ABSENT MARCH 2, 2012 - MAKE UP BLOG POST
Why does genocide happen?
Many of those across the world do not understand genocide; what it is, why, or how it happens. It is simple to say that it's just "killing off a race", "for no reason", "because they're powerful enough to get away with it, everyone is scared to stop them". Beneath the simplicity, there is much more to genocide. Not only is genocide "killing off a race for no reason", but genocide is often motivated by animosity for another race or culture, instead of ignoring the beliefs that are not agreed with, the opposing side wishes to rid the world of that group of people. I believe that genocide happens as a result of a desire of power and control, and inflicting beliefs or ideas on others so that everybody thinks the same.
What will it take to prevent genocide?
Genocide is always going to happen - realistically speaking. To help prevent genocide, the world can take actions to promote peace. I rather not preach about world peace, but if nobody contributed to negativity, discrimination, or stereotyping, the world would be a much more accepting place. In simpler terms, I think that the world acts like children. We have enemies and allies, we have gossipers and sneaky secrets, and then those kids your mother warned you about: the kids who misbehave. As there isn't very much we can do about the individuals who decide to act against every society and misbehave, what we can do is tend to everyone else. It's easier said than done, but many genocides could be prevented if people could accept that everyone has different beliefs and just not become involved with what they disagree with. In Nathan Fuller's blog post about the 9/11 Attacks, he highlights many epiphonal points regarding this subject, and how the leaders of this genocide disagree with the American way of life and our "acts against humanity". As a result of being allies with other countries who also had enemies, America was held accountable, served "revenge", and blamed for its allies actions. Had the allies not had any enemies, much of the world would be at peace, and many conflicts would be at rest.
What kind of genocides happen today?
Though many governments in countries try to structure its people, it's also nearly impossible at the same time. People have the idea etched in their minds that "it's only illegal if you get caught". Regardless of any laws, or lack thereof, genocides still happen today. The stronger the leader becomes, the less the victims can do to prevent further damage or stop the genocide all together. In Grant Solis' research, he addresses the on-going devastation in Sudan: Darfur, where it "has claimed 400,000 lives and displaced over 2,500,000 people" and "more than one hundred people continue to die each day; five thousand die every month".
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Modern Revolutions
Kathryn Hoar
World Literature Honors
Ms. Kennett
6 March 2012
Born in 1994, I have lived in three decades, two centuries, and two millenniums; I’m not even twenty-years-old yet. Having lived just 17 short years, I have obviously concluded that everyday brings change. In today’s society, we are making advances in technology, communication, and even in the music industry, distinguishing each generation from another.
Even in just about ten years, the world has drastically evolved the face of technology. The very first iPod was introduced in 2002, now, in 2012 Apple is on the verge of releasing an addition to the product family, the iPad 3. In 2003, Toyota released its very first Hybrid car, compared to today where almost every company has at least one hybrid model as a way to adjust to a recycling revolution to “Go Green”. And believe it or not - it was only 7 years ago when Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim invented YouTube. Stop. Imagine your everyday life without the encounter of an Apple product, a movement to “Go Green”, or having any access to YouTube. How different would it be? Most of society can simply access all three from the tap of a screen on an Apple iPhone, and other ‘i’ products.
Everyday thousands of people across the world access a social networking site, or watch the media. Before any sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, many people would not hear of any news unless they had watched the news on TV or spoken with someone who had. Some would hear through sites like MSN, but it could take hours or days for a breakthrough in peoples’ knowledge. Without cell phones, television, computers - any technology - society would not be as quickly made aware of news in seconds. Social media contributed to many changes in communication.
As the internet is a prime market for advertising, entrepreneurs and many other gifted people have been discovered through the web. Since April 23, 2005, millions of videos have been shared with YouTube users, many including showcases of one’s talent. Before Justin Bieber struck fame, not everyone thought to post videos on YouTube in hopes of being discovered, or to look for talent online. Shortly after Bieber, YouTube sensation Greyson Chance was given a shot at Hollywood, and in 2011 - a two man band “Karmin” took their career to the next level. With each video posted, the music industry is expanding and new genres are becoming of interest.
Although each day does not feel like it has changed as much as the previous one, as a whole, the world has evolved positively and negatively, shaping the future. Each advance in technology, communication, and advertising has created its own revolution that will continue to welcome tomorrow just as quickly as it welcomed today.
World Literature Honors
Ms. Kennett
6 March 2012
Born in 1994, I have lived in three decades, two centuries, and two millenniums; I’m not even twenty-years-old yet. Having lived just 17 short years, I have obviously concluded that everyday brings change. In today’s society, we are making advances in technology, communication, and even in the music industry, distinguishing each generation from another.
Even in just about ten years, the world has drastically evolved the face of technology. The very first iPod was introduced in 2002, now, in 2012 Apple is on the verge of releasing an addition to the product family, the iPad 3. In 2003, Toyota released its very first Hybrid car, compared to today where almost every company has at least one hybrid model as a way to adjust to a recycling revolution to “Go Green”. And believe it or not - it was only 7 years ago when Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim invented YouTube. Stop. Imagine your everyday life without the encounter of an Apple product, a movement to “Go Green”, or having any access to YouTube. How different would it be? Most of society can simply access all three from the tap of a screen on an Apple iPhone, and other ‘i’ products.
Everyday thousands of people across the world access a social networking site, or watch the media. Before any sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr, many people would not hear of any news unless they had watched the news on TV or spoken with someone who had. Some would hear through sites like MSN, but it could take hours or days for a breakthrough in peoples’ knowledge. Without cell phones, television, computers - any technology - society would not be as quickly made aware of news in seconds. Social media contributed to many changes in communication.
As the internet is a prime market for advertising, entrepreneurs and many other gifted people have been discovered through the web. Since April 23, 2005, millions of videos have been shared with YouTube users, many including showcases of one’s talent. Before Justin Bieber struck fame, not everyone thought to post videos on YouTube in hopes of being discovered, or to look for talent online. Shortly after Bieber, YouTube sensation Greyson Chance was given a shot at Hollywood, and in 2011 - a two man band “Karmin” took their career to the next level. With each video posted, the music industry is expanding and new genres are becoming of interest.
Although each day does not feel like it has changed as much as the previous one, as a whole, the world has evolved positively and negatively, shaping the future. Each advance in technology, communication, and advertising has created its own revolution that will continue to welcome tomorrow just as quickly as it welcomed today.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Linguistic Genocide
How different would the world be without the everyday use of the english language? Or Chinese? Or even Spanish? Around the world, there are almost 8,000 languages. What if you lived in a country where the language you spoke was not a right - but a privilege? A form of genocide that is not commonly known or noticed is linguistic genocide. Linguistic genocide is defined as a process that affects speech communities where the level of linguistic competence that speakers possess of a given language variety is decreased, eventually resulting in no native and/or fluent speakers of the variety(definitionoflinguisticgenocide). This means that the language eventually 'dies', or is forced to extinction for any sort of reason and is no longer spoken fluently.
In an article about the top ten modern cases of Linguistic Genocide, the ten included: Mandarin (among Chinese Singaporeans), Hawaiian, Ryukyuan languages, Korean, Russian, The British Isles (Welsh, Scottish, Gaelic, Scots, and Irish), minority languages in France, Chinese in Indonesia, regional languages in Spain (Basque, Catalan and Galician), and Kurdish. Of these ten genocides I plan to highlight the top two in this blogpost: Mandarin, and Hawaiian.
Because most of Southern China speaks Non-Mandarin Chinese languages, the government of China launched a campaign to promote and support the use if Mandarin in Southern China an other non-Mandarin speaking parts of China. In 1979, this campaign was titled the "Speak Mandarin Campaign", and helped to do just that. The campaign bans the use of non-Mandarin languages in local and foreign media, in hopes that Mandarin would be spoken more. Though the campaign has worked and Mandarin has increasingly been spoken, is it not linguistic genocide to "kill off" non-Mandarin Chinese languages?
In Hawaii, English has been more widely spoken as a result of war and the sole fact that it is a state of the United States whose dominant language is obviously English. In the 1820's the Hawaiian language was influenced by the missionaries causing many Hawaiians to learn and speak English. In 1893, the Provisional Government supported the use of English even more, and banned the Native Hawaiian language in public schools, resulting in today's statistics of 2,000 native Hawaiian speakers.
Although it seems wrong that any language is initially decreasingly used or extinct, after doing this research I have personally concluded that it is just as wrong to demote a language. Who ever said that there can only be one dominant language?
Sources :
http://listverse.com/2010/02/26/10-modern-cases-of-linguistic-genocide/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_genocide
In an article about the top ten modern cases of Linguistic Genocide, the ten included: Mandarin (among Chinese Singaporeans), Hawaiian, Ryukyuan languages, Korean, Russian, The British Isles (Welsh, Scottish, Gaelic, Scots, and Irish), minority languages in France, Chinese in Indonesia, regional languages in Spain (Basque, Catalan and Galician), and Kurdish. Of these ten genocides I plan to highlight the top two in this blogpost: Mandarin, and Hawaiian.
Because most of Southern China speaks Non-Mandarin Chinese languages, the government of China launched a campaign to promote and support the use if Mandarin in Southern China an other non-Mandarin speaking parts of China. In 1979, this campaign was titled the "Speak Mandarin Campaign", and helped to do just that. The campaign bans the use of non-Mandarin languages in local and foreign media, in hopes that Mandarin would be spoken more. Though the campaign has worked and Mandarin has increasingly been spoken, is it not linguistic genocide to "kill off" non-Mandarin Chinese languages?
In Hawaii, English has been more widely spoken as a result of war and the sole fact that it is a state of the United States whose dominant language is obviously English. In the 1820's the Hawaiian language was influenced by the missionaries causing many Hawaiians to learn and speak English. In 1893, the Provisional Government supported the use of English even more, and banned the Native Hawaiian language in public schools, resulting in today's statistics of 2,000 native Hawaiian speakers.
Although it seems wrong that any language is initially decreasingly used or extinct, after doing this research I have personally concluded that it is just as wrong to demote a language. Who ever said that there can only be one dominant language?
Sources :
http://listverse.com/2010/02/26/10-modern-cases-of-linguistic-genocide/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_genocide
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