Reflections on "Putin's Challenge" Article

In the nineteenth century, Russia, in attempts to expand their borders, entered the territory of the Black Sea, with the Circassians the indigenous population. Upon trespassing into the Caucasus land, the Circassians warred with the Russians with enough ferocity to be regarded as a major threat, though this perception ultimately led to their downfall. Russia then expropriated the Circassians from their home by violent means often even resorting to murder. The event was traumatic in Circassian history, resulting in a loss of roughly three million Circassians and earning the title “first modern genocide” according to Al Jazeera (3). The Circassians never regained their home territory and continue to live scattered throughout the world. However, currently, Russia has chosen the city Sochi to host the Olympic Games; the city that houses the remains the Circassian capital as well as the scene that epitomized the devastation of the Circassian people. They regard the area religiously and to hold the Olympics at Sochi will deface one of the most significant locations of Circassian history. In order to have the Olympics in this particular location, Russia must defile remains buried beneath Sochi dirt, the remains of the warriors that fought in the Circassian war, dishonor the martyred of Circassian purpose, and neglect the 150th anniversary of the massive killings of Circassians. However, Russia ignores the existence of the Circassians as well as the history of the designated location for the Olympics. Regardless of the controversial nature of this situation, the reaction Russia has will determine the political route it will take. According to Jazeera, Putin “must extend human rights, dignity with full respect for identity, democratic representation and economic opportunities to all citizens” in order to become a transformed, more ethical country (5).

Bibliography

Jazeera, Al. "Putin's Challenge: The Circassians and the Winter Olympics." Yahoo. 4 April, 2012. Web.

Reflections on Catholic Teachings Regarding Property Ownership

                According to the Catholic Social Teachings, the right to private property is and always will be conditional. Private property is regarded as necessary in order to entice individuals to pursue a greater lifestyle as well as to respect the material that they possess. However, Catholicism also advocates the generosity towards fellow neighbors and common people, and therefore when an individual retains a surplus of material goods whilst another has none, then it is the Catholic way to sacrifice their possessions.  It is unnatural to ask an individual to sacrifice his or her self for the likes of a stranger with no benefit to the donator, regardless of the Catholic belief. People’s property should not be expropriated when situations call for it because this removes any sense of stability and consistency in the individual’s life. What this Catholic teaching is calling for cannot be; the world they believe proper to exist would exist in constant inconsistency and contradiction with itself. To be honest and to also believe in private property that can be expropriated in times of need contradicts itself. Therefore, these Catholic teachings advocate a life of illusion in favor of a higher being to control the inconsistencies of the universe. 

Chapter 23 Reflections

                The twentieth century brought with its devastating wars and travesties reformations within countries previously subjected to colonial rule. Africa, Asia, and India were the largest group of oppressed individuals within their own homeland, and come the twentieth century of political, economic, and personal growth for the citizens of these lands. Strayer comments that the “end of European empires seemed almost natural” due to the irrationality of one country ruling another in these changing times (693). Regardless of this inconsistency in thought between dominators and the dominated, historians continue to struggle to determine the central cause for the division of once large countries into separated nation-states. In India in particular, religion played a large role in the segregation of the people. Regardless of Gandhi’s efforts to demonstrate through peaceful methods the important of the unification of the people to protest a common pain, the different religions that fostered the lives of the oppressed prevented their interconnection. Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued in favor of Muslim segregation due to the people’s pure nature needing to remain unpolluted by those not of the religion. Of course, Gandhi rejected these ideals due to their strict contradiction of the very principles he had been fighting for. Through Gandhi’s tactics, no one people were elevated above the others nor were a certain group diminished as the sole perpetrators. Gandhi instead fought to change mentalities and perspectives of those suffering through processes of gathering rather than separating. He accepted all political factions if they supported his cause, all religions, all races, and all sympathizers. For Jinnah to insist upon a further segregation just after India removed the British colonial control over the country was downright offensive to Gandhi’s cause.

                South Africa had a similar struggle as India, though suffered through more racially ingrained hatreds and segregations than that of the Indians. South African political leaders existed as a small fraction of the population of the country, and all of whom were white. Twenty percent of the population had control of the entire population due to the color of their skin, not unlike the racism occurring in America at roughly the same time, though much more intense a few decades earlier. The policy of apartheid declared the segregations on account of skin color alone; the blacks remained separate from the whites. India did not suffer this sort of treatment from their colonial forces, creating a unique situation for the indigenous African people. Political parties rose from the African sanction, though were met with guns, murder, and jail time. The struggle was violent, and many believed that much blood would be shed in order to end the policies of apartheid. Internal pressure grew from the efforts of the black individuals, with large, organized strikes causing detrimental impact to the work force with some two million people striking. Surprisingly, global pressures compounded these internal structures in favor of the removal of apartheid with boycotts of South Africa in terms of “sporting events…the refusal of artists and entertainers…economic boycotts; the withdrawal of private investment funds” (703). The combination of the global as well as internal efforts forced the white powers to congregate with the black leaders in order to avoid the blood shed that would surely ensue. The result ended apartheid and gained South Africa its political freedom. 

Chapter 22 Reflections

                It is interesting that communism bared its philosophy through the use of violence and dramatic revolutions when its foundations reside in the common good among people. As an adopted government strategy, communism supports relying on the neighbor, the other, in order to survive in a system derived from a very simple, basic, rational definition of equality: people are equal and should be treated as such; there is no difference in class. Consequently, this mentality led to the spread of equality among genders as well. Women in communist Russia experienced more rights than could be elsewhere matched. However, in order for Russia to achieve its claimed communist status, neglecting to substantially partake in the initial socialist practice as outlined by the founder Karl Marx, it had to “experience a revolution” (Strayer 660). The necessity for violence and war to force the current government to assuage the demands of the people probably arose from the war time mentality of the global state of the world. Russia’s revolution occurred in 1917, perfectly coinciding with the end of World War I.  The First World War began due heavily to the increased nationalism that spread throughout the countries. Therefore, it is natural to think of a country such as Russia, which did not wage well within the conflicts of the war itself, whose people suffered terribly on account of the poor status in the war, and whose people also rallied on the concept of abandoning individual egos in favor of the national, common imperialistic goal. However their goal was not to divide and conquer, the mentality fostered the growth the Marx’s communist theory, one of equality among people and shared responsibility for survival. For Russia to transform into the Soviet Union now seems almost expected when the factors of the world are accounted for.

                Both communist China and the Soviet Union suffered immense setbacks in their initial attempts at the reformations of their respective countries. A common trait of the people was to suffer deploring famine resulting in a combined loss of roughly twenty six million people due to the countries removal of individual farming abilities and utensils. In most cases, when the government attempted to take an individual’s farm animal, be it a cow, pig, or sheep, the person would rather slaughter the animal than relinquish their possession of it. Therefore, certain people remained steadfast to the underlying capitalist ideal of individual improvement and possession. Naturally, people adhere to this instinctual desire to support themselves and no one else. Even when the communist governments had launched into their full throttle, certain aspects of the government continued to rely on capitalist mentalities. In Russia, during their rapid industrial growth, urban areas were centers for the driven and the intellectual. It was a place of working towards improvement with competitive wages as incentive. In the Soviet Union, “ a highly privileged group of state and party leaders emerged in the Stalin era and largely remained the unchallenged ruling class of the country” not unlike the capitalist driven countries that surrounded the communist Russia (Strayer 672).

Chapter 21 Reflections

                In order for the First World War to occur, a specific sequence of scenarios ultimately had to occur. Specifically, the sequence was driven by the European powers’ desire to spread their influence into the maximum amount of space within the globe. Their imperialistic drive drove them straight into an armed war that would only result in calmed egos by the shedding of blood. The heads of the countries had a poor conception of the world as an “arena of conflict and competition” rather than a global collaboration hell-bent on survival (Strayer 627-628). This mentality trickled from the leaders of the nations into the minds of the citizens through mediums of media as well as educational systems, convincing the individual that he or she was not an individual at all, but rather a member of a solitary unit, a country, an army. Pride spread like ego naturally does in the intrinsic design of the human brain, thus convincing the singular person of the necessity of a unified growth and expansion at the expense of the lesser, foreign people.

                The timing of World War I ensured the total world that ensued due to the massive ability to obliterate a living square of people. With the introduction of “submarines, tanks, airplanes, poison gas, machine guns, and barbed war” the causalities of the war reached the disgusting number of a surplus of ten million deaths (Strayer 629). Ten million lives lost to the cause of the nation. Ten million individuals sacrificed for the pride of a country, a leader with a plan. Governments gained a staggering amount of control during this war time due to the necessity to move citizens as well as armies in strategic formation. Due to this substantial blow to the individual mentality, people began to withdraw from the Enlightenment ideals that birthed these powers. This signifies the extreme impact of the war on the lives of the survivors who had to deal with not only the physical loss of their relationships (friend or family) but the mental instability brought on through the destructiveness of the global desolation.  

                The Second World War brought on more destruction than ever imagined to the earth, as well as a new understanding of war as a whole. With the war came the death of sixty million people making it the largest travesty humanity had ever encountered. Again, the growing technology heavily influenced the death toll with the introduction of “heavy bombers, jet fighters, missiles” but most detrimental psychologically as well as physical, the atomic bomb (Strayer 649). Interestingly enough, Orville Wright, the inventor of the airplane, had a philosophy entirely different, the exact opposite, of the reality that occurred. It was Wright’s belief that the “aeroplane has made war so terrible that I do not believe any country will again care to start a war,” stated just before the end of the First World War (Stimson). Much to his dismay, Wright continued living to see his invention murder tens of thousands of people murdered in a single instant in Japan. From the ideologies of Wright, it can be concluded that although technology advances the obliteration a war can cause, the minds that created it cannot be blamed for the destructive hands that hold it.

Bibliography

Stimson, Richard. “Wright’s Perspective on the Role of Airplanes in War.” The Wright Brothers.2001. Web.

Strayer, Robert W. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History. New York: Bedford, 2009. 

Chapter 20 Reflections

Strayer entitled the period of European expansion into East Africa and Southeast Asia between 1750 and 1900 as the "Second Wave." I think his word choice here exactly conveys the reality of the situation with wave suggesting an endless stream, a cycle that merely increases in intensity as rising and falling water. Europeans cannot seem to function without the invasion of territory, without constant conquering and constant expansion. I believe in growth, though I do not think it needs to literally define as the growth of the country across the planet. Interestingly, though this may come from a biased understanding of history as my education simply falls in the cycle of European conquest, it seems the main world powers, such as Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Portugal, uniquely have the drive for constant expansion. I understand that Spain and Portugal did not participate as widely and devotedly to the "second wave" as their influential counterparts; however, their role previously in expansion and conquering of peoples includes them within the list. The vast improvement in industry, science, medicine, and agriculture broadened the abilities of the Europeans, leading them to a superior position economically and militarily to facilitate their dominance in the world. I find it interesting to contemplate the scene had the oppressed countries experienced the vast growth of the Europeans.

Cooperation resulted in the easy transition for certain individuals into the control of the European invaders, however, whether or not certain individual morals were sacrificed in order to retain a certain amount of status within the country. Strayer describes that individuals participating in the peaceful assimilation were either men joining the European militaries that occupied the regions or the elites of the once sovereign countries. The difficulty in maintaing self-derived principles in the face of a stronger, invading force though the necessity to join the forces against the people undergoing massive, forced change is debatable. As understanding by Strayer's words, the main motive of these individuals in entire cooperation came from the drive to attain "status and privileges" as well as "gaining considerable wealth" by means "both legally and otherwise" (595). Otherwise than legal methods in order to retain certain social statuses and indulge in previously unexperienced wealth, as interpreted by Strayer, seems to be a manipulation of the power at hand in order to exploit the citizens of the country by both the perpetrators and the victims themselves.

In regards to the constant, repetitive, seemingly unavoidable segregation of individuals by racial barriers, the comfort of those in power to remain in power by enacting rules of separation, in my opinion, arises from the insecurities and laziness of individuals to achieve success through work. They prefer to implement systems of comparison, such as the European "masters" to the African "boys" and the frightened reaction to intellectual Asians and Africans, to attain automatic, unearned, and undeserved supremacy (597). The inability to handle their fear leads to the resorting to anger and violence, and thus the cycle continues.

Chapter 19 Reflections

            The rapid development and growth when presented with the changing mentality of an era in Europe and Asia signifies the adaptive ability and advantage of humanity. When presented with the opportunity of the Industrial Revolution, countries compounded their advances upon one another in order to form a time of great prosperity in the realm of development. Industry and capitalism provided Europeans with a surplus of goods, especially in the cotton-cloth field, and therefore permitted them entry into the Asian-Indian trade circle that they had desperately wanted to enter for years. Companies began to think in terms of individual gain, and therefore saw the entry into Indian trade as an entry into a massive population of consumers. Capitalists even sought to invest far from home, stimulating economic growth worldwide. With monetary growth grew the desire of status for countries as a whole, and thus was born the imperialist drive. The spheres of influence suddenly became concerned for the conquering of not necessarily worthwhile countries for the sake of bolstering their power stance. In these terms, the great powers of the world such as Great Britain, France, and Germany, began to use other lands purely for competition without consideration for the benefits of the local residence as well as the people of the conquering countries. The well-being became secondary to the nationalist ego, and therefore the desire to hold power over these countries became unnecessary and morally wrong due to their being no substantial capitalist growth for the countries on account of such acquisitions.

            On a topic different from the imperialist mentality that consumed the countries of influence during the age that directly followed the impact of the Industrial Revolution, the wording within Strayer’s book reveals an ingrained masculine approach to history that I have deemed ethically supporting inequality among genders. Granted, I typically do not boast feminist beliefs for I do not believe one gender more privileged than another (meaning I do not believe women superior to men, men superior to women, I just believe people are people and we should stop categorizing and limiting ourselves to stereotypes), but the wording of this textbook in a particular passage has bothered me severely.  I am a logical, rational individual very capable of removing biased perceptions from situations in order to deduce the objective meaning of information, and I therefore do not believe my interpretation to be sensitive to the female sight. Furthermore, in a section regarding the changing perceptions of Europeans with the cultural expansions of the countries, Strayer writes, “Even as they held on to their sense of religious superiority, Europeans nonetheless adopted many of the ideas and techniques of more advanced societies. They held many aspects of Chinese and Indian civilization in high regard; they freely mixed and mingled with Asian and African elites and often married their women” (Strayer 563). I included such a long text in order to ensure the understanding of exactly the length and content of which Strayer must have been talking about only the men of the time period in order for the final clause, “married their women” to retain cogency. I have studied history throughout my entire life, and I understand the oppression women endured before gaining equality within the world. Therefore, I understand that men predominantly made the decisions and held positions of political power and influence during this time period. However, I believe that Strayer should have specified specific political sanctions that encompassed only the male population instead of claiming that the entire countries interests were male. In the manner by which this passage was constructed, Strayer writes entirely from the male perspective and excludes female desires and intents. He therefore excludes roughly fifty percent of the history of this time period due to the fact that females compose roughly fifty percent of the population. I can therefore conclude that his report is inaccurate for the entire era, since we only glance at the male desire, not the populace’s desire. We no longer ventured into a time that included countries, but rather a time that was significant for men. I do not despise men in any way, I must specify, but if Stayer thought to design his book in such a manner then he should have categorized two sections: male perspective, female perspective. I believe this take on history as inefficient however, since, as stated before, humanity shares the same qualities and does not demand segregation.