Sさんのご厚意に甘えて、今年もSさん宅で１品持ち寄り例会を行ないました。皆、いろんな料理を持参し、又、Sさんは石焼釜を作られて、そこで焼かれた出来たてのピザを提供、積もる話と御馳走の楽しい昼食となりました。台湾やＵＳ国籍の方が来て下さり、又、イランの支部会員の出席もありと、国際色豊かです。食後、台湾サーバスの方が豊富な資料を用いて、台湾の紹介をして下さいました。又、お土産にはたくさんのお菓子と映画「最高の人生の見つけ方」で有名になった超高級のコ―ヒ―「コピ・ルアク」を持って来て下さり、皆、真剣に味わいました。続いて、関東支部会員のMさんがTさんとのインタビューでBob Luitweilerさんを紹介して下さり、しばらくサーバスについて話し合いました。最後に今日のメイン、京大の留学生で支部会員になって下さったHさんによる講演、"Earthquake Hazards & the Vulnerability of Infrastructur“　「地震の危険と基幹施設の脆弱性」を聞きました。英語での講演ですが、映像には日本語訳も付けて下さるという行き届いたもので、自然の威力が如何にすごいかを学びました。

会場を提供して下さったSさん、超お忙しい中、今日の講演を用意して下さったHさん、色んな情報を発表して下さった Mさん、Sさん、Hさん、往復の送迎をして下さったWさん、Sさん、本当に有難うございました。

　議題　被災地の方を受け入れる取り組みについて、

　４人の会員の方が各２週間の受け入れを引き受けて下さる事になりました。１人交通費補助１万円、滞在費無料という事で募集した所、応募者も出始めています。支部会計から５万円、会員カンパ５万円と言う事で１０人を募集します。カンパが５万円に満たない場合、不足額は支部会計から支出することになりました。カンパは応募者が多くてカンパの必要性が出たら、集めることになりました。

Hさんの講演要旨

On Servas meeting of May 25th, I spoke about Myths and Misconceptions about Earthquakes. It was a general speech regarding the wrong beliefs about earthquake and its important factors.
The summary of the speech:

・Biggest earthquakes of recent era were discusses. The 1964 earthquake of Chile has had the largest magnitude in the past century.

・Earthquake has many important factors and cannot be judged by its magnitude alone。Source of energy release, frequency content, site conditions, distance & focal depth etc. are among other important factors of earthquake. This is not logic to compare two earthquakes by their magnitudes only.                                                 
・Earthquake warning systems do not predict, they just feel it sooner.  Animals aren't able to predict earthquake either. There may have been exceptions, but this cannot be the base of important decisions.

　若干の自己紹介　H. S

I studied civil engineering (土木工学) and did my master's in geotechnical engineering (地盤力学). Since 2011, I started my PhD in geotechnical earthquake engineering at Kyoto University. My research is about earthquake effect on embankments.

[Below is an interview with Servas founder Bob Luitweiler from the 2008 documentary Servas: A Light in the Dark or Just another Way to Travel Cheaply? by S.T. In summary, Bob argues that he created Servas to promote international understanding, and he implies very clearly that Servas can help ``build an alternative society between the cracks`` of a global society that does not provide people with opportunity to live peacefully. Such an organization would inspire young people to join, bring in new leaders, and would help overcome different cultures fear of other cultures that leads to war and manipulation. It is

 [edited] for clerity but the meaning is Bob`s.]                                   Lutweiler: Servas is deteriorating. It is without any program. Without a plan [for the future]. [The woman who lays out] the newsletter told me she would print some of the articles I wrote. Afterwards, members would say to me `how nice your article is, Bob.` But they would ignore it. [In other words, today, the perversion of the organization`s mission and the danger to Servas`s own survival is hidden from its members.] If Servas can`t awaken and return to its earlier vision [as a peace organization], operated with  low overhead expenses and with greatest emphasis on organizing, etc. other groups which use the computer [Couch Surfing, etc] will push Servas out the back door.                                 
I  would like to imagine the Servas [bureaucracy] getting a great exciting vision [and I would like for them] to start thinking about peace building and how they can reach a new generations. But today Servas is an old people`s organization.

Instead, I try to imagine [Servas coming to life] around the world, [doing things such as starting new chapters at] colleges, where students could get together to work on environmental issues, to work on peace building, etc. [However people must be shown that] peace building is not just shouting `war is wrong` or `I`m gonna refuse to fight`. Peace building is about building a society where people aren`t using [manipulating] each other.  thought Servas would be an organization of peace builders who were determined to create a just and good society. But [instead of doing something positive] it`s so much easier [for people] just to complain. [The mission of the organization is] to make peace through action. [But that] is much more difficult. Look at the situation [in the world] today. There is so much anti-government [sentiment] and so on. How much of that [energy] is [going toward] building an alternative?

Peace builder teams,` was a Quaker [Quaker religion] idea in the U.S. The idea was that people in a country would come together and become a team. They would experience both inter-cultural learning and at the same time have a project and do something constructive for the community. A lot of young people today who see how we are tearing up the environment, and how we are creating rich and poor, and they don`t know what to do. They don`t know how to deal with it. [Despite our mission, Servas today no longer shows members how to do anything constructive, how to create fair and sustainable world]. Servas Peace Builders could provide the answer. We could find a way. But in the current [stagnant] atmosphere of Servas, I don`t think it`s going to happen. It`s got to happen [through the inspired efforts of] people like you [Tsan and others].

lanning [for the organization`s return to life should be carried out] under Servas, but not by the people at the top. Servas people are good-hearted people, but [in general they have the character of] `Don`t shake me too hard . I`m comfortable.` [In other words, they act like consumers instead of citizens, and are in denial of what is taking place around them].  

Every person grows up in an ethnic cage, made up of the ideas, values and language they grow up with. This is good in some ways, but it puts a cocoon around them and limits them from understanding the larger picture in the larger world. I felt that Servas was great in getting out of the ethnic cage and seeing humanity as a whole.

Indeed, I am a human being, with an American passport. But I never pose as an American. I`m a human being first. I respect people as human beings. And I want people to respect me as a human being when I go to another country. Cities in other countries are all similar, but to go out in the villages, and meet the crafts people. [We can learn valuable skills and wisdom from people who work with their hands]. Children see new customs and that`s exciting. And it was that experience that convinced me Servas could be a powerful education program.

In the UK, for example, Servas is not a hospitality program, but a work-study-travel program, which is fundamentally different [from being a cheap way to travel]. People in a work-study-travel program enjoy a fundamentally different experience. Over the years Servas has been going more and more toward becoming a low-cost hospitality program for comfortable, middle class people, and it has been almost totally forgotten that Servas is built on being a program for studying how we can build peaceful world. And I`m pretty unhappy [about it].

They [present Servas leaders rationalize] that meeting people from other countries is creating peace. [But Luitweiler believes that just meeting people is not creating peace]. [For example, during] the U.S. civil war, [people were] shooting each other. Some were brothers and cousins. [Therefore just] knowing each other doesn`t make peace. I never heard [the current Servas leaders discuss or] argue [about what Servas is for]. They just [ignore the question].

I [have asked many Servas leaders] `What is the purpose of this organization you are working for? Then I spend 20 minutes telling them about Gandhian philosophy. [I explain] the idea that society is transformed by people building an alternative [society] between the cracks in the old,* by believing in the goodness of all people, and by recognizing that everybody has a divine light within them.  

[People build a new society] by reaching out to help each other understand that with the best part of themselves they can solve all kinds of problems that other people [leaders, societies, etc.] cannot  . . . solve.       

     *************************************************************************   
``Building an alternative society between the cracks in the old`` means to provide services that societies and governments no longer provide. For example, where there is no public education, or housing programs, people join together and make schools or share space. Where there is no system for people to talk with each other, or no social services, people create newsletters or word-of-mouth communication networks, and learn to talk with and help their neighbors.

Pasted Graphic.tiff

Excerpt: THE SEEDS OF SERVAS

A Personal Recollection of the Earliest Days of Servas by

BOB LUITWEILER
The Future

If every one of the some 15,000 hosts organized regular intercultural parties like the ones we had in Birmingham and Jerusalem, we could reach in a years time thirteen million people and help them discover how beautiful the human family can be when we appreciate each other's rich cultures. We could break down the prejudices that power brokers use to get neighbors in Bosnia, in Israel, in Rwanda and Burundi, in Yugoslavia and Serbia and in US cities, to destroy each other. These parties would not cost us anything but a little time and effort. They would not have to be in a home but could be in the back room of a cafe or restaurant, often available free if we order their food, or even outside on a picnic. And they could result in a great deal of fun, music, stories and new friendships.

Servas, perhaps more than the typical top down organization, depends on its members to make it succeed. Those who do nothing except wait for travelers are not helping solve our problems. Those who are befriending foreign college students near them are making contacts with young people who could become good Servas travelers. Those who write stories in periodicals that reach the kind of people who would make, not just travelers looking for cheap lodging or superficial tourists, but people who care about the future of our world and want to learn how they can contribute in a way that makes a difference.