Cold War

At the end of the chapter, Strayer asked his reader whether or not students and historians should make moral judgment about the events and people that we study, and my answer is no. The people and event that has happened is what shapes our society today. There may have been time where certain people should have double check what they wanted to do, but for the most part we learn from out mistakes. While reading about the Cuban Missile crisis, it made me think about how badly the world would have been if everybody involved had shot his nuclear weapons. The world may have been destroyed if that would have happened. Reading about all the nuclear weapons makes me worried about any future wars we maybe involved in the future. Now that everybody has their own nuclear weapons they could decide that they want to be the super country in this world and fire their nuclear weapons. It worries me that all the countries today want to be number one and they want to prove that they are top dog, so I fear for the day that a war might break out again.

            Another think that I couldn’t stop thinking about while reading the reading tonight was whether or not the use of the nuclear bomb on Japan was a good idea. I feel like during the Cuban Missile Crisis people were too afraid to use the nuclear bombs because they didn’t know the consequences. I think the countries used the bombs as a threat but they would never actually use it. When the United States decided to drop the bomb, they showed the world that they were not afraid to use full force when fighting another country. Now that people know what will come of the use of a bomb, they may want to use their bombs and/or nuclear weapons to take control. It really is scary knowing that all these countries today have nuclear weapons to use. 

The Rise and Fall of Communism

Communist’s ideals have always been taught to students at school as something that is bad. The leaders of the communist group try to make everybody equal, which results in the unfair distribution of work. A doctor who is working hard to save lives can make the same amount of income as someone who is working out in the fields.  This is what I have always thought about communism, but while reading the Rise and Fall of World Communisms, I realized that there were some good that came out of the communist ideals. In the 1920’s, Stalin created an organization called the Zhenotdel organization, which is a group that will fight for Women’s write. Because of this group, women were allowed to go to school, illiteracy was not allowed and women finally had more freedom. Women now had the freedom to divorce their husband without taking the blame for there failing marriage. Strayer writes that, “the Marriage Law of 1950 made it possible for women to divorce easily, it ended concubinaged and child marriage, permissions for widows to remarry, and equal property rights for women” (669).

The Marriage Law is a good that came out of communism. I remember doing some research on the marriage law and I realized that women had no name to themselves. Women were passed along from father to husband, and if their husband died before they did they were passed along to their sons. It is hard to imagine a life where you couldn’t choose your spouse and if your marriage was an unhappy one, there was nothing you could do. My parents were lucky enough to have married each other out of love but I remember my grandparents telling me stories of how they met each other. My grandmother said that she didn’t know what to expect on her wedding night, but she was hoping that her soon to be husband would be a good man. My grandmother was one of the lucky women who were able to fall in love with my grandfather. Although I never met him, I was glad that  my grandmother didn’t have to go through a loveless marriage. 

Ethics of Colonial Relationships

Today’s reading focuses a lot on how Catholic teaching makes the world a better place. Thomas Massaro seems to believe that if Catholics followed these nine passages then there would be less inequality between the difference classes in life. While I was reading Massaro’s I couldn’t help but noticed how much he stressed the importance of human dignity and human equality. He mentions that all people should be treated equal because we were all made in the image of God. If this is true, why are Catholics and Christians still against Gay Marriages? If all people were made in the image of God, and everybody is the son and daughter of God, then that means the pope and higher ranks of the churches should fight for the rights of Gay marriages as well. It seems a little unfair that the pope can pick and choose who were made from the image of God, therefore saying some people deserve equality over others. I also couldn’t help but think about the Pope Francis, and how different he is from the other popes. As I was reading about Pope Francis I found it interesting that he is the first pope to be okay with free contraception. This just shows that some beliefs such as anti- gay marriages an anti- contraception may still be around but those beliefs can change. It just shows that time and people can really change old beliefs. 

Identity and Culture

While reading this chapter about the cultural change in the second wave of European conquest, I can’t help but think back to the stories my parents used to tell me. My parents were both born and raised in Vietnam. By the time they were old enough to go to school the life style in Vietnam had completely change.  My mom would remember her siblings would go help their parents out on the farm, but my mom was lucky enough to attend school. She would remember her siblings talking about how they would have preferred to go to school because then they wouldn’t be stuck in the lifestyle that my grandparents lived in. Reading about the changes that some culture went through when the missionaries began to teach, allowed me to realize how each generation seems to appreciate the type of schoolings they receive. In the chapter Strayer mentions how the kids in countries like Kenya looked up to those kids that were able to go to school. They were happy to be assimilating into the European culture. And that was exactly how my mom felt when she was able to go to school.

            Listening to my parent’s younger days and reading about the type of education that was spread to Africa and Asian makes me appreciate our school system here in the United States. I know that the school system isn’t perfect and there is always budget cuts that cut off important classes, but we do have free public K-12 schooling. My mom always talked about how hard her parents had to work to send her to school, and the things that they learned wasn’t half as useful as what we learn in school today. Western education allowed the people of Africa and Asian to assimilate into the western lifestyle.

Second Wave of European Conquest

While reading about the Second Wave of Europeans colonialism, I couldn’t help but wonder how did the Asian countries like China and India go from being the top traders in the first wave of Europeans colonialism to being controlled by British rule. In previous readings we read about how China and India were high up in rank. The Europeans were the ones struggling to keep up with the trades because they didn’t have goods that the Chinese and Indians were interested in. But in this second wave of colonialism, the Europeans had more control. They didn’t use as much violence in this second round of colonialism but they did try and use military force to scare people into doing what they wanted them to do.

            As I got further into the reading I noticed that the citizens in Africa didn’t try and rebel. They may not have like what was happening to their countries but they didn’t try and fight back. I would think after the Haiti war the citizens of Africa, who were close in population to the Europeans, might have wanted to fight for their own land and freedom. It amazes me even after seeing other countries suffer; some countries don’t have the strength to fight for their freedom. I understand that the citizens of Arica may fear for their lives and their lives of their families, but Strayer mentioned that if the colonies didn’t meet their quota for the goods, often time their village would be killed and burned down too. The way I see it is the African citizens had a lose-lose situation. If they didn’t try and fight back then they were stuck in working under harsh conditions for the Europeans often time leading to their death, if they did try and fight back they could either be killed or they may even be successful.

            The images in this reading were really harsh this time. On page 600 there is an image of two young boys, each missing their hands. Due to harsh working conditions and the cruelty of the Europeans, people of all ages were suffering. Its heart breaking to see kids, who should be in school, working so hard. It’s sickening to see that some people don’t bother to think about the consequences of putting kids at work. If they needed labor that badly they should at least wait until the kids could grow into men. Kids don’t have the strength of an adult to work so hard. Their bodies are not meant to go through such harsh labors. It is crazy to think about how the colonies in the United States were fighting for their own labor rights around the time of the Second European colonialism. It’s true that it takes one change to bring on another form of change. Although the kids in Africa may have been suffering, eventually child labor will be combated. It may not be fully gone but it’s good to know that people are aware of it now.