Something that we have discussed a lot in our class and something that I have discovered through talking to Mark about my research paper is this thing about self – awareness when it comes to categorizing people. I bring up this topic yet again, because I feel as though as this class goes on I keep pointing my finger at my self, for doing this unintentionally. The example that I would like to use is that of the Janjaweed, the Arab militia in Sudan. In my paper I discuss various different happenings in Darfur, but then I go on to talk about the Janjaweed and I categorize them as inhumane people who should shame themselves for what they are doing in Sudan. This is not fair. I leave this part in my paper, because I feel as though I should show this side that people believe this, but then in my third to last paragraph I call myself out on this. I do this not because for one specific reason. I hope that by doing this I am showing people how easy it is to make assumptions, as they will most likely do when reading my paper, but then in that paragraph I hope for them to see what I saw when I was researching – I hope they see that despite what people say or what they think EVERYONE is someone and we can’t just summarize them in one sentence as ‘bad’. Every problem is more complex then just ‘bad,’ and if everyone took the time to realize this, this world would have a lot less problems and a lot less fighting. We need to make sure that we stay objective, and are always open to new ideas. I know that this relates back to my previous posts about not judging other people, but I hope that in reading this you realize, that there are so many different situations where you can practice this, not just in your daily lives, but also in the way you think and the way you interpret things when you learn something new. It is important to always stay doubtful, and hopefully we will learn from one another that we do not have to necessarily agree with someone, but we have to make an effort to understand where they are coming from. This is something that I believe everyone should strive to do, including myself, and hopefully people will catch on that this is the only way to live in peace with one another.
Branding
Branding a country is hard.
You can’t simply go in, change a country to be more westernized, and then advertise this to tourists, investors, entrepreneurs, etc. At the same time, how is a western person supposed to help a country that is suffering, without imposing their values and their beliefs on the people living there. But then again, what are we supposed to do? Sit around and watch a country crumble. Like I said earlier – Branding is hard.
The solution to this problem isn’t black and white, but major factors that need to be in place for a country to improve are motivation and education. A country has to be motivated enough to create their own plan, but with this of course comes having the intellectual resources to do this. This means a country must grow it’s economy before it can ask for help, receive help, or hope to improve in anyway. However, once these things take place, a country can reach out to other countries and work with them to explain their plan and ask for support in their quest to undergo these “renovations” to their country.
The world however has a problem, everyone wants some sort of reward or benefit from doing this. So who wants to help or even give the time of day to a weak, failing country?
Taking risks, especially in the world today is very uncommon, so is it even possible for a country to climb its way back up to being stable enough to brand? Also, does branding even work?
Branding in in the Believe campaign was slightly different then branding an entire country, because a country will back itself up and help their own people when they can, but a country such as Nigeria, has no one to back them up, or to take a risk on them. Furthermore, it’s hard to cover up all the bad things happening in Nigeria, because it has been so prominent in the news and has become common knowledge that Nigeria is pretty bad off in almost every way.
When a country gets to be as low down on the spectrum as Nigeria, it takes an act of kindness of another strong country to help boost them up. This does not mean it’s impossible, but it will be a struggle for Nigeria to reach that point.
Is witchcraft bad?
This past week we discussed this very question as we read about Sierra Leone and Africa as a whole.
A question brought up throughout our discussion about witchcraft was – how is this different from Nazi Germany or the KKK? Of course, this is not as extreme a level of mass killings as these parties, but how else is accusing of witchcraft different?
Witchcraft is a spiritual belief that there are witches in the world that are possibly doing harm. To many people who live in the bay area this is absurd, as we, myself included, grew up on a more practical, or rather scientific way of living, where for the most part everything is black and white. This puts us at a disadvantage, as we then choose to separate ourselves from the people who we believe are uneducated, when in reality they are simply educated differently from western culture.
As people in class continued to bring up points, I realized something about our class: we were discriminating against a culture. Yes, we were not purposefully doing this, but isn’t that almost worse then doing it on purpose. It’s not fair to call a group of people ‘them’ and make judgements about what they are doing until we fully understand why they are doing it. For example, Nazi Germany. We know that everything Hitler did was to hurt the Jewish Community, he had no problem killing people in the most painful way possible, and he did this for no spiritual or cultural reasons, instead it was to gain power. Because we know all this information about his motives, we are able to conclude that what he was doing was bad and inhumane.
Africans who do believe in witchcraft are not killing to gain power or to be spiteful, instead they are killing these people out of fear that they will bring evil upon them. Whether or not I have personal spiritual beliefs or not is unimportant and irrelevant to the real issue at hand. At Athenian we learn about different cultures, we are taught to accept everyone, we are in a diverse community, but when do we actually here people outside of our Athenian community talk about their beliefs? For example, in history last year we spent extensive time learning about Native Americans, their cultures, and their challenges; however, not once have I talked to a Native American first hand about their spiritual or political beliefs. Western education teaches us to trust our sources who are often our teachers, but why should we? Learning from a direct source, means that you are able to get a deeper understanding of a group of people and you are less prone to judge them. The lack of this type of education is the root of almost all discrimination, as we are leaving a group voiceless and unable to defend themselves when they are not present in a discussion about their beliefs. This is something that is completely doable for any school, especially Athenian, but it is simply a matter of accepting that our beliefs may be changed.
There is a problem with this world, and it isn’t foreign aid, it’s the people that manage the foreign aid: the way they present it, the generalizations, and the people that support it. When someone presents their organization, it should be to educate the people who are listening, meaning it should be honest, concise, and genuine. This is not what we saw from the presenter last Thursday; instead, we saw a man speaking at us, rather then to us, about how amazing and wonderful starting a non-profit has been in his life, leaving out all the hardships, all the background information, and what long-term affects impact of the work he did at the schools. To me, this is the meat of an organization, and I should be able to see the difficulties that they had in order to get these people aid. By showing this information the supporters of this organization, see that the receivers of the aid are having to fight for their rights, in order to show that this aid is something they are desperate for. Not only this, but an organization should not be simply telling the people what they need, and giving it to them, it should be a system of communication, where there are efforts in both parties to get this aid. The third party are the supporters, or those who fund an organization. This is where the presentation comes in, as it should inform the people who are donating their money to the cause to know all the facts, both the good and the bad, so that they can stay well-informed citizens and so they can be assured that they are supporting something they truly believe in. From the information that was received from the organization presented to me, I cannot say whether or not I support it, as I was not given the opportunity to see the real organization, instead I was given the sugar-coated version of what a potentially amazing organization. The solution to this is simple: honesty.
The Darfur Genocide
In this past week of class, my history of Africa class learned about Sudan and the many issues which the people there face. As I learned more and more about this countries policies and its Big Man Omar Al-Bashir, I was left dumb-founded. Omar Al-Bashir, who is momentarily charged with crimes against humanity, ordered the Janjaweed, a government funded group, to attack, rape, kill, and torture the people of Darfur in hopes to cleanse Sudan of any non-Arabians. Stunned and angry I wondered what could possibly motivate a person to do, or even think of doing such awful things and why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? Of course the first part of that question is near impossible to know the exact answer, but the second part bothered me more. Of course there is the danger that by defending the civilians there will most likely be an outburst of war, but I believe that the situation created in Darfur is in fact a Genocide, and a gnocide is not something that should be pushed away, it should be a top priority of the UN. I do believe that it’s a matter of time before more countries label it as a genocide; however, Darfurians do not have time. A genocide is no small deal. They need help now, or the situation isn’t going to get better. We have fought wars over less important things then this, so if saving the lives of innocent people means war, then so be it.
At the beginning of this blog I mentioned the warrant for Omar Al-Bashir’s arrest for his crimes against humanity; however, what I did not mention was that nothing is being done about it. How could this possibly be? Especially for such a serious crime. If no one was going to do something about this, then why would they even accuse him of it? In interviews with Bashir he blatantly lies about what the actual issue is in Darfur; with one google of Bashirs name the first thing that pops up is the latest news of the Sudanese people who are protesting against Bashir and pressuring him into resigning; and about a week ago Bashir had planned to come to the US for a UN meeting, but then cancelled his trip after protests broke out all over the US. If this doesn’t prove to the UN that he is a cruel and horrendous man, then I don’t know what does. How can any government in the world not help the people in Sudan who have been courageous enough to stand up against him, knowing he has no mercy for their lives? It is obvious the Sudanese people are not going to do be able to get rid of him alone, so why has there been no response? It baffles me how we go on living our lives, ignoring the problems going on in Darfur, when knowing that we could do something about it. Sooner or later our government and the governments of other countries are going to have to take a stand; let’s make it sooner rather then later.
Why is Africa so Poor?
Through a debate, this past week in class we explored the issue of poverty in Africa, looking at four possible reasons that this could be. The first group argued that the root of the issue lies in the colonization, which still today affects the lives of millions of Africans. When first hearing this position I hoped that this would be my position to argue, as there are hundreds of issues that the European countries created when they colonized Africa. Although it was unfair and inhumane of the European colonizers to take away the culture and the beliefs that Africans had based their life on, I was mostly struck on the lack of education the Europeans left the African countries with. This thought was sparked when I read about the Big Man of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, in the article The Destroyer written by Jon Lee Anderson. This article focused on Mugabe’s cruelty to the people, which he kept covered up as much as he could, as well as his political mistakes, such his faulty plan to redistribute the land that were disproportionally owned by whites. This plan seemed good on paper; however, after this redistribution Mugabe found himself faced with a new challenge – How was he going to educate these Africans how to use farmland? Simply giving someone land, does not mean that they will automatically become richer, in fact it did the opposite, as it made the country poorer. This situation is exactly the situation that African countries found themselves in when they gained independence – They had a country, but how were they supposed to run it? From this conflict, new conflicts began to branch off including the mismanagement of Foreign aid and the reign of corrupt leaders.
The mishandled foreign aid and nefarious leaders became a new contribution to the problems that was created after many of the African countries had started to gain independence. An example of a leader who has proven his motivations to be only for personal gain is Omar Al-Bashir, the Big Man of Sudan. Al-Bashir is the only president to ever have been charged with a ‘crime against humanity’ and has thus far done nothing to prove he deserves anything less. He continues to order attacks on his own people and makes no movement to stop the genocide in Darfur, which has killed over 400,000 people in attacks. This is a part of the issue that has been created about Foreign Aid. The wholes that foreign aid carries with it are not a lack of supplies, but rather the lack of education and longterm fixes. Although, there are many organizations that have tried to make a difference, there is still a long way to go.
This bring us to the last position, which is that Africa is in fact on the rise to becoming a very wealthy continent. This argument was one that I was not expecting to agree with at all, but as I looked further into this topic, I realized that although Africa has a long way to go, there is hope. Countries are growing stronger and stronger, and even those that are still extremely poor have become wealthier. The GDP of this continent has grown more then was every expected, and with the help of Asia Africa could become very wealthy in the future.
My view on this topic was changed more then once as I researched more and more and as I come to the end of this blog, I realize that Africa’s poverty began due to colonization, which lead to many sub issues within Africa; however, although there have been problems that seem irreversible, Africa’s future is brighter then most would think.
Poaching Rhinos, Farming Rhinos, or Letting Rhinos Live Free?
The poaching going on in Africa of rhinos in order to get their horns for money is something that must be stopped, but as discussed in the NPR episode, it is not a matter of if poaching should be stopped, it is instead a question of what is the best way to stop it. The morality of this topic was briefly touched on in this post, making me wonder – Do rhinos matter? Are they important to the wildlife? What do rhinos do for us other then their horns? In answer to this I realized we could as the same question about humans – Do we matter? Do we contribute to wildlife? What are we valuable for? And then it struck me. We are not valuable, we offer no contributions, in fact if anything, we take away; therefore, it is our job that as humans to stop affecting the system of wildlife and take it into our power to if not give to nature, to stop taking away.
As I looked deeper into this dilemma, I realize that although, we want to believe that everyone can be convinced that the morality of killing rhinos is more important then money, this is not the case. As proven hundreds of times in past organizations, movements take decades to catch on, and rhinos do not have decades, for if the poaching is not stopped they will go extinct in three years.
There were two different ideas brought up by two parties in this episode, one ops to completely get rid of the animal horns by surgically, and painlessly, removing the horns and then setting the rhinos free again, and the other party ops to farm the Rhinos and also surgically remove the horns ever year, but instead selling them. The idea to farm these animals would mean that almost all rhinos would become like farming chickens or farming cows in the US, resulting in bad living conditions for the Rhinos, and the value of the animal shifting from their contributions to the wildlife to the value of their horns. If we continue to farm animals and take them away from their natural living conditions, then they will also be dependent on humans forever. This solution may seem like a money maker and a way to keep the animals alive, but is it really fair to the animal to keep them locked up for their life for money, especially when there is another solution? I say no.
Moving on to the second idea that we should just stop the sale of rhino horns all together by basically confiscating them, but letting the rhinos to continue to live in their natural habitat. As stated in the NPR piece their is no real evidence that the horns heal or cure any disease or illness; therefore, if it actually isn’t doing anything valuable and it’s not morally right to use them, then why should the ban on the sale of rhino horns be lifted? By removing the horns, like in the other argument, the animal will not be hurt, but in this case the animal will still be allowed to live free, having no value to poachers as their horns will have been removed. By using this method the declining rhino population will plato and then hopefully begin to grow again at its own pace, saving this animal from extinction and also letting them live a life were they belong.
Nutellaella's African History 