The Sahara in his Heart

His brown olive skin stands out from the sea of Spanish people out on the streets of Bilbao. They carry hand-made signs and trade union banners and their chant comes out as endless waves of “Democracia real ya!” (Real democracy now!)

He chants along, marches forward, and blends in among the crowd of granny pensioners, hardline anarchists, trade unionists, and LGBT activists. I ask him why he’s here and he smiles as he answers, “Where there is injustice, I fight for justice. Who more should understand its value than me who had my share of inequities the moment I was born.”

He, Sidi Hamoudi, is a Sahrawi: “We were simple nomadic people who used to live out of caravan trade and cattle herding. Now we are refugees, without the possibility of returning to the land where our forefathers lived.”

Home for him is the western part of the Sahara desert which has since 1975 been militarily occupied by the Kingdom of Morocco after a failed decolonization from the Spanish State. This left behind a political vacuum that made the claim and occupation of Morocco a swift and devastating move for the Sahrawis.

France and the United States have supported Morocco throughout the conflict politically and economically. The occupiers claim that Western Sahara has been an integral part of their Kingdom before the Spanish occupation in the late 19^th century and has currently left the vast stretch of their homeland in the hands of the Moroccan military. It is, according to the United Nations, one of the last remaining major non-self-governing territories.

Born in a middle of a 16-year war, life in the camp was full of difficulties: “I was living with my grandmother in the refugee camp in Tindouf in the border of Algeria. And one of my earliest memories is of a mother crying but at the same time ululating. I asked my grandmother why she did that and she told me that she had just lost two of her sons in the war but she wanted to show she was proud of their bravery.”

He first came to visit Spain when he was 11 years old through the summer program “Vacations of Peace.” It is a Spanish program which receives Sahrawi children living in the refugee camps during the excrutiatingly hot Saharan summer months and during which they are provided much needed medical care and check-ups. He lived during those periods with a Spanish family and he admits that the process of adapting to European society was almost a daily process of culture shock.

“Everything was so different for me then. We only had camels in Western Sahara for transport, so seeing the city and seeing thousands of cars on the street was exciting but scary at the same time.”

“I also had to learn the differences in our societies. During my first days, when I felt hungry and my foster family wasn’t at home, I would knock on their neighbor’s door to ask for bread. My family would later apologize to their neighbor for my behavior. At that time, I couldn’t understand how it was bad since I could do exactly the same at home because neighbors are like family to us.”

Now at 26 years old, he came back to Spain to begin a master’s degree. He studies international cooperation in the public university and he plans to put his education into good use.

“Coming here gave me a wider perspective of the world. And of course, with the media as global as now, we can no longer stop caring about what happens in Egypt, Syria, or in Europe.”

He currently volunteers in the local NGO, Paz con Dignidad (Peace with Dignity), and heads the translation unit of development projects in the Arab countries. He has also become a constant participant in the nationwide rallies of the Spanish 15-M Movement for participative democracy and firm regulations in the banking and financial sector.

Meanwhile, his homeland of Western Sahara is still occupied by Moroccan forces and there is till political deadlock in the UN General Assembly on what is to be done. There has been a wide UN support in giving the Sahrawi people the right for a referendum on the question of independence or autonomy under the Moroccan Kingdom. However, this has been continually blocked by the US and France.

When asked what he sees in his future, what he says is even more poignant: “I just hope to one day live in the land where my ancestors used to roam, a place I still haven’t been in or even seen. I’d just like to have a family and have a peaceful life in the desert.”

Shopping Our Way to Revolution

This fad of shopping in fare trade stores that seem to have grown popular in the developed world seems to me a bit odd and interesting. These are stores that seek to create an alternative commerce that ensures equal renumeration and labor rights to those involves in the production in the developing country where the products usually come from. So a shopper can buy a bar of chocolate that comes from the Ivory Coast knowing that the producer of the chocolate got paid justly. Thus, she/he contributes in supporting fair global trade and everyone is happy.


This fair trade fad however could be one potent example of how capitalist culture can create products that seek to alleviate First World guilt by giving people the "freedom" to consume goods that supposedly embody justice and fairness. It is an interesting paradox that participating in the ritual of consumerism  makes people believe that they are changing the world when the ritual itself is the very act that allows the neoliberal capitalist system to function. This is the same system that has brought about a growing disparity of wealth between the developed and developing countries.


In the developed nations, political action has been converted into a product that can be bought for 1.99 euros a pop. It is an example of how neoliberal capitalist ideology can water down people's capacity to seek social  changes by making them think that buying a trinket from Nepal is a real contribution in creating a just world. Why go out and confront one's government's unfair free trade policies with developing nations when you can do just that by the most revolutionary act of shopping?

The Anti-Love Story: 500 Days of Summer

If you hate chic flicks, then you most certainly will love this. What we hate about American romance movies are their blatant predictability and over-flowing quantity of mush and gush. We sometimes wince with pain instead of insight when we find the lovers set their eyes on one another with this glazed look of sudden love. "Here she is the most perfect woman in the world for me," he thinks awestruck. He will pursue her but with some great of obstacles. His tenacity and the strength of his love will eventually triumph and she will begin to love him too. A great conflict will occur but they will in the end get back together happily proving the immortality of their bond. The End.

The plot of what seems to be just another American chick flick is completely different. It warns viewers in the beginning of the film by a short concise statement: "This is not a love story." That might not be true because, yes it is about love, but it is not of love triumphed but of love lost.

Tom Hansen is this young romantic idealist who falls for his co-worker, the realist non-romantic Summer Fin. They develop a connection that defies their contradictory ideas of love and relationship. They have pure moments of happiness in the length of their time together but as we will know, thing will eventually not fall into place.

What this film provides that others haven't is the perspective of the one that wasn't "the One." He is the guy that usually gets left behind in other romance flicks, often portrayed as the douchebag ex-boyfriend that the viewers could never relate to. Here he is this fun-loving great guy who falls in love with the equally wonderful girl who would never love him back. The poignant tragedy of this story is that this is what most often happens in reality where people are not segregated as the lovable and the unlovable. What makes love confusing is its innate unpredictability and the shocking sorrow of love unreciprocated.

Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love

There are no memorable quotes from Wong Kar Wai's film, In the Mood for Love, and it is just as well. Emotions are felt through a slight love-lorn gaze or one's head leaning on the other's shoulder. It's the small moments of human interaction between the two characters that show the depth of their confusion, strength and love.

Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung play the pair abandoned by their spouses when the latters decides to elope to Japan. Being neighbors, they cope with the sudden betrayal by an unexpected companionship that develops between them. They are plagued by the sad curiousity of how the liason of their former lovers began and in some instances they try to play out the scene of what could have happened between the two. This friendship created by shared sorrow develops into a profound choice between becoming what they feared being and breaking the growing bond.

The film is a masterpiece of capturing complex human emotions and transforming them into meaningful visual play. The characters are beautiful in their own way of being and their endearing eccentricities. Most delightful is the movie soundtrack that features the hauntingly sad but beautiful, Yumeji's Theme. All in all, Wong Kar Wai and his penchant for human sadness is utterly transfixing in this film. This perhaps might be the single proof that he is one of the best Asian directors there is.

Here is the link to Yumeji's Theme:

Migration and Other Stories

"Dogs carrying passport! I've been here for 10 years and I still don't have one." He puts it succintly. He is an African migrant living in Germany who hosts the show "Surprising Europe" in Aljazeera English. The show is the first of its kind which provides their viewers an insight into the lives of African migrants who chose to cross the borders and into the idealized Europe. It neither romantizes their experience or peddle it as a warning to would-be migrants. Rather, it shows small snapshots of the highs and lows of migration to an African audience.

Living half a year in Spain, I have come to know first hand the difficulties of racial and cultural difference. No matter how they insist that equality and democracy are staunchly safeguarded in Europe, in reality there still are social and economic limitations caused by the color of your skin and the foreignness of your accent.

Structures are in place that restrain migrants' incorporation into the job market. Legal barriers are as concrete as documents and work permits without which getting a job is harder to find. This would also lead illegals into working in the black market where there are no regulations on labor rights making them susceptible to exploitation.

Furthermore, a Third World migrant's education is considered less valuable or otherwise invalid in Europe. Work experience done in the migrant's country is also hardly considered. It seems as if the individual has not lived up until the moment he/she planted his/her feet in Europe. Most of them start from scratch constantly trying to prove that they are more than the zero value placed on them by the foreign job markets.

Language is a concrete social barrier. Migrants often come without knowing the language and they struggle with trying to find a job and at the same time learning to communicate with the people around them. Some are forced into virtual social isolation at the beginning of their arrival and experience the sink or swim method of learning the new language. This is in which without any prior knowledge of the language, the migrant has to cope up quickly and learn through the new surroundings and situation.

Employers are also wary about hiring them for fear of perceived cultural differences. A boss had once commented on how Latin Americans he once hired were "flojos" and thus his hesitance to employ these migrant group. It is a prejudice which often lies unchecked in the society where claiming one's rights are secondary to finding food and shelter.

The growing anti-migrant movement in the UK and other Eastern European countries, the anti-migrant policies in France makes the problem of an individual migrant even more complex. Migrants are often considered the easy scapegoat for the economic and social malaise of a country. Their choice to maintain their traditions and culture is mistakenly perceived as going actively against cultural integration. Their integration into the job market is what some believe is the cause of lower national salaries and high unemployment rate.

What the European countries often forget is the worsening decline of the population growth. For a state to keep on handing out pensions to an aging population and financing public health services, there is a need for working adults to pay the tax. There is thus a need to supplement this lack of young working adults with skilled migrants. In this globalized society there no way to stop the inflow and outflow of people.  There is however a huge challenge of regulating migration that would both benefit both the source and the receiving countries.

Migration continues to occur because of the high salary gap of the source and receiving countries. The higher the gap, the higher is the incentive for migrants to do whatever it takes to get there. People die from dangerous land and sea crossings but for these impoverished group, there is no other choice but to take the risk. The earnings the migrant will eventually receive goes towards providing for his/her family and improving their living conditions.

Perhaps instead of building borders and electric fences, the best way to stem migration is to actively support the economic and social development of the source countries. A citizen from a Third World country sacrifices a lot to leave his/her birth place. It is a violent uprooting of a person from his/her own culture, society, language, and personal relationships. For some of these people, being able to live in the same community they belong to and being able to watch their own kids grow is a privilege they cannot afford. Most migrants would stay if  they have jobs that would support their family.

The challenge is creating policies that seek to create a more economically and politically equal world where migration is no longer a do-or-die decision. Hopefully, it does come to a point that migration is not to be perceived as a socio-cultural problem but becomes instead one of the means for ending cultural and racial divisions.

The Birthday

Arriving at age 24, I recognize that I have exhausted a third of my life, that is if I would be lucky and healthy enough to live til 72. Though having lived for half a decade in the hellhole of Manila might contribute to me dying earlier. In any case, its birthdays in the 20s when we begin to do a retrospect of the life that was lived and the course of whats to come. In most cases we worry about how little we have done in the past two decades of our lives and the constant preoccupation that we might not live up to the plans we have for ourselves. In this paranoia we forget to appreciate the gracious gifts we already have.

My birthday is no longer a celebration of my existence. Yes, I've become too old for that. There will be no cake with my name on it to point out that I've lived another year. No candles to blow out to wish for an iPod or a brand new laptop. Rather it is a celebration of the wonders of living with the love from the people I consider my family, my friends, my teachers, and my fellowmen. It is special enough to have been born and to have shared this world with millions of other people. Its a wonder enough to find kindness from complete strangers.

A Spot of Happiness

The past few week could have been the busiest I've been since I've been working in my company. I've started Education courses this month and my professors, despite it being a distance course, have successfully hounded my mental being with questions to be answered and papers to be made. I can't complain. Life has been quite exceptional. Maybe its because of the loss of idle time. It could be that I feel truly productive. Or maybe its the meditation I've been regularly practicing. Whatever the root cause may be, I'm grateful for this little spot of happiness.