Chapter 24 Accelerating Global Interaction

I felt that the topic in this chapter related back to when we talked about colonization. The spreading of cultures and goods from around the world and whether that is a good or bad thing. In one aspect it is a good thing because we get to learn more about other cultures and understand them better. The problem is that each culture has different morals and beliefs among their people that may be compromised by outside influences. When goods from across the world enter a culture they are not based on the same morals that culture lives by and therefore may not be acceptable to them. The prime example is of the Barbie dolls. This chapter spoke about the negative influence Barbie dolls have on the children in Iran. Barbie is an American doll that is famous among young girls. When these dolls were introduced to the women of Iran they represented everything the girls were taught not to be. Barbie is a very slender blonde who dresses freely showing a lot of skin. Barbie and Ken are not married but act like a couple together. In Iran the women are not allowed to show their skin and would be severely punished if they were caught flirting with men. I never realized how seductive and influential Barbie dolls are until I read this chapter. Even thought the women of America are much more free to dress and act how they want, I don't understand why it is acceptable to introduce young girls to this idea of perfection at such a young age. Barbie dresses like a very loose woman and portrays the media's idea of the perfect body. It is no wonder the girls in America are so obsessed with beauty in the concept of the media's standards. Introducing our children to these little images of perfecting may be the reason young girls grow up feeling they must be anorexic and perfect to be beautiful in other people's eyes. It is sad to think about it now that Barbie dolls are so popular among children and I agree with The Iranian toy seller Masoumeh Rahimi. The point about my interest in this topic is that although globalization allows us to interact and learn from other cultures it also has the potential to tarnish cultures. Through globalization something as simple as a doll can influence the morals of a young girl and her society.

Religion often leads to war because people base their lives on religious beliefs and feel passionately about them. Hostility accumulates between groups with conflicting beliefs and becomes violent to the point of war. Many people grow deep in their religious beliefs because religion gives "a sense of identity" (461) that gives the person a feeling of belonging to a unified group that shares the same ideals and beliefs. When acts of violence are committed out of religious beliefs people tend to rationalize with it more than a random act of violence not motivated by religion. It is ironic that religious violence is an accepted social concept for religion is normally seen as revolving around purity and peace within yourself through God. Some religions even claim to preach the killing of others such as the muslims' justification for performing terrorist attacks on America. Although to them they are not the terrorists, Americans are because we allow things such as abortion and homosexual relationships. They believe it is their duty as a servant of God to punish the Americans for allowing such "sins", things Americans see as freedoms. Religion has a power that allows people to justify their terrorist actions with religious beliefs.

Chapter 23 Independence and Development in the Global South

Ghandi played a big role in India's struggle for independence. Ghandi preached the effects of peace instead of violence and worked to better the souls of the people as individuals rather than group them into a nation that needed to be fixed. He wanted to bring together both Hindus and Muslims as equally important parts of India. Ghandi believed that the people of India should forcus more on religion and tradition rather than modern industrialization. He felt that the modern industrial world was oppressing India more than the Brittish were. Many people began to believe that Ghandi's indeas were drifting from the main goal of gaining independence from Britain. The Muslim and Hindu religios groups began to resent each other despite Ghandi's teachings. This resulted in the independence of India as two countries, Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. This partition resulted in many deaths caused by much violence that left Ghandi grieving instead of celebrating the new independence. Ghandi played an important role in setting the example of a peaceful leader, but sadly students ended up going against his beliefs.

South Africa's situation was very differnt from India's in their fight for independence. Although black natives made up the majority of South Africa they had no control because of the reigning minority of white settlers that also lived in South Africa. South Africa was ruled by people of both Dutch and Brittish descent. unlike the colinization of India there was a prodominant industrial ecnomy in South Afrca that enforced slave labor and created more incentive for the colinizers to remain in control and benefit from the production of South Africa. The racial issue was much nore extreme in South Africa than in India, fore many natives were forced to live on "native reserves" often away from their families so they could be more efficient in heir work. The native South Africans were severly restricted in their freedoms to move about their own countries. They were basically slave laborers in all aspects of their lives, treated no differently than a settler's herd of cattle. The settlers completely controlled South africa and even kept influencial leaders such as Nelson Mandela from supporting the natives to independence. Finally after strong internal and external preassures, Nelson Mandela was released from jail and was able to lead his county to independence. Although India and South Africa differed in their routes to independence they were both faced with many struggles.

Chapter 20 Colonial Encounters

The story in the beginning of the chapter tells about how an english man spoke swahili to young Kenyan boys who spoke perfect english. The englishman explained that they normally did not speak english to the "natives". This made me think about some research I did on Zimbabwe. I was suprised to see that the official language of Zimbabwe id english. This is a result of the colinization of Zimbabwe by the British. I thought it was ironic that the emglish man refused to speak english with the native people considering the english were the reason for the natives converting their language to english in the first place. The colinization of countries resulted in loss of individualism and culture within the countries. Plantations were formed and the native people were put to work for the colinizers' benifits. A picture of native people working on a tea plantaion with the label Lipton printed across the tea bags made me think about the major corporations that include slave labor today. I began to wonder if the large corporations will ever be able to produce their products without the use of slave labor in foreign countries that had formerly been colinized. The colinization of countries often resulted in slavery and cruel gorverning. I am not sure that colinization was a good thing even though it did introduce new things around the world from different cultures. I still believe that we might have a better sense of these cultures if they were never colinized in the first place.