Fridays For Future Climate Strike in San Jose, California

With the possible exception of removing Donald Trump from office in the 2020 US election, no challenge looms larger globally than reversing the catastrophic climate change that threatens to destroy the planet we love and call home.

Friday, September 20, 2019, was Global Climate Strike Day. The movement – Fridays for Future - was launched by 16-year-old Swedish student Greta Thurnberg in 2018. It has now spread to 150 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Students around the world are embracing the idea of “striking” from school on specific Fridays in coming years to demand action.

On Friday, 

Greta spoke to the thousands of “strikers” in New York City. She had disembarked in Lower Manhattan on August 28 after 15 days of sailing across the Atlantic on an emission-free yacht that prominently displayed the Twitter hashtag “#FridaysForFuture.” She is scheduled to address world leaders at the United Nations Climate Action Summit on 23^rd September. 

This is what she said to New Yorkers on Friday, September 20:

“This is an emergency. Our house is on fire. We will do everything in our power to stop this crisis from getting worse … Why should we study for a future that is being taken away from us. That is being sold for profit … Everywhere I have been, the situation is more or less same. The people in power, their beautiful words are the same. The number of politicians and celebrities who want to take selfies with us are the same. The empty promises are the same. The lies are the same, and the inaction is the same. The eyes of the world will be on the world leaders at the climate summit on Monday for the U.N. Climate Summit. They have a chance to prove that they too are united behind the science, they have a chance to take leadership, to prove they actually hear us. It should not be that way. We should not be the ones who are fighting for the future, and yet here we are. We demand a safe future. Is that really too much to ask?”

I am a teacher, not a student, but I was there along with mothers, fathers and grandparents, in my hometown of San Jose, California - over a thousand of us - to participate in this protest march against greedy and clueless politicians in the pockets of fossil fuel industries who have been plundering the earth to extinction. We assembled outside the Diridon Railway station in downtown San Jose and then marched along Santa Clara Street to City Hall about a mile away, chanting, singing, and erupting in wild cheers when cars and buses passing us honked in support.
 
“Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Fossil Fuel’s Got to Go.”
“Planet Over Profit.”
“What Do We Want? Planet Justice!” “When Do We Want? Now!”
“Whose Streets? Our Streets!”
“One, Two, Three, Four! Planet’s What We’re Fighting For!”

Posters tell the story better than words. What was so remarkable was how animated everyone was. Most were students but girls outnumbered boys by almost 10:1. That the earth is in danger of extinction, along with humanity and all the flora and fauna, is a truth no one can escape, certainly not through the same damn lies we have been hearing time and again from politicians, hypocrites and leaders blind to scientific evidence.

My pictures give only a glimpse into the thousand of us who marched under a hot sun in San Jose, joining our fellow “strikers” across the globe, to demand that we reverse the threat of catastrophic climate change that is choking the life out of Mother Earth, the planet we love and the only home we know.

Istanbul: Confluence of East and West

Any walk or ride in Istanbul invariably turns into a journey through history. Centuries-old civilizations stand sentinel to the passage of time in this fabled Turkish city where East (Asia) and West (Europe) literally meet. For 16 centuries Istanbul was the imperial capital, first of the Byzantine (Roman) Empire and then of the Ottoman (Uthman) sultans. Now it is a thriving city, perhaps the only city in the world where it is possible to see humanity as a whole, in peace and joy, instead of the walls dividing peoples and races everywhere else, instigated by the powerful blinded by racism.

Blue Mosque

My wife and I sat in the courtyard of the Sultan Ahmet Blue Mosque at various times of the day and watched the stream of tourists from around the world flow by, from dawn until midnight, curious, unstoppable, alive. As the ethos of this cosmopolitan city, “Let them come to Istanbul” can do for our times by way of inspiration what Kennedy’s famous words did for the free world over half-a-century ago in Berlin.

Aya Sofya Museum

In the courtyard are the Hippodrome, site of Roman chariot races, and obelisks describing the history of the place. Across the expansive courtyard is the Aya Sofya (Divine Wisdom) museum and adjacent to it is the Topkapi Palace, a sprawling wonder that was the residence of Ottoman sultans for nearly 400 years, now housing a sui generis collection of robes, porcelains, jewelry, calligraphic manuscripts and other Ottoman treasures.

History suffuses Istanbul but what also struck us was the pervasive presence of cats, dogs, crows and seagulls. The dogs lie on the marble floor of the courtyard, docile as doves. Children pat them without fear. The cats roam the cobblestone alleys and hotel lawns with aplomb and are provided food and water at regular intervals by the locals. In the Golden Horn hotel where we were staying, we saw hotel staff replenishing bowls with water and spreading cat food at designated spots with purpose.

Feeding seagulls and cats

Just before noon prayers at the Firuz Aga mosque near my hotel one day, I saw a cat walking about in the main prayer room. In any other mosque in the world, a devotee would shoo the cat away. Not in Istanbul. I watched with gratitude and admiration as a young man ever so gently lift the cat up and place her at the exit door. I have never seen people as friendly toward animals as Istanbul natives. They do not merely tolerate them, they love them. In front of the biggest mosque in Istanbul, the Suleymaniye Mosque, I saw a caretaker feeding fish to raucous seagulls and cautious cats as part of his job.

If history is everywhere in Istanbul, so is fabulous, fragrant food. Istanbul is as close to paradise as can be imagined for foodies and non-foodies alike. Just the sheer variety of kebabs left us in awe, particularly the Testi lamb kebab, cooked in the dancing flames of a barely controlled fire before the wondrous eyes of patrons. It’s al-fresco on both sides of narrow alleys, with a shallow divider between to feed the cats who wander around like tourists out to have a good time. I tried everything: lamb, beef and chicken kebabs. I found the shawarmas irresistible. Tasted sea bass, prawn, and whatever else they haul in from the waters around, always served fresh. We ate with pleasure and without guilt. “You can always fast,” an inner voice told me, “when you return to California.” There’s a time to fast and a time to feast. In Istanbul, there’s always some excuse to feast, unless you are a Muslim traveling during Ramadan.

The Bosphorous cruise on a spacious boat is something to write home about. The Strait connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea. Proceeding toward the Black sea, Europe lay on our left and Asia to our right. Light moved enchantingly across the face of the water and we felt in its ebb and flow the rise and fall of civilizations. The historical buildings made their presence known with authority amid modern utilitarian homes: Dolmabahche Palace, Beylerbei Palace, Anadolu Fortress and the Rumeli Fortress, built in 1452 by Sultan Mehmet II, the largest and strongest fortress of the Middle Age.

At some point, modernity overwhelmed history in the form of … Selfies! When historians chronicle the 21^st century, one milestone they are bound to acknowledge is the moment when “I Believe in Myself” morphed into “I Believe in My Selfie!” The selfie-takers were easily the dominant homo sapiens in Istanbul. No place was too secular or sacred. We saw as many selfies being snapped inside Aya Sofya, the Blue Mosque, the Suleymaniye Mosque and the Ayub al-Ansari Mosque, as in the plaza and the courtyard, in the Grand Bazaar and in the eateries. Ah, the bottomless vanities of humankind!

Istanbul is not immune to geopolitical reality. We saw Syrian refugees everywhere, mostly women, eyes hollow with despair, arms outstretched for alms. We did our share to help but there is no end in sight for these proud people whose country is in ruin, and where return, at least for now, is unthinkable.

In Istanbul, there are no pedestrian rights, only the rights of drivers. It took us a day to adjust to this reality, particularly after I made some narrow escapes with my life and limb intact. Thereafter, we became pros in jumping from the edge of the street to the curb at the last moment to avoid being hit by taxis, cars and buses. “Nimble” is the only word I can think of to describe our new-found athleticism.

We took in a performance of the whirling dervishes one evening, a Sufi tradition that induces spiritual ecstasy among practitioners through rejection of the material world and evocation of the inner realm. The inspiration comes from the words and practices of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi master from the 13^th century whose poems have sold in the millions in the U.S., making him the best-selling poet in America. “What you seek,” wrote Rumi, “is seeking you.”

Departing Istanbul was difficult for we had fallen in love with this magnificent city. The friendliness of the Turkish people overwhelmed us. We were fumbling with our tickets one day, trying to get into the subway that would take us through the tunnel under the Bosphorous from Europe to Asia. A middle-aged man, responding in Turkish to our English, took us through the whole process without making us feel small or embarrassed. This gesture repeated many times every day during the week we were in Istanbul. Even the smallest shop we visited treated us to Turkish Tea and Turkish Delights. Everyone had a smile for us. It is true: Smiling is indeed charity.

Jet lag made us lethargic after we returned to California but as soon as we regained our bearings, we began planning our next trip to the city that sits at the intersection of East and West, mysterious and manifest: Istanbul.