Day 50

I have been wandering, why so many modern churches look cold and unfriendly. I wonder what went throught the head of the architect whom designed this church? In the darkness it looks better, but in the daylight it's just big gray lump. Why can't buildings be beautiful?

Another notice: It's the season, when I have time to go out and take pictures, it's always dark.

Day 49

Some are afraid of darkness. I miss it in summer or when there is no escaping of the city lights. Darkness is peaceful, it gives me time to think. In darkness the rays of light make the world seem totally different. Sometimes more scary, sometimes more magical. But never boring.

I have started a new project 48 days ago. I decided that I'm going to take one picture per day, picture that tells something of my day or where I have spent my day. So far it has been challenging as I have found out, that I normally move around in quite small area. In the same time I have noticed, that I see my world differently, when I look it through camera. Or I see more of the world.

I use Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 to take the pictures and to edit them. Sometimes I have wished, that I would have had a better camera, but after a thought, I like the challenge that my Samsung devices give to me. And I have learned to be merciful to myself, my pictures tell about my world and they are perfect in their own way.

If you are interested to see my pictures, you can see them in instagram.com/katrik2 . There a quite a few pictures already, the picture of the day 48 is http://instagram.com/p/R-oVT_kAB3/ .

The picture in this blog is special to me and tells you something about me. Those who follow me in Twitter or are my Facebook friends know, that I seldom use pictures of myself, not even as avatars. So if you are in Finland and see the combination from the picture, there is a high probability, that you are also looking at me. Feel free to come and say hello!

I have decided to go one step further with my project. I'm going to share the picture of the day also here in my blog and add a small story to each one. What kind of story, I have no idea yet. We'll see what happens tomorrow as the day 49 will be the first one with a story.

Wish me luck :-)!

Forgiveness

I have thought about forgiveness a lot lately. As a victim-offender mediator it is very important question and I talk a lot about it with my mediator friends. But we talk about situation, where the one who has been hurt/violated/injured forgives to one who have hurt her/him. But many times it would be as important to forgive yourself too.

I have met many victims, who have a hard time to forgive themselves. "Why didn't I defend myself? Why didn't I leave? Why didn't I act differently, so that I wouldn't have irritated him/her?" Unfortunately we who want to help, sometimes add the self-blame: "You should leave her/him? Why didn't you hit back?"

What if our inability to forgive ourselves, can turn to hate, bitterness and demand of revenge? What if we really can forgive others after we have forgiven ourselves? We can't change the past incidents, but we can learn from them. Life will throw us to situations, where we don't know what to do and where we feel ourselves helpless. We try to survive the best way we know, with abilities and tools we have in that particular moment.

So what if we change the questions we ask ourselves after different kind of crisis. Did I have any other option to act differently? Would it changed anything? Have I learned something? What have I learned? Have I forgiven myself?

"We didn't know, it was that bad"

This week we have again talked about bullying at school in Finland. We have been shown a story of Elisa, 15 year old girl, who was brutally bullied. In fact Elisa was threatened, assaulted, she experienced such violence, which to most of us is totally outside of our experience. Unfortunately in Elisa's case, violence got so bad, that she didn't see any other choice than kill herself. Such a waste.

I haven't seen any interview of Elisa's teachers, but in one story, they have said that "we didn't know, it was that bad". I worked almost 5 years with targets of bullying and this isn't the first time I heard that sentence. "We didn't know, it was that bad" in fact says, that teachers knew about bullying, they just didn't see it so serious, that they would have done something. I just wonder, how bad it should be, so that adults would intervene? Too many times, there is no such point, there is only "we didn't know, it was that bad". Adults hide behind those words.

I have spoken with parents, whose children have committed suicide after years of bullying. I have spoken with children, who have had suicidal tendencies, because they have been bullied for years. I have spoken with adults, who have deep scars, because they were bullied for years at school. Unspeakable violence has made permanent cracks to their lives. The violence they have suffered is such, that they all have had difficulties to get help or even understanding to the pain they have experienced.

We all have a right to live our lives without violence or even threat of it. We all have a responsibility to act so that our world would be non-violent. We all have a responsibility to see. We all have a responsibility to listen.

We can't hide behind the idea, that adults can't see bullying. We have to create such school cultures, where non-violent behaviour is a norm. We have to create such cultures, where children have a courage to get help, when words like "leave me alone" or "stop that", don't work. We have to create such cultures, where children trust adults and trust that adults will help. And most of all, we adults, must have a courage to ask and to listen.

Don't wait.

Too nice?

I have a confession. Everytime, when I heard talk about somebody being too nice or too kind, I see red. I just can't undestand how positive behaviour is turned to be negative and bad. For example people who are targets of bullying aren't responsible of that, because they are too nice or too kind. They are targets, because bullies behave in an inappropriate way. Our world would be much better, if more of us would pay attention to our own behaviour and be nicer/kinder.

Nice/kind to me is something, that doesn't hurt others or ourselves. We have right to be treated in a civilized way, we have a right to have our own voice and we have a right to live without threat of violence. Then we have a responsibility to say aloud, when somebody hurts us, we have a resposibility to make clear, when somebodys behaviour hurts us. Too many times we just swallow the concequences of inappropriate behaviour and the hurt that it causes.

We really should think, what is our idea of of nice child. If nice means easy, silent almost invisible child, one that doesn't cause us any work, I would think twice. Because, then we don't think the best of the child, we think only ourselves. If we want children to grow genuinely nice/kind, they need to be assertive. They need to be able to stand up and defend themselves and their opinions. And the same time they should be able to listen others and be empathic. It's not impossible to be nice/kind to others and same time to oneself, it just requires more energy and work.

Are you nice/kind to others? Are you nice/kind to yourself?

Oikeudenmukaisuus on subjektiivinen kokemus

Kävin kuuntelemassa Vox Helsinkiä, jossa puhui Martti Koskenniemi oikeudenmukaisuudesta. Puhe herätti minussa monenlaisia ajatuksia. Me puhumme usein oikeudenmukaisuudesta ikään kuin maailmassa olisi yksi kaikkien mielestä sama oikeudenmukaisuus. Vaikkakin olisimme tiettyyn pisteeseen saakka samaa mieltä siitä, mikä on oikeudenmukaista, oikeudenmukaisuus on aina subjektiivinen kokemus. Siksi joudumme kerta toisensa jälkeen määrittelemään, mikä on oikeudenmukaista juuri tässä tilanteessa, juuri tässä hetkessä, juuri näiden ihmisten kesken. Koskenniemi sanoi puheessaan, että olemme ulkoistaneet tämänkin vaikean asian asiantuntijoille. Ongelma vain on se, etteivät asiantuntijatkaan kykene määrittelemään oikeudenmukaisuutta niin selkeästi meille, että kykenisimme käyttämään määritelmää omassa elämässämme ja kokemaan, että elämä olisi silloin oikeudenmukaista. Koskenniemi totesikin, että tällaisen vallan antaminen asiantuntijoille aiheuttaa vaaran siitä, että kukaan ei ota itse vastuuta. Kun vastuu ei tunnu olevan kenelläkään, se aiheuttaa epäoikeudenmukaisuuden kokemuksen kasvamista.

Sovittelussa on tarkoitus siirtää painopistettä takaisin asiantuntijoilta, viralliselta järjestelmältä, niille, jotka ovat asiantuntijoita omassa elämässään. Sovittelussa tarjotaan osapuolille mahdollisuus määrittää yhdessä keskustelun kautta se, mikä on heille oikeudenmukaista juuri siinä tilanteessa, jossa he ovat. He saavat määritellä hyvitykset ja korvaukset siten, että kaikki kokevat ratkaisun oikeudenmukaiseksi. Edes hetkellisen oikeudenmukaisuuden kokemuksen saavuttaminen vaatii työtä ja ennen kaikkea se vaatii osapuolilta halukkuutta osallistua prosessiin avoimin mielin, jotta he kykenevät kuulemaan, mitä muilla osapuolilla on sanottavana.

Sovittelutilanteiden ohjaaminen on haastavaa vapaaehtoistyötä. Helpommaksi sitä ei tee se tosiasia, että meillä on kaikilla on, välillä hyvin voimakas, näkemys siitä, mikä on missäkin tilanteessa oikeudenmukaista. Sovittelijan pitäisi kyetä reflektoimaan omia asenteitaan ja sitä, mistä hänen näkemyksensä oikeudenmukaisuudesta kumpuaa. Tämä siksi, että hän kykenisi jättämään oikeudenmukaisuuden määrittelemisen sovittelun osapuolille. Sovittelijan tärkein työ ei ole määrittää, mikä on juuri tässä tilanteessa oikeudenmukaista, vaan hänen työnsä on varmistaa, että kaikki saavat äänensä kuuluviin ja että osapuolten mielestä saavutettu ratkaisu on oikeudenmukainen. Paras tulos sovittelusta on se, että kaikki osapuolet lähtiessään kokevat tulleensa kuulluksi ja kokevat, että juuri tässä asiassa ja tässä hetkessä on saatu yhdessä aikaan oikeudenmukainen ratkaisu.

Haastan kaikki tarkkailemaan itseään ja miettimään eri tilanteissa, mikä juuri tässä olisi mielestäni oikeudenmukaista? Mihin omat ajatukseni juuri tässä tilanteessa perustuvat? Voisiko tilanteessa jollain muulla olla toisenlainen käsitys oikeudenmukaisuudesta ja mihin se voisi perustua? Mitä voisin itse tehdä, jotta ihmiset ympärilläni kokisivat tulleensa kohdelluksi oikeudenmukaisesti?