WWI, why it still matters (article) ~ Reflection

It's amazing to think that an event that occured so many years ago, still affects us today. Before taking this class, I knew that WWI was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. I mean abviously not as bad as the 2nd World War, but you get my point. One major thing I learned was that it was supposedly, a "war to end all wars." And it obviously didn't turn out to be one. The Treaty of Versailles, which did technically end the war, still left a lot of damage unrepaired. First off, Germany was left to pay the whole cost of the war. At first, when I read this, I felt happy inside, because of how the Germans and Hitler treated the Jews. But then I considered how much they owed, and then my eyes were opened. No country should be forced to pay that much, that's basically insanity. Germany's condition was already rough enough. Two wrongs do not make a right. Another major thing I learned was that a few countries lost a lot of their territories. For example, Germany and the Ottoman Empire lost their colonies or possessions outside of Europe. And they were turned into "mandates" by the League of Nations. Speaking of mandates, the British Mandate for Israel included what is known as Israel today, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This reminded me of our Palestine Israel Conflict discussion in class, and the powerpoint presentations. What the mandate included led up to an agreement in 1993 between Israel and Palestinian leaders, granting the Palestinians some control of the West Bank and Gaza, in hope of a new Palestine state. But there has been no progress. That's what the mandate led up to; false hope. At least Obama has promised that he is going to do his best to make the tensions between Israelites and Palestinians go away. Sadly, I feel not much is going to improve...

Reflection~ Friedman Video

Okay so, today I was thinking back about what we had done in class the past week, and I remembered the video. I wasn't originally planning on blogging about it, but now I feel the need to. This video was very well done. Thomas Friedman, who is an award-winning American journalist and author, traveled to Europe post 9/11 to see how America's reputation had declined. I have always known that most Europeans aren't that fond of us, and that was usually because our mannerisms are different than theirs' (generally speaking). I know one of the main things that annoy them is how blunt and opinionated we are. This video gave me a few surprises. Friedman was talking to one of the students from America studying in Paris, and she told him that once the US invaded Iraq, she had gone through some verbal harrassment from the French. They said things to her such as, "Do you have any idea what your country is doing!?" or "What kind of people are you!" as if she represented the American nation as a whole or something. I never knew the French could be like that. I know that in America, if France were to do something outrageous and a French person were in our country, it's not common here for people to be like that. Overall, we are friendly people. Another thing that appalled me in the video was the interview Friedman had with the Muslim French women. They seemed to have some Arab background, but they spoke French fluently. When asked what their views are on bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda attack, shockingly, they replied that they believe he was doing the right thing; he was "fighting for Islam." Okay, first of all, this doesn't look good on a video because it reflects on Islam as a whole. I'm Muslim, and I felt uncomfortable immediatly. Second, fighting for Islam?? A religion doesn't need to be fought for. Just believe what you choose, period. That whole interview just bothered me. I'm sure it gave at least a few other people that watched it the impression that a lot of Muslims around the world think that, and that's not true. Sure, we don't see bin Laden as badly as Americans do, but it's not to the point that most of us support him. Overall, I learned a lot from the video and hope that America's reputation improves over time around the world.

Reflection~ Korea Article

I have always known that Kim Jong Il, the dictator of North Korea, is notorious for being one of the worst leaders in the world. I have never really thoroughly studied about North Korea at all, but wow, this article came to me as a total shocker. Few cars and factories? What makes North Korea this way, while South Korea is becoming more and more modern? The island of Korea isn't too far from the PRC, or Japan; which are both prospering in technology. The few factories that are present in Japan, make mostly just military equipment. Poverty is still very prominent. Kim Jong Il is basically just focusing on making his nuclear power iron strong, and play "cat and mouse" with the west. Since the end of WWII, North Korea has barely progressed. When Japan was defeated in 1945, the 38th Parallel line was formed, spliting the Korean peninsula. It wasn't really supposed to last.. but then Kim Il Sung became obsessed with forming his own strong army, and being a dictator. What is it with people and their thirst for power?? Like many other leaders who became obsessed, he swung North Korea between his own type of democracy and authoritarianism. Building a strong military, North Korea managed to seize an American ship, the Pueblo, and imprisoned the crew for nearly a year. While America was trying to make peace with North Korea and make negotiations, North Korea wouldn't budge, pushing itself only further into solitude. That is how it didn't benefit from all the technological advances made in the many countries surrounding it. Not really paying much attention to how his country was lacking progress, Kim Jong Il, started paying all of his attention to nuclear weapons, and how much he can get his hands on. He started to reconsider his country's complete isolation when over 80% of his people were starving from the huge famine in mid-1990s. Today, conditions aren't much better for the North Korean people, as the Northerners and Southerners are technically still at war. So today, the new leader, Kim Jong Un has taken over. I don't get a very good feeling that he's going to do much for the country either...

Reflection~ Ppt 4/29

My partner and I collaborated on a project, and its topic was The Tibetan Crisis and the Dalai Lama. Considering I had never even heard of the Dalai Lama before, and knew very little about Tibet, I thought this would be a good topic for me. Basically, all I knew about Tibet before starting the project was where it is located. Since I was more interested in the Tibetan Crisis, my partner and I split up the research, and I focused on learning about what was going on in Tibet. I found various articles on Tibet's situation, and basically I first and foremost learned that China claims itself the owner of Tibet. I looked at a bunch of maps and saw that, yes, Tibet is shown as if it is a part of China. But at one point, Tibet was fighting viciously for its independence. Around 50 years ago, China successfully invaded Tibet's region of Kham and took over Lhasa, Tibet's capital. While my partner was doing most of the research for Dalai Lama, I was meanwhile learning about it myself. I figured they were the leaders of Tibet; I read that by 1913 the 13th one was in reign. China had always thought it was the rightful owner of Tibet. The UN didn't even think to help Tibet and its fight for independence, which is ironic because it was supposed to be supporting peace among everyone. Either way, things today are a little better. Something I find really unadmirable about China was its Seventeen Point Agreement, in which China promised it would help Tibet have progress economically and socially. Sadly, none of that ever happened. Tibetans were treated quite cruelly by the Chinese, and some compared it to Nazi Germany. Overall, 86,000 Tibetan lives were lost. Today, the rage has turned into hopelessness, which basically implies that even the Dalai Lama is willing to make compromises and give up the fight for independence. However China's ego won't budge. So what's next?

Reflection~ Japanese Camps in USA

When people say they're proud to Americans, that concept certainly does not apply after learning about this. After the Japanese had attacked us, I suppose it is understandable of how many were paranoid of something happening next. But overall, this was not the right thing to do. Most of the people taken into the camps were children and women, who had never shown any disloyalty to the country or made any suspicion rise. I think the main thing at the time was racism, because we had no particular reason to blame them, besides paranoia, and is that even constituted as a reason in this case? A lot of Americans hated what the Nazis were doing, but wasn't America doing the same exact thing? In the camps, people were fenced in, and the conditions weren't the most sanitary. Temperatures would be either unbearably warm, or could get freezing. They were fed, but the same, plain meals twice a day, everyday. Talk about depressing. Children were educated, but not with proper teachers. Medical care was very inadequate compared to before, as if it wasn't bad enough. Many acted as if nothing had happened, but the Japanese were held under major restrictions on their lives. If rules were not followed, they would be killed. In the end, it was discovered that only 10 people total were convicted of spying for Japan, and none of them were Japanese!

Reflection ~ Bataan Death March

I have probably mentioned before that I feel I have studied the Holocaust way too much. I understand how awful and cruel the genocide was, but many others have been ignored. This march, which I have NEVER heard about before this class, was truly a horrible event. The prisoners of war, who were dragged out of their homes, underwent the most cruel punishments (if that's what one can even call it!?). When I think about the times I had studied and read about the Holocaust, I remember thinking at times, 'Was this worse than it sounds?' When I read about this march, my insides felt like they were rotting. The thought of those people being beaten over and over, and the way they were being tortured is unimaginable for me. The sun treatment is what got me the most. The people had to trudge on for hundreds of miles under the unbearable Filipino heat, and if anyone said anything, or asked for water, they were immediatly executed. Is someone fell behind, they would either be left to die or executed on the spot. Basically, they were treated harshly for hardly any reason at all. In the end, thousands were dead due to the conditions of the march, or execution.

Sleep ~ Salvador Dali

Dali, one of the best known surrealist painters, had his own unique style of surreal work. He had very exaggerating, striking paintings, and often left the viewer confused as to what his message might be from the image. When I look at his paintings, I start off feeling confused and I usually have to stare at it for at least 5 minutes to figure out what is present in the scene. He seemed to have a habit of twisting random objects together, and make everything chaotic, but still make it work. To be able to do what he did truly requires a very broad imagination. His eccentric manner in which he painted was what got him a lot of attention at first, rather than his work. He got a lot of his inspiration from the Dada movements. He used his random objects as symbolism in his work.... Veeery unique symbolism.

In this painting, "Sleep," which he painted in 1937, Dali shows a subject which many surrealists were familiar with; dreams. He and other surrealists felt that the mind during sleep is very valuable and the images one gets from dreams are very precious, because it can give one a chance to see into another world. This head, which is oddly shaped like a foot, is propped up by what appears to be abunch of wooden crutches. I have noticed Dali tended to use crutches a lot in his paintings. I found it odd for the crutches to be holding the mouth, nose and eyes; it made me cringe to feel the sensation. I think the fact that those specific parts of the face are being held suggests that the head would disintegrate if the crutches were moved. ANother way to interpret that would be thinking of how one moves during sleeping and their dream changes, and they flinch. According to Dali, "Sleep is a heavy monster that is held up by the crutches of reality."