SKAM! 

Every time I start thinking that I have understood everything about Scandinavian culture,  I bump into circumstances that let me think that I have not.
So, yesterday I had a weird encounter with Norwegian shame culture. Two different events, in one day, and one repeated word: skam.  I seek your help, dear friends, Norwegians and not, to let me untangle this complicated issue that lies in my head.

The first event took place at the NAV office in my neighbourhood, the Norwegian Office for Social Welfare. As I am temporarily unemployed, or job-seeker, as they say in Norway, I have been called by the local NAV office to attend a meeting with other  people living in my neighbourhood who are in my same situation. About 20 people, most of them in my age, most of them born and raised in Norway, or at least fluent in Norwegian. The meeting was meant to give some some tips on how to look for a job, go to an interview, besides how to administer the finances while being without a fixed salary. The hidden line was that the meeting was meant to help us overcome the 'shame' of being unemployed.
In the talk, the trainer would start his sentences as: Det er ikke skam - It is not a shame - to contact your credit card agency and tell them to delay your bills for a while. Det er ikke skam  to call the House Bank and seek support to pay your rent. Det er ikke skam to buy less latte macchiatos in one day. Etc. In order to overcome the shame, we were offered a gym subscription for a reduced price and a free psychological support.
I got goosebumps when I heard: "Have you written on Facebook that you are job-seeker? Raise your hand if you have done that”. No hands were raised. The Nav officer repeats: "To be a job seeker is not a skam. The challenge for today is to go home and write a facebook status asking your circles of friends, family and acquaintances to help you spread the word that you are looking for a job.”
Now, I fully understand the point of seeking help among your circles of friends and acquaintances. In Norway, as in any other part of the world, it is easier to find a job through personal recommendations.   If you know someone, and someone knows you are good at something, this someone might know somebody who might be interested in your skills. Fair enough.
What I strive to understand are the remarks about the shame. In a system in which we are obliged to pay 30% of our salary in taxes to support this perfect social welfare system, why should one be ashamed of taking advantage of welfare? Why should one be even forced to announce it publicly? And in the specific in my case, should I be the one who feels ashamed after I got the highest possible level of education, and still be offered temporary contracts? Isn’t the capitalist system we are obliged to serve that should feel ashamed? isn’t academia - on a global level- in my specific case, the one who should feel ashamed for seeking the most absurd ways to keep us on temporary contracts in order not give us a fixed term job?

These were questions that were lying in my head, when the second event took place.
I have been looking for a nutritionist for over two weeks now. I haven’t spent the entire winter in Norway for several years, and I had forgot how enduring it is for my body. Because of the cold and dark, I feel tired, I have a constant headache, and my metabolism is very slow. I wonder whether the Mediterranean diet, with which I have been raised, is even apt at this cold climate.
Since I was child, I have been told that good nutrition is key to good mental and physical health.
So, I though I it would be useful to get the help of a nutritionist to help me find a diet that could give me more energy and concentration, and speed up my metabolism.
However, it is not as easy as I thought. After contacting many people, including my GP and the University Health Unit, it seems there are two solutions: one is to go to a private clinic, but this would cost lot of money, apparently so much that I was not even told the amount. The other is to get support through the public health system, but this is even harder. The University Health Unit offers a group therapy, but to access it, your GP needs to show that you have a heart disease or diabetes, or that you are severely obese. My GP, of course, has not approved my request to get the public support. The only alternative is to seek the advice of a Personal Trainer in the gym, that of course, is not trained in medical sciences.
So, yesterday, after all these phone calls, I was feeling so frustrated and depressed that I called again the nutritionist  who offers the group therapy at the University and asked: "Please, tell me, why is it being so difficult? In my country it is so easy to visit a nutritionist. Yes, it is expensive, but yet affordable. Why here it is not?" And the  answer was: "because here it is skam". The same word, repeated again. “It will change in the future, but it will take a while”.

Why in a country in which it is seems so important to look fit and healthy, it is a shame to contact a nutritionist? Why this support is offered only to rich or severely ill people? Is it more socially acceptable to visit a psychologist than visiting a nutritionist? And how will it change, if people don’t even talk about that?

Just because nobody talks about that, I have decided to write this post. I seek the help of you readers to give some answers to this questions, or add new ones.It would be graet if you could suggest readings or share personal testimonies that could help me understand what is skam in Norwegian society.  Academic articles, fiction, movies, all that would be great. I know the TV series, of course, and I am a big fan, but still I strive to understand the issue. Let me clarify that I don’t mean to criticise the society I am living in. Just take this as a sincere effort to understand questions that are so hidden in the social discourse, that my naive mind has only discovered them after 7 years of living in Oslo.

Cairo, Qasr el-Aini

10/2/2012

Vorrei raccontare cosa ho visto in questi giorni, anche solo per alleggerire il mio cuore. Tuttavia, ogni volta che provo a farlo, vengo interrotta con frasi tipo: "Stai attenta..perche sei andata li...chiuditi in casa." Queste frasi, dettate solo dall''affetto e dall'amore che i miei parenti e amici provano per me, non fanno che aumentare la mia frustrazione. Fanno rima con i commenti che sento alla TV egiziana, riguardo alle morti dei manifestanti e ai maltrattamenti subiti da donne e bambini per mano dei militari: "Chi gli ha detto di andare li?" E riguardo alla ragazza pestata e denudata dai soldati: Perche' pubblicano la sua immagine su Internet? Non e' vergognoso che adesso tutti la ricordino come la ragazza in reggiseno blu? E perche non indossava niente sotto la abaya (tunica)?
Sono tutti tentativi di ignorare la verita', di nasconderla sotto le carte dei regali di natale, o i sotto i timbri delle schede elettorali. Sapere che sono a casa e' meglio che sapere che cio' che mi sta attorno e' deprimente. Addobare i palcosceni elettorali e dare la colpa ai manifestanti che attaccano l'esercito e rovinano lo spettacolo chiamato "Stabilita post-rivoluzionaria" e' piu facile che unirsi alla minoranza che ancora combatte, piu facile che realizzare che queste elezioni non sono altro che l'ennesimo spettacolo inscenato dall'esercito. E' difficile credere che l'Egitto non sia solo il museo Egizio e Sharm el Sheikh, come e' difficile credere che l'Esercito, tra le cui fila ci sono anche i "nostri" figli, non sia l'ultima ancora di salvezza in questo paese.

Risveglio

Una volta stilavamo le "top ten". Esausti ma ancora aggrovigliati, ci guardavamo con quel sorriso inebetito e ci scambiavamo uno sguardo complice che diceva: "questa ce la mettiamo? "
Che ingenui che eravamo a pensare di poter tenere il conto....

(Primo pensiero del mattino)

Al- Istiqrar (The stability)

Midan Tahrir is the stage of an absurd theatre performance. It has been closed with fences and it might look like a normal pedestrian area. It’s 8 o clock in the evening and Mubarak has given a speech a couple of hours ago saying that he is the victim of an unjust campaign and that he will submit  proofs to the authorities that he is far from any allegation of corruption. In the square small groups of people gather around a young woman who repeats the ex-president  speech to provoke their indignation. Others just walk around to take pictures of themselves in the square. There is a burnt autobus parked  just in the middle of the square,( rest of Friday’s night battle), where all the rubbish collected in the square has been stored. This is the most popular location for a facebook profile picture. There are people selling fresca, caramel apples and nuts. The floor is covered by stones. Tourists buy souvenirs.Children wave small Egyptian flags.

The people walking around in Tahrir are not the ones you expect to see. They have flaming red eyes, they are not well dressed and seem not to belong to any intellectual rank. But are those people who are still standing in Tahrir and protecting the battlefield, and not insisting on  the damned word Istiqrar, stability, which is the main theme of every single conversation. They are the one who really hope for the istiqrar and they do not need any intellectual frame to realise that the stability is still very far to be achieved.

Alshaab yurid al-esteqrar. The people want to return to the normal, the stability. The absurd lies in the fact that apparently life is normal again. Shops open, people going to work, army surveilling the streets. I have a job, I have friends, a nice flat. Egyptain people still make jokes. I have a…smile. But when I walk around Tahrir, I feel the same disorientation.

The man wallking in front of me choosed to stop in front of the graffiti “Midan al Shuhadah” (Martirs square) to take his profile picture. I am still wondering around the wood, baladi coffee shops and my mother’s kitchen and I don’t know which landscape belong me the most.

Fire in Cairo

Last Monday the Ministry of the Interior, located next to my house,  was burning. Dozens of firemen cars were passing by, while we were sitting at “our” coffee-shop, which is just round the corner of the Ministry. Their sirens were covering our voices. I had just come back from the neibourghood of Zamalek, where a solidarity demonstration was held in front of the Lybian Embassy, it had  taken me one hour to come back by taxi. I live in the area where all the ministers and public offices are located, so it’s like the safest place, as all the army is concentrated here, but at the same time, it’s the hottest spot.

Last Monday was the first time that we really met after so long. We both came alone, and he took off his glasses, which was for me was a sign of modesty.  While we were sitting at the coffee shop, people were running by to go and see the burnt building. We could smell the smoke and we had to shout louder than the sirens to hear each other. The police itself burnt the ministry, the owner of the café told me. Ommal eh? They want higher salaries, and the only way they find to protest is burning! Of course the main subject of our discussion was the revolution. It was clear that we had both closed the book, without questioning too much about it.

Demonstrations, imprisonment, being beaten by the police was more an adventure for him, as for many other voices I have heard before. For many young people it was ayyam helwa, nice days. For many foreigners it was “so fucking fun”. For an old taxi driver, it was a lesson of love. But also, for many adults it is now a broken economy, an event that delayed many activities and canceled many upcoming projects.

Whatever it is, it is something to be proud of. And Egyptians like to show off, at least as much as the Italians, undoubtely the opposite of Norwegians. And this event make them so proud, that sometimes seems to take their interest off from anything else. Well, sheddu helkum ya gama’a, get ready, because now it’s not time to celebrate anymore or to complain for the Muslim Brothers. Now it’s the time for real change. 

Egypt after the revolution

I am back to my community in Cairo. Nothing seems to be changed but actually everything is different. I have missed the revolution but I am still in time to live its immediate effects.

Cairo under the curfew is not the same any more. Forget sitting at Taka’yba until the dawn. Last order in Hurreya is at 11pm, and at 11,30 we have to pull ourself together and run, to be at home before midnight.

The house of love, where I have spent the most meaningful days of my life, has been rented by someone else, but my old orange bedcover is still hanging on the balcony. It has its meaning also. It helps me to realize that the old days are over, and I have started a new phase of my life. Now I am sharing a flat with a Lebanese girl very close to Downtown.

There are two tanks parked under my building and dozens of soldiers sitting in front of the gate of the building. They are supposed to give me a sense of security, but for me they represent more the ghost of the past demonstrations. I look at them yawning from my window, and I can even hear the music played by their mobiles. I would like to throw roses at them, or teddy bears, just to keep them busy. Actually the soldiers are the new stars of the revolution. They are well-dressed and good-looking. Groups of teenagers stand around them to take photos and their mobile numbers. 

 The revolution has also made a new business: tshirts for 15 pounds “Rais up your head, you are Egyptian”, stickers “25 January” and even glasses and mugs with the colours of the Egyptian flag. The name of the metro station Mubarak has been canceled with a red pencil in every car of the underground and replaced with Revolution “25^th January”. In every taxi, corner, shop, or coffee shop people talk about politics. Yes, the lazy, selfless Egyptians, whose slogan was Ma’lesh, Bokra, in sha allah ( No Problem, Tomorrow, God willing) now are concerned to change their country and to continue their struggle for democracy.

Today was the big day. The Referendum for the Constitution amendments. Our friends went to vote for the first time in their life. And I was there with them, queuing for 3 hours, under the sun, looking at their patience and excitement. Men, women, old and young people, discussing about yes or no, sharing food and water, taking photos of their red fingers. And actually their red finger was the first conquest of this revolution. We still don’t know what will come out of it, if they will accept the amendments of if they will manage to have a new constitution. But the core of this day was that for the first time people felt that their voice had a meaning.

Egypt is a long story. Hikeya. And everyone is a storyteller.Hakkawy. I could stand listening for hours, with my eyes and my mouth wide open and my dreamy attitude, my usual face expression for which everybody like to make fun of me.

Serate al Blå

Io e Laura stavamo sorseggiando la nostra birra al Blå decidendo se optare per il concerto dei Belle and Sebastian o quello dei Mogway, in programma lo stesso giorno del prossimo Marzo.
Un vecchietto allampanato norvegese si ferma dinanzi a noi. Indossa il classico maglione norvegese blu e rosso con i fiocchi di neve ricamati e ride di gusto. Ci apostrofa cosi':
- Aggie state 13 anni a Napoli!. (con accento norvegese marcato!)
- E che facevi?
- O parcheggiator, ngopp Casert!
- E dove vivevi?
- A Poggiomarocco?
- Poggiomarocco?
- Si, a Poggiomarino, mmiezzz e marrucchin!
Afferma di essere amico di Padre Pio ma non della chiesa, di essere andato molte volte a Torre Annunziata in bicicletta vestito come un albero di Natale (a fare cosa?) e che la birra "me ncepp".
Un giovane norvegese paffutto e con barba metal si avvicina e ci chiede se stessimo parlando portoghese (???). Ipotizza che siamo in Norvegia perche ci piace il Metal e vogliamo incendiare le chiese, perche' e' quello che fanno tutti gli Italiani a Oslo. Aggiunge che lui non ha nulla contro i cristiani ma si diverte a bruciare i pentagrammi nelle foreste, 'cause you don't have to dress up for it."
Sostiene che dietro l'acquisto dei rifiuti di Napoli da parte della Norvegia ci sia un tentativo di discretare gli anarchici da parte dei comunisti e tira fuori sigle, numeri, documenti segreti.
Il vecchietto norvegese che si chiama Trigve ma si fa chiamare Vitto' si ingelosisce del nostro nuovo amico e cerca di monopolizzare di nuovo la conversazione con il suo napoletano fluente.
"Me n'aggia ii'. C'o verimm"
E il soggetto anarchico e' raggiunto da un altro amico paffuto e dice: "I have to go and take care of this friend."
Uno se ne va verso il ponticello a destra, l'altro rientra nel locale.
Io e Laura interdette ci avviamo verso un kebab shop.