Crossing Borders

Jacob Holdt made the Food for Thought event an unforgettable experience, not only for those guests who already know him, but mostly for those who heard him for the first time. His charismatic personality and life experiences were almost impossible to imagine — he left the audience impressed, inspired and empowered. It almost felt as if one evening was not enough to get to hear all that Jacob has to say. During the evening, the author of The American Pictures, and the newly published book “Om at sige ja”, presented some of the chapters designed for the audience to understand what milestones or better, coincidences shaped his life decisions, personal opinions and beliefs from early childhood to where is he today. He started off by showing pictures of his family and family house in Fåborg  (the village where his spent the most of his childhood). As the son of the pastor at Grundtvig´s Church, expectations of who he should become were set. However, after being thrown out of high school, his next rebellious moves opened the doors in a world outside of Denmark. In 1970, Jacob travelled to Canada to work on a farm and from there he wanted to travel to South America to support the government of Salvador Allende after he was elected president of Chile in September 1970. However, he never made it – he arrived with only 40 dollars, fascinated and shocked by the social differences he encountered in the US. Holdt stayed in the USA for more then five years, crossing the country by hitchhiking over 100,000 miles and taking thousands of photographs. During these years Jacob started working with civil rights issues. He spent years protesting the Vietnam War and conditions in the Third World. He talked about how these events shaped his perspective on the issue of human rights and democracy and how it evolved over the years. He shared the interesting and adventurous part of his journey with us through the chapter love amongst the oppressed – in spite of all and showed photographs that presented aspects of black culture rather than aspects of oppression. The chapter Ghetto Love revealed pictures and story behind Jacob´s first marriage. A particularly interesting picture featured Jacob and Annie holding the South African consul´s baby during their wedding ceremony. Another fascinating story Jacob shared with us took place in 1977, when his book was published and the KGB revealed to him that it was their intention to use it in their campaign against President Carter in an effort to demonstrate that human rights were violated as much in America as Russia. Holdt hired his lawyer, Søren B. Henriksen, to stop his own book across the world except for in Germany, Holland and Scandinavia where they had already signed contracts with his Danish publisher; he managed to stop it and until the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, Jacob did not release the book again. Jacob told us of his escape behind the Iron Curtain to Poland, experiencing and seeing the real face of communism in everyday life and meeting people until he met his current wife and took her on an adventurous journey around the world! Due to him losing most of his expected income from his book, Jacob could not fulfil his desire of financing a hospital but his hard work, activism and efforts throughout the years enabled him to build a nursing school for the Namibian resistance group SWAPO in Angola. Among all others stories, photographs and thoughts Jacob shared with us with such a passion, he taught me one fundamental thing – if we want to change the world or at least play a small part in influencing it positively, we need to find the “freedom to be able to say yes; the freedom to throw yourself into the arms of every single person you meet.”

HackYourFuture In my experience, charities are often seen as far removed from innovation, as fusty organisations preoccupied with the ills of society, putting a damper on the exciting progress being made in other sectors. Hack Your Future Copenhagen and its bright-eyed, dapperly dressed Managing Director Christopher don’t fit this stereotype at all. Instead, as I follow him down the all-white, minimalist corridors lit by the morning sun, Chris embodies the energy of the project he leads, one that teaches refugees, asylum seekers and marginalised groups programming skills in Javascript and front and back end development. At the weekly gathering of HYF’s students (a group from migrant backgrounds including a significant number of refugees and asylum-seekers), Chris leads a stand-up, replicating what many small businesses now do to ensure everyone in a team is on message. HYF’s version, however, struck a different tone. News that one student was granted asylum in Denmark marked the end of the stand-up after another was presented with a Raspberry Pi — a credit-card sized computer which enables people to explore computing and learn coding languages — as a prize for good effort. This is certainly indicative of the blend of business and charity seen at HYF, where migrants aren’t merely given a skill, but introduced to the fresh face of modern, European business culture. Describing his rapid introduction to HYF as a friend of the manager of the Amsterdam branch, Chris says “So I was like ok cool. I’ve got everything, the laptops, students and was like, do you wanna take over now? And they said, Chris, you’re the manager of Copenhagen now!” This sort of speed of development is indicative of a wider trend, where over 15 refugee coding schools have sprung up over the last few years across Europe and North America. Dr Rasmus Jones, a recent optical communication PHD graduate whose named is fantastically representative of the international world he inhabits, has been teaching at HYF in his spare time for the last three years. With obvious passion he speaks about the future potential of programming to influence society, and — at least to my luddite ears — he has a knack for making the technologically complex sound simple. “Let’s try to explain, say, with a hammer and a nail. You have to put two beams together. I got shown a hammer by my dad at some point. Let’s say I’m 22 and have never seen a hammer or a nail. They put a hammer and a nail in front of me, but to me these are abstract things. If they teach programming in school, if my dad showed me how to write a little program when I was five, then when I’m 22 I have different tools. We are humans in an evolutionary process, we learn from experience and exposure.” In light of this, Rasmus explains that if he taught me coding for only a few hours, the random code I see on his computer screen would begin to make vague sense. It isn’t only that we fundamentally adapt to technology in such a manner but that educated migrant groups are suited to fulfilling such roles. “It’s a growing job market. Everyone needs an app and people need those people. On the other side they have a fairly good background because they had a similar education back home, but they don’t have this stamp from society”. Getting their qualifications recognised in host societies is difficult for migrants and, contrary to much of public opinion, many of them are highly educated. Present among those I spoke to at HYF were a former financial analyst, a computer science student from Pakistan and a father of two who’d come over to study in Sweden after completing a Computer Network Engineering BA in Ghana. However, coding represents an opportunity for them to use their previous experience to learn a concrete skill, bypassing the need to gain recognition for past qualifications in a labour market that does not necessarily require a degree. According to both Rasmus and Chris, another important element of coding jobs is that they are less reliant on learning Danish. Chris points out that English — at least in Europe and the US — is very much the lingua franca of coding. Even in a Danish workplace where Danish is spoken most of the time, instructions related to code and the code itself will essentially be in English, and it is highly unlikely that many tech jobs today will purely be Danish-speaking. This stands in contrast to wider debates about English in Denmark, where places are cut on English language university courses and learning Danish is seen as of primary importance on the road to integration. Neither is Danish the easiest of languages to learn. An article in Babel Magazine cited pronunciation as the reason for Danish being the sixth hardest language in the world for an English speaker and both Chris and Rasmus couldn’t avoid dropping comments about the language. HYF is taught in English, so, as well as it allowing for a far larger group of teachers to draw from, it removes the difficulty of learning a new skill in a language one isn’t quite comfortable with.  Despite this, Chris by no means dismisses the overall importance of Danish when living in Denmark. A student of Danish himself, he talks of the need to show a desire to meet the local population, order in a restaurant and generally be able to communicate on a basic level. According to him, it is requiring Danish as a foundation for employment that should in fact be questioned. It is undoubtedly important to learn the language of the nation you adopt (or adopts you), but it is up for debate whether this needs to happen before finding gainful employment and thus avoiding the sense of anomie that often derives from lacking a place in the job market. The work HYF does seems especially prescient when you consider the context it operates within. Our increasingly

We may wonder, what is the issue with a period? Most certainly, either as a man or woman of 21st century coming from any developed country, our adolescent school times were quite similar- hormones burst all around, body and mind transform to adult one, boys turn masculine and girls get their first periods. We all went through some challenging times in relation to the family, friends or teachers, but most importantly, the puberty did not stop the majority of us from attending the school. Especially, girls, we have our cramps and swinging moods, but it was not an excuse to drop out of the school during these messy days. Basic menstrual products, such as tampons and pads are provided by our mothers, family or friends at the very beginnings. Then coming to school, where clean toilets and privacy are secured, so that everybody can take care of their business whenever is needed to. Such a banal thing. Sadly, not every girl and woman has access to the same support and resources.   Period… Unsaid. Unacknowledged. Unknown. Despite the fact that 800 million girls and women worldwide menstruate every day, yet menstruation remains obscured in silence and taboos. This lack of information perpetuates the stigma that´s harming women´s health and education. A recent International Women´s Health Coalition and Clue app survey of 90.000 women from 190 countries found that in some countries, close to half of the respondents felt they did not have sufficient education or information about starting their period. Survey highlights the countries with the highest percentage of respondents who felt they have received adequate education on starting their period: Finland (94%), Denmark (93%), and Japan (92%). In the contrary, countries where participants felt insufficiently informed in this respect: India (61%), Ukraine (41%), Russia (25%).   The survey further revealed, that there are commonly-used slang terms, such as “Aunt Flo”, “Bloody Mary” or “Lady time”. We have over 5,000 euphemisms for the word “period”, but we still can´t talk about it openly? Menstruation continues to prevent girls and women´s participation in school, work and social events. According to this survey, almost a quarter of women participants also said, that they have missed “school, work or a social activity” because they were menstruating. This is in accordance with trends highlighting, that period is a significant barrier to girls education globally. A period should not be an obstacle to education and participation! Why so many girls are missing the school during their period Several studies have described how something as simple as a lack of access to safe, private and clean bathrooms detracts from schoolgirls´ enjoyment and quality of learning. Lack of bathrooms with clean water and soap further exacerbates the discomfort and makes it difficult to stay hygienic and retain a sense of dignity. “I end up using rags,” said Nyanjuma Galoth. Source: UNFPA South Sudan/ Juma Delu “My periods are a nightmare” 20 years old Nyanjuma Galoth told to UNFPA at a civilian protection camp in South Sudan. She said, it is a source of stress “The days I am lucky, I get a few sanitary pads from my friends, while other days, I end up using rags to absorb the blood flow.” She said “ it is like a terrible sickness”, and she is not alone. Too many girls skip school because of a lack of sanitary products. Often, the cost of sanitary products is simply too high, forcing them to stay home to tend their bleeding. The Guardian has reported, in some countries, like Malawi, sanitary pads can even cost the equivalent of an entire day´s salary. In Kenya for example, two-thirds of girls and women can´t afford sanitary pads. In Somaliland, girls and women generally use cloth without underwear to absorb their menstruation. A number of women and girls are unable to afford sanitary pads. They are forced to use pieces of clothes or cotton wool which results in infection and skin irritation. Photograph: Emma Nzioka Conversations for better access to feminine hygiene products have been growing around the world. Even in the United States, when former President Obama expressed that the so-called “tampon tax” (The term “tampon tax” can be mistaken, as it is not specifically targeted at tampons and other feminine hygiene products, but it is simply a part of the sale tax base) does not make sense. He said, “I suspect it´s because men were making the laws when those taxes were passed”. Obama was right. Access to sanitary products should be a basic right, provided for free or at low cost. Countries and states have started steps to repeal the tax. For example, in 2016, public schools in New York introduced free tampons and pads in all secondary schools. Several  African countries like Botswana, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, are also using free sanitary products as a way to keep girls in schools. Between 2016 and 2018, New York, Nevada, Florida, Illinois and Connecticut eliminated the tax, and many other state introduced to do so. Around the globe, Canada, Malaysia, India and Australia have nixed the tax and Britain is on way to do so once Brexit is settled. Across Europe, the German government plans to reduce the tax on pads and tampons from 19% to 7% in 2020. Hygiene products in other countries are taxed at a lower rate or have even been abolished altogether. This was a move the European parliament encouraged its member states to do so. The fight for accessible menstrual products has started, but it will not be completed until every girl and woman will have the same access to tampons and pads, which are crucial in order to live the healthiest and dignified life. Apart from the cost of menstrual products worldwide, stigma plays a major role in preventing girls from attending school. Period stigma usually comes from entrenched superstitions and narratives that describe women who menstruate as unclean, or impure. The period phenomenon dates back for centuries and is common among numerous different cultures, religions and

  The Danish Institute for International Studies recently hosted an event that focused on the children of foreign fighters who fought for the Islamic State (IS). At stake is the future of at least 7,000 children under 12. This means that some of these children were brought to IS and some were born there. There are at least 30 Danish children in camps. Many states have citizens who traveled to support IS and may of those states are seeking ways to revoke the citizenship of their nationals, prevent their return, and deny citizenship to their children. What is going on here? Do we not live in societies where we believe in rehabilitation or, if a crime is heinous enough, life sentences? The dialogue around this topic centers on the violence these children have been exposed to and the beliefs of their parents. Analysts and politicians worry that allowing the return of these children and their parents pose a security risk. “… they do not belong in Denmark” say political leaders. To these children, I would like to say, welcome home. To those who question their humanity I say, who are you? The children currently live in camps where they have little to no access to education, organized activities, or a sense of a future. Those who previously lived abroad are having their earliest memories overwritten by a sense that the world does not want them. Those which were born into the Islamic State are given no frame of reference to judge against. For both, the lessons of the Islamic State, that they exist to fight against a world that does not want them, are proved true on a daily basis. It does not have to be this way. DIIS researcher Maja Touzari Greenwood has interviewed Danish foreign fighters who traveled to Syria to fight and have now returned. Among her subjects, she identified a need for a meaningful life that drew them to IS. They thought that through their involvement with IS they could achieve “moral transformation and absolution”. The children currently being left to waste away in camps such as Al-Hawl and al-Roj are being left in situations far worse than those Danish environments that produced individuals who viewed their surroundings as so bereft of value or future that they left to join IS. Thus far, Germany and Belgium have taken the lead in this matter and have repatriated a few orphaned children. Denmark has repatriated one 13-year-old who was shot in the leg after their mother granted consent but is attempting to prevent the return of adults. And, despite the recent change in government, there does not seem to be an effort to renegotiate this year’s earlier deal If the world does not want another Islamic State or Boko Haram it should not keep children in these disastrous conditions as possible recruits are literally toddlers and school-age children who are only just beginning to develop a moral compass. As the Danish Social Democrats say, “we need to help more”.

The 294-page document published by the United Kingdom’s government on March 7th 2019 is not the most exciting thing that you will ever read, for the most part it consists of an endless stream of clarifications, annotations, and updates to already existing definitions in UK immigration processes. However, it does introduce one curious term – the ‘start-up migrant’. The start-up migrant replaces the ‘graduate entrepreneur migrant’, someone who comes to the UK on a Tier 1 visa who has been “officially endorsed as having a genuine and credible business idea” and is from outside of the European Economic Area and Switzerland. This visa costs £363 (3164 DKK), with an additional £363 for every dependent that the visa holder wishes to bring with them. This visa does not allow someone to access public funds, or to settle in the UK. Now that we’ve waded through the appreciably dull definition – why does the ‘start-up migrant’ matter? In public discourse about immigration we are usually presented with certain stereotypes about what makes an immigrant ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Bad immigrants are typically people who come to a country to ‘steak jobs’ or to ‘live off of welfare’, they are ‘criminals’ and ‘scroungers. By contrast, good immigrants are investors and bring with them wealth and skills. Effectively these descriptions are placeholders for ideas of class and cultural values, by framing the debate like this we typically exclude people who might be from a lower income background and we glorify people who have had the good fortune to be more socioeconomically privileged. The ‘start-up migrant’ is just another indication of how the British government wishes to differentiate between who is welcome and who is not. The very word ‘start-up’ conjures images of industrious technology companies, it recalls the image of the ideal neo-liberal saviour – a well-dressed and well-educated person with deep pockets who has come to ‘innovate’ and ‘improve’ society. Equally, the obsession with start-ups and worshipping those who are involved in them is just further indicative of an outmoded pattern of thinking about economics which sees perpetual growth, rather than sustainability, as the answer to all problems. Whenever we move countries we are migrants who are starting up something new, and not all of us are able to leap into founding a new business. Mostly, we work from humble beginnings and just take what work we can. We work in bars, kitchens, or coffee shops. Why is that kind of hard-work not so equally valued? Working in the service industry, or in any line of work which does not involve directing a company, does not make you less valuable as a person. The fact that we see fit to distinguish between ‘start-up migrants’ and other migrant workers speaks volumes about how class prejudice intersects with immigration rights. By Simon Fern

When I say Florida, what do you picture? Florida tends to conjure up breezy images of sea shell-laden sandy beaches, with palm trees asway as the sun beams gracefully down on strikingly blue water. Perhaps the mentioning of Florida is suggestive of big cities and their respective landmarks, such as Miami with its Hispanic vibrancy or Orlando with the presence of Disney World. I would like to re-introduce Florida to anyone whose default is one of the above. It is not that those notions are false representations, but Florida is simply more. I would like to express the diversity of Floridians and the Floridian landscape, for better or worse. I’d like to hijack the narrative stating that Florida is the perfect Sunshine State, a paragon for retirement communities, Spring-breakers, and sunburnt Scandinavians wearing floral prints. Florida is so much more than these tropes. Florida is vast. It is truly immense, geographically speaking. Florida is filled with an insane (read: deadly) ecosystem. Florida is diverse in ideologies. The state is essentially fractured and divided into differing cultural regions. You could even say that the state’s inhabitants are dramatically polarized. You can see from the map below that the blue regions voted for Hillary Clinton and the red regions voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. This is similarly representative of greater cultural trends found across the state as well. The larger cities and the coastal areas are expressive of a ‘Northern mentality’ and the rural and central areas tend to represent a ‘Southern-like’ culture. Photo from New York Times Election Coverage In essence, North Florida is culturally aligned with the American deep south and South Florida is culturally aligned with that of New England, the Northeast US. North is South and South is North. This might sound confusing, and it is. Florida is confusing. It is chaotic and divergent to a fault. In West Palm Beach there might be a rally for women’s reproductive rights or a demonstration to end gun violence. At the same time, when driving north heading towards Orlando, you’ll see billboards advertising ‘gator jerky, pro-life messages, and the most loathsome, in my opinion, Machine Gun America – which depicts a smiling little girl in a pink tank-top holding up a big black machine gun. The idea that you can take the action of shooting a gun and turn it into a giant spectacle, a glorified family-friendly experience, a way to capitalize on someone’s twisted idea of fun – this, while grim, is so utterly Florida. While these diametrically opposed political and cultural views are not necessarily novel to Florida alone, Florida does offer the unique experience of a deadly tropical environment! Yes, you read that correctly. Growing up in South Florida, it isn’t uncommon to stumble upon an alligator sun-bathing in your backyard. Or a potentially poisonous snake. You actually grow up learning how to deal with these kinds of creatures. I remember learning in elementary school that if you are ever being chased by an alligator, you need to run away in a zig-zag motion, which confuses the animal as its eyes are placed on opposite sides of its head. This way, it won’t know which direction to run in and will become confused. There’s also the well-known phrase for when you see a coral snake, which has red, yellow and black stripes: Red touches black, friend of Jack. Red touches yellow, Jack’s a dead fellow. Catchy rhymes about deadly snakes and gun-glorifying spectacles aside, Florida is my home. It’s many people’s homes. I think this is important to remember when we, as global citizens, cross borders throughout our lives. Where are we going and why? What negative, positive, or neutral impact will I have on the local communities? What can I learn or understand from the nuances of local communities where I’m headed? The key notion here, in my opinion, is not to second-guess our every action but to make choices with informed intention. In doing so, we can open our eyes to more than common tropes. We can go beyond the preconceived notions of a place and begin to dig into what it is about spaces and places that make them special to the communities that inhabit them. By Maya Schwartz

Social inequality is an issue that has been ever present throughout the history of mankind. From the early ages of humanity, the law of the jungle has ruled over civilizations in different types and forms. As far back as the Stone Age, social inequality was observed through the strongest hunter ruling the group and getting privileges accordingly. Fast forward to the Feudal system whereby the selected few owned the means of production and lived in luxury, leaving the rest of their society impoverished and in anguish. Even in the 21st century, social inequality seems to be deep-rooted into our existence.   The richest 10% own approximately 40% of the wealth, income inequality is on the rise in developing countries, and The World Economic Forum claims closing the gender gap in terms of salary and employment would take 217 years. For every dollar in tax revenue, it is estimated that only 4 cents is paid by the wealthy, while in some countries the poorest 10% pay more taxes than the wealthiest 10%. 262 million children do not have access to education, and 10,000 people die every day as a result of inaccessible healthcare. These are just a few examples of how social inequality affects us today, and specifically the most vulnerable. Despite the fact that these issues are often politicized for personal gains, they are far more than a left-right feud by any means; every person is entitled to basic human rights without having to pay in order to access them. It is easy to say healthcare is a privilege when you have healthcare, easy to say that education is a privilege when you can afford one, and easy to say that gender inequality is not an important issue when you have not seen how it is curbing rights or are suffering because of it. We are only as good as our actions, and if we remain inactive, future generations will look back at us in discontent just as we look down on racist people who fought against the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. Future generations will look back at us as we look down on those that have degraded, dehumanized, and preformed genocide on innocent people. If we do not act, we will merely become yet another dark memory in the history of humankind. There are several positives to reducing inequalities; to those suffering from its effects, to those affected by it consequences, and even to those causing them. In my next 3 blog posts, I will be discussing three main aspects to reducing inequality; how it will bring stability to the world, how it will promote a fair and merit-based world, and how it is directly linked to achieving all the other SDGs. About the author: Jad Bou Saleh is an International Affairs and Diplomacy student at Notre Dame University-Louaize. He is currently working as Research Officer for Crossing Borders Lebanon and is a facilitator for the school services programs.