saying, “We producedso
much.” But in fact everythingis depleted: the biodiversity, the water, soil fertility and farmers’
lives. Focusing on renewability means yourecognize your productionis based on the law of
return, not just the law of appropriation. Throughorganic farming, we reduce water use–water
comesout of organic farms as pure water, as opposed to the dead zones and riverscreatedby the
runoff of chemicals. Nature made everythingrenewable. We are tryingto work to make the
resourcesrenewable again.
Self-Sufficiency
How are small farms linked to the wider community?
VS: The public goodand the social goodare the most important consideration. People are not
pitted against one another in the kind of foodand farming systemswe practice and promote.
Farmers gain, in the form of higher incomes, better foodand better health; and of course the
environment is protected, so youhave a win-win-win situation all the way from farmers’
livelihoodsto the environment and public health.
India is a land of 650 million small farmers feeding 1.2 billion people. We are basically food-
sufficient although we are sometimes forcedto import foodto generate profitsfor large
corporations. Inagriculture, the larger the farm, the more youdestroy biodiversity andmove
toward large-scale monocultureswith lots of chemicalsand fossil fueluse. Each small-scale farm

would not produce huge amounts of surplus, but millions of farms added up produce large
amounts of surplus. All our farmersare less than one-hectare farmers. Some of them maybe have
500 kg extra, or 200 kg extra, which adds up to be the surplus for feeding the cities. The small
farmers are able to give quality attention to biodiversity, to their animals and to the soil. Farmers
feelproud of farming when they work with us; in fact we bring dignity back to farming. Young
people are either staying on or moving back to the land. In the biodiverse organic systems we
have developed, families can look after themselvesfor future generations. We are also giving
scientists a new paradigm to work with, new partners, so there is a larger base of knowledge.
In what way do yousee what youhave started in India as contributingto world peace?
VS: Our annual lecture on Gandhi’s birthday is a celebrationof nonviolent farming. Peace with
the Earth, not to kill biodiversity, organisms, the birds, the bees. Our model establishes peace
with the land and the farmers. Privatizationcreatescompetitionand conflict. By recoveringseed
as a commons, we are creating peace. If youmake people hungry, they will turn violent. By
ensuring an agriculture of abundance, we are establishing an agriculture of peace, so people don’t
have to fight each other over food.
So Much to Say, So Much to Do
Interview with Hector Verdugo
Hector Verdugo is a peer navigator for Homeboy Industries, an organization in southern
California which helps rebuild the livesof former gang members after prison. He himself joined a
gang when he was 14. At the age of 24, he gave up his criminal life. Hector started to write poetry
as a result of taking part in the Homeboy Industries writing class. He is also an outreachspeaker
for Homeboy Industries and is currently raising money to launch a poetry magazine Homeboy
Press next year.
What is your experience of writing a poem?
We have a healing circle right here at Homeboy Industries. We start off with prayer and poetry.
We go into a subject and talk about it, about how the subject is related to your life. I remember

[the poet] reading something about “fromgrapes to wine,” and I zoned out when I heard that.
ThenI wrote something straight away. It was cool, it was pretty rough. I took it with me
somewhere, to a retreat in northernCalifornia. ThenI just made it a little fuller, and I read it at
the end of that retreat. I was very satisfiedwith the way I wrote it–everyone likedit.
How about other people’s reactions?
We are surroundedby people who are just like us. We come from the same world, and we say our
story in certain ways, and we present our frustrationsand our joys. When youthink deep and put
it in some kind of poetic form, it’s only 200 words long, but in that short time, youmake someone
feelwhat youfelt, whether it be hurt, joy, love or hate. When I hear my friendreciting the poetry
of his life, he is giving me a glimpse of his soul. I wouldn’t have known about that in any other
way. Nobody wants to open up and expressthemselves, especially not Chicanos. We are very
private people, but when we write poetry, it is like an open book.
So does poetry get to the heart?
It is a tribute. There are people fromall over the world who are famous poets. There are different
perspectivesand totally different worlds. There are people fromJapan, South Americaand
Africa;expressionis great, whether it be music or poetry or whatever. I would say that poetry is
thinking and trying to make sense of something. It’s not just off the top of your head; it takes
energy and deep thinking. Sometimes youare digging away, writing something, and youfeelpain
and anger. Youwant to expressit, and words start coming to your mind. Sometimes I get a word
and I think, “I don’t really know that word.” ThenI doubt myself, pick up the dictionary and say,
“That was the word I was looking for.”
Do youfind it pushes you?
Not a lot of people want to expose their souls. It takes courage to say, “I am going to write this
down, and I might have to eventually readit to somebody.” I want to take one word and have it
mean so much, which, with my limited vocabulary andeducation, is frustrating. ThenI find
myself getting caught up in other activitiesthat don’t require deepthinking.
When youfirst discover youhave avoice as a poet, what does that feellike?
It’s cool–there is so much to say. I want to be able to scream at the top of my lungs and express
more than words; I want to give more, write some kind of drama. There’sso much more to do.
Do youfeel that youdiscoveredpoetry at the right time in your life?
I’ve prayedto God and asked for understanding, and I feelhe has answered me in so many
different ways. I think about my life and other people and why we act the way we do or perhaps
fail and sometimes succeed. A big puzzle has been put together for me. I don’t know if that’s a
universalthought; it is just life. It inspires poetry. Allthe different walks of life, everyone’s
different experiences, the way people see love and emotionsand circumstancesand physical

stuff. Poems will come to youbeautifully in your mind, but then it’s gone. To get it down on paper
is hard work, and it takes discipline.
It sounded like youwant to change something there with your poems.
What we do right here at Homeboy Industries, we change people’s lives. It’s beautifulto be a part
of. If someone could recordthis, this is poetry;it feelslike it.
What is your plan for the immediate future?
Write more, lock myself in a room. . . .
My Vine
I’m a grape yearningto be wine
Squash me
See my soul, my flesh
spills its juices.
Let it stand exposed
Rotting for all to see
I sit still marinating in ghetto air
I fill your glass, sip me.
Let me overwhelmyour pallet with
My exotic flavor, taste my rage,
Mixedwith honor and passion, swish me in your mouth
And taste the hint of humility, love, and hate.
Excerpt from“My Vine”
by Hector Verdugo
A Guiding Hand
From an Interview with Alphege Bell
Alphege Bell is a barrister working in London, U.K. He was calledto the bar in 1995 and has
workedon casesat the House of Lords, and internationally on human rights cases as well as
immigration and military tribunal work. Most recently he has specializedin high-profile criminal
defense work. Here he describeshis relationship with Richard Ferguson QC (1935-2009)who
defended some of the most complex casesin recent British legal history and rose to fame as a
champion of justice.
I met my mentor at a Christmas party networking event when I was a student. He took an
interest in me, and I was receptive to his advice. I needed a mentor because the professionis very
competitive. Not very many are let through the hoops, and youneed all the help youcan get.

The qualities of a good mentor are anticipating challenges the mentee might face, being able to
give tailor-made assistance and advice about how to meet those challenges and creating gateways
for them. Being a mentor is about shepherding someone, particularly in a career sense, so they
feelthat they can present youwith any problem, and that youwill operate as a good sounding
board. Still, the most substantial thing I gained was the opportunity to understand at the very
highest levelthe way that casesare prepared and that there is a golden standard of how to
operate when under pressure fromthe media in high-profile cases.
Dick [Richard Ferguson] would be dealing with some of the most important cases in the country.
I was learning from him how to do these cases well. There is the theory about what the approach
is, but that is very different fromwhat it is like on the front line, with the sole burden of
responsibility for finding a solution, which the client will want to be nothing less than perfect.
It is harder to invent the wheel yourself and do everythingthanfor someone to give youthe steer.
Thisis the difference betweenteaching yourself something and being taught. There is only a very
small group of lawyerswho do the top line of work. It is a rarifiedworld, and any access youget
by way of learning, observationand preparationis part of your professionaldevelopment.
However, it is not simply about becoming a carboncopy. There was a sense of clarity at the
technicalleveland of developingconfidence, so as to understand that I did have the requisite
ability to work at the highest level, and to interpret for myself what I couldbring to that arena.
There is a commitment and an ethos to mentoring. I have always tried to be a mentor to other
people since I was young. At the moment there is a trend that people try to operate as individuals
and not bring collective benefit to othersby reaching out. I set up the OxfordAccessScheme to
help people apply to the institution [of the bar in the U.K.], and to set up meaningful and tangible
ways to assist the up-and-coming. I am alwayscommitted to that.
It is not just about transmitting knowledge; that is the difference between mentoring and
teaching. A computer can teach. There is the pastoral and emotional and psychologicalside to
mentoring, engaging with those aspectsin addition to knowledge-based issues. Anybody starting
out on a new road needs a levelof accomplishment and ability. I had a Law Degree fromOxford
University, whichshould be enough, but youneed someone to give youa bit of confidence and
reassurance. Some people are already very confident but need to integrate their skills into the
arena of work. None of us are “self-actualized,” with surround vision; none of us are complete
individuals. We need self and others to ensure we can maximize our potential. We can all benefit
from a mentor; the benefit is unarguable, although it doesn’t reduce the hard work and
application required.
From Industrial Agriculture to Community Culture
Interview with Grazia Mammuccini

The Tuscangovernment was the first region of Italy to pass a law to protect localagricultural
varietiesand breedsfrom extinction. Thishas helped revive not only the agriculture and ecology
of Tuscany but also its economy, culture and cuisine. ARSIA, the Regional Agency for
Development and Innovationin Agriculture and Forestry, hasplayed a centralpart in this
transformation. There are two planks to its conservationpolicy:one is setting up a regional seed
bank, locatedin the botanicalgardens of Lucca; the other is establishing a network of “farmer
guardians.” Maria Grazia Mammuccini is director of ARSIA, Tuscany.
Can youdescribe what your agency does?
Grazia Mammuccini: The Regional Agency for Development and Innovationin Agriculture and
Forestry (ARSIA)is a technicaland scientific agency for the region of Tuscany, whichencourages
links between scientists and researchers, farmersand rural communities. In the last 15 years, we
have changed farming in the region fromindustrial to localagriculture, based on biodiversity.
One of the positive steps toward this was the law to ensure the protectionand development of the
natural heritage of localbreeds and varieties, which the region of Tuscany passedin two phases,
in 1997 and 2004. Withthis law, which was overseenby ARSIA, we have identified 690 different
localvarieties, of which 568 are at risk of becoming extinct. Thiswas a major undertaking for us,
because farmers and localcommunities were able to come to us and say, “We have these
varieties, come and monitor them.” If they had an identifiable variety, we couldadd them onto
the list. We could conserve the different speciesand start cultivatingthem again. So we restarted
the idea of farmer guardians, who maintain all the varieties, plant them and then collect them to
keepthem going, giving the seeds to the local seed bank.
We started to work on the land, getting to know the different species and to cultivate them not
only for the seed bank but also for sale and consumption. Thenwe had to establish markets to
sell these varietieswhich are not adapted to global markets: as there is a reducedquantity of
yield, it has to be sold locally. So we also started farmers’ markets; shops for farmers to sell their
productslocally, and now, after 10 yearsof hard work, the situation in the region has really
changed.
What was the reactionof the farmerswhen youstarted this program?
GM: It was not easy. From the farmers’ point of view, they riskednot having the means to make
the changes, so the interventionof a publicly funded institution was vital. If the public institution
keepsgoing, however, the small businesses will follow the strategies for themselves. We

encourage the participation of youngpeople and women. They are very motivatedfor economic
reasons–they can find a means of work–aswell as for ethicalreasons, to developa goodway of
life. So we have helped a lot, by activatingthe network. Throughthe network people exchange
ideas and information and help each other out. We give them a hand, whilst alone they cannot do
it. Right now, the small farmersare benefiting from biodiversity.
How do youmaintain the seed bank?
GM: Each year we package the seeds and put them in a refrigerator to keep them at the same
temperature. Thenthe farmer guardians come to us to take the seeds and sow them. Now the
bank of localseeds is in the processof becoming a network, in which scientific institutions as well
as farmers are involved. We also have tree growers–olive farmersand vineyardkeepersand a
network of tree keepers, which, in addition to the seed banks, makes up the total bank for local
strains and varietiesin Tuscany. Nowwe have nine sectionsof the bank.
Are youconnectedwith similar projectsin other parts of the world?
GM: We startedthis idea in 1997, without knowing about the work of Dr. Vandana Shiva, but in
2000 we started to collaborate with her. Up until then we had thought of preservingbiodiversity
for scientific ends, but, with her example, we realized that by giving back seeds to agriculture, a
localgovernment institution can completely change agriculture.
Regional Revival
How would this also change the culture and cuisine of the region?
GM: Because seeds are the origin of so many things, youhave to actually change the economy of
the region, in the sense that we have scientifically researchedthe localproducts, the local strains
and varieties. Biodiversity isnot just cultivation;it is also culture and tradition–local
understanding which is tied to that product. Maintaining biodiversity meanslookingafter the
plants and the animals too;and all the knowledge of how to cook them, to conserve themand to
give them their own cultural dimension. This has helped many localregions rediscover their own
identity, many of them through a local product. From culture comes traditions, festivals, family
knowledge. The change in agriculture has helped to regenerate links at a local level.
So it’s like a renaissance?
GM: With a system of industrial agriculture, rural culture seems useless because all the
understanding comesfrom technology, not fromthe rural population; but with the
reintroductionof biodiversity, localpopulationshave reclaimedtheir own. There is a very fruitful
exchange between science and localknowledge, which is highly appropriate to the challenges of
sustainability. It was vitalfor Tuscany to make this change because 80 percent of farms in
Tuscany are small farms. Without this type of farming our farms would disappear in a few years.
Have the scientists also learned something?

GM: They have discoveredthe value of their own activity;they cansee immediate results because
their work has done something important for localcommunities and for the heritage of the
region; this collaborationis mutually rewarding.
Maria Grazia Mammuccini lives in Montevarchi, Italy. She was previously vice president of the
Commission of Agriculture and is now the director of ARSIA, Tuscany (www.arsia.toscana.it), and
with her husband she runs an organic farm.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Breathing the life into the dance
Pina Bausch talksabout her latest work ‘Nefes’in Tokyo
By ELIZABETH INGRAMS
“I had a hard time finding the title,” Pina Bausch tells me during an interview about her most
recent work, “Nefes.” The Turkishfor “Breath” is the title of the latest in a series of works which
the choreographer, who will turn 65 in July this year, has createdin collaborationwith theaters
around the world, this time with Istanbul’s theater festival.
“Breathtaking” might have been an even more appropriate word; In the scene that opens the
piece, dancer Fernando Suels, clad only in a bathing towel, comesto the front of the stage and
proclaims in Japanese that “The Hammam is very hot,” before being beaten by his masseur.
Then, peering into the cavernous, sparsely lit stage of the Shinjuku Bunka Center, as a woman
dressed in flowing silk starts to brush her hair as though she was beating a carpet to the sullen
rhythms of Mercan Dede’s music, we need little more to transport us into one of those steamy
Turkishbath-houses that feature in so many 19th-century engravings.
But before you’ve hadthe chance to catchyour breath, Indonesian dancer Ditta Miranda Jasjfi
(for it was she), who is by now lyingon the floor, is wound up in her sari by Suels, who sweeps
her up into a Bollywood-style kiss. Minutes later the beat changes and the sylphlike Indian
Dancer Shantala Shivalingappa is performing a solo to the sounds of Argentinian composer Astor
Piazzolla — all arms and fingers, like the goddess Kali, tracing millions of butterflieswith her
infinitely supple digits. As with “Tenchi(Heavenand Earth),” which was researchedand set in
Saitama and premiered there last year, Bausch’s genius is to use a time and a place as a starting
point for a mosaic of dance and dramaturgy:mixing speechand mime; combining the language
of formalized dances with improvisedexpression, the intimacy of shared romantic moments and
frustratedattempts at communication.
More than many of Bausch’s other works, Nefesis shot through with sensuality. So, when the
female dancers gently squeeze bathfoamover the bare backsof their prone male partners
through a large cheese-cloth, youendup asking yourself, “Howdoes that feel?”

“There is an abstraction and it is more about the searchfor a feeling often,” the choreographer
saysof what she looksfor when she worksin foreigncountries.
Does this sound too romantic for Pina Bausch? Asa choreographer, Bauschis best known for her
expressionistic portrayalof human suffering and the darkly humorousweltanschauung (world-
view) that permeated German theater and dance bothbefore and after WorldWar II. It is a
world-viewthat is also, from an equal and opposite perspective, alive and well in Japanese butoh
dance. After all, her first works were made with her teacher and mentor Kurt Joos, whose 1932
work “Der Grune Tisch(The Green Table)” was consideredone of the major expressionsof anti-
Nazi resistance. In the ’70sand early ’80s she certainly seemedto be preoccupiedto giving
precedence — through movement — to some of the most unbearable moments of human
existence — repeatedly. In“Nelken(Carnations)” (1982) a fight takes place to the insistent
clapping of dancers, seemingly urging it on. In the earlier “Sacre de Printemps (The Rite of
Spring)” from 1977, alead dancer fainted because of the intensity of the sacrificialdance that she
was requiredto perform, a circle of dancersaround her.
In “Nefes,” such moments of collective socialoppressiondo occur. Towardsthe end of the first
half the female dancers gather, their hair hanging in front of their faceslike thick veils. As they
line up to take anonymously deliveredkissesfrom the men, youcan’t help thinking of a harem —
and evenmore so when they crawlbetween the deckchairsthe men are reclining on only to be
given a peremptory stroke of the head while the men look the other way.
But the darknessdoes not last long. In a brilliant piece of theatricaldesign, as dancer Rainer Behr
runs acrossa barely noticeable puddle of water on the stage, a shaft of light is let into the
“Hammam” and along with it, water that falls down to create a small lake around which the
dancers later play.
The content, especially in the second half, may be less sensational than previousoutings, but Pina
Bausch’s palette is constantly being replenished and is as richand dissonant as it has always
been. The maturity of her choregraphy isto permit the individuality of the dancersthemselvesto
come out, something that lamentably few choreographersdare to do. The closest comparison
couldbe Japan’s butohchoreographers, but although her company was once the guest of butoh
founder Kazuo Ohno at his house near Osaka, Bausch claims that she has taken more from
Japan’s traditional performing arts.
Thisyear, which marks the 20thanniversary of her visits Japan, the choreographer and founder
of Tanztheater Wuppertal made the time for a rare interview with The Japan Times. Talland
gaunt, she takespuffs of her mild cigarettesas she discusses her work and her travels. She is
about to go to Korea to premiere her new piece “Rough Cut,” which will come to Tokyo next

April, and her eyeslight up when she talks about it — as eager to get to work on it as she might
have been on her very first show.
“Nefes” means breathin Turkish, why did youchose that word?
In this case, when we first performedit, we didn’t have a title, so I gave it later. It has to do with
your own imagination. I don’t think it is up to the title to tell youwhat youshould think. In the
performance, eachperson should trust themselves — what comes to mind, the feeling. But it is
also an extract of something — the title — to try to find something very simple. But “breath”
means everythingin a way. I feel it in the music — youcan do a lot of things with the time — with
the water — with our dancing. That we are living life and all. There are so many things.
“Nefes” came out in 2004. Wasit hard to work in Turkey?
No, it was a big joy to do. We had performedin Istanbul a few times (“Masurca Fogo” or
“Mazurka of Fire” in 2000). I love to performthere — we had such a wonderful public and after
this they askedfor a co-production. Istanbulwas such a fascinating city, and so for us it was
fantastic to learn about many things. They gave us a fantastic time in the researchperiod(in
2003). A co-productionis influencedby the place and the people . . . it also has to do with the
time, with when it was created.
Nefeshas already touredto Paris and Berlin as well as Istanbul. Are the performancesdifferent in
any way?
Everythingis the same except we change the language.
From your researchin the country, do youstart to dramatize the environment youfind there or
the social context?
It is the little things [in the place.] What is very complicatedis — what kind of shape do youfind
for it? In a way yourespect so much the cultures. It is impossible that we act like Japanese that
we do the Japanese dancing or the Turkishdancing (like they do.) Still there is an abstraction —
many things arrive in the pieceslater. With the company it is what happens in that moment. It is
very complicated.
Of course in the dances there can be a kind of a note, but each land naturally has its own
character, because youhave the extremesof the feelings of what youwish; how they (the
countries)can feel, is very extreme. Andof course, there is a completely different energy.
Do youmean that sometimes the effect comeslater?
Yesit is true. But evenafter, when it [the performance]is done, it doesn’t stop having the
influence — that we were here.
Did youwork with designer Peter Pabst to get a Turkishaesthetic?
It is important to find an aesthetic, but we never know, when we are lookingfor a picture — we
want an abstractionthere, too. We are not lookingfor how we coulddo something ‘Turkishstyle.’

It has a lot to do with the feeling and something to do with Turkey . . . I am not a tourist
guidebook on a culture.
Are youlooking for how human behavior affectsdance?
Yesit tells us a lot about the dance.
Throughwatching “Nefes,” we get a feeling of your dancersas more than dancers, we get a sense
of them as human beings.
I don’t know if I do it on purpose. Thisis alwaysimportant and I feel in the performance you
know the people somehow. Youare there; youknow something about them . . . they come closer
to you. Thisis something to do with what is important for me, why there is a performance. I think
this is what youmean. And that is actually beautiful — that has nothing to do with nationalities —
the human contact.
The music youchose often givesa strong atmosphere to the piece — here the worksof Mercan
Dede, Astor Piazzolla and TomWaits are very striking, how do youchoose the music?
There are so many kinds of music that I like but it is very difficult to use them. We always try to
have music fromthe country where we do [the production.]With the Japanese piece [last year],
when we came here, I changed some of the music. [For “Nefes”]all of the music was given to us.
Is that how youfeelin your research? That youare spreading your net very wide and then trying
to extract?
Yes, because we do not know what is coming, we are completely openand then we think “let’s see
what happens now.” So it is not as though we have an expectationor a certainthing in mind, it is
just an openness. But we are also very naive in a way.
Japan was one of the countries that recognizedyour work first, awarding youthe Dance Critics’
Prize in 1987. Doesthe Japanese audience have a specialaffinity for your work?
I don’t know. It is fantastic that we have come here so many times . . . and eachtime my feeling is
growing. I like it very much. I cannot speak for the public, but because we are invited again, there
must be a big interest.
Youused to work more from text, especially inmemorable productionslike “Iphigenie auf
Tauris” (1974), “Orpheusund Eurydike” (1975), “Blaubart” (1977)or “Sacre de Printemps.” Do
youfeelyoudon’t need to go back to text any more?
I don’t know — it is completely open. If I feel there is something I love to do, I can do it, but it is
different if youhave “Iphigenie” or “Sacre” or “Blaubart.” Youhave a certainperson, like you
have Judith in “Blaubart ” or Orpheus in “Eurydike” or a few more. But I have so many beautiful
dancers — each one is so different youknow — I like to find something for all of them because
they are so different. Are there piecesfor so many different characters? I think it is about how to
work with the company. Also with music — at the beginning we used a lot of live music with

orchestra–but with an orchestrayoucannot travel. There are so many wonderful musics in the
world, so in a way it is fantastic that we do not have live music, because otherwise we wouldn’t be
able to travel. Bothways can be wonderful. If youcouldmake a decisionto do something else (a
different way), it would be possible. But then somebody asksme if I would like to do a co-
productionagain, and if I like to, I do. (Laughs.) It is already done, it goes so easy — so youjust
continue. It is not planned, but it happens.
Is that the beauty of improvisation?
It is not improvised; I follow a feeling, but it is not improvised.
The Japan Times
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2005
The man in the photo
When exploringTokyo, Arakifindshimself
“Over 4,000 pictures!” the press officer shoutswith enthusiasm over the phone the day after the
opening of the most comprehensive exhibitionof 65-year-oldNobuyoshiAraki’sphotographsto
date.
“Self.Life.Death” is currently showing at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, and spans Araki’s
entire career fromhis early daysas a photographer working at the advertisingagency Dentsu,
when he was taking pictures of petchan (Pepsi bottles), to his most recent shots commemorating
the 60th anniversary of the end of the war. The exhibitionalso includes a display of almost 300 of
his books, as well as a recent documentary made by U.S. filmmaker TravisKlose.
The sheer volume of images is stunning, but then for someone who is a self-proclaimed
shakyojin, a photo lunatic, a play on Katsushika Hokusai’s moniker of gakyojinor painting
lunatic, this is hardly surprising.
Although the comparisonwith Hokusai is somewhat cheeky, what emerges from the exhibitionis
that Arakitakes his own career as seriously as the painters of the past. “Everythingisrelated to
what he is doing. Photography ishis life . . . if he is asked to choose between photography or his
family members, he would chose photography,” sayscurator Akiko Miki, who has come over from
the Palais de Tokyo inParis, where she usually works, to give The Japan Timesan exclusive
interviewand present a public lecture.
Araki’sown personal narrative, or “I-novel” as he calls it, strikesyouas youfirst enter the
exhibition. On the left side of the first gallery is a kind of enclosure dedicatedto pictures of
Araki’sbalcony in Gotokuji, Tokyo, whichhe kept as a mausoleum in memory of his late wife

Yoko Aoki(d.1990). Inthe recent “Sentimental Journey/Winter Journey” (1991), Arakireworks
his most famous book, 1971’s“SentimentalJourney,” a photo diary of the couple’s honeymoon
with his images and her words, with the photographs he took as she was dying in 1990.
“Araki’stheme is always the same. It has ended up with this question — the relationship between
life and death. Try to observe life in relation to death and death in relation to life,” saysMiki.
It seems an odd paradox for someone who, like Kitagawa Utamaro, another Edo Period painter,
is mostly famed not for his monogamy but for his promiscuity in life and art. Isn’t Arakifamous
for his images of naked women, and doesn’t he claim to have had relationships with all of them?
Here are picturesof models, some of them pregnant, in kinbaku, an ancient form of Japanese
rope bondage; some are maimed; some suspended fromthe ceiling; almost all with their legs
splayed. The women are in different stages of erotic excitement or physicaldestruction:
masturbating, post-coital, passed out, their faces, limbs and private parts sometimes erased by
the photographer.
For a newcomer to Araki’swork, the effect canbe disturbing. But this, alleges Miki, is all part of
the persona of the diarist. “It is his imagination — he createsimaginative stories, love affairswith
certain models,” she says. “For him, photography is a diary, it representsthe whole of his life, the
people he has met, the people he has talked to, the scenery that he sees, etc. . . . it is of course not
just a diary, it is the way he inserts fictive things and manipulates the dates and the diaries.”
She also sees Yoko in many of these images. “We talked about love affairs and fictive stories
between Arakiand the model, but in fact it is always the relationship between Yoko, who died,
and Araki. . . I get the impression that some of the models are, not exactly alter egosbut a
replacement of Yoko, who he has lost . . . there are so many different women’s faces, but when
youlook at a lot, there are certainfacesthat he likes and certainsimilarities to Yoko’sface. I think
over and over he keepsre-creating the relationship between Yoko andhimself.”
The book “Sentimental Journey” (1971)wasan astonishingly frank account of the couple’s
honeymoon;his images are combinedwith Yoko’swords, and accordingto Yoko, her aunt was so
shockedby the exposedyoungbride that she had to take to her bed for three days. Looking
closely youstart to see that the best pictureshere are all part of sequences — chronological
narrativesthat Arakiturned into books.
There are photographs from the book “Satchinand his Brother Mabo” (1963) — itself from the
film “Children Living in Apartment Blocks” (1963), a thrilling portrait of kids in Tokyo’s
Shitamachi that won him the Taiyo photography prize;and there are the poignant photographs
and sketcheshe made for an in-progress I-novelthat he startedwith the suicidal writer Izumi
Suzuki (d.1986). “I am convincedthat for him, the book is the most important way of
representing photographs,” saysMiki. “He keepssaying that the exhibition is like fireworks, it is

ephemeral, while the book is something that he can keep, and composing this sequence gives
certain storiesand certainnarratives.”
Miki notes that this exhibitionis exceptionalin that it includes work that has never been seen by
the public before. Some are early archivalphotographsexhibitedin the “workshopbooks” that he
made at Dentsu, “where he learned that photography is not just taking photographs, it is about
how to edit and present them,” she says.
Although Arakimay have rebelledfrom the advertisingfirm, leaving Dentsu to work freelance
after winning the Taiyo prize, his iconoclastic instinctshave paradoxically only made him more of
an icon. Arakihas kept himself constantly in the public spotlight — he evenbrands himself an
ArakiGenius who makes Arakimentaris and Arakinemaand whose preferredformof subversion
is Ararchy. Mikievendescribesthe 1992 chargesof obscenity by Japanese police for exhibiting
his sexually explicit photographsof women as a “kind of ritual arrest.”
So, with this retrospective at the Barbican, has the dirty uncle of Japanese photography come
clean? His receptionin London has certainly been positive, with very fewcriticsprotestingthe
nature of the subject matter.
“I was very consciousthat in the West there was a very strongstereotypicalimage of Araki — icon
of bondage, kind of pervert, almost pornographic photographer; it is certainly true that some of
the images deal with it. But he is not a pornographic photographer for male sexualdesire, that is
not the point,” claims Miki. “A lot of the Westernpublic didn’t know anything about Araki’s
photos of Tokyo;it was quite important to show different aspects of his works.”
And, after so much sexual imagery, Araki’soutdoor shots provide light relief. In one of the last
sequencesof the exhibitionfrom the book “Tokyo Summer Story” (2003), ahomage to film
director Yasujiro Ozu, we follow the photographer-voyeur aroundthe streets, past ads for bathing
wear; people hanging around outside Shibuya;a steel robot on the side of a building; a hearse;
electionposters; a children’s marching band; a summer festival;a mother with kids. The story of
a summer in Tokyo unfoldsbeautifully throughthe photographer’sframe as he shoots froma car
window. Like Eugene Atget, who photographedthe empty streetsof Paris at the turn of the last
century, Arakiis fascinatedby the city of his birth, which has literally risen from the ashes during
his lifetime. He takesphotographs of Tokyo because “Tokyo isa story.”
In these city narrativesand in the thousands of portraitshe has taken since the 1960s, Arakiis at
his best, using his photography as a medium to expose the human happiness, sadness,
togethernessand loneliness in the world he sees around him. In Klose’sdocumentary film, he
eagerly retrievesbooksfromhis archivesthat are filled with movingly expressive facesof
ordinary people he photographedin Ginza in the 1970s, “feelingsof sadness and loneliness, it
shows in their faces,” he says.

But like any goodI-novelist, Arakijust cannot resist inserting himself into the frame. Most of the
sequencesbegin or end with some kind of self-portrait. AsI was leavingthe exhibition, I noticed
the last photograph in his “ArakiNow: Sixty Yearsonafter the War” sequence. It is a shot of a
model’s back with Araki’s impish face tattooedat its base. A bit like an obsessive child, Araki
lovesputting his signature on things — especially women — although his authorial pose
sometimes gets in the way of the narrative he is trying to create.
“Self.Life.Death” runs till Jan. 22 at the Barbican Art Gallery, London. For more information, call
+44 (0) 207 638 8891 or visitwww.barbican.org.uk
The Japan Times
Sunday, May 1, 2005
CLOSE-UP
SADAKO OGATA
Front-line fighter for a better world
Sadako Ogata, formerly UnitedNations High Commissioner for Refugees, is one of Japan’s most
prominent international figures.
Born in Tokyo in1927, she grew up in Japan, China and the United States, receivingher PhD in
Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoralthesis, titled “Defiance in
Manchuria,” examined Japan’s failed, military-led expansionism in China in the 1920sand ’30s,
known as the Manchurian Affair. While working as an academic in Japan (where she became
Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Sophia University, Tokyo from1989), she movedinto
diplomacy, servingon the Japanese delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in 1968
and as a Minister on the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations in New York between
1976and 1979.
By that time a mother of two, Ogata followedher husband, Shijuro Ogata (a banker and former
deputy governor of The Bank of Japan for InternationalRelations), to New York, bringing her
son and daughter to live there with them. The experience, she has said, taught her how to work
within the international politicalarena — and also made her aware that Japanese representatives
were frequently not participating in debates for fear of “giving the country abad image.’‘
With a self-declaredfondnessfor direct participationherself, Ogata’s first direct contact with
refugeeswas when she was asked by the Japanese government to lead the Japanese mission to
plan and provide assistance to Cambodian refugees in 1979. The post indirectly led to her being
electedas a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugeesin 1990, and thereafter to her being re-elected
for three terms until 2000. While Ogata was serving in that capacity —due to the unexpected

collapse of the Soviet bloc — she was responsible for mobilizing support for displacedpeople
during some of the worst worldwide refugee crisessince World War II.
A diminutive yet formidable figure, Ogata has many times risked her own life on the front line.
She made frequent visitsto the Balkans in the early 1990s, and also to the AfricanGreat Lakes
region [on the bordersof Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of
Congo], and was frequently featuredin the international media wearing a bulletproof v est.
During that decade, she was named one of the 10 most influential women in the world.
Respectedby leaders everywhere for her diplomatic skills and hands-on approach, she has, as
U.N. Secretary GeneralKofiAnnan writes in his introduction to her recent memoir, “A Turbulent
Decade — Confronting the Refugee Crises of the 1990s” (March 2005;W.W. Nortonand Co.),
“left no stone unturned in her effortsto protect the world’s dispossessed.’‘
Those efforts, asher book details, also involvedher — through the UNHCR — in the largest crises
to rock the world in the 1990s, including not only those in the Balkans and Africa, but also those
concerningKurdish persecutionin pre-invasion northernIraq and the war in Afghanistan.
Ogata’s political skills appear to run in the family — her great-grandfather, TsuyoshiInukai, was
prime minister from1931-1932. A staunchdefender of parliamentary democracy, he tried to rein
in the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, but paid the price for this when he was assassinated by
ultranationalist naval officersin 1932 in the so-calledGoichigo Jiken (May 15thIncident), a failed
coupd’etat that led to the demise of the party systemof government until 1945.
Driven by tireless energy and dedication, Ogata, now 77, continuesto bring international causes
to the attention of the Japanese government and media. In her new post as president of the
Japan International CooperationAgency (JICA) — a national agency for development assistance
overseas— she has criticizedher government’sreluctance to developan effective and
humanitarian domestic policy onimmigration and refugees.
Last month, fresh froma grueling three-week lecture tour of the United Statesto promote her
book, the indefatigable Ogata foundtime between meetings with international officialsto give
The Japan Timesa rare interview at her office in Tokyo’scentralShinjuku district.
Your book bearswitness to recent world politicsand the conflictsthat followedthe breakupof the
Soviet Union in a very direct and sometimes criticalway. Was it difficult to write?
Yesand no. Yousee, when I retiredfrom the UNHCR at the end of 2000, I did want to put what
happened on record — because it is the story of an agency that was very much in the front line.
I think there were enough articlesby scholars and journalists assuming reasons why we did what
we did, but no one really presented the case for the opportunitiesthat we had, the choices, the
solutions selectedand so on. I thought it had to be presented for the sake of the record. Being an
academic, I couldwrite academic typesof books, but I didn’t want to do that — I wanted to do
something that would be for the general public, in the sense of policymakersandthose interested
in international affairs. So it was a new kind of writing for me, which I wanted to do.

The selectionof sourceswas difficult. There were so many other situations that I would like to
have written about, but if I wrote down everythingnobody wouldbe able to followit. My life at
the time was like being on a merry-go-round, going around the world and seeing all sorts of
people’s situations.
Focusing on the UNHCR as a world body during that particular decade is a very interestingway
of seeing that era in history. Youwere oftenoperating alone around the world and saying things
that governmentsdidn’t want to hear. Do youthink there couldbe an expandedrole for the
UNHCR in the new world order?
No, probably not. Thiswas a transition from a highly structuredworld political order, to
something that we can’t quite predict what it will be like from here on. It was a periodof very
great fluidity when there was no order. And that was why people wanted to do things. At least
there was humanitarian compassion, brought out not only by the realities, but also by the
reporting of those realities.
CNN came in during this periodand there was new mass reporting [of refugee issues], which led
to a lot of interest in the humanitarian aspect, and governmentswere obligedto do something.
But it was not very wellorganized in the sense that a lot of the things that governmentsdid were
not effective, so ushumanitarian agencies were left to devise whatever we could.
It was also a period [in which ] a lot of internal orderswere breaking down. The fact that there
are now fewer refugeesthan there were 10 yearsago — or during my period — shows that things
are stabilizing somewhat. So in this sense, if youask me if there will be an expandedrole, I think
there may be different roles. We may — when I talk about “we,” I am still talking about the
UNHCR — have to be more restrained or constrainedin our givenrole. Also, we will have to work
with new partnersthat are not necessarily the military and so on, but more with development
assistance, the rule of law and those more structuredareas of international collaboration.
The huge humanitarian crisesof the 1990sshockedthe world. Do youthink that international
bodies have learned from that experience and are able to predict more clearly where these crises
will occur?
Preventionbecame a new battle cry towardthe latter part of the ’90s, and then after that came
peace-building, which was also a new kind of consensus. Neither of these were really able to
prove their effectiveness.
Prevention, everyone agrees, isimportant, but nobody has succeededin doing very muchabout
that. Peace-building is also a new political agenda, trying to draw in more resourcesfromthe
military, from development — I don’t see much happening yet, but at least these are new grounds
that they are exploring. Preventionis possible only if there is a perfect development agenda, but I
don’t think that will come through.

Before I came to it, JICA had an agenda for peace-building, but I don’t think they knew precisely
what that meant. I think it has become more attuned to that, trying to enter into operational
areas earlier than used to be the case.
At times in your book youexpressregret about an ultimate settlement or outcome, but youalso
expressa degree of pride in the successof some projects — such as in creating Kurdish safe
havens in northern Iraq followingSaddam Hussein’s bombing in 1991. Why isthat?
That workedout alright because the strategic interests of the great powers — the coalitionforces’
action and the willingness of the would-be refugeesto go back to where they came from — they all
coincidedrather neatly. But in any other situation, first of all the strategic interest of the major
powers was inadequate if not weak, and since they were not going to sacrifice anythingof their
own, the results were halfway.
Thisis still the case in the bulk of the Great Lakes Region, although Afghanistan, after such a long
time, is making some progress.
Youhave describedhow youtook up your role at the UNHCR after some deliberation. To what
extent do youthink youwere motivatedpersonally as well as politically to take that position?
I didn’t really know what I was getting into, because what happened after I took up the office was
very different fromwhat everyone assumedwould happen in the world. In the end, I had a very
enriching experience and I am very gladthat I did it.
Youhave also talked recently about a deep-seatedmemory of your great-grandfather having been
assassinated. Asa Japanese taking up an international role, were youpartly motivatedby that
experience?
Yes, in a rather remote, indirect way. Yousee it was the turning point of Japan to the right —
nationalism, and the military taking over Japan’s politicalrole. I knew, my family and myself
knew, that this was the wrong way to move for Japan. And we paid the price — losing the war — it
was a heavy price to pay. In that process, the Manchurian Incident [in 1931]was the first turning
point. Thiswas when Japan left the League of Nations and turned toward a more self-centered,
nationalist course, leavingthe League of Nations and also destroyingthe League of Nations.
Japan, Germany and the AxisPowers actually destroyedthe League of Nations.
I felt that multilateralism was something that Japan couldnot destroy again, and so the United
Nations was important to me.
Youend the book with an invitationto the United States, first made in 1999, to stand with youin
a joint humanitarian project. Do youthink that joint leadership role in humanitarian affairs can
still be achieved?
That invitation still stands. I would like to see Japan do more, and I would like Japan to invite the
U.S. to do more. There shouldbe much more collaborative responsibility takenby us, as great

countries, on behalf of the world. I would say that if the U.S. or Japan turned away from
multilateralism, then multilateralism will collapse.
Do yousee your role in JICA as being able to further that?
JICA deals more directly withdevelopingcountries. I think this is a very important role for Japan
anyway. I don’t have to do diplomacy anymore. (Laughs.)
Youfirst got involveddirectly withrefugeeswhen, in 1979, Japan made a very positive
contributionto the refugee crisis in Indochina.
I became operationally involvedfor the first time. I got more interested in the “doing” aspect of
multilateral collaborationrather than just talking about it. That has become my secondnature —
I like to get things done.
To what extent do yousee that change of approachtoward refugeesabroad actually changing
here in Japan?
It hasn’t changed here as much as I would like to see. I got support fromthe Japanese
government and the public at that time — I got enormoussupport from the public. In the private
sector, the biggest fundraising country was Japan. That is partly because ordinary people felt a
direct link to these causes through my office and my work. In that sense, I think I had a chance to
spread the message to Japan and the Japanese people. But that does not really change the overall
scene.
Thisis very mucha closed society. We usedto talk about one language, one race, that kind of
thing. In fact that is breaking down, but it is still not breaking down in the sense of being able to
be inclusive, either in terms of workersor refugeesor foreignvisitors. There is still not enough of
a sense of inclusiveness. This has to developand for the Americanstoo . . . the possibility of
seeing other than their Americanway of life, so-called, is very slim.
The sense of inclusivenessis a very important thing to nurture further in Japan, and I would like
to see that extended. I am not saying that everyone hasto be brought in, but that we have to move
toward openness and managing the right balance of the movement of people, which is inevitable.
Do youthink the younger generationis similarly motivatedto take on humanitarian causes?
Humanitarian causesare just one of many to take up. Some people are very attractedto cultural
diversity for instance. I don’t think that everybodyhasto be in the humanitarian business, but it
does lead to more openness and inclusiveness. I think the younger generationis much less
inhibited. They travelaround. JICA has about 2,000 Peace Corpsworking all over the world.
When yougo abroad and visit them, there are a lot of women who go alone into villagesand they
don’t think anything of it. In that sense, I think there is a lot more openness. But at the same
time, since life is so much more comfortable here in Japan nowadays, there are people who are
just ordinary and selfish among the younger generation. (Laughs.)
After a long and successfulcareer in the U.N. and JICA, what is your next step?

I am not thinking much further ahead than the next three months. (Laughs.) I am very happy to
do what comesto me, if there is some interesting work for me to do. . . . I haven’t really thought
through a phase in which there is nothing to do, because things are piling up all the time. If the
requestscome in a way that challenges me, I will do them.
Do youthink that the peacefulimage of Japan around the world is being jeopardizedbecause of
the proposedrewriting of [war-renouncing] Article 9 of the Constitution?
I don’t think there is that much difference in the revisionproposed. De facto there is a self-
defence force, de facto it is doing some peacekeepingwork; de facto it is not going to be a war
power. These are realities — the revisedversionwould not be that different.
If youlook at the way the Constitution has been interpretedand practicedso far, it does not seem
to be very different fromwhat is being discussed for the future, but I am not studying this whole
constitutionalissue very closely.
Your husband has also published a book this year [titled “Harukanaru Showa. Chichi. Ogata
Taketorato Watashi (My Father and I in the Timesof Showa)”; Asahi Shimbun.] Wouldyouever
talk about your life together?
Some people have asked him to write about me, but if that happens, that would be the end! We
try to keepourselvesseparate. In Japan or anywhere, if youlet your private life come out, that is
the end — people like to take your picturesin the kitchen. (Laughs).
The Japan Times
Sunday, June 26, 2005
SHORT STORY
Learning to fly
He had been looking for someone to commit suicide with for a long time. Now that he had found
the right person, Ken had traveledhalf the way around the world in order to carry out his plan.
He was neverthelesssurprised to find himself standing on a familiar-looking train platform with
his hands tuckedin to his coat lookingat the passing trains, which were gray with dirt.
Thiswas a grimy country, he thought. The dirt seemed to get everywhere, andno one appeared to
clean it up.
The things that had happened since he had been here had occurredwithout irregularity — he
couldn’t complain about that. He had stayedin two hotels, one by the airport and one opposite
the train station he had set out from this morning. Both had been comfortable.

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