Making the Invisible Visible.

Over the past week, we've been focused on the topic of Police Corruption in Malaysia, basically talking about how the police sometimes take bribes or other things, using their power as the police for their own personal gain. This is having a huge impact on our modern society, where the police are supposed to abide the law, and enforce it in other people, and not abuse their power as another way to cheat the law. Many people are so accustomed to bribing the police, and the police are so used to asking for bribes, that the police rarely do any of their actual duties, such as apprehending people for speeding or running a red light. Nothing really surprised me as of now, seeing as I've seen most of these cases firsthand, but what does surprise me is how this is happening on such a large scale. Learning about this topic made me realize how important the police are to our society, and cannot be corrupt, otherwise having nobody to enforce the law. Many things rely on the police, such as crime control, crowd management, and social services, all of which have to be strictly followed by law. If corrupt, the rights and the wrongs are no longer defined by the laws, but are decided by who's rich, and who can give the police the most money. This is happening so often, that malaysia is constantly referred to as one of the worlds' most corrupt countries.

To deal with a Dictator.

Throughout the course of history, the world has produced numerous amounts of dictators. Men with complete control over a nation or empire, like Julius Caesar, Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir Putin. Of course, with every form of government, there is an opposition. In the cases of dictators, the people themselves are often fighting for freedom and rights. In the case of Caesar, Brutus and the conspirators had decided to assassinate Caesar, permanently taking him out of power. However, this technique of elimination backfired, and caused more disruption in the country than good, as seen in the rebellion stirred by Antony. Today's dictators aren't as easy to take out. Blockade from an exterior force, or organized rebellion within the dictator's nation itself can lead to the eventual downfall of the dictator, being cut off from both supplies that he would need to run his country properly, and the public support and cooperation he would need. More effectively, an interior rebellion could also develop into a coup, where the people turn the military against the government. In a more diplomatic sense, the matter (today) could also be brought to the United Nations, for the entire world to resolve this issue, and bring the dictator to the ICJ (International Court of Justice) to convince or coerce him into stepping down from power, if there is enough evidence to prove that the dictator is harmful to his country. To more extreme measures, a more powerful nation wanting to eliminate a dictator could simply blow up his country, killing the dictator, his legacy of dictatorship, and destroying anything that might or might not have been left for the dictator to regain his power.

Assassination

       In class today, we talked about assassination. Some reasons why, and some examples of famous assassinations in history. My group and I focused on the assassination of Leon Trotsky. In both cases of assassination that I've talked about, there was a different cause. In Julius Caesar, the cause of murder tas to take out a person for the greater good, which Brutus explained as "a worthy sacrifice", and not a cold blooded butcher. In the case of Leon Trotsky, it was due to Joseph Stalin's paranoia that Leon would still be able to overthrow him as leader of the communist revolution in Russia, so to prevent this from happening, he sent an assassin to "take out the competition". In my opinion, I do think that assassinations are justifiable, however, the matter of whether or not an organized hilling is justifiable depends on the context of the situation itself. For example, in Julius Caesar, it really depends on how you see the reasons for assassination, on one hand, the conspirators give some pretty good reasons to why Caesar must die, but on the other, none of them have an actual solid reason with evidence to kill Caesar. In the murder of Leon Trotsky, the reason for this assassination was based purely on a paranoid whim that Leon might be back to challenge Joseph Stalin for power in the rise of Communism. A comparison from Leon Trotsky's murder and Caesar's murder is that in both cases, it was because a conspirator ( Cassius and Stalin) accused the victim of something he may or may not have done: overthrowing Stalin in Trotsky's case, and being a ruthless dictator in Caesar's case.

Taliban Photo Essay

Chaeli Mycroft: International Children's Peace Prize winer

For the first six years of her life, Michaela Mycroft had lived a disadvantaged life, born with a condition that limits her movements of her limbs. Chaeli (as her friends and family calls her), at the age of seven, started a campaign to raise money with her friends and family so she could buy a motorized wheelchair. Knowing how difficult it is to be disabled, and driven by the hope of helping others achieve equality, Chaeli expanded her campaign to help raise money to buy wheelchairs and other prosthetics for other disabled children, and to give peer support to each other. Michaela Mycroft  is a seventeen year old girl, who had won the International Children’s Peace prize in 2011, for her successful attempts at achieving equality and fighting for hope for disabled children.

Ever since her birth, Chaeli has been struggling with fitting in, due to her disabilities with her limbs. She strived to be equal to others, to overcome her own difficulties. With the help of her family and friends, she achieved so, buying a motorized wheelchair to help her get around with ease.  “I think we need to make a conscious decision to see the light in every person we meet. I think we need to be more positive about each other. If we see the light in each other, I believe we would live in a much brighter world,” (2) said Chaeli during one of her interviews. Instead of feeling satisfied, and continuing her life, Chaeli wanted more. She wanted to help other children with disabilities to overcome the same obstacles she did, and for everybody to see that everybody could be equal, and so started the Chaeli Campaign. The Chaeli Campaign raises money to buy prosthetics and wheelchairs for children who need them, and more importantly, it was like a beacon of hope, a place where these people, however maimed or handicapped can band together, providing moral support to each other.

Along with moral support and access to ways to become equal, Chaeli has also been striving for hope. She hoped that she would be able to help others, and in turn, have them also hope for each other, to hope for what they deserve.  “Hope is what keeps us going,” Chaeli said in her speech. “It’s what keeps us striving for the lives we deserve. I have hope for myself, but I also have hope for all other children with disabilities. I hope that my actions as an ability activist will leave the world more accepting and more” (2). She hopes to inspire a way of thinking, like the one she had gone through herself, she doesn’t see her handicap as a disadvantage, but as a doorway to possibilities- and ultimately as something she fights for.

So what has Chaeli been doing? Where others feel sorry for her, she sees a fire that fuels her revolution. She not only accomplished and overcame challenges of her own, and also started an organization to help others do the same thing. Chaeli had been fighting, and she fights for equality, and she fights to inspire others into overcoming their challenges, and most importantly, she fights to inspire hope in other people. Chaeli fought, to help others going through that miserable first six years of her life.

sources used: 

1 http://childrenspeaceprize.org/childrens-peace-price/2011-chaeli-mycroft/

2 http://www.kidsrights.org/InternationalChildrensPeacePrize/Winners.aspx

3 http://childrenspeaceprize.org/

Harrison Bergerson

“Harrison Bergeron” is a satire of contemporary society. This means he uses irony on a large scale to make a statement, or commentary, about our world today. What commentary is Vonnegut making about today’s world?

Judging by Vonnegut's strong emphasis on dystopia, and the fact that everybody strives for equality, and how Harrison Bergeron challenges the society, I can say that Vonnegut is trying to tell us that nobody is equal, and the human race is meant to be unique, and each individual must strive to their own limits and be who they can be. It is stated that "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the  law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else". In a way, the government had created dystopia, handicapping everybody, and restraining them from what they can be. The dancers can only dance as good as anybody else, the musicians can only play as good as anybody else. When Harrison came barging in, and pronounced himself as emperor of the world, and took all his handicaps off, and did the same to his empress, one of the ballerinas, and tried, if only for a little while, to live to his full potential, until Diana Moon Glampers came and shot Harrison and the ballerina. Humans can't be restrained from their capabilities, and must strive to be what they can be. 

Poems

Where am I from?

Where am I from?
I'm from Pokémon, an endless journey; walking and walking.
I’m from ben 10 action figures,
I’m from Star Wars, an obsession of all six movies.
I’m from science fiction.

Where am I from?
I’m from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
I’m from Harry potter, a dream so close to be in, but yet so far for it to exist.
I’m from Lord of the Rings
I’m from the world of fantasy.

Where am I from?
I’m from malaysia, and a bit of china.
I’m from summer all year round, hot and humid, but open to all possibilities.
I’m from riding my bike in autumn, crisp, fiery red leaves shattering under my wheels
I’m from the awesome barbecue, ribs dipped in savory gravy.

Where am I from?
I’m from catching tadpoles from the public ponds,
I’m from the fear of dogs, even the chihuahuas,
I’m from swimming with my cousins in undiscovered streams
I’m from political rants from my dad,
I’m from “throw the kid in the pool so he learns to swim”

Where am I from?
I’m from generations of effort
I'm from the brink between the centuriesI’m from “do it right or don’t do it”
I’m from “stop talking and eat your vegetables”
I’m the tapestry of my past, and a sketch board of my future

Is a person's Identity worth fighting for? Why or why not?

Yes, a person's identity is definitely worth fighting for, perhaps even worth dying for. In my opinion, life is abundant, if you're not unique, if you're not yourself, then what difference are we from mindless animals, cattle, herded, and not having a definite purpose of bringing some change to the world. A person't identity itself, is already in danger- from peer pressure, from social dynamics, religion, tradition, racism, stereotypes, or any other thing that puts a limit to what a person can do is a hazard to a person's identity.

"If I'm going to die, I want to still be me. I don't want to be a piece of their games, you know what I mean?"- Peeta Mellark- The Hunger Games.