Spirit in Action
Paul Kaldjian - Geography & Refuser Solidarity Network
Paul Kaldjian is the living product of a rainbow of cultural & religious heritages, Finnish and Armenian, diverse religious groups, all combining to create a person who has a passion for creating personal-international connection. He's a Mennonite, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and a board member of the Refuser Solidarity Network, a group that seeks to support Israeli "refusniks" and inform the world about this element of the Israeli peace movement.
- Duration:
- 59m
- Broadcast on:
- 05 Nov 2006
- Audio Format:
- mp3
I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep I have no arms but yours with which to hold The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old I have no hands but yours with which to see To let my children know that I am up and love is everything I have no way to feed the hungry souls No clothes to give and make, give the ragged and the morn So be my heart, my hand, my tongue Through you I will be done Fingers have I none to help and die The tangled nuts and twisted chains The strangled fearful minds Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark Helpsmead. Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love, and helping hands Being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life I have no way to open people's eyes Excell that you will show them how to trust the inner mind My guest today on Spirit in Action is Paul Calgin. Paul is the living product of a rainbow of cultural and religious heritages Finnish and Armenian diverse religious groups all combining to create a person who has a passion for creating personal, international connection He's a Mennonite, a geography professor at University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, and a board member of the Refuser Solidarity Network A group that seeks to support Israeli refusenics and inform the world about this element of the Israeli peace movement Paul, I'm very pleased to have you here today on Spirit in Action. I'm very pleased to be here. When I was first talking with you about having you on the show, I knew I wanted to have you on the show, but I wasn't quite sure what to say your form of activism is And I guess I've decided in hindsight to say that your activism is an activism of personal, international connection That starting from your very roots, you are an international mutt. I'm a mongrel, that's true. I'm going to start this off instead of going right into like your work with the refusenics and so on I'm going to start you off with your personal history because I think it tells the story of what your work is because you've lived it So, how about starting off with your parents, this parentage from around the world and how they got together and give me that in some form? Yeah, I'm a child of migrants. I was born in 1960. My parents were in Ann Arbor at the university there and they ended up there because mom came to the University of Michigan from Finland to get her PhD in linguistics And she had grown up in Finland, but she was in turn the child of missionaries from Finland to Namibia, so she was actually born in Namibia So, had a Namibian connection, her mother was Estonian, so she had an Estonian connection, so she's my mother spoke multiple languages And she then came, she was interested in linguistics, she studied English especially, she knows English better than anybody else, I know, the grammar and so on In Ann Arbor she met my father, my father is an Armenian, he was from southeastern Turkey from a place called Gaziantep, his family then went through Syria, they lived there for a few years, ended up in Beirut His older brothers and sisters put him through school, he got his engineering degree from the American University of Beirut, ended up at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, got a master's degree there, went to Ann Arbor to work on his PhD And so while my parents were there, mom had intended to return back to Finland, but she met my dad, boy plus girl equals marriage and baby, and I came along and my parents then settled down in Ann Arbor So what was the religious history of these, because they come from very different religious places as well Right, my mom grew up a Lutheran, my father grew up in what's called the Armenian Evangelical Church, which is the Protestant Church in Anatolia So they were both Protestants, they met in Ann Arbor and at the university there was a chapel that was run by, organized by the Christian Reform Church And the Christian Reform Church is the Dutch Reform tradition that came to the United States, my parents then ended up going to the Christian Reform Church in Ann Arbor, became members of that church, and that's the church in which I grew up And in addition, my parents spoke multiple languages, the only language they speak in common is English, I grew up speaking Finnish with my mother (singing in Finnish) (singing in Finnish) (singing in Finnish) (singing in Finnish) (singing in Finnish) I suppose depending on your linguistic talents, you may or may not have recognized that that was a Finnish Christmas song It's called "Hosiana" and it's "Sungwegru" I can't pronounce name of, looks like their name is "Tapiola Yiteskulu Choir" A song reminiscent of Paul's childhood, you're listening to an interview with Paul Calgian, professor of geography at UW Eau Claire Mennonite activist with, among other things, the refusal solidarity network We also had many graduate students at our house all the time, so it was just constantly languages and ideas and sharing of belief systems And so this was just became a very normal part of my upbringing So I guess it was just foreordained by your parentage and by your home life that you become a professor in geography Inevitable, here's a little story, when I was growing up, my dad's an engineer, and so when I was in college, it came to the time where dad's son, what are you going to major in? And I'm thinking, I'm thinking English, dad, and dad looks at me and says, "Bad investment son, if you want to study English, you're on your own cripes" So I come back to dad a little bit later and I said, "Dad, what about geology?" Dad looks at the curriculum and he says, "Okay, four semesters of math, two semesters of physics, okay son, geology" I said, "Well, geology and English, that's fine" So I was a double major geology in English, I got a job afterwards with the Environmental Protection Agency where both of those disciplines were critical and it was after that then I said, "I want to go back to school, what can I study?" And that's where geography was just perfect, where geography invites a marriage of people, society, culture, with environment, nature, landscape, this kind of thing So geography is just the perfect fit for me Before we get into the kind of ways that you're activist with your geography with your other work through Mennonites and your international concerns I'd like you to recap your religious history because you grew up in this church but then you meet a wife and then you've got that history And I thought this was so interesting because again, it's like you're pulling the whole world together right in your relationships So I grew up in the Christian Reform Church, after I got my master's degree from the University of Michigan, I went to Washington DC and there I found the Christian Reform Church that I had been dreaming of, it was a CRC church in downtown DC I ended up living right next to the church in a predominantly middle class black community, I was one of the only white people there I attended church there and over the course of time, I met my wife who was introduced to us, by the way, by a Cambodian refugee So we met, we got married, she was going to an inner city Lutheran church, ELCA church that had ministries to and with African Americans a growing Latino population and a sizable gay population So after we got married, both of us loved our churches that we didn't feel like we should draw one of us away to the other one's church So we continued going to our own churches, in the end we both became members of each other's churches Well, after a while, I decided I wanted to get a PhD in geography and so the decision was that when we moved from DC, we're going to look for a church where we can then attend it together as a family So we went to Tucson to the University of Arizona and we started looking for churches and we must have gone to 10, 15 different churches in search of just the right church and then Meg said, "Well, you know, my grandmother's Mennonite, why don't we check out the Mennonite church?" And so we went to the Mennonite church and lo and behold, this was what we were looking for, is this strong sense of community welcoming strangers with open arms, a member of the peace church, you know, saying, you know what, there are other ways of resolving problems in any kind of violent kind of way or punitive kinds of ways and the emphasis on community, on service, on an international perspective, all of these things came together for us and ever since then we've been Mennonites One more piece on that is that there is not a Mennonite church right here in Eau Claire and a lot of people probably don't understand the kind of wide range of Mennonites that are out there Could you give a snapshot of that, Paul? I'd be happy to, to the degree that I know and we've been Mennonites now for it must be about 10, 11 years and I'm still learning, but just as a general sense, we are members of the Mennonite church USA which is brother and sister communities with the Mennonite church of Canada This is distinguished from what we generally call the old order Mennonites which have some characteristics similar to what we associate with the Amish You know, who have a community that may be a little bit more rural that define themselves a little bit more by separating themselves from the world The Mennonite church USA, we don't do that, you would not know that we're any different from anybody else just seeing us walk down the street When we moved here, we were looking for a Mennonite church because this was now such an important part of our growth, our Christian growth and the nearest one we could find was the Twin Cities so we went there and sure enough we said, you know, this needs to continue to be a part of our life to be a community like this so we began driving 90 miles each way to church on Sundays to attend and become part of Immanuel Mennonite in the Twin Cities Wow, I'm tired just with all your travels and your ancestors and in yourself but I think your work involves you in more and more travels I tried to schedule this interview with you some months ago and know you're off to Turkey and you're off here and there and everywhere in the world You work in the geography department here at UW Eau Claire What is your work? My work is a combination of teaching, of research and then sort of broadly defined service, service to the community I'm encouraged by the university to work out in the community in various different ways I also have service to the university community itself, serving on committees and so on, and then service to my students I'm a human geographer, as a human geographer I'm interested in sort of cultures and people's relationship with the landscape and place and environment and so on The types of courses I end up teaching are introductory human geography courses where we explore different ideas and concepts related to population or the geography of agriculture and food or the geography of economics you know, how cultures and languages and so on develop and what their relations are over space Often times people say, you know, what's a geographer anyway? Well, think of sort of an analogy to history Historians look at changes in relationships over time Geographers look at changes in relationships over space and everything has a spatial component Everything has connections over space, has histories over space, has movement over space changes over space, different kinds of patterns Why do things happen where they happen? That's a much bigger question than we're accustomed to exploring So that's a little bit of what geographers do Then my specific areas of interest, I'm interested in the Middle East I do work in the Middle East and ever since doing my PhD dissertation about ten years ago In Turkey I've been going back and forth the Istanbul where I look at urban agriculture and urban food systems How low-income people feed themselves, how these are changing So I'm interested in the Middle East and I'm interested in food and food systems The relationship between where food is produced, where it's consumed, how it gets back and forth How it's transformed, why do we eat, what we eat This sort of whole host of questions Can you give me some snapshots of your life as a teacher? And how this relates to your spiritual quest, your spiritual drive, really to connect to people? You know, one of the local research projects that I've spent some time with And I've had a wonderful young student helping me, working with me on this We were curious about what Latino and Mexican migrants were doing working on local dairy farms And so as we started pursuing this question and looking at migration into Wisconsin We started finding out that there's some tensions also associated with this The same kinds of things we see and read about happening across the country And at a very local level, people were getting worked up and getting concerned about This whole question of immigration and legal versus illegal And different camps were developing on how there should be no illegal immigrants And what's legal and what's illegal and many concerns So the student and I started exploring these and saying, "What are some of the causes and consequences of this?" And as a result of some of our work I've been asked to speak next week at a Wisconsin Academy of Arts and Sciences and Letters A forum they're having on the future of farming in Wisconsin, the future of farming and rural life And so I'm going to speak on, I don't consider myself a migration expert, but as a geographer we explore migration Why people migrate, what are the consequences of migration? And then in doing this I hope that I can participate in the education of, in a sense, cultural change Migration has been with us for a long time You know Paul, as part of our discussion earlier when I said, "Tell me about your activism before we started recording" You told me that you don't think of yourself as an activist because you don't like to go out there with science And go, "Hell no, we won't go" or something like that But I think you are eager to produce a change in the world or to be part of making a change in the world If you could send your students out with a different view changed in some way What would you name that change as being? Let me try to explain it this way, I want my students to go out with their eyes open You know, just so that when they see things and experience things that they ask questions They can see something, they can start saying, "Oh, if nothing else" they can say, "Oh, this is like that thing we learned about at school" Or this is why it's like this, not to take things at face value But to look at them and explore the meanings of things, why do things take place the way they take place? Sometimes they are very good and they should be and can be emulated And other times they make us feel uncomfortable and don't just walk away from that feeling of discomfort But say, "Can I do something, can I use my position, can I use my understanding to help make this thing better?" For example, I show them a video, it's called Life and Debt in Jamaica And it shows about what is going on in the background to all this big tourist trade And it's uncomfortable, what's taking place in Jamaica And some students say, "Oh man, I wanted to go to Jamaica on my honeymoon Or I want to go on a vacation to Jamaica with my family, should I go?" I say, "Yes, go!" But go with your eyes open, recognize that these other things are taking place And don't just say, "You know, the world's happy for me, so it must be happy for everybody" (Music) Don't believe anyone, don't read your name, make light of every word you hear Turn off your radio, quit your job, do something different Dense up here, do something different Dense up here, think like a child, laugh at cocaine Never, ever, ever do it proper again, understand everyone, grace the clear With yourself a fashion, remove yourself a fashion (Music) You may very well be asking yourself, why was that song included? It was called "Do Something Different" by a group called Brave Combo Paul told me that they're a psychopath man from Texas I hope you appreciated their music and their message to do something different I think that's part of what Paul is trying to teach his students to do You know, I think that you're a very spiritually devoted person And yet you're working in the secular world here Is it okay to be a spiritual person with spiritual drives, teaching, working, living here? Or is that a part you have to really kind of truncate to be an effective teacher here? Maybe this is another reason I'm a Mennonite But one of the things that the Mennonites put a premium on is the separation of church and state It's not difficult for me to work in a secular world And maybe this is also the way I was raised with my parents Is that they were also Christians, very devout people working in the context of public schools and public education Students in fact in front of the class will ask me, what do you believe? And I say, you know what, I'm happy to discuss that with you in my office But not here, I don't want it to look like I'm in any way trying to tell other people how to believe Just like I don't want other people to tell my children how to believe I don't want it to be in the position of putting my world view I mean, I do want them to understand my world view in general Where it's common to maybe all or virtually all belief systems But where some of those systems are particular to my Christian faith I feel very awkward about telling the students That's what I believe at least in a public context If they want to come to my office and talk to me about them I'm happy to tell them what it is I believe and why Because that then becomes a conversation that I think they're entitled to to know One thing that people will note if they get to know you, if they watch you in action Is that you are living out your faith in Quaker circles, we have a phrase, let your life speak And I think you're trying to do that So the speech of your life, what is it saying? Which of your deep values is it speaking? You know, it's interesting because as a believer I also sometimes think, oh man, what kind of example am I being? This is not the example, sometimes I can get a little too indignant And somebody could really question, you know, what kind of unpleasant person is he? I guess those things that I'd like to come out to emanate from the way I behave in public As somebody who cares about our community and our world around us Who, you know, one of the things that I also appreciate about the Mennonites is that They love first, they serve first, and they ask questions later And I know that some people can see that, you know, it becomes a little bit more of a You know, and I'm okay, you're okay kind of approach to all worldviews And I don't see it that way I see the model of Jesus, for example, Jesus served first He led with love and with peace and with a just approach But he treated everybody as an individual In a sense, Jesus was the first post-modernist He would meet people on their own terms at their level And he would love them address their needs And only afterwards then he'd say, this is what you should consider for the rest of your life As a way of being at peace within yourself and between yourself and God's creation So to answer your question, that was long-winded To answer your question, if something comes out from me It's treating other people with the love and the respect that each one of us deserves And the way it comes out, I think, for me is being interested in everything about culture In people's music, you know, I ask my students they have the little earphones In their ears walking down the hall, I say, what you listening to? Because I'm curious about, you know, what can I learn from them? Because what you are doing is valuable to me And so just constantly be interested in what other people are doing My interviewees in Turkey, I go to them And they're just, you know, why is a professor from the United States interested in what I do? Because I'm interested in what you do, you know, so this is what I hope my students will do too Is say, you know, everybody has things that we can learn from Well, I want to move to some of the other areas of specific work that you do Number one, you're descended by your father from the Armenian people And there's been some news just lately in France About a law that was passed that made it illegal to deny that the slaughter of the Armenians happened by the Turks And yet you've got kind of these Armenian roots So maybe you should be in support of that, but I don't think you are And in fact, you have been forging connections with Muslims and Turks So tell me about what you're trying to live out there and what you're reaching for Yeah, this is an interesting and possibly awkward position to be in But it's also very consistent with what I believe The Armenians were, and Armenians believe and Armenian scholars point out That in the first decade and a half of the 20th century As many as one and a half million Armenians were massacred and deported from Eastern Anatolia By the Ottoman Turkish government And the Armenians and many others, not just Armenian scholars But many others call this the 20th century's first genocide Well, modern day Turkey has a very difficult time publicly acknowledging something like this And they put it in terms of this was a civil war Or this was putting down some Armenian separatists that were threatening the state And many different sort of explanations for this And so this has led to sort of an ongoing rift at least between official Turkish policy And then many others around the world, not just Armenians For example, the Armenians in the United States have the ear of many congressmen So every few years the congress sort of starts preparing to debate official recognition of the Armenian genocide France just began their official, or going beyond their official recognition of the genocide To actually say that anybody who states that the genocide didn't take place Will be breaking the law, so in other words they're legislating the truth From my work in Turkey I feel uncomfortable with something like this Because my goal first is the truth And there are many sort of very honorable Armenian scholars and Turkish scholars who are together working toward the truth I read recently that Flannery O'Connor said One of her quotes was "The truth shall make you odd" People who are exploring the truth in whatever levels are often considered "odd" My goal is to work with my Turkish brothers and sisters I've had many opportunities to do this with my research going back and forth to Turkey With my professional associations, I'm a member of the Turkish Studies Association And ultimately I'm interested in the truth more than in requiring people to believe in one particular way or another So the Turkish state is probably afraid if they were to recognize officially the genocide That they would have to pay some sort of reparations Maybe give land back, something like that I think those kinds of things should not be on the table What should be on the table is getting at the truth of historical events What I've had the privilege of doing is working with Turks, working with Kurds, people from throughout Anatolia and being Given such incredible hospitality and opportunities for warm relationships That it's very difficult for me to support the position of maybe a few too many Armenians who just automatically Because of events almost 100 years ago who automatically hate the Turks There's no place in my experience for that Was there some shortage genetically? Or weren't you supposed to have that hate passed on? It's like if you were born into the Hatfields and McCoy's that you're supposed to hate the other clan Is there some expectation that you would have those roots in writing your genes? You know it's interesting you say that because if you go to Southern California where there's a very large Armenian community You might almost pick that up But this is where my father's approach and perspective I'm sure had an influence on me My father grew up never hating anybody and he would always say you never hate anybody And so he never perpetuated that kind of sort of family lore that said you hate somebody He told us about what happened in Anatolia around 1915 He told us about these things and he encouraged us to learn about these things He said you never hate anybody And this raises another interesting story When I was in graduate school before I had started my research in Turkey I applied for and received a scholarship 100% scholarship to study intensive Turkish And my Armenian cousins were always after me to learn Armenian My father speaks Armenian, my father speaks Turkish because of his upbringing So I called up my dad when I got this scholarship and I said dad Because one of the things that Middle Easterners do is There are no individual decisions The decision is always a family decision even when you're older you just discuss it with your brothers with your parents and so on So I called up dad, I said dad I got this scholarship to study Turkish What do you think? My dad's silent for a few moments Any response? That was the language your grandfather spoke Which was his way of telling me you have my blessing to study Turkish And it has been nothing but a blessing ever since then Because dad and I now speak Turkish back and forth with each other My Armenian cousins who I love very much and they love me very much They also say to me Why do you learn Turkish? Why don't you learn Armenian? I said you know what, this is just the way life goes I said you know what, I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said I said you know what I said Well I don't know about you but my linguistic skills are getting stretched here Paul tells me that that song, "Ela Ela" is in a language called "Hemsen" which is like Armenian but it's actually a Muslim language I understand that the Hemsen people span the borders there or Armenia to Turkey and that song was done by Qasem Koyunju In a post-9-1-1 world people are supposed to fear the Muslims but you spent time over in Turkey which has Muslims and non-Muslims too I guess what's your interaction with Islam positive negative how do you see it because I think most people live with a myth that's propagated highest levels of our government what is Islam like when you've met it? That's a great question because when I've met it what you find out is just like in this country in most countries around the world there's this sort of state presentation of information often appropriately called propaganda and then there's the human experience and when I go to Turkey here's an example from about 10 years ago one of the things that Middle Easterners are when you get to know them they're very curious about what you do they always know everything about each other so one of my restaurant proprietor one time said what did you do yesterday? I said yeah I went to church you went to church what did you do in church? oh you know a little bit of this little bit of that what do you mean what did you do in church do you pray? I said yeah we prayed in church and we sing some songs you prayed to God? yeah that's great and now we went on to the rest of the conversation you know so this is what we had in common or in other cases more recently clearly people in Turkey are very concerned about what the United States is doing in the country next door to them in Iraq they're very concerned about that just like many many people here in the United States are very concerned about that so the political sometimes I could get accused of you know politically what our country is doing but I also have people who really want to engage in discussions about religion I've had people try and convert me and sort of I ultimately say I tell you what you be the best Muslim you can be I'll be the best Christian I can be I bet we get along when you interact at this human and personal level it becomes sort of something not to be afraid of and if an American goes to Turkey to the Middle East you find out that the emphasis on community on neighborhood the respect to elders the shamefulness that would be associated with sticking the infirm elderly in old folks homes just puts us to shame in other words there's this high high premium placed on taking care of your family and your family members and this is part of Islam Islam is used to support this but it's not just Middle Eastern Muslims it's Middle Eastern Christians and Jews you know people from the Middle East this culture puts a high premium on taking care of each other [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] That song was called "In My Heart" which you may or may not have been able to pick up is that it's a true cross-cultural expression of the Palestinian and Jewish people that song is by a Jewish folk singer David or David Brosa and it's also done by Palestinian with Sam Murad so it's a real effort to touch the heart across the seemingly intractable barriers that divide the Palestinian and Israeli people you're listening to an interview with Paul Caljin he's a professor in geography at UW Eau Claire and he's a board member of the Refuser Solidarity Network you know the other thing that I've come to the realization is there's more of an acceptance of death in Islam as if you die it's part of God's plan whereas in the United States we're so afraid of death we try and put death off what we interpret with a higher degree of comfort with death in the Middle East is they don't value life oh yes they value life in the Middle East but they're not afraid of death in the same way which is a powerful thing they value life you want to know how to have a feast you want to know how to say have a wedding or interact with people people are so generous to each other oh they value life absolutely you refer to my big fat Greek wedding my wife and I saw that we call it my big fat Armenian wedding because this is just like the Armenian side of my family is yeah absolutely but this this is this intense involvement and appreciation for each other and in Turkey they have words like komshuhaka which means the right of the neighbor simply by living next door to somebody else you have rights you can send your kids over there and just expect your kids to be babysat you can walk to your next door neighbor and say let's have tea and you can expect your neighbor to sit down and have tea in order to drop everything and by the same token you have to be willing to do those same things or another case I walked up to somebody I'd never met and from a distance he saw us coming he was standing there peeling an apple and then as we approached he disappeared inside the house and he came back and then now he had three apples and he gave my research assistant and I an apple and we said no no you don't have to do that and then he said oh yes I do he says it's the right of the eye goes Hakka you saw me eating this and now it's your right this is powerful sense of the importance of human relationships that's amazing stuff just to be present with and I experienced some of that too when I was in Africa I'm amazed when you travel the world how provincial we are how much we don't know about the rest of the world and specifically the hospitality so I just echo that hundred percent I want to go to another area which is perhaps the most touchy area of the world right now and that's right around Israel and Palestine and you've been involved with some work there or some work related to that area I say it's touchy in part because people so easily assume that you're taking sides when really you're probably as a peace church member you're probably taking both sides and trying to lift up both and tell me about your work related to the peace movement in Israel and again this is what drew me to start talking to you well this was actually kind of funny for my Middle Eastern class I teach a geography of the Middle East here and I was very sort of dissatisfied with teaching about the Arab-Israeli conflict and I don't know what was really gnawing at me but it was a sense that this can't be all there is to it Israelis aren't monoliths Palestinians aren't there isn't just one sort of mono-Palestinian but just like in all societies there's different points of view different people different issues going on so I must have Googled or something you know peace Middle East peace Israel however I came across I came across this site of courage to refuse maybe I read an article about this these courage to refuse this group of soldiers reservists in the Israel defense forces this courage to refuse group our soldiers who said we will defend our country we will stay in the military but we will not fight in the occupied territories we find that to be an oppressive, unjust occupation so we won't do that oh this is interesting and up in the right hand corner of the website it said click here to ask a refusal to come and speak to your community so I from here in Eau Claire clicked on yes I'd like a refusal to come and speak I said can we get somebody to come and speak in Eau Claire well this was intended for people within Israel who wanted a refusal to come and speak but lo and behold I got put in touch with a group called the Refuser Solidarity Network and the Refuser Solidarity Network is a non-profit organization in the United States that works with the Refusers in Israel in other words supports them gives them a voice here in North America and then helps arrange some tours and so on one thing led to another and we had a Refuser come here and speak on campus and then since then we've had a couple of other Refusers and people with the peace movement in Israel come and speak here well some things led to other things and I was eventually asked to serve on the board of the Refuser Solidarity Network and as a board member I think I'm the only Goy on the board Goy meaning a non-Jew Goy meaning a non-Jew that's right but it has given me a great opportunity to work with the peace movement in Israel but it's interesting because I'm working with people who are trying to create peace between Israelis and Palestinians between Jews and Muslims and to me this was very similar really parallel to my goals of creating peace between Armenians and Turks between Christians and Muslims I mean to have this and I know some of my Jewish brothers and sisters feel very uncomfortable with the work that I'm doing and I try to make it very clear I will stand at the front of a line protecting Jews and Jewishness just as I will I hope in front of any other group that is being harmed or oppressed or treated in justly God have mercy on me if it's anything other than that but in working with the Refuser Solidarity Network I have been involved with this kind of touchy subject for some people but what is also really beautiful about it is I then be able to return some of that to the classroom and say you know what there's a peace movement in Israel we don't hear about that here in the United States there are Jewish Israelis who will go and if a family's house has been demolished for whatever reason these Israeli Jews will go and rebuild their house there are groups of Israeli Jews who will go and collect the olives that the Palestinian is unable to harvest so this sharing of the work almost of the burdens and the pain of each other is another powerful example for all of us have you actually been over there or have you had to do it all via the internet? it's all by the internet and the board members are spread across the United States we have board members on the east coast we have board members in Chicago and Washington state and then I'm here in the Midwest I've been invited numerous times and look forward to the day that I can go to Israel and meet some of my brothers and sisters who are involved in trying to create peace in that part of the world I want to follow the circle back here and how this comes from your religion you mentioned you'd stand on the front lines to protect the Jews and the Palestinians and whomever you're in solidarity with them but I think that you're a pacifist so what does it mean that you would stand on the front lines? yeah that's a good question you know the pacifism is kind of a strange word to me I don't like it actually because it's somehow as some connotations of weakness or something and so we say sort of non-violence because there's something that to stand with somebody else completely disarmed can sometimes require incredible amounts of strength and I can probably say that I haven't been tested like I may someday be tested and I haven't been tested like many other people who have been tested and done marvelous and brave things I can't say I've really done anything brave in this kind of sense you know sort of standing on the front lines but let me put it this way my prayer my hope is that in constantly working toward peace peaceful relations toward truth toward resolving tensions between different groups and perceived and real tensions and then with God's blessing and the faith that I put in my God if the day ever comes where I have the need or the opportunity to stand with whoever it is that is being treated unjustly and even if it's threatening that I will have the courage to do that it's easy for me to talk in my lush position whereas there are people in Israel, Jews, Palestinians who are working very hard and they're paying for it with their lives and I have never been in that position and I can say may God protect me from ever having to be in that position but I also pray that if God puts me in that position that I do what is honorable to God and to the human race and just to be clear is that your understanding of the Mennonite position that you would not should not could not raise your arm with a weapon to attack another even in self-defense that's the ideal that all Mennonites hold to is saying that we do not even fight back we don't fight to protect now what the Mennonites end up trying to do is avoiding any kind of situation to begin with that would require that kind of response in other words if there's a situation that may lead to the need to protect violently what can we do to defuse that in the first place so that we don't have that some people may have said well you Mennonites if you're so smart what would you do about Iraq? well that's sort of an awkward position to be in because I doubt that if a group of Mennonites got together we would quite be in this kind of position we currently have with Iraq we would have taken another approach from the very beginning and even before the beginning and you know the big question comes up what if your wife or your children were being threatened and I say you know by God's mercy that will never happen but I don't know what tomorrow brings speaking of what's coming you mentioned to me earlier today some prospects for Mennonites within the Eau Claire area you said you've commuted basically Sunday off to the Twin Cities to be part of the Mennonite group is there some hope for Mennoniteism here in the Chippewa Valley? yes in addition to our old order Mennonite brothers and sisters a family from Colfax and my family we both commute to the Twin Cities for church we have embarked on a project to start a small community church here or a satellite church here from our Twin Cities church we're excited we've approached the Shalom synagogue about possibly using their synagogue on Sunday mornings for a place of worship and so far it has been met favorably and if we can work out something in which their needs are met and our needs are met that may be a place in which we can worship and should that not work out then we'll find some other place to have a local Mennonite church USA congregation here in town so if anybody's interested in checking out sort of the Mennonite perspective we're open everybody how do they find you? how do they find me? this raises a sort of a separation of church and state questions so I won't give my university phone number but I tell you what my phone number is in the phone book and so you can always call us at home Paul Caljin with a KAL we're in the phone book and so we invite you to call us if you're interested you know Paul you just took the easy way out you said just KAL that's when the letters start getting difficult if you don't speak Armenian K-A-L-D-J-I-A-N just like all the rest of us say Caljin I also was wondering if you'd give us reference the refusal solidarity network how do people find out about that? well the web it's just like with everything else and I'm the one who's responsible for the website and I've been remiss for not updating it since July 2006 nevertheless if you're interested in this portion of the peace movement in Israel please check out www.refusersolidarity.net so it's one word refusal solidarity.net and I'll of course have that posted on my website I think you got an appointment after me I have to let you get back to your job spreading this international connection through your work as a geographer I tell you what the appointments about is next spring I'm planning on working with our continuing education department I'm taking a food tour of Istanbul so it'll be an eight-day tour at the end of May beginning of June if anybody's interested then you can contact me at the university or at home or contact Gene Peterson in continuing education and if they wanted to be part of that food tour and they wanted to contact you how should they do that? you can contact me by emailing me at Caljin K-A-L-D-J-I-A-N at uwec.edu it's just my last name Caljin@uwec.edu or you can call continuing education that's easy just give them a ring and they'll know who to direct you toward I love seeing the kind of full rainbow that you have in your life it's a rainbow of international connection since I'm an international folk dancer and since I've traveled and lived in a fair amount of the world I just love seeing what you're doing and I just told you up in my prayers and with great enthusiasm endorse what you're doing thanks very much Paul thank you Mark and I really appreciate your support and the opportunity to spend this time with you you've been listening to an interview with Paul Caljin of the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire he's a geography professor there and he's a board member of the Refuser Solidarity Network you can hear this program again via my website northernspiritradio.org on that website you find other programs and you'll find helpful links and information about each of the programs the theme music for spirit in action is I have no hands but yours by Carol Johnson thank you for listening I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit you can email me at helpsmeat@usa.net may you find deep roots to support you and grow subtly toward the light this is spirit in action I have no higher cause than this to love and serve your neighbor enjoy and selflessness to love and serve your neighbor enjoy and selflessness to love and serve your neighbor enjoy and serve your neighbor enjoy and serve your neighbor enjoy and serve your neighbor You You
Paul Kaldjian is the living product of a rainbow of cultural & religious heritages, Finnish and Armenian, diverse religious groups, all combining to create a person who has a passion for creating personal-international connection. He's a Mennonite, a geography professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and a board member of the Refuser Solidarity Network, a group that seeks to support Israeli "refusniks" and inform the world about this element of the Israeli peace movement.