[The following is the transcription of Paul Leslie's Dialogue questions. It remains unedited at present, but will be updated shortly]
Crystal Barnard:
Paul Leslie:
To be a citizen of ones country, as far I'm concerned, means that the
country has to be reflected in who you are. And I said this yesterday in
the workshop. As a young person, a young person would strive to be a loyal,
functional citizen. But, as I say, if young people don't feel as though the
country is reflected in who they are then, then I think citizenship is
quite difficult. What I said yesterday, and I'll repeat again, is that once
you have a sense of who you are, and your role, then it makes citizenship a
lot easier, because you can identify with whether or not the country that
you're living in, is a country with whom you identify. If it is good then,
it's not easy to up-sticks and just move out - well it is easy to up-sticks
and move out actually, but it's quite difficult to stay there and find the
cause. So if citizenship means that a country has to be reflected in who
you are, and it isn't, then you make a decision that you change in some
way, so that it is reflected. And that encroaches on a two-way process.
Mayumi Hayashi:
I have a question regarding discrimination. Since people realise that
discrimination started, in the 1960s, the movement of the black people,
then the women's movement in the United States and after that, now we have
other discrimination, for gay and lesbian people. I don't know about other
countries but I think we have discrimination against older people. I want
to think positive vibes but, unfortunately, when I look at Japanese
society, I don't have a optimistic idea, so my question is, do you think
age discrimination (omission - coughing!) will ever be gone?
Paul Leslie:
Will discrimination ever be eradicated? Help me! [laughter] Um...No!
Audience member: We have to work towards it!
Paul Leslie:
Maguelonne Billy:
I would like to know at a national level, because in France, and I guess
it's the same in England, there is a gap between the young people
(omission)and foreign - we go to school, we live in this place,
(omission). So inside the country, you've got young (omission). So I would
like to know, at the national level, what can we do to make young people
get together, because it's also important to develop things in a country?
Paul Leslie:
Yeah. Developing national links! I'll go back to youth exchanges. We also
work nationally, in terms of different groups of young people in the UK.
It's quite interesting that, as you say, young people do not know each
other in their own country. So there are quite specific - in Britain you
have Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England in a bed. And we try to organise
national youth exchanges between groups of young people from these four
areas, because of their history of being suppressed - England's very good
at that - suppressing! So it's important that young people do get to
interact nationally, so that they can develop a sense of understanding the
diversity of the communities of the country that they actually live in. You
don't have to go Pakistan or India to meet huge vibrant communities of
Indian people. It's not necessary if you can do that in your own country. I
suppose that the picture is slightly different in Japan, but I think
listening to some of what the previous speaker [Kinhide Mushakouji] had to
say, there are communities in Japan who have contributed to Japanese
society in ways that are quite unique. That sense of pride should be shared
by all Japanese people. I think it's the same in the UK, it's the same
around the world.
Magrufov Akhmar:
I have a comment and my question and comment is of course, the youth
exchange is necessary, and especially, if it's about my country,
Uzbekistan. Before it was the Soviet Union and now we've got independence.
And of course the exchange is necessary because it's helped us to
understand each other, help each other, and exchange knowledge and
experience. But I think there is a positive and a negative. The negative
side is we have problems and danger. But with confidence, belief and
self-awareness, it helps us to protect this danger too. [?] And my question
is discrimination, for example it's a country, one nation, one culture and
what about discrimination between poor and rich, student and non-student -
social discrimination?
Paul Leslie:
Omido Vafa:
Thank you, Paul. Just a simple question I'd like to ask you. Let's say if
you were surrounded by a gang or a few guys that were more powerful than
you, and you cannot beat them up. And they were drug users, and they used
drugs on an everyday basis, and it's kind of a funny question, but if they
forced you to use a drug and you have no other choice. What would be your
reaction, what would be your advice to them, or how would you come out of
this forced situation? With peaceful means, or anything like that?
Paul Leslie:
You're trying to set me up here aren't you? [laughter] Let me just clarify
this - a group of people who are currently drug users are surrounding me
and are trying to force me to take a drug? What would I do?
Omido Vafa: Yes [laughter]
Paul Leslie:
Yoko Honda:
I have a small comment about the youth exchange. I think your program -
youth exchange - is great.
Paul Leslie: So do I
Yoko Honda:
As my (omission) was in Germany and Canada, it made me realise about my
identity more and more. It's a great way to realise and identify with
ourselves. I have a question - after you come back from your exchange, do
you talk about how their identities have changed? Do you talk about it
these things?
Paul Leslie:
There are a number of processes that you have to go through with the youth
exchange. One of them is, it is important to publicise the youth exchange -
to promote it. So that, for young people, they can show off about their
learning. It's very important, because one of the things I forgot to
mention, was that the young people that I specifically focus on, are those Yumi Takeuchi:
Hi. I just wanted to say that I think your program is very interesting. I'm
a citizen of Japan and America, and I feel like I've lived your
international foreign exchange. I've been going back and forth from America
to Japan my whole life, and it's interesting because when I was in Japan,
all I wanted to do was be in America. I wanted to go to the mall with my
friends, and see movies, and then I moved to America, and all I wanted to
do was eat sushi and go to the sento. So it's really really interesting and
I see it in a positive way, because now I identify with both countries
rather than seeking an identity that I didn't have before. And you
mentioned before that you see Japan as being this sort of right platform
for foreign exchange, and I see it very much so in that way too, I see it
with these Japanese homeboys in hydraulics walking the streets, I see it
with these girls getting tans every week, and I'm wondering how you see
Japan as being this right platform for international exchange.
Paul Leslie:
I, not to be detrimental, I see Japan as a great country of (omission).
People have said this to me before, that Japan and Japanese society takes
what it wants from the rest of the world, all the good stuff , and kind of
leaves all the bad stuff. I'm of the opinion that, whilst Japan is able to
do that now, it will increasingly not be able to do that, and some of the
bad stuff will seep into Japanese society. And Japan will need to learn how
to deal with that. I think, as I said earlier, Japanese society has a huge
amount of growing up to do. And to help it there are other friendly
countries around the world, and other groups of young people, who'll be
quite willing and able to exchange with Japan, and share their knowledge
and ideas with Japanese youth., because it will be Japanese young people
who'll drive that change forward. It won't be the existing status quo.
Stewart Wachs:
I hope that's going to start this week! Thank you for joining us.
[applause]
You mentioned the connection between identifying yourself with your country
and being able then to become a citizen of that country. And to me I think
the conventional idea of citizenship is linked to this country that you
have and the rights that you gain from this country. A lot people are
forgetting the responsibility that also citizenship is a two-way word and
doesn't go in one direction. But I'm also concerned citizenship is not
necessarily tied to one country, and I think that your point in identifying
yourself with this country is very crucial to springboard, but that
citizenship is on a much grander scale - especially these days, and I
wonder if you could elaborate on the definition of citizenship and the
nations identity.
Yes. Just to clarify a few things - in terms of discrimination in the US, I
would go back a lot further than that. Yes. We focus on Martin Luther King,
a great advocate of egalitarianism, but movements for freedom in America -
slavery etc. In terms of discrimination around the world, in Japan (the
previous speaker was talking about that) I'm an optimist - I have to be.
[laughter] I must admit. If I wasn't an optimist I'd be slitting my wrists
as we speak. So I'm an optimist. I think that once we have a respect and
understanding for other cultures, once those cultures are clear about what
their contributions have been - history is a very strange thing - man made,
changed to meet peoplesí specific needs. I think individual communities
have a responsibility to find out, individual races have a responsibility
to what their contributions have been, and celebrate that. And once I think
people are comfortable with their role in the world. And once, I think,
people are open-minded enough, fair-enough, honest-enough, honest enough to
speak the truth - once the truth has been spoken, I think it doesn't leave
a lot of room for discrimination.
Social discrimination - discrimination at work, in society, generally? Hmm!
It's a big question. Thank you! I'm thinking now. It's a huge one. In terms
of discrimination in employment, ability, gender, disability I again have
to focus on understanding - for me discrimination tells me that somebody
does not understand somebody or something else. And the only way, so far,
that I've found has worked has been dialogue. I've found that discourse,
discussion, clarification reduces discrimination. There are other factors
with which we can have an effect on the level of pain between men and
women, the difference in pay, the difference in housing policies of local
authorities, for example we congregate one race of people in one place and
another race in another place. I think there are issues in terms of fear
and the perception of fear, crime and the perception of crime that cause
discrimination. And again I stick on my first answer - which is discussion
and clarity. One of the things that I find works, is you could have a safe
environment where they could discuss their issues, to create clarity - to
some extent it reduces the amount of discrimination. But some of these
questions you've asked me are societal problems that I can't give you a
sort of one-word answer to. You have to sit down - your country will have
to employ me or Johan Galtung to come over and deal with the conflict.
Are they offering me a cigarette? What are they doing? If I look at it as a
serious issue there's a problem with drug use. Someone who is a drug user
loses their sense of personality and perspective. What then happens is you
talk to and negotiate with the drug. The drug is irrational. The drug is
single minded because all the drug wants to do is self-perpetuate itself.
So we have a problem, I have a problem. Negotiation does not work. In my
limited experience negotiation does not work. There are many cases where
there is a link between drug misuse and burglary, or drug misuse and
certain types of crime, because the drug wants to self-perpetuate itself.
It needs to feed itself. So that the human, who is the host, has to go off
and get money, to purchase more of the drug. If I couldn't escape, I'd have
to fight. That's the answer.
young people on the periphery of mainstream society. They're the ones who
have been kicked out of school, they're the ones who have been labelled
deviant, or failures. So it's important for them to stick out their chests
and show off and say "look what I've achieved. It also takes about a year
and a half to put together a decent youth exchange. They can be done in
shorter periods of time, but you get out of it what you put in. Whilst
we're in that particular country, we keep regular diaries of each day, and
also try to record their learning. The most important thing is to reflect
and evaluate. To reflect upon the learning and evaluate it; to reflect upon
how that has effected them - positively or negatively. Also it's important
that the groups themselves look at each other and say "well before we went
you were like this and now you are like this." So again we've had their
peers talk to them about how they see the impact of the youth exchange. And
that's one of the clear ways that it has some effect and how you evaluate
it. And one final thing to say about the youth exchange is that, for many
of the young people, it will be their only international experience. There
would be many, for example, young women, who we would take to other
countries, who would be 15, and upon their return they will become
pregnant. For the next ten years or so, they won't leave the country at
all. And maybe never. I was working with a girl who's now 17 and she's got
two children. She won't, in the short term, be going on a youth exchange,
unless I can develop one for young mothers and children.
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