Introduction to Yalo

Yalo – 21/08/2008

The idea of this blog started one evening after a therapy session. I was wondering what I should do to improve my tolerance to difference, and contribute to a world that tolerates difference better.

As someone who felt not at home wherever I went because of the differences I have from the cultures around me, my “life is all about reconciling differences “ (as my therapist put it).

Through this blog I would like to be able to reflect on my thoughts and feelings on many topics I feel inspired by. This will be for self-reflection as well as sharing my thoughts with others.

I am hoping to be commenting on news items, cultural events, books, films, arts and some personal events.

To write in a blog is like writing a letter and placing it on a worldwide town square where it could sit there and decay forever. A passer by who had some time to spare could come across it, and she/ he could be inspired, appalled or just entertained by what she /he sees. She / he could post a comment to me to share her feelings and thoughts about what I write.

How will a blog reconcile difference?

Information, I believe, is the engine of tolerance, while ignorance or misinformation is the fuel to fear and the excluding of the ‘other’.

In this blog, I will attempt to reflect on things around me to expand my knowledge of my ‘self’ (own identities, internal world, and social groups I identify with) and the ‘other’ (people that may be different to me in their culture, race, sexuality, age...etc). I will try to inform the readers of events and opinions which they may not encounter in many other places.

I decided to call it Yalo after the main character in the novel, with the same name, by Elias Khoury.

He was a very different person living in Beirut, the mother of cities where differences between residents are often seen as extremely hard to reconcile.