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Is globalization good or bad for human rights.

In our humanities class we have been discussing Globalization and how it is affecting the world. The world that we live in today is very globalized. Everything, the clothes that we wear, the foods and drinks that we consume, everything comes from different parts of the world and this has only been made possible because of globalization. The main aspect to discuss about globalization is whether it is promoting human rights or whether it is harming the promotion of human rights. The meaning of globalization according to me is to take actions that involves or affects the entire world.

In my opinion, globalization both promotes and harms the promotion of human rights. It all depends on how globalization is being used. In the past, there have been many instances in which globalization has harmed the human rights of the people. One such example was in South Africa. When the Dutch started settling in South Africa, this showed a sign of Globalization as the people from another country were settling in another country in order to develop the country. However this led to the beginning of apartheid and the natives of South Africa losing their human rights and being treated unfairly by the Dutch. Even though the events in South Africa show that globalization took away the human rights of the natives, I think that globalization also helped them gain their human rights back and be treated fairly. As the world started gaining awareness about the apartheid laws, several countries around the world started taking actions against South Africa until the apartheid laws were dropped and the natives were given their rights back. Not only were the countries taking actions, several sports teams and famous celebrities from around the world also refused to visit South Africa until the apartheid laws were dropped. I think the world getting united and trying to take actions that would force South Africa to drop the apartheid laws was another sign of Globalization, which helped the natives gain back their rights. Therefore globalization can have both positive and negative effects in the promotion of human rights.

Another example is based on a video, which we watched in our class. The video was about a Nike factory in Indonesia and how the workers were only paid enough for survival and they could not do anything extra. This video showed the negative effects of globalization as the big companies like Nike itself are entering the poor countries for cheap labor. Some might say that this is a good thing as these big companies are creating more jobs for the people in the poor countries, however if these companies would not have entered, the government of the country must have been pressurized to create more jobs and these jobs could have been much better than the jobs in the factories. In Indonesia, we can see how globalization has had a bad impact on the rights of the workers and they are forced to take up these jobs with very low earnings, as there are no other alternatives. However, I feel that if globalization has caused this issue, then globalization is also the solution to this issue. If the media decides to raise awareness about this issue around the world and several countries and people take actions against these big corporations until they improve the conditions of their workers, then this issue can be solved through globalization as people unite to help the people of another country.

I think globalization, even though it has done so much harm to the promotion of human rights, it has still done a lot promotion to the human rights and making sure that the people are granted these rights fairly. If globalization had not started, then there would not have been any organizations such as the United Nations which is the main organization that makes sure that the people are getting these basic rights fairly and due to this globalization has done more good to this world than harm.

All in all, the issue that is caused due to globalization can also be solved by it. I think all it takes in todays world is to raise awareness about the issue and show people why the issue is so big Once this message has reached the people they will unite and take actions against it by themselves and that unity amongst the people around the world in order to solve an issue is the reason why globalization is so powerful.

Was the Scramble for Africa the only way to ‘deal’ with the African continent and the African people.

The Grade 10 students of the Lincoln Community School were doing a unit on the Human Rights and were looking at examples of Human Right violations. One of the biggest examples of human right violation was the Scramble for Africa. In the Scramble of Africa, the Europeans (French, English, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Belgian) divided the continent of Africa without taking into consideration of the already divided provinces in Africa. After that, they took control of these divided and exploited their resources and even the people by selling them as slaves. This blog post is going to be about “ Was the Scramble for Africa the only way to ‘deal’ with the African continent and the African people.”

The Scramble for Africa was a very cruel method of dealing with the African continent. It violated the rights of the African people by forcing them to get divided the way they Europeans wanted them to and then later on exploiting their resources and the people themselves by using them as slaves. The Scramble for Africa was definitely not the right way to deal with the African continent and the people and it was also not the only way to deal with Africa. There were many methods, which the Europeans could have used that would have been less cruel and would have prevented the African people from being treated in an unjustified. One of the ways the Europeans could have done this was by using the similar trading methods that they used with other European countries. The trade could have been done with resources for something that the African countries needed. This method could have prevented the slave trade from happening and it could have helped in the development of Africa at a much earlier point of time unlike what actually happened and the real development began very late. The proper trade between Africa and the Europeans could also have given them the wealth that could have further helped them in the development.

All in all, The Scramble for Africa treated the continent and the people in a very unjustified way. What makes this even worse is the fact that this was not the only method of dealing with Africa. It was just because the Europeans wanted to gain power and that is why they decided to use this method, the method that put the future of Africa into shadows.

prajwal16

thisonesforschool-blog

I agree that if everyone was tolerant of each others beliefs and opinions that it would be a more peaceful world, but I think that is a highly unlikely scenario. How do you think we can get people to be more tolerant of other peoples beliefs/opinions?

prajwal16

I think that people should understand that each person has a right to believe in a certain way. I also think that people should not try and persuade anybody else into believing or thinking in a different way. They should continue to believe in the way they want to and let others believe in the way they prefer to.

prajwal16

mensahjacob

Good job at the explanation, but for the second option, how can people tolerate other ideologies that directly conflicts with their ideology?

prajwal16

By tolerance I mean that people believe in what they believe in and let others believe in what they choose to believe in. The others should not try and persuade the other person to change their beliefs, thoughts, opinions or ideologies. Even if the ideologies contradict each other, they wouldn't argue about it because of tolerance in them.

mensahjacob

The term Coldless is defined as the planet wide freedom, peace, and happiness among nations and people. A Coldless world is an existence where social division is void and equality is all. This is a reality that could not possibly exist as the foremost methods of achieving this utopian...

prajwal16

I thought that your post was really good and detailed and the connections that you made were clear to me. I also agree with your final opinion after reading your explanation. However I also thought that isn't freedom, peace and happiness (which is your definition of a coldless world), achievable without contradicting human nature? Do you think the same way?

thespinningchair-blog

Suppose we lived in a world where everything that a man dreamed for was easily accessible and in abundance, money, food, cars, the cure for cancer, etc. Life would be perfect. There would be no worries, no wonder, and no problems. There would be no reason to argue, no need to disagree, no need to...

prajwal16

I could not connect how the lack of objects connects to the fact that there will be conflicts. Could you please explain more in detail how you connected those two points?

tdenniss

STOP!

Take a moment to think about what it would be to live in a Cold Less World. Wouldn’t that be great? No arguments, disagreements, conflicts about race, religious views political views….nothing! Just peace, harmony and the coming together of the world. Sorry to ruin your dreams but it is not...

prajwal16

I thought that the experiment that you found was interesting. However I could not connect the experiment to the point you were trying to make. Can you please explain the connection?

Is a "coldless" world achievable?

According to me, a coldless world would be a very peaceful place. A place where there are no conflicts and everyone has tolerance towards the ideas and beliefs of others. I also think most of the conflicts that are happening around the world is due to the difference in beliefs and opinions and also people trying to change each other’s opinion. One perspective that these conflicts can be looked at is from the perspective of religion. There are many different religions in the world, and each religion has a unique belief. Also, some people try to persuade another person or people of other religion that their beliefs are not right and they should believe in what the other religion says because it is right. These differences in beliefs can sometimes cause a conflict between the two religions. According to me, one possible solution to this issue is to have only one religion. Since one religion will have only have one belief, there will be no conflicts due to difference in beliefs. However, I thought that this solution would take a lot of efforts and some people would not agree to this concept of “one-religion” and would still like to follow their own religion. Another solution to this problem could be that people become tolerant about the different beliefs and do not try and persuade anybody else to follow their beliefs.

I think that if everyone follows the second solution, which is to have tolerance regarding all the opinions and beliefs, relating to or not to religion, then it is possible to achieve a coldless world. If the people tolerate what other people believe in and not try and persuade them to change their opinion or belief, then I think the world would be much more peaceful and we would be able to achieve what I defined as the coldless world.

Looking back at 2013 and welcoming 2014

2013 was a year full of hard work. We started the year with the Personal Project, which was one of the most important things for the IB MYP program. I challenged myself when I took a topic which had not been discussed much. The topic was the use of windmills in Ghana. This took most of my time, as I had to make many connections between the conditions required by windmills and the conditions that are available in Ghana and suitable for windmills. Another challenge was the product, which for me was a small sized windmill. The product also took time, as I had to design and make it look like as realistic as possible. I surprised myself when I was actually able to complete my Personal Project, while not getting behind in any of my other classes. The one word that could be used to describe me was achiever as I was successfully able to achieve my goal for Personal Project.

2014 is a year where I am going to be focused on my studies and focus on getting good grades. Last year, I thought that because of the Personal Project I could not focus that much on my studies and left all my tasks for last minute. I want to start focusing because I am going to be changing schools the next school year and in-order to get into a good school, I want to make sure that I have good grades to show the school. The way I am going to do this is by planning out my homework and tasks and make decisions about what is more important than the other tasks and needs to be started and completed earlier. I will also make sure that I do my best in all the tasks assigned to me. At the end of 2014 I want to use the words “good decision maker” to describe my year.

A quote that will inspire me this year is:

“To dream by night is to escape your life. To dream by day is to make it happen.”

–Stephen Richards.

So What? Taking Our Digital Reality to the Next Level

I think the steps taken by the Government of South Korea to deal with the computer addiction are not very effective. One of the steps taken by the government, that was shown in the documentary, was sending kids to rehab centers, where they would learn about the negative consequences of computers and the internet which, the officials thought would make the children reduce the time spent on the computer.

I thought that this method was not very effective because children would go to the rehab center for only a week, which I think, is not a very long time especially for a person to get over an addiction. Also, when the children return home and see their computers, they would get back onto the computer and forget what they had learnt from the rehab center. In order to make the rehab center successful, I think the children should be kept over there for a longer amount of time rather than just 1 week.

Another method that was shown in the documentary was about a school teaching young children a song that listed all the negative consequences of the Internet and computers and how they should use them wisely. I thought that this was a good solution to the problem. The children gained knowledge from a young age and would take steps responsibly later on. However I thought that these types of classes should continue until the children are 14-15 years old as that is when they get addicted to computers. If these classes are only continued until the children are 9 or 10 years old, then they would just forget what they learnt and would get addicted to computers.

If the people want a long-term solution, then I think the parents would play a big part in the solution. I think the parents can make time limits on how much time they can spend on the computer. This would reduce the playing time of the children and therefore the children would think less about the games.

Tracking An Issue Blog Post #3

The issue that I have been tracking has come to a decision which is much more peaceful than Obama’s decision to attack Syria and destroy all the chemical weapons. The final decision, which was suggested by Russia, is to tell the Syrian Government to hand in all the chemical weapons to International Control where the weapons would be destroyed. Obama has further told the UN that the handing over of chemical weapons should be done in a certain period of time otherwise they will attack Syria.

Three weeks earlier, when the issue was very big, I had predicted that in three weeks time nothing big is going to happen and Obama would not attack Syria and his plans would be post-poned, which is what has happened, Obama’s plan of attacking have been post-poned but not cancelled after Russia suggested the UN to act peacefully toward the matter and ask the Syrian Government to hand in the chemical weapons to International Control where they would be then destroyed.

Regarding the issue, I was reading articles from different news broadcasting companies that come from different countries. The main companies that I focused on were based in USA (CNN and New York Times) and Middle East (Aljazeera). I found out that news broadcasting companies that were based in USA tried to make a bad image about Syria and Russia in the reader’s mind. Some reasons why the authors wrote it this way were, because the authors might be Americans and they would not have wanted their country look bad to their own readers as the readers could have been mostly American’s too. The news broadcasting companies that were based in Middle East tried to make America look bad and made Russia, who helped Syria look good. The authors might have written it that way because they might be from the Middle East and since America was planning to attack Syria, which is a Middle Eastern country, they tried to make America look bad in the people’s minds and make Russia look good, as they were preventing America from attacking Syria.

The bias techniques which were most often used were, word choice and story framing.

Tracking an Issue Post 2

My two articles were based on the article that Vladimir V. Putin, the President of Russia, posted in the New York Times on 11th September 2013. The articles that I chose to compare and evaluate are from two different news-broadcasting companies, one from Middle East, which is Aljazeera and the other from USA which is CNN.

Most of the information in the article that I found on the Aljazeera website is reliable, as they have used quotes from Putin’s article. In the article that I found on the CNN website, the information presented from Putin’s behalf has sources from the article he wrote in the New York Times. However the information presented from Obama’s side do not have any sources to back up the information.

The article on Aljazeera seemed more convincing to me as the information was mostly from Putin’s article in the New York Times and the information was backed up with actual quotes from the article. The article on CNN had information from Putin’s article which were backed up quotes, however the information that was written in the favor of Obama did not have any quotes that supported the information and therefore this article was not convincing because it did not have reliable information.

I found the article on CNN more interesting as there was a lot analysis and debate going on in the article. Also the article criticized Putin’s article and the information, which went against Obama. This is why I found this article more interesting over the article on Aljazeera, which only restated what was said in Putin’s article.

In the article posted on Aljazeera, the article framed the story in such a way that it made Putin look good. This is an example of story framing. Also, The words used in the article made Putin look more superior to Obama. This is an example of word choice used for bias. In the article posted on CNN, they had similar types of bias.

The article framed the story to show the audience how Putin did not give information that made Russia look bad and only put information that made the decisions of USA look wrong. This is an example of story framing. Also the article used many words that made it look like that USA and Russia are still arguing on what action to take on Syria. However, USA has already agreed with the decision made by Russia, which is asking Syria to give the chemical weapons under International control and then have them destroyed. This is an example of word choice used for bias.

The article on Aljazeera favored Putin, as the article seemed to be more conservative towards Russia. Also in the end of the article it said, “Russia has been Assad's most powerful backer during the civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 people since 2011, delivering arms and - with China - blocking three UN resolutions meant to pressure Assad.”

The article on CNN favored Barack Obama, as the article seems to be conservative as it is not willing to accept the criticisms made by Putin towards USA.

mensahjacob

The Conflict in Syria is the problem I have chosen for the tracking an issue project. The civil war in Syria has been going on since the 15th of March 2011, and has escalated to the point where Chemical warfare is being used. The UN has been involved in this conflict for good amount of time....

prajwal16

Jacob, i liked the way how you explained why you chose this topic. But I think you only focused on how US is reacting to this issue and not how other countries, that are part of the UN are also reacting.

thisonesforschool-blog

The issue I am covering is an event that has been going on for about 2 years. The civil war in Syria is why is the issue I am tracking. Being more specific I am tracking the involvement of the U.S. in the situation. Breaking it down into simplest form, Syria crossed the “Red Line” for the...

prajwal16

Do you know what other countries, that are part of the UN, doing about this issue?

Tracking an Issue

The issue that I will be tracking for the next 3 weeks is the issue that is going on in Syria; the Middle Eastern country, which has been crippled by a civil war.

The issue in Syria began in March 2011, when the locals started protesting for 15 schoolchildren, who were arrested for writing anti-government graffiti on a wall. These protests were peaceful and the protesters demand was the kids' release, democracy and greater freedom for people in the country. The government responded violently to the protesters by open firing at them. The next day, they started shooting at mourners at the victims’ funeral. This made the Syrian people furious and unrest spread to other parts of the country.

The real issues started, when Syria was suspected of using chemical weapons in the war, which are banned under the international law because the effects of their use is horrific. In August 2013, a suspected chemical attack right outside the Syrian capital caused a strong reaction from the likes of America, Britain and France. These countries are now debating on how to react to this crisis. Syria, on the other hand, has denied the claim of the use of chemical weapons by saying: "there is no country in the world that uses a weapon of ultimate destruction against its own people." USA, Britain and France and other countries collaborated with the UN, are discussing whether they should send military troops in the country, attack and destroy all the chemical weapons or whether they should take a different approach to the situation. Until now, America wants to bomb Syria, however Obama still needs approval from other countries part of the UN.

I chose this topic because, this issue has been going on for a very long time and I want to know how the countries collaborated with the UN and the UN itself are going to resolve this issue. Also when I started reading articles on this issue, I got very interested as I was shocked to know how the president of the country, did not care about his people and just used weapons with dangerous effects, on them. It is very hard to say what is going to happen to this issue in the next three weeks, as they are still debating and if there are protests against Obama’s decision, then this can post-pone or make Obama rethink his decision.

Design Thinking

I think design thinking is looking outside of the box and making creative solutions to a problem. It can be either making something new or innovating something, which has been there for a long time, which can make the product more useful. I think it is necessary to have new ways of learning and the style in which learning spaces are arranged, should also be changed. This is because the education system has changed a lot since the past 15-16 years and the way the classrooms are setup haven’t changed. I think an ideal classroom should have comfortable seating. Can you imagine yourself writing a long research essay on an uncomfortable seat and in an uncomfortable position? Our mind works better when we are working in a comfortable posture in a comfortable seat. An ideal classroom should also have plants in it. Plants produce oxygen and when our brain gets oxygen, it works better which makes us more productive. Another thing that I would like to have in an ideal classroom are windows and bright colored walls. Psychological studies suggest that color selection can influence mood and behavior and can also stimulate the brain. The study suggested that the soft, subtle shade of yellow helps people in concentrating. The room should also have good lighting, as I am able to concentrate more on my work when the room is well lit.

I think design thinking can be used everywhere as people are always full of innovative ideas and techniques that there is hardly anyplace that I can I think of where design thinking cannot be used!

My passion!

One thing that I am really passionate about is Tennis. Tennis is my favorite sport. I can talk about tennis anytime of the day, be it discussing a match, players or just the game, I am always ready to talk about it. I was 9 years old when I first picked up a tennis racquet. At that time I did not know anything about tennis, I was only playing it because my dad told me to try this completely new sport. I found the game interesting and the best part was that there were no teams, you were all on your which meant that if you messed up a bit, there is not going to be anyone who is going to taunt you. So since I found this game interesting, I decided to continue playing it.

I have been playing tennis for almost 6 years now. This is the longest duration of time that I have stuck to 1 sport, which is what makes this sport so special for me. I continue to take tennis lessons, 3-4 times every week. After these lessons, I always have a fresh mind and can do all the work that requires plenty of brainwork. So I always do the tougher homework after my tennis class, as that is the time when I would be able to do a much better job because of my refreshed brain.

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