Cooperation and distribution-4.12

What I'm going to do:
1. Talk about the topic: hope and future
2. one eye opener story
3. briefly explain my opinions on this book

And have a great,awesome, incredible weekend~

More talk about the presentation:4.12

Today, we talked more about our presentation.
Kelly made a fantastic video including pictures taking by the photographer working with  Dexter.
Our whole structure would include:
a video
Biography
Brief intro to the book
Key words to show the major ideas of the author
Language analysis: style, structure

WORK HARD--Presentation Layout

In today's club, we talked about the layout for our presentation:
1. brief introduction of the author and the work
2. following a few themes for more details (meet next Monday to talk more about this)
The following are a few themes I'm thinking about:

(1) What is Iraqi characters?
(2) What's the influence of the war to Iraq? (changes happening)
(3) What's the influence of the war to American soldiers?
(4) How should we help Iraqis to rebuild the whole country? What's their problems?


3. supplementary: the photographer working with Dexter(his biography and pictures)
                  pictures before 1960s and now after the war to show the changes
                  songs(background music to warm up)

                                    4. Further plan: meet next Monday after class
               

Kill Yourself & Just Talking

     



      There is a story in the Chapter "Kill Yourself" about the young man named Ra'ad, who accepted western education and culture, but finally bomb himself up in Iraq.

     He is a sympathetic figure. One the hand, he move out of the culture of Iraq and wanted to live in the culture of America. However, 911 came and deteriorated the discrimination to  muslin in America so that he was sent back to Iraq.This means, the American culture refused his joint. Ra'ad lost his standing and became completely alone. His desperation of getting lost in struggling and fighting for nothing is beyond understanding, as the same as his decision and action of bomb-suicide.
   

    Democracy? when Ra'ad came to America, learned what it was and began to enjoy it, he was exiled out of the paradise. Then, he went to hell.


     What is democracy? What do Iraqis think democracy is? The questions just get harder and harder.
     Democracy means more and more communiques?
     Democracy means the devil in their religion?
     Democracy means the paradise of the United States or one of its tricks to   enslave Iraqis and their oil?

     But we can say one way of democracy is election.
     Actually, in these two chapter, the wisdom and high-standing perspective of Iraqis win my respect.
     None of Iraqi interviewees agree to self-bombing and they continues to state that "Iraqis don't do this sort of thing." This kind of thing doesn't only kill Americans who are not favored by Iraqis, but also killed the locals whose life should not be the target of their neighbors and fellows. And these bombing destroy their markets, government, architectures,schools and hospitals.At this time, Iraqis wish for construction but not destruction.

     Different with the common belief, those bombers are not Iraqis but foreigners. And many of these people are probably not contributing their life willingly but are tied to bombings or bomb carriers. The idea of extremists appear in my mind. Democracy is hijacked by the religious extremists and politicians.

(An unrelated question occurs to my mind: who back up terrorists? where is their money from? If they are making money by trading, who are trading with them? Does our world seeming anti-terrorism have hidden relationships with terrorists?)

     The chapter "Just Talking" is only one of few chapters which gives me hope of having hope. It talks about Iraqis' braveness and enthusiasm in face of life-threat from anti-election parts. They are determined to execute the rights of election regardless of age, gender and social status. They are eager to let the world hear their voice and let their voice determine their own destiny.

     But I'm still worried. The party UIA is trying to win the voters by declaring preference from Sistani who is not happy with that. Parties are not credible.
Voters are voting with negative mentality to America, which might make them vote to object the United States but not vote for the Candidates' advocacy and Iraq's own interests.

About Essay 3--Interview about World Wedding Ceremony!!

     Time flies. The day of going back to China is closer and I become more and more exciting even when this idea just flits over my mind. Meanwhile, looking at my planner, I realize there is only a super busy schedule left for me: few trips, a few presentations, several essays, and many exams. And I want to make them nicely done. But I tell myself to calm down. Wisdom and Effort, that's all what I need.




     This morning, looking at the category of feature story topics, I was still struggling with my choice for our essay three. When I stopped at the topic, "the number story", I suddenly realized I could write about a list of countries' wedding ceremony.


      First,it's possible for me to do interviews since I only have limited interviewer category: international students and staff. But I do know a lot of friends from each corner of the world, such as, the United States, Canada, Britain, Kenya, Cape Verde, Sudan,Jordan,India,Nepal,Philippine,Japan, Korea, Belize, and Brazil.

      Secondly,  through interviewing,I can not only show different customs of wedding ceremony, but also reveal their attitudes on love,marriage, religion, money, society and so on.
   
      I believe it'll be interesting to talk and write about.

      If anyone has any suggestion, please feel free to tell me! I really appreciate your help!
      Best wishes!

Do in Rome as Roman does!

"Some days I thought we had broken into a mental institution. One of the old ones, from the nineteenth century, where people were dumped and forgotten. It was like we had pried the doors off and found all these people clutching themselves and burying their heads in the corners and sitting in their own filth. It was useful to think of Iraq this way. It helped in your analysis. Murder and torture and sadism: it was part of Iraq. It was in people's brains."

     How can we ask a patient with mental disorder to behave as a normal people. 


"How would you like it if I were to cut up a poster of President Bush?" (79)
     
     Put yourself into the local culture and show respect. Help and educate local people to think through the issue by themselves but not put pressure on them to accept the outsider's belief. If the truth is not shown to them in a right way and not accepted in the right mood, it will turn out to be hatred and rebellion. That means American troops might make  barbarity out of truth, if they are not careful with their ways of showing truth. Hatred and rebellion to truth, beauty and kindness. Losing the confidence in truth is unforgivable for truth and destructive to the world.


What is Iraq like?--the biggest theme of the work.


      "Iraq might have been a traumatized country, it might have been broken, it might have been atomized--it might have been a mental hospital. But whenever the prospect of normalcy presented itself, a long line of Iraqis always stood up and reached for it."


      However, when everything is getting better, they begin to destroy. 
This is what happened after the hope in 2003.
"And they went to the slaughter. Thousands and thousands of them:editors, pamphleteers, judges and police officers, and women like Wijdan al-Khuzai.The insurgents were brilliant at that. They could spot a fine mind or a tender soul wherever it might be, chase it down and kill it dead. The heart of a nation. The precision was astounding."


Hatred to the United States


     As a fellow of a country which ever suffered invasion, I can fully understand status of Iraqis. Whatever reasons are of the invaders, they are considered as excuses. 


     Try to imagine this situation: You are living with your parents, brothers and sisters in your house.You own your house, family value,and family structure, etc, which all of them are not ideal. But one day,which is as exactly same as any other day, someone totally unknown comes to your house, and tells you that: all treasures you've saved in the basement are theirs; your father is a tyrant who should be killed because he removes all your freedom including not wearing hats from you; your mother is an evil who should have a life sentence for she saved all money in the basement instead of buying presents for you; you and your brothers and sisters are idiots because of your backward education from your parents or your grand-parents, and you should rebel your parents and pursue the equality you deserve with them; you should go to their schools which  values more democracy, equality, and individuality; you should learn their language and a broad view of world. What would you think of this unknown guy? At first you might suspect if he is right. But if he really kills your parents and occupy your home, you must hate him to death. That's where Iraqi hatred comes from.

Review on "The Man Within"

       


This chapter is a profile of Nathan Sassaman, who was a forty-year old colonel in Balad, Iraq, in 2003. His main feature is summarized well as,"Sassaman himself sometimes seemed like two people, the visionary American officer setting up a city council, and the warrior who took too much joy in the brutalities of his job."

This means in his body, mind and personality exist confusing conflicts. He was trying to help with transforming Iraq into a democratic nation, for example,establishing modern election system in his presiding area.
However, he showed totally different image to Sunni and Shia. In Shia area, he is smiling and general to locals. But in Sunni area, he had much less patience in developing relations. The major reason is that people in Shia area agreed his opinions well and did what they are asked to do. Wherever, the Sunnis were more suspicious to his initiatives and sincerity, which lead to frequent insurgencies and destruction. To make it simple, Sassaman adopted a policy of tit-for-tat.

In addition, the book reveals more about what American military did to Iraqis with Sassaman as an example.He turned his eyes off the "non-lethal" policy, initiate night attacks to common people in pajamas, and cracked down walls after walls. To a I'm wondering if democratic Americans are really democratic to Iraqis. And how can we grow seeds of love in Iraq by money, projects, fear and violence,but only except with love. At this point, the concerning attitudes in the book are careful and ironic.

In a degree, I can understand military violence in the field when I depict the situation after a ten-year living in bullets and fires. Moreover,facing huge cultural shocks, soldiers must have difficulty keeping patience and kindness to the opposite people. But wars are about life which is of the same value and respect everywhere. Shouldn't we ask for solutions showing more humanity other than just a understanding to contemporary bad situation? Aren't we suppose to learn more about Iraqi language, culture, religion,and customs,etc, to solve Iraqi problems in Iraqi ways? A saying going as, "Do in Rome as Rome does."


And I come up with another question. In this chapter and many of the previous ones, some wits are talking to the Americans that they should do things in an Iraqi way if they really want to help. I'll start to look for the answer to the question:" What is the Iraqi way to solve conflicts?"

Overcoming Culture Shock: 1st Essay two draft & Book club

Yesterday,I finally finished the draft of Essay #2.It is about different attitudes on independence and ideas of family between Americans and Chinese, written in a conversation style. I really appreciate openness and thoughtfulness of my friends from both China and Bridgewater. At the dinner table on last Friday, they allow me to introduce the topic concerning culture differences into our chatting and continually came up with thoughtful ideas to contribute for the formation of this essay. Standing on the ground of two distinguished culture, we shared our happiness and struggles in our own life. Sometimes those sharing can get really embarrassing because the words of one side are antonyms for the other side, which means Chinese happiness could be sorrowfulness in the eyes of American eyes and vice verse.
But after each short period quietness, we always tried to help each other to move to another topic. The difficulty of understanding is apparently hard.But our trying touched me so much.

Thanks my friends.


Our trying also reminds me of the book the Forever War.The writing and publish of the book itself shows Dexter Filkin's sincerity of bridging multi-culture believed by Afghanistanis and people outside. It might be astonishing for us that some of Afghanistani applause for Taliban government, which is extremely conservative in economy, politics, and entertainment. However, when we see the complex and broken social system, it becomes more understandable that in this situation, the country needs immediately the emergence of one super power which is able to control and balance interest of various powers and tribes. However, Taliban has its fatal flaw which could even be fatal for the peace of the whole world. That's the struggle of the country and people there. Culture conflicts are hard to overcome, however, trying to understand is also a kind of big efforts.

Book club-Hope for Hope

      I have read the first three chapters of the Forever War. The language is easy but every detail of the story is shocking. "This is the life in despair." is the voice coming from my mind and heart. I've never felt the mood before with the faith that there is always a solution for problems and time will help us solve each of them.I became grateful for the reality that I at least have hope and I have reasons for having hope. I live in a country where the governments are valuing human rights, democracy, social equality, freedom,etc.Though sometimes they make mistakes, as I said above, they just need more time to grow up, learn lessons, and find better solutions.And the Central government is strong enough to unite different communities within together, and to maximize the interest of each community and the whole at the same time. Politically, the trust on the government and leaders must be an origin of my hope.
  
     Hope! I wanna find a reason to have a hope for Afghanistan.There are only many local military groups and religious tribes but no powerful,independent and responsible central government. Politics are the foundation of economy and culture. As a result, the economy has broke down since the beginning of wars in 1960s.And the only entertainment is watching together violent execution for crimes in the playground.The dullness or indifference to the value of life and the pain of extreme cruelty comes from these scenes. The worst but sympathetic reality is that children grow seeds of violence at such a young age that they almost have cruelty as a born nature and lose the chance of loving and feeling love.However, this is also the most horrible vision for the whole world. Dullness, hatred, and cruelty can destroy anything.


      Find a chance of have hope for them. Taliban and religious extremism don't help.
Think about the appropriate political system for them and hope for the birth of a figure like Mao Zedong.

Book club--The Forever War

I choose The Forever War by Dexter Filkins for our book club. At the first glance of the three names in the list, my eyes were attracted to the title of this book, which reminds me the book, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortonsen. The later  is  about the terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is closely related with the terrorism in Iraq.That might be the first reason for the closeness I've built up with the book.

Considering I was working with students believing Muslim last year, I'm naturally allergic to any words explicitly or implicitly reflecting conflicts of religion. One of the most important aspects of the war between America and Iraq terrorism is concerning religion misunderstanding and misleading. I'm curious about whether the author includes this point in the book and how the author interprets it. 

Furthermore, according to my researching on this book, the reviews from medias and public are generally very positive. With the evidence of high reputation, I decide to follow my heart to read this book and be prepared to fall in love with it. 

Profile Writing

     I want to interview Mrs. Barbara, who is working in the Catholic Church located in our campus. I am attracted to her kindhearted and outward personality and perfect balance between family,career,and travel. She is full of life wisdom which can be examined through any conversation with her. Especially, she often gets excited to talk about her trip to Japan twenty years ago. But every time when she wanted to go further  concerning the differences between Japanese and American cultures,she stopped because of the lack of time, which also left me a great curiosity about her opinions on Japan in the past. And furthermore, I know some of Japanese exchange students with the freshest experience of cultural conflicts, which are probably described differently. Following this route, I'm eager to discover the story of Mrs. Barbara's trip and to examine American-Japanese cultural conflicts and the changes of Japanese culture under the background of globalization or "Americanization".