Middle East Revolution

Throughout the past few months, a complete revolution has occurred in the Middle East. Many dicatorships have fallen and fled, many oppressed people have risen up, risking everything they have, even their lives, all for the sake of democracy. What ended up being a huge, historical uprising, started in Tunisia due to high unemployment, corruption, lack of many freedoms including free speech, and poor living conditions. This resulted in many deaths and injuries, and ultimately led to the exile of Ben Ali, who had been ruling the country for over two decades.

Once the Tunisian revolt was underway, big changes occurred in Egypt. The world watched in awe as Egyptians followed suit and major revolutions were sparked through a facebook page. The social media site allowed protestors to congregate and carry out peaceful protests. It started out small, with a few people in the main square, and it grew in overwhelming numbers until supporters of President Mubarak fought back, turning the protests violent. On February 11th, President Mubarak fled as it was made clear that the protests could not be quelled and his rule had crumbled.

Following this success, anti-government protests started up in Libya four days later. Within a few days, the rebels controlled the majority of Benghazi, which is the second largest city in the country. Troops were dispatched and repelled. Thousands of people had already been killed by this point. Soon after this, protests spread to the capital city of Tripoli, which prompted a television address by the leader Gaddafi, who warned protestors to cease or their efforts would lead to a civil war. Fighting kept going, however, because it was clear that if the protestors stopped fighting, they would be murdered by Gaddafi's men. They had put everything on the line and there was no going back from here. Government forces have been slowly gaining back territory, and in March the UN put in a no fly zone over Libya. Once it was in place and international forces had started bombing pro-Gadaffi assets, rebel forces quickly moved along the northern seaboard. However, pro-government forces have retaken a lot of cities, forcing the rebels to withdraw quite a bit. This story continues to develop and will surely have an unprecedented turn out no matter what ends up happening.

Japan- March Break News

On March 11th 2011, Japan was struck with a huge earthquake. It was a 8.9 magnitude earthquake, which is almost unimaginable. In order to put this scale in perspective, it needs to be known that a magnitude-8.9 earthquake releasesover 100 times more energy than a magnitude-7.5 quake does.This sort of earthquake was a huge surprise to the area.The earthquake occurred 130 kilometers east of Sendai and 373 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, along the boundary between two tectonic plates, where the Pacific plate is being drawn under the Japanese islands. As if this wasn't devastating enough- soon after the quake hit, a 23 foot tsunami was triggered. It killed hundreds and swept away cars, homes, buildingd and boats. For a place as structurally developed as Japan, the effects were devastating. The cooling systems of several reactors went off line, adding another layer of worry to people in Japan and across the world. This increases the risk for long term health issues stemming from radiation, something we have seen in different areas of the world, including Chernobyl, but it has never been on such a large scale before. This was definitely the biggest news story for the first week of our March Break.

Wikileaks

Wikileaks has been in the news quite a bit this school year. This is of course, the website which holds a number of supposedly "secret" documents from various governments and agencies. The site is aimed at exposing any discretions or plans the authorities are attempting to withhold from public knowledge. While this sounds like a good idea at first, when you take a look at some of the documents posted it is clear that this revolutionary website could be a very dangerous thing. It posts things from war and secret missions both in the United States and out, and does not omit the names of those involved. This is dangerous because some of these missions are extremely secret and dangerous, and exposing the names of the people who aided in the completion of such a mission could jeopardize their lives and the lives of their family members. Giving this much knowledge to the general public is questionable as well, because anyone can access this site. If something is posted about a battle against Al-Qaeda, or a planned attack about any terrorist organization, these posts can be accessed by the terrorist organization themselves. That would mean that the mission was effectively ruined. Wikileaks can also hurt international relations. Some items being posted are private communications between different factions within the American government. Some of these posts have questionable yet harmless criticisms about other countries or other governments. This is the equivalent of one friend showing another friend a text message sent about them...it is completely out of context and in most cases harmless, yet could lead to some serious issues in that friendship. Countries cannot afford to hold grudges over things like this, and wikileaks is aiding that. This is definitely a case of a liberty gone too far. In order to maintain a safe and free society in North America, we need protection. Sometimes this protection needs to restrict the general public from certain knowledge, or there will be serious and irreversible repercussions for all of us.

Globalization

Globalization is the integration of different economies, societies and cultures through communication, transportation and trade. Basically it is the process of the world becoming a global village where everyone is accessible no matter where you live. When people talk about globalization, they mostly mean economic globalization, which turns national economies into international economies through things like trade, investment, the spread of technology and the presence of military. This doesn't mean that is all there is to globalization, however, since this process is driven by a number of factors, including economic, cultural, political and biological factors. Globalization also includes the global circulation of ideas, languages and even pop culture. As technology increases, so does globalization. The correlation is huge due to social networking sites, the instantaneous nature of webcams and television boradcasting, as well as the technological advances made in travel. The effects on the world have been profound, and they continue to shape who we are as a society. There is much wider availability of a lot of foreign products for consumers as well as companies, which is a big industrial impact. This has aided international trade. Immigration, travel, and tourism have also increased. Culturally, globalization is huge. Multi-culturalism has made its way into the mainstream, because everyone has access to the same things online and through the media. This has allowed the world to enjoy foreign goods and ideas, acquire new technologies and ways of life, and ultimately participate in a world culture. While these are all good things, countries need to make sure they are preserving some of their own unique culture, and a sense of individualism. If this isn't preserved, the world will be extremely homogeneous and while travel will be extremely easy, people won't want to travel abroad if every place they visit is exactly like their homeland.

A Rising China

As China continues on a very powerful path to the top of the world's powers, there are many things that need to be considered. Many people and countries are unsure about these changes and how they will impact our global society. China is rapidly expanding its military because although they are nowhere close to the United States in terms of military might, they would like to accumulate power. As they now have the second most powerful military, their military build up could be quite significant. There are potential issues that could arise from China's military might increasing. Some of these could be that China does not know where to stop. This may only be the tip of the iceberg in terms of military outbursts from China. Other countries could be put at risk, such as Taiwan, Tibet, India and Pakistan. If China was to invade any of these areas, the attacked country's allies may fight back, changing the balance of world power. This can cause massive changes politically, socially, and economically all around the world. On the other hand, an increasingly powerful China may prove to be a good thing for the world. Right now, the United States has had the upper hand in our modern world. They have no balance like they did during the Cold War, meaning they are not being held accountable by anyone. A rising China could help to balance this out. The world economy won't be so "Western World focused" and there will even be more cultural influence from the east, changing the social balance as well.

While there are certainly two sides to every argument, it is important to study both carefully and form an individual opinion on the issue for yourself. When it comes to an issue as important as this one, it is essential to know where you stand on the issue. I think we need to keep a close eye on China's progress. I feel that the fact that China does not want the Western world knowing the details regarding their advancements is a cause for concern itself. That being said, progress for China is not a bad thing because there are a lot of hardworking people in China that deserve to live well. The bottom line is that too much of anything isn't good, and if China advances so far above everyone else, that will change the balance of our current world too much to be good. As long as the rest of the world monitors this progress I think we are okay for the time being.

AIC Simulation

The AIC is the Arab Israeli Conflict Simulation, where groups of students from various cities role play different countries involved in the real life Arab Israeli Conflict. This is to get ideas flowing and have students form their opinions on this very significant and influential issue. It is important that students develop awareness on topics such as these because one day we will either inherit the issues or be in charge of making sure history doesn't repeat itself. The most likely scenario is that we will be responsible for both. During the simulation, my group represented Russia. This is a unique country to represent because they used to be a world superpower, so their opinion is definitely weighted in situations like this. Russia is in favour of a peaceful solution, but is also eager to supply various technologies to other countries, most of which being weapons. Our goal during the simulation was to establish a two state solution. This is where Palestine and Israel can coexist peacefully but separately in order to establish peace in the region. I played the role of Dmitri Medvedev, Russia's President. On a personal level, I would like to develop a sense of awareness regarding this issue through the simulation. I also would like to put myself in the shoes of the leaders who are currently working to establish a workable solution that leads to a peaceful environment in the region.

CARE Model

In class we discussed the CARE model, which includes the CARE values of compassion, action, responsibility, and equality.

I would say that action is the most important CARE value because without action, all of the other care values would just be words. While words and thoughts are a great place to start, they become practically useless when they are not paired with action of some sort. Action is the verb associated with all the other values, and this is why it is the most important of the four.

Equality is the next most important CARE value, because without equality people would be acting in the wrong way and being compassionate to the wrong people. In addition to this, responsibility would mean nothing if you weren't responsible in the right way. What I mean by this is if you do not value equality, you may be racist. This means you would only be compassionate to people who thought the same way as you, and your actions would reflect your prejudice. So in order for your other values to be useful and productive, you must value equality.

The next most important care value, in my opinion, is responsibility. Without a sense of responsibility, you would not feel obligated to act in a respectful/correct manner. This would case all sorts of problems in the world. For example, even if you were compassionate and felt bad for someone getting bullied, if you did not feel like it was your civic responsibility to step in then the compassion is useless because nothing is being solved.

Lastly, I feel like compassion, while vital to society, is the lowest priority on the CARE value list. This is not because compassion is not important, it is because it is virtually useless unless paired with another value from the CARE model.