Kalesh 2.0

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Zariyaa held its first event, Kalesh 2.0 which was the Academic Year’s first blended ECA event. We had participants online and on campus. Kalesh is a platform for discussion where students offer their unfiltered opinions on topics that are not commonly deliberated.

Kalesh 2.0 started off with a fairly neutral topic of discussion which was eye opening for many. We spoke about ‘Reclaiming Abusive Language’. The event started off by instating a safe space for all participants to share their opinions. Zariyaa moderated the discussion by offering pointers.

Students discussed what abuses they commonly use and tried to find a pattern in coarse language. They discovered that everything that does not point to cis caucasian male is universally not an abuse, leading us to recognize how patriarchy has ruled the violence in our language. Several students spoke about how these words have now lost their significance and are casually used to convey displeasure without being literal. Few students also marked abuses as a way to cross over boundaries and establish friendship, especially as college mates.

While the discussion also covered how inherently biased our abuses have been, our intention matters. The audience agreed that abuses to specifically trigger people do not come from a place of resolution but hurt.

When Zariyaa concluded the discussion, they mentioned instances and communities who have reclaimed abuses targeted towards them. The event ended in the agreement that the name calling that made us ashamed of who we are has the potential of empowerment if we remove the disdain that had been held which made the language abusive.
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