Presumption principle

I dozed off in front of the TV. I've not done that in a long time, but I was this tired today.

Got up at a little over seven, got dressed, had breakfast and got on my bike. Again, another early start to the day, and I almost forgot how busy it can be on the roads together with all these other (slower) cyclists. Rush, rush, rush... 5km to the station, and less than 15minutes to get there before the train leaves. On time, on board, forehead damp with sweat.

It turned out I was early when I walked in the classroom at 9am sharp. I guess I wasn't paying attention when they said that students here have a so-called 'Leidse kwartier' (Leiden quarter), ie. the first quarter of an hour of each hour people can trickle in and still be considered on time.

Class was fun, and my lecturer (also coordinator) of the course is a very good speaker, thankfully, and not one of those whose voice can bore you to sleep. He's young, French Belgian, with a peculiar way of pronouncing words and seems to have a peculiar way with words that even native English speakers would find amusing. Not so much the grammatical mistakes, but more the way he pronounces words and the his insistence on using strange sentence constructions and 'big' words like "I surmise...", "triffling details", "riddled with pregnancies", "time is gliding fast". But on the whole he's friendly, approachable, knows his stuff but is in no way pompous, and makes the teaching/learning environment actually fun and relaxed. That's good, because we'll be seeing a lot of him. Just today we had four hours of lecture and seminars with him. And that was just day one.

Well, turns out all that reading and preparation I did was a little too much. I thought we were actually going to be discussing the articles and debating, but even in the seminars the lecturer was asking such general questions that you could answer even without doing the 200+pages of reading for the week. Or at least that was the case today. Obviously a lot of people just hadn't read a thing. I knew the answers to many of the questions, but after a couple of times of answering I thought it might be better to 'hold myself back'... frankly it's just not 'cool' to be a know-it-all, especially on the first day. To top off the 'heavy' day we had today, we received our first assignment, due in less than three weeks, already!

We had a small coffee break and I went to stand in the que for hot chocolate (my favourite!) There was a good-looking guy in front of me, and he was waiting for his coffee to be dispensed. He turned to look at me, and gave me a really big smile. I smiled back and felt a little embarrased, mostly by the very direct and intense way he was looking at me. It was like he wanted to say something to me, but not sure how. Class started soon enough, but throughout the lecture, while listening as attentively as I could to the lecturer, I unexpectedly found myself stealing silent shy glances in the guy's direction, just a metre or so away. Was he...? Could he be...? Why would he want to...?

After class the same guy came up to me as I was talking to some other people, smiling that big smile again. I bit my lip on the inside and swallowed my shy self, and reached out, introducing myself. We chatted briefly, and there were some other people around us, but he seemed to be looking at me...a lot. Then out of nowhere he suggested that perhaps we should meet sometime to discuss the assignment together. I agreed. We just covered the 'presumption principle' in our readings--the idea which roughly says that unless something is expressly said to be A, nothing bars it being intepreted as B-- I presumed that 'working together' is what he wanted...

We had a two hour break before the seminar in the afternoon. I went to lunch with the cute Finnish guy, and we had quite a good time together, chatting and getting to know each other better. We decided to go study a bit in the park, but the weather was so nice and we couldn't keep on reading without our concentration being interrupted every few minutes by mocking the language of international law or little laughs about this or another sillyness. At one point he was laughing so much he actually cried... A strange sight, to see him cry, and strange feelings went through my mind. His eyes, radiant with such a beautiful tone of greyish green-blue lustre, went moist. Tears clung onto the soft skin just beneath his lashes. I wanted to lift my finger and brush away the moisture... *shudder*

A bunch of us 'celebrated' our first class together by going to a cafe and drinking in the late Summer's sun. We agreed to go on an outing tomorrow to Amsterdam, since some of the people in class are completely new in the country. Just as we were discussing what we could do and see, my friend nonchalantly said: "Oh, there are plenty of museums, Van Gogh, Anne Frank House, and then there's the Homo-monument."
[Homo-monument is the world's first monument dedicated to homosexuals persecuted during WWII, a general tribute to the homo-lesbian-bisexual struggle]

A surprise really, and I looked at him silently. He had the expression on his face as if that was the most normal thing to say. As we walked toward the station together he dropped this little remark, actually lyrics from a love song I can't remember the exact wording or name of. But it was along the lines of: I'll go where you go, and be with you...

I don't know... but don't you have this feeling that when you fancy someone, it seems like everything you see or hear is screened through a filter that adds that infatuation? I did today, and it seems everytime I'm with that guy. Like I'd look at the fine hairs on the back of neck, notice an eyelash dangle loosely on his cheek, see the way his fair caresses his forehead and wraps around his ears, peek into the opening of his shirt and see the small hairs on his chest... everything seemed so beautiful, so perfect. And even small comments and remarks would make me 'jump' inside. I try to blink it all away, to shake away those thoughts, knowing fully that if it goes on like this it'll do more harm than good. It's just too much! And it's hard.

Oh well, tomorrow should prove interesting. Sightseeing in Amsterdam can be a little wild and crazy...besides the cliche canals, tulips, wooden shoe souvenir shops, we'll undoubteldy be treading into the Red Light District and the famous Dutch 'coffeeshops'... Shops that don't really sell coffee but another kind of 'mind-stimulating substances'. If you know what I mean...

First lesson...

This is it. Tommorrow 9.00am first lesson of Public International Law (PIL).

The last time I had a lesson was over two years ago. Tuesday we had an introductory session, where I saw some of the teaching staff and classmates. A very international group, many of whom are 'internationalists' like me, lived here and there, or were born to parents from different countries.

Just spent the last two days reading the 200+pages of reading for this week's lecture and seminar, which happen to be all tomorrow, one after the other. Friday's are going to be tough, with more than half of my 8 hrs of class per week all crammed on the same day.

Feeling a little nervous again. I mean I've done the reading and even dug out my old notes from the course in PIL I did before...but I still feel like I'm unprepared for the class. I have this strange weakness when it comes to reading. I can read something, like an article or text, but if you ask me five minutes later what I just read I can't coherently put my thoughts together. It's as if I read and instantly forget, and it's very frustrating. Makes me feel like I'm not all that bright. So despite having spent hours and hours reading text books, academic articles, treaties and UN resolutions, it feels like my mind is an empty blank piece of paper.

What a great way to start.

Provocative

“If I were gay I would go to the mosque everyday: I have never seen so many men's butts bent over backwards in a row.”

---

Grijs, ‘Vliegen’ [Flying], p94, 2 September 2006, Vrij Nederland

Lady in the train...

It was only when I looked up again that I realised she was crying.

Before I sat down diagonally opposite her I nonchalantly gave her a smile, the kind of smile you give to strangers on the train who you happen to be sitting with. I dug into my sandwich, and the magazine I had with me.

A few moments later I looked her, and from the bottom lid of her eye a big bead of teardrop fell and dampened her white blouse. It was then I realised she was crying. I felt 'guilty' for not having noticed it before. But I didn't want to stare, so looked down again, fumbling nervously with my cheese, ham and buns. At first, like the self-conscious and self-critical me I am, I thought that perhaps it was something about me that smelt bad. From her her swollen and reddened eyes, I realised then why it was that the lady had her hand across her nose.

Though for the ten minutes or so until my stop I felt uneasy sitting there, so close to a middle aged lady who was obviously very hurt. Tear drops didn't stp falling, and she stared with dead eyes out of the window as the morning sun shone inward. Cows, fields, forests and canals flashed by, but their beauty did nothing to soothe her pain. I glanced up at her, pretending to be uninterested and blind to her tears, but deep done I was concerned, concerned a fellow human being was suffering in silence.

I wanted to say something to her, to ask her if she was alright. I wanted to tell her that whatever it was that was hurting her, that was making her cry will pass. I wanted to tell her that sadness, like happiness, and all other feelings and things in life, will come and go, come and go.

But I didn't dare, and my shyness got the better of me. I kept my thoughts to myself, my concern for a fellow human being in need hid within me, because I was scared that maybe she'd react with hostility toward me butting into her life. Was I uncaring and less of a person because of that? Or has society reached a stage in which seeing a stranger cry is better dealt with by pretending not to see? The passenger sitting right next to the lady slept. Or perhaps pretended to sleep.

A few moments before the train arrived at the station, she gathered her bags and wiped her tears one last time. She excused herself as she stood up and brushed against me slightly and made her way to the door. I soon got off the train too. Amid the crowd of travellers I found her again, walking out of the station, with a heavy bag of documents in hand. I only saw the back of her head, but I imagined that her eyes were still swollen, that her eyes were still red.

And soon she vanished in the crowd. But my thoughts stayed with her, as I too was lost in the crowd.

Volkert van der G. & Mohammed B.

What would happen when you put an Islamic extremist and an fanatic animal rights activist in the same prison cell? The theatre play ‘Volkert van der G. & Mohammed B.’ tries to construct a most unlikely encounter between the two people who committed perhaps the most ground-breaking (political) murders in recent Dutch history.

The 90 minutes dialogue between the murderers of Pim Fortuyn (by Volkert in 2002) and Theo van Gogh (by Mohammed 2004) does not reveal much that people do not already know about the murders. Instead, they reveal the people behind the murders. Volkert shot Pim Fortuyn in the back months before parliamentary elections which could very well have thrust the popular politician into the position of Prime Minister. Fortuyn was a right-wing politician, who was openly homosexual and openly against immigration and what he termed the ‘Islamisation of the Netherlands’. He wanted to abolish Article 1 of the Constitution—the foundation of non-discrimination and equality of all citizens in this country, arguing that certain unequal people should not be treated equally. Theo van Gogh was shot numerous times in the chest and had his neck slashed by a butcher knife in broad-daylight by Mohammed. Van Gogh was a renowned filmmaker and columnist, known for his provocative opinions, some harshly critical of Muslims. Shortly before his death, he collaborated with self-proclaimed messiah Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the film Submission, which dealt with skewed interpretations of the Qur’an and abuse of women.

The stage was simple, two old wooden stools and desks, and a worn-out mattress for the two to share. And share the two characters did, pouring out their emotions, motivations and experiences which together help to shape them as self-professed ‘soldiers’ in their individual struggles against what they see as what is terribly wrong with the world today. Not once is the flamboyant politician who or the scruffy filmmaker whose mouth never seems to be without a cigarette mentioned by name. Instead, Volkert refers to his victim as ‘the bald man’ (de kale man), and Mohammed refers to his as ‘the fat man’ (de dikke man). For these are the characteristics of the two national ‘heroes’ which are imprinted in ordinary people’s minds.

While Volkert laments the horrendous tests and experiments that millions of animals have to undergo for the sake of our consumerist society, and rants about the destruction nature to provide for our material wellbeing, Mohammed preaches the decadence of the western society we (and he) live in, warning death and revenge against all who do not believe and who live in a state of godless materialism. Both are driven by obsession, but Mohammed seems convinced of his role as the faceless soldier in Allah’s ‘holy war’, whereas Volkert seems to be more driven by bloodlust and his own insanity. Until this unlikely meeting of two murderers, they only know of each other from what they read in the newspapers. But the meeting brings them together, and brings the audience closer to understanding what it is that unites them.

And the meeting is also a therapeutic anti-climax for both Volkert and Mohammed. Being so alike but also different in many ways, they are able to critically comment on each other’s actions and motivations. Volkert accuses Mohammed, and all extremists, be it in the Islamic, fascist, Christian or Orthodox forms, as closeted homosexuals. What unite these extremists is their disdain of certain groups of people, an intense bias and hatred which feeds on their own sense of inferiority and shame and inability to express their nascent but frustrated sexual desires which they have time and again been told is simply sin. For the religious extremists, the oppression of women, as a gender with their weaknesses, feminimity and emotional baggage in general, is according to Volkert but another way to reject them because the thought of anything remotely intimate, like touch, or sexual, like intercourse, is repulsive to closeted homosexuals. That's why women must be chastised, ridiculed and punished as objects of desire, and be subdued and segregated from men.

Women are raped, and often from behind, so that the men with these extremist interpretations of their divine texts do not need to face their shame, and do not need to face the people they’d rather not have sex with. The unflattering remarks go on: monasteries are like ‘dark rooms’, church altars heaven for priests who rape young boys, the back chambres of mosques serve similar functions. Strict religious indoctrination and fanatism seem to be the cause of man’s frustrations, in the way certain natural acts like sex and desire are demonized as deadly sins, and thereby also the cause of man’s ills, in the way that unvented frustrations lead to dehumanising acts of abuse, oppression and suffering.

Provocative remarks and perspectives from a man on the brink of sanity, yes. But it does make you wonder how much truth there is in what he says. Especially the suggestion by Volkert that those who committed the acts of 9-11 were all closeted as well.

Mohammed in return confronts Volkert with his mental illness, saying Volkert has psychological problems because of a deficiency in Vitamin B-12. Volkert never received a life-sentence, but only 18 years, because it could not be argued before the court that he had political motivations, since he was first and foremost an animal rights activist. Mohammed calls Volkert a ‘coward’ for not being able look at his victim in the eye before giving Fortuyn his ‘sentence’. Volkert admitted to the murder, based on the fact that he was convinced Fortuyn was a growing threat to the stability and justice within society, especially for the underprivileged like immigrants and welfare recipients. Mohammed confronts Volkert with the fact that he does not realise that he is himself a soldier of god, and that they have more in common than Volkert would like to deny. Mohammed argues that only with love and compassion can they both be liberated from this world and delivered to utopia. Both are attracted to the notion of suicide, but Mohammed cannot do so unless it is justified in the name of a greater cause. Volkert’s own suicide attempt previously failed, and was rescued by doctors who stopped ‘blood pouring from the pulse’.

The play takes a dramatic turn in the end. Mohammed reveals he stuffed explosives up his rectum. Again Mohammed pleads the case of their salvation, and suggests there is only one way to salvation, a way out of this world that both he and Volkert have been wanting. Mohammed has the hole. Volkert holds the key. They must work together. Love, Mohammed says to Volkert, make love and they can be delivered. They both disappear to the side of the stage. Mohammed tells Volkert to embrace him. Mohammed’s last words was an ultimate cry to his saviour, to the Almighty, to the All-Seeing, the All-Knowing.

‘Oh God’, he cries out, in a voice full of satisfaction and lust.

A loud explosion and blinding lights.

Fin.

Click here for pictures of the performance.