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.