Reflection - Week Fifteen

Wow!  It's already the end of the semester!

The ideas of development put forward in the "conference" were interesting... I believe we can't have the same plan for every country.  There are definitely different problems with every country and different strengths.  It is the same way with illnesses, social problems, and other personal problems.  The same thing won't work for everyone because everyone is different.

As I look back upon the semester, I can see things that I should have done better.  I can see places I should have studied more, tried harder, and focused better.  I see these mistakes as a learning opportunity going forward.  Doing better going forward is important.  The thing I need to remember is that there is no sense in living in the past.  I need to take my experiences and move on in my life and better my own problems to turn them into solutions.

Sovereignty protects difference?

Rosenblum notes on p. 245 of the paperback edition: "The only way to keep them [the space-residing humans, who are phenotypically different even though they are genetically the same] safe is to be separate. A nation with the power to protect its own." Hence, sovereignty protects difference, in this way of thinking about things. Do you agree?


I do agree with Rosenblum's statement.  We can see throughout history where people have invaded and removed sovereignty and people have suffered.  We can also see through our lives how we allow powerful sovereign nations have protected their culture.  However, we need to recognize that power in a state is what protects its sovereignty, which in turn protects its difference.


If a state cannot protect its sovereignty, it cannot protect its difference.  It has been seen in indigenous populations throughout history.  We took away their sovereignty, and their difference fell apart.  We gave it back, and the culture came back and is now recognized and studied.  Sovereignty is crucial to difference.

Is Todorov right?

On p. 250, Todorov writes: "'The man who finds his country sweet is only a raw beginner; the man for whom each country is as his own is already strong; but only the man for whom the whole world is as a foreign country is perfect' (I myself, a Bulgarian living in France, borrow this quotation from Edward Said, a Palestinian living in the United States, who himself found it in Erich Auerbach, a German exiled in Turkey)." Is he right?


I think Todorov is right in a sense, but also wrong.  It depends on how the individual "self" looks at the foreign "other".  If the individual sees the foreign as acceptable and interesting, then the quote is right.  If the whole world is foreign and the individual treats the foreign as equal, the world can be harmonious.  If people treat the "other" as equal, the world would be perfect.  This, however, is not how it has been in the world.


"Selves" often see the "other" as less than themselves.  They are petty, closed-minded, and often hostile.  This is seen among various states and even religious groups.  Since the "self" in these cases can't see the "other" as okay, and the people within these groups can't either, there can be no perfection in the thought process.  There can be no perfection in the way people treat each other.  Sadly, if people keep there closed-minded ideals, Todorov's quote can never be right.  Nobody will have that perfection the quote mentions.

Reflection - Week Fourteen

Well, not too much happened this week to report.  Other than the issue in Korea.

Scary stuff, that.  I really feel for the people, the innocent civilians stuck in the crossfire.  What motivates a person to rule a country like North Korea?  Moreover, I'm kinda concerned about the international response.  It's so... noncommittal! Especially with Japan.  Also, how can North Korea accuse South Korea of using civilian shields?!  The whole mess is shocking and horrifying, and the affected people are in my prayers as we head into a new week to see what is in store for us.

Which is a better representation?

This is kinda funny.  Seeing this picture, with the Redskins flag and the museum in the background, reminds me that America has not really remembered all that much about what we did to the native Americans.  The "Redskins" name itself is kind of offensive.  I would say it's time for America to wake up, but people have been saying that for years and it hasn't done any good thus far.

I loved the museum's design.  Seeing the different native American houses outside and having the art all over was very cool and paid a much better tribute to the culture.  Sports teams such as the Indians or the Redskins just ring offensive to me.  This has been a topic of debate for years and I think it will probably just continue.

Reflection - Week Thirteen

While I also saw Harry Potter over the weekend, it is not the movie that most impacted the way I think about international relations this weekend.  I know I'm about a year behind everyone on this one, but I just saw Avatar last night for the first time.  What an appropriate movie to see while we are discussing the discovery of America and the treatment of the native peoples in class!  The movie was horribly sad and pointed out some serious concerns about the environment and the treatment of the "other."

My biggest concern after watching Avatar is the way the native peoples are treated wherever the others go. We seem to think we can just take everything from them and kill them off like they aren't even human.  In the movie, their connection to nature is substantial and beautiful, but the military men don't care.  They plow through to get whatever mineral they want and have no care for what could be someone else's home. In the process, they kill many people and succeed in destroying their home.  Why does the world do this?  Why must it always be about us and never about them (unless it's beneficial to us)?  Why is the world so realist?

Signs?

In the book, Todorov makes the argument (at least in my opinion) that the conquistadors used signs to communicate with the Indians.  Whether they did so intentionally or unintentionally is what still confuses me.

I believe the signs used by the conquistadors were unintentional.  They did not mean to put themselves in a position where they would be seen as gods or anything of that nature.  While it did work to their advantage, it wasn't the entire truth of what the Indians believed of them.  They also seemed to believe that these people were stealing their land and enslaving them purposelessly.  In this light, they are seen as beasts, maybe even uncivilized people.  I think the double label put on the conquistadors made the idea of them using signs quite confusing and lends to a great confusion.

Reflection - Week Twelve

The conversations during World Politics about poverty and what should be done were interesting.  It's hard to imagine being in a world where you would be content with a loaf of bread, let alone what we all ask for.  "Rich" and "Poor" are such different statements depending on where you are.  I encountered an interesting instance of this this weekend.

Ari and I had a plan yesterday: go to the Holocaust Museum, then go see I Never Saw Another Butterfly.  After that, we'd watch a movie, maybe Schindler's List or something.  It sounded like a good plan, but that's not how it happened.  Instead we met another couple in the museum named Leslie and Ari and spent the day with them.  We learned how our school and life experiences were different and similar.  Towards the end of the day, we walked with them to Union Station to catch their train.  As Leslie and I were waiting in line for the drinking fountain after a lot of walking, the man in front of us looked up from taking his drink.

"Are you waiting for this?" he asked.  "You're rich, why don't you go in there somewhere and buy a beverage?" he turned back to the fountain muttering something about rich people.

Being a loud mouth, I responded "actually, I'm in college.  I'm pretty poor."  But even as I said it, I wondered how true it was.  I'm sitting here in a beautiful brand new building that cost a lot of money, paying a lot of money to be here, and I can still feed myself and clothe myself and keep a roof over my head.  Could this man?  I don't know.  I know many people in this world can't though.

Do we have an obligation to feel guilty in these kinds of situations, where our seeming wealth is pointed out for us?  I do.  I feel we should feel guilty to a point where we have to help people.  Luxuries in life, as Fr. Augustine mentioned in his homily in mass this morning, are fleeting; we can't take them with us when we go.  But we can prevent others from suffering by simply helping them, donating clothes, food, shelter, etc. to help them live a better life.

Is it fair? What do we do?

I don't think the success or failure of a state under rough circumstances is a fair outcome.  The people living there work just as hard as (probably harder than) those states who are well off.  The governments become corrupt under the pressure, putting the people in even worse a scenario than they started off with.  It isn't fair to those people who are simply trying to live.


The biggest problem with this assertion is how we are going to solve it.  The problem with that is that humans are, by nature, pretty selfish.  Large companies and countries won't help out unless there is an incentive for them.  In the ideal world, there would be debt forgiveness for these countries and help for their development.  This world, however, is not ideal.  I think we can still give money to these countries but we have to provide a proper incentive.  This can come from tax breaks for large corporations to donate money and resources to these countries.  Together, the rest of the world can help develop these countries and give them a fair advantage to compete globally.

Reflection - Week Eleven

Am I wealthy?

That word can have so many meanings.  On one level, wealth can mean money and opportunities it presents.  Money can also mean a couple of different things: gross income, net income, dollar value on your house, etc.  How much you owe.  In that concept, I am not too wealthy in the slightest.  But I am wealthy in other ways.

Wealth can also mean what you know.  Random facts, arguments of logic, how to do something useful (or not so useful) to society.  If one were to measure wealth in these terms, I would be slightly more wealthy.  I think even those who are impoverished can be wealthy if we measure in these terms and not the first.  Anyone can.

Finally, we might associate wealth with life experience and life lessons.  In that way, I think all of us are wealthy, especially people who have been through a lot of hardships.  The unfortunate thing is that wealth won't get one the other ways to be wealthy alone, nor will the other ways do the same with this.  This form of wealth is merely in the mind.  While it helps the impoverished deal with their situation, it doesn't do much else for them.  I think we must not simply discard this enormous wealth, however.  We must listen to these people tell their hard stories and help them.  "It's a learning experience" cannot be used as an excuse unless we make it better after the lesson is learned.  That, my friends, is progress.

Reflection - Week Ten

5:30 AM - phone alarm goes off.  I whisper to Ari that it was just my alarm, and he still has a half hour.

5:45 AM - I'm almost done getting ready and get back into bed, waiting for Ari's alarm to go off.

5:55 AM - five minutes before his alarm, Ari decides that we're going to mobilize.  Uncharacteristic of him, but something I really appreciated.

We get breakfast, get snacks, and get the first Metro out, that's already packed with people.  On a Saturday morning.  Why?  For the greatest Saturday I've had yet out here in DC!!

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/ or Fear was full of funny signs, people, and some awesome acts.  Colbert and Stewart really inspired me to vote (which I already did) and to tell my congresspeople what I think.  It was also inspiring to stand around the people I did and to get the true rally experience, something I think everyone should have at least once.  After all, "those who stand for nothing fall for anything" (Alexander Hamilton)

Other than terrorism, what is the greatest threat to global peace and security?

I think the greatest threat depends on the country.  In my opinion, a threat is a danger to the security of an individual nation.  World security and peace can only be achieved if individual nations are secure.

I think disease is the biggest threat to global security and peace.  If people in one country are diseased, that can affect other nations itself.  It also means they can't join an army, or if they're in an army they will not fight effectively.  The disease can also affect people in other nations as it spreads.  Look at the plague, HIV/ AIDS, cancer, and other infectious diseases society at large has dealt with.  The diseases become an epidemic, and soon a pandemic, as they continue to spread uncontrollably.

While disease can be a huge threat to national and international security, it can also help international peace and communication.  If everyone is forced to pool scientific knowledge to fight disease, it may be beneficial for others by way of getting along for something.

Reflection - Week Nine

I know this isn't exactly relevant to our topic of security this week, but in helping Ari, Ari, and Jose study for their world politics midterm I came up with this creative analogy for the major theories of IR:

The World Is Like Middle School.

Realism: everyone knows about "those girls" - yeah, the popular ones, not a hair out of place, perfect clothes, perfect lives (or so we think).  Their interests are clearly the only ones that matter to them.  This attitude is not only defensive and realist, it can also be constructivist if everyone else acknowledges their standing in the school (see below).  Really everyone in middle school is looking out for their best interests.  It's just a matter of how much you want to do that or how much you want to fit in (again, see constructivism below).

Liberalism: when I was in 7th grade, I made a deal with a couple of the popular girls that I would take a girl in my group for our Toronto trip (a girl they didn't like, nobody did, but they were making a big deal about how it was going to ruin their trip to have them) if they let me sit at their lunch table for the rest of the year.  While this may sound like a stupid trade now, remember that back then sitting at their lunch table meant a lot for me.  They get rid of the "trip ruining" girl, I get a position of power; mutual benefit at its best.

Constructivism: When the aforementioned popular girls set their standards on how to dress, work out, style their hair, etc.; they also set a norm for the rest of the community.  The community that follows them would be the group affected by the social norms they set (in my middle school at least, that meant basically everyone who wanted to be noticed by other kids and those girls, teachers, etc. or so it felt.)  If you violated the standards you were just ignored and deemed unworthy of communication.  Very constructivist.

All in all, coming up with this little model not only helped the guys understand for their midterm, but it helped me apply the concepts back to the world.  I thought you might enjoy it.

How do you win war?

In the card game we played as kids, winning war meant getting all the cards.  In Risk, winning meant different things to different people.  But what does it mean in the real thing?

In the real world, much like our Risk board, we all have different objectives.  We can all win by a liberal perspective - if all of us accomplishes our different goals, we all can win!  However, some of our goals are conflicting.  Only by compromise can we all "win."  This seems to be less-than-achievable in this world.  It's not as easy as saying who wins and who doesn't - there are centuries-old rivalries and religious fundamentalism to contend with, among other things.  Then there are the people who want to hold all the cards.  We can't all win if we give all of our cards to this nation, so we won't!  But that in itself also means that we can't all win.

Is it even possible to win?  It truly doesn't seem like we can all win, but perhaps one day when one group's objectives are clear enough, someone may.  For now, there doesn't seem to be a way to truly win and keep relations with the rest of the world.

Reflection - Week Eight

Wow, it's already October, already midterms, and I've already been to my church weekend AND a Bar Mitzvah this month!  It was nice to kind of slow down, and what an interesting way to do so in World Politics!

I had never played Risk before this class.  I wasn't sure what to expect, other than to be able to chill.  I found myself instead really interested in the game, to the point where I joined discussions about it on the floor, trying to strike deals and work on alliances.  There was a point where Fiona and I had 5 or 6 different people in our room just talking about Risk strategy.  I was amazed at how much people got into the game.

The coolest part about this game of Risk was that everyone has different goals and different methods of accomplishing them.  I was surprised when we allied with yellow (the religious extremists/ New Guinea) because I couldn't see a value in them, but they ended up having a power that helped us tremendously.  Twists like that keep the game interesting and

Reflection - Week Seven

The simulation was pretty fun.  I loved working with my group to develop our position and try to defend Ford.  The issue is really personal to me, as I am from Michigan, therefore most of my friends and family have ties to the auto industry.  My uncle, for example, could be laid off from Ford any day.  The industry IS Michigan's economy.  That's what we know.  It is very important to me.

Also, simulation started in our leadership gateway class this week.  Eventful things in my group, refugees, included Saudi Arabia leaving, Russia arguing to get them back, and a couple of agreements on the side.  It makes me miss model UN in high school and is very fun.

Finally, stay tuned for another post comparing the third Harry Potter movie/ characters to nations in our world.

Reflection - Week Six

Embassy Follow-Up:

Well, Here we are, two weeks later, and Ari and I have still not heard anything from the Israeli Embassy.  We are going to send a paragraph to PTJ so we can get the ball rolling.  We really want to go, but of course I had to pick one of the hardest countries to randomly bump into the ambassador of.  That's just my life.

Class this week and my concerns:

This week we were engaged in some fascinating discussions about IR theory and the alternatives there are. While I listened to everyone else make really bright, interesting points and raise fascinating questions, I felt oddly like I had nothing to say.  I often feel this way in discussion and it really worries me.  It just seems like everyone else is a little more... I don't know, more intelligent, more well-read, more put together than I am.  I think this has to do with some procrastination on my part, and I hope to make it better in the near future.

The Ambassador to Aliens

Personally, I think it's a little strange that the United Nations would appoint such an ambassador.  As far as I've ever heard, there is no sign of intelligent life anywhere in the universe that would come to our planet for any reason.  However, from a realist perspective...

Appointing an ambassador for the extraterrestrials was a smart move by the UN.  In order to increase the world's security, we should have someone ready to conquer the unknown threat to the world.  My only concern is that we don't have an ambassador from every country.  The nation the ambassador is from could, and probably would, use their ties to the aliens to come and take over our country!  If we don't have ties to them as well, we can't protect against that attack.  Nobody knows what kinds of weapons they have or how to fight them.  What if the ambassador thing doesn't work, and they just kill him?  We would have to go to war, and the country where he's from (or where they land) would be going first.

Reflection - Week Five

The class on Thursday about the alien landing was helpful for me.  Sometimes when we talk about the concepts of IR theory in a broad sense in class, it is hard for me to be involved because I just don't do well thinking that way.  It was interesting to see the different ideas on how to handle the aliens, the press, and the public.

The Nationals game was fantastic.  I had forgotten over the years how much I absolutely adore baseball.  I've heard it said that baseball is "10 minutes of excitement packed into 2 hours" but I disagree.  As I was explaining to Ari, the excitement of a game of baseball is in the anticipation.  It's in not knowing how the batter is going to do, who is going to steal, the pitch, the catch... everything is tension.  The stadium keeps up that excitement, and even if the people sitting down the row from you are supporting the Braves, you all have the unity of being American.  And on that note, the seats aren't divided like in football between the teams.  You can sit next to the "enemy" and be perfectly fine!  I like that the stadium is arranged in a circle.  It emphasizes the unity of being American and America's sport.

Reflection - Week Four

Might I say I just love living in DC?


The trip to the State Department was really interesting and opened up a new possibility for a career path for me.  I like taking these trips because I'm one of those people who really isn't sure what she wants to do yet, and this is like "career day" in high school but BETTER.  The speaker was really interesting and I could see myself in that position in the future, maybe.


As cool as going to the State Department was, it wasn't the coolest part of my week.  As you probably know, my boyfriend is Jewish and this weekend was Yom Kippur.  We went to Kol Nidrei services (for those of you who, like I was, are unfamiliar - Kol Nidrei services are the services the night beginning Yom Kippur.) and at the end of the fascinating service in a beautiful synagogue, we walk to the front to talk to the rabbi.  As we are in line, we see a guy with an earpiece who is clearly armed.  Ari asked aloud who he was protecting and this lady comes up behind us and says "that's the bodyguard."


"The bodyguard for who?" Ari asked.


"That's the ambassador." the woman replies.


We jump out of line.  We walk over and introduce ourselves to Michael Orrin himself, the ambassador of Israel.  He said it's great we're at American, and said to stay in international relations.  "It's a great field with so many exciting possibilities," he said.  Finally, Ari asked him to sign something for us so we could prove for our leadership gateway class that we met him and he explained (to Ari's embarrassment and my great interest) that he can't sign on the holiday but why don't we come down to his embassy sometime this week to get it signed?  We were two starstruck kids just about then, and said we would make the arrangements.  We are going sometime this week for the signature and probably a tour of the embassy. 


If I haven't already said it enough, I love living here.