Prisoner of Her Past Presentation

http://prezi.com/g8e4yqna-ch4/prisoner-of-her-past-review/

Prisoner of Her Past Review on Prezi

Research Questions

I have decided to research human rights violations during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At the moment, I have a long list of resources I plan on going through during Thanksgiving Break. These include:

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

Voices from the Storm- Lola Vollen/Chris Ying

A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge

When the Levees Broke  directed by Spike Lee

Unnatural Disaster; Human Rights in the Gulf Coast

http://www.amnestyusa.org/dignity/pdf/unnaturaldisaster.pdf

Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster by Michael Eric Dyson

Through just briefly scanning through some of these sources, I have found research questions that I believe will relate to my readings, but I am planning to come up with many questions so I can choose which one best fits or is able to evolve to become the best research question. 

-How were minorities treated in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina?
-Does this present a larger problem concerning race/socio-economic status of those "left behind" during the hurricane?

International Human Rights

I chose to topics to further research for the Academic Conference on International Human Rights, both through the book Zeitoun by Dave Eggers:
1) Human Rights Violations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
2) Discrimination of Muslims in the United States

I plan to choose a topic after reading the book and seeing which one it better illustrates so I can further my research.

King Leopold's Ghost: Where There Aren't No Ten Commandments

One quote that I thought was particularly interesting was when Primo Levi said, "monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions" (pg 121). I thought this was extremely interesting, not only when applied to King Leopold and the Congo, but especially how it can be applied to many historical events. I had never thought about many events in history this way or realized how true the statement was, at least in my opinion. Different aspects of the Europeans in the Congo could be applied to this, such as the violence that was used to create a sense of superiority over the Africans, as well as why they went to the Congo in the first place. They separated themselves from the acts we would see as horrendous in modern day society, and saw it as normal. Hochschild compares these feelings to those of the Nazis, as well as the Soviet gulag.  I think that looking at many events through the ideas of this quote would give a different perspective and an interesting aspect.

King Leopold's Ghost Chapters Two and Three

I found one quote particularly interesting that concerned King Leopold on pg 46. One of the reasons I chose this quote was because not only does it show Leopold's ulterior motives for wanting to colonize Africa, but it shows that he was aware that in order for him to do this and not upset the Belgian people, he'd have to convince everyone he was doing it for humanitarian reasons. This aligns with a lot that we've learned about Europeans conquering Africa and wanting to do it for other motives besides just humanitarian work, and it also shows that Leopold was kind of conniving.

"[Leopold] had learned form his many attempts to buy a colony that none was for sale; he would have to conquer it. Doing this openly, however, was certain to upset both the Belgian people and the major powers of Europe. If he was to seize anything from Africa, he could do so only if he convinced everyone that his interest was purely altruistic. In this aim, thanks to the International African Association, he succeeded brilliantly. Viscount de Lesseps for one, declared Leopold's plans 'the greatest humanitarian work of this time.'"

I quote that I found to be interesting about Henry Morton Stanley was on page 48.

"He left his own name on Stanley Falls in the center of the continent and on a spot about a thousand miles downstream, at the head of the rapids, where the Congo River widened into a lake. He claimed that naming the latter was the idea of his second-in-command, Frank Pocock, who cried out, 'Why...this is a signal expanse we shall call Stanley Pool!'" Pocock was not able to confirm this; he drowned in the river soon after christening, or not christening, this portion of it."

The reason I found this quote to be so interesting because of what we had learned about Stanley in the previous chapter. We read about how he really liked to embellish his stories and sometimes would tell flat-out lies. If we are to apply that knowledge to this quote, it's very likely that Stanley just named the pool for himself and that his second-in-command had nothing to do with it. This is especially noticeable because his second-in-command drowned and wouldn't be able to confirm the story either way.

Another quote that I would affirm about King Leopold can be found on page 39.

"What mattered was the size of the profits. His drive for colonies, however, was shaped by a desire not only for money but for power."

I would affirm this quote because it aligns with the beliefs of many European rulers and in other accounts we've read about imperialism.

Current Events Report: Rwanda Threatens to Pull Peacekeepers Out of Darfur

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/world/africa/01rwanda.html

The title of my article was “Rwanda Threatens to Pull Peacekeepers from Darfur.” It was written by Jeffrey Gettleman and Josh Kron, and it was published in the New York Times.

            In the article, it discusses how on August 31^st, Rwanda had threatened to withdraw thousands of peacekeepers if the United Nations published a report accusing Rwandan forces of massacring civilians and possibly committing genocide in the Democratic of Congo in the 1990s. The report that was leaked to new sources last week charges that invading troops from Rwanda and Congolese rebels deliberately killed tens of thousands of members of the Hutu-ethnic group that were civilians (mostly women, children, and elderly) and that posed no threat to the forces. It also points out that until recently, Rwanda had been celebrated by many because it had seemed successful as an African nation that had been able to rebuild itself after genocide in 1994. It seemed so successful because of economic growth rates, low crime rates, and innovation regarding fighting poverty. Recently, though, people have begun to question Rwanda’s democracy especially after the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, won in re-elections with 93% of the vote in August. Officials have tried to quietly persuade the U.N not to publish the report, or at least take out the heaviest accusations.

            I think that this is an important news event for the world because the United Nations is an important organization in the world, and its relationships with certain countries are also very important. Rwanda threatened to remove the 3,300 peacekeepers it has in Darfur to persuade the U.N from publishing the report because the peacekeepers in Darfur are essential to the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission there. This is an interesting development because the report makes very serious accusations against Rwanda and would definitely affect the way in which Rwanda is viewed in the world, especially because more people are starting to question their brand of democracy despite the promise they showed as a country after rebuilding. I am interested in seeing what the United Nations does concerning the report because not only will it affect their relationship with Rwanda, but also the way that people see the organization. It will affect how people see the organization because I think that it will be easy to question their authority and have them be a reliable organization of the Rwandan officials are able to persuade them out of publishing the report. This would make them seem kind of shady to go back on their own word after they are threatened and could open new questions about the U.N not being entirely truthful or trustworthy. 

King Leopold's Ghost Chapter One

To my own surprise. I found the first chapter of King Leopold's Ghost to be very interesting. One of the things I found to be most interesting where the accounts of Nzinga Mbemba Affonso, an African ruler, during the time when many people from Congo were being kidnapped and sold into slavery. Especially after reading both "The White Man's Burden" and "The Black Man's Burden" which posed different viewpoints on imperialism, we hadn't read anything that came directly from someone who was on the other side of imperialism. Not only did I find his views to be interesting, but the way he lived and strived to learn many things about European lifestyle was interesting to me, especially in comparison to what was said about Africans in things we read previously in class. Something else I found to be interesting was the life of John Rowlands, and not only how his life was, but how he portrayed it to others. Also, I found it odd that Rowlands, later Stanley, would seek solace in Africa when before returning to Europe, he acted like it wasn't good enough for him or any other Europeans.

Did slave traders go specifically to the Kingdom of Kongo to seek people that could be sold into slavery? If so, what allowed the Kongo to be so susceptible to kidnappings/slave trade?

What made the lives of the kidnapped slaves more valuable to the Portuguese than any goods that could possibly be traded between Congo and the Portuguese?

Initial Questions- Current Events Reporter Practice

This article is about the debate that is currently going on in China about whether or not the one-child policy should be gotten rid of. The issue came to the forefront of the news after a man was fired for having more than one child. The story was then picked up by many publications after he wrote about it on his blog. There are different sides of the debate, but for the most part, many scholars, a long with most of the public, believe that giving birth shouldn't have to do with the government. Some scholars now believe that is it necessary to convince the Chinese to start having more children instead of convincing them to have less children because they need to raise the fertility rate.

The story that sparked the debate occurred in March when Yang Zhizhu was fired after having more than one child. The story has been analyzed a lot by many people and now they are starting to wonder if the one-child policy is the best thing for China, or if it should be repealed.

Some of the questions I have and would need to answer in order to fully understand the article are: What happens when somebody has more than one child? What are measures that both families and the government have gone to adhere by this policy? Why was this policy originally put into place?

Remembering News Worthy Events

Which news worthy events do you remember from your lifetime? What of these events do you remember?

Thinking about what new worthy events that happened in my lifetime, I can only think of bad things. The feelings I remember most vividly are the times when I was scared, when we all were scared, and I think it says something important about our society and how we are constantly focused on the bad things that happen to us.  I couldn’t think of one news worthy event in which something good happened. The first things that came to mind were the attacks on 9/11/2001, Hurricane Katrina, and

I remember that I was in 3^rd grade on September 11, 2001. We were all in class when my teacher got a phone call and then ran to the TV in the corner of the room. They kept replaying the same 30 seconds or so of video clip, and we all just stared in awe at the screen. We didn’t know what we were watching, but we couldn’t believe it. It felt like we were catching a peak of a movie we’d never be allowed to watch at home. To us, it wasn’t real life. There were kids in my class crying, but at that time I don’t think they really knew why, we are all just scared. It didn’t really sink in until my teacher was trying to explain it to us in elementary terms, but at that time, all anyone knew was the basics. She told us that two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center and that a lot of people had died. It was a half-day of school, and I was supposed to go apple picking that afternoon with my Girl Scout Troop, but we didn’t go. I remember worrying all day that something would happen in St. Louis, that something would happen to me or my family. I didn’t really understand what a “terrorist” was, but I remember being afraid to go anywhere except for home and school. When your 8, something bad happens and it’s all you can think about, even when you don’t understand it. I had friends who thought Osama Bin Laden was going to show up at our school. Over and over again we’d hear how many people had died, how many people were still missing, and all the theories that arose as the story was developing 24/7. It consumed the entire country for what seemed like forever, but then again it still does.  The “War on Terror”, heightened security at airports, and just recently the debate over whether a mosque should be built near Ground Zero. It’s changed not only our country, but what it means to live in the United States and be an American, forever. I didn’t personally know anyone who was directly affected by the attack, but it’s more than just a part of U.S history. It’s apart of my history. Even though it happened almost 9 years ago, whenever somebody asks what’s the biggest event you remember in history, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only person where September 11^th is the first thing that comes to mind.

The 2^nd event that comes to mind is Hurricane Katrina. I remember thinking before it hit, that it might just go away. The biggest question I had was why everyone couldn’t just leave? Why they would ever stay there and risk everything. I remember that same helpless feeling I had when September 11^th happened and it felt like there was nothing I could do to help. I remember people talking about it at Whitfield during assembly, talking about how we had to help, and they were right. I remember all the drives we held for basic every day things that we took for granted helped someone. Constantly hearing about the news and all the things that were happening not only during the hurricane, but the aftermath and everything that followed. I remember wanting to help, but in 7^th grade, you still feel pretty helpless.

The 3^rd event that I remember was the Tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004. There isn’t a lot I remember about it, but I remember being confused and not really knowing exactly what that meant.  I couldn’t believe how many people had died, but I remember again, being scared and wanting to help. I remember reading an article about a girl who had survived, but her family had not, in Seventeen magazine. I sent in the $20 so I could get the T-Shirt that Seventeen Magazine had designed to sell and donate the money to help aid efforts there. It obviously wasn’t a lot of money, but when you’re in 6^th grade you don’t really understand what’s going on or what it’s going to take to fix everything.

I asked my mom the same question and the events that came to mind were Kennedy’s assassination, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. She remembers when Kennedy was assassinated. She remembers she was in school and she remembers that they had nothing on T.V for the next 4 days except for stories about Kennedy. She also remembers when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. She was 12 and on a school trip in Washington D.C. She was at the hotel swimming pool when she heard about it remembers hearing sirens and fire engines and police cars. The next day when they drove out of the city, they saw all the places that had been burnt down in riots. She remembers watching the first man walk on the moon on T.V with her family and thinking how hard it was to imagine somebody being able to walk on the moon.