My ESL Conversation Class Rocks!

I always enjoy my Wednesday night conversation classes. Tonight we talked about war. At the end of our last class, I gave them the lyrics to Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind, and the lyrics to an anti-war song written by my friend C to the tune of "Oh Suzanna." (The lyrics to both are at the bottom of this post.) We started off by discussing the 1960's and the different events going on during that time, particularly in the year of 1962, when Blowin' in the Wind was written. We discussed and analyzed possible meanings of the song, and then we listened to it. Then we did the same with my friend C's song.

We discussed the reasons why people protest things in general, and the reasons why there are few protests/demonstrations in Russia. The general consensus of the class was that Russians are afraid that the government will react strongly in opposition to them if they protest, so therefore they remain passive, although they did all say that if Russians began to protest various issues, the country might improve.

One of the students mentioned that she is a member of Nashi (НАШИ - it means "ours") a Russian youth movement, about which I had heard a lot of negative things. However, my student said a lot of good things about the organization: that it's against fascism, and they she has assisted in painting over pro-fascist and pro-nazi grafitti as part of her Nashi activities. She said that they also work actively against racism, by providing a support network for Africans and members of other races living in Vladimir. Immediately, another woman countered by saying that Nashi is a fascist organization, although she didn't back that statement up with anything. I must admit, I know almost nothing about Nashi, although I had heard that it was fascist. (I found some links, that were interesting to me, so perhaps they will be interesting to you, on this topic, so here you go: Wikipedia, Official Nashi Website, and Analysis of Putin's New Youth Movement)

We discussed the war in Iraq and the war in Chechnya - both of which my students opposed, although they all seemed to think that governments make decisions entirely independent of their citizens, so governments decide to go to war, and then the people have to suffer. It was certainly an interesting discussion.

At the end of the class, one of the women asked "Can we please talk about something positive next time?" Whoops. Unfortunately, I don't think that's really going to happen. After everything that's been going on with my student who plans to go to Egypt, I decided that it would be a good idea to give them some of the text from the Angel Coalition's website. Useful, helpful, but not exactly light-n-happy conversation.

Song written by my friend C:

Well I come from ol’ America

And Iraq I’m gonna free,

But Bush said it would be alright

If I killed me two or three

My parents cried the day I left

The weather it was dry

An Iraqi shot me dead that day

And in the streets I died

Oh America, don’t forget to cry for me;

I’ll be coming back from Bush’s Nam

With a flag draped over me.

Well Iraq is free but all I see

Is fighting all around

We’ll teach those Iraqis how to vote

If we have to shoot them to the ground.

‘Cause Bush he needs more oil to sell

And Cheney construction ties

But the rest of us are damned to hell

’Cause Bush you fuckin’ lied.

Oh America, don’t forget to cry for me;

I’ll be coming back from Bush’s Nam

With a flag draped over me.