Author: sortheinternational

9/11 day of terror

In class today we saw a documentary about the terror attack in New York, at the World Trade Centre. The documentary showed us the 102 minutes from the morning, til the two planes had crashed into the Trade Centre and filled the whole city with smoke. After watching the documentary, I read an article that came out the day after 9/11, getting the input of how the witnesses felt.

I have watched the 9/11 videos a few times, and every time I get the same horrendous feeling. The thought of the people jumping out of the tower because they knew they were going to die devastates me. Also, it is heartwarming that many people got up in the tower, and tried to save other people risking their own lives. After all, the most important that the civilians could do to each other was to help. I get the goosebumps every time I get into the mindset of the people running through the streets trying to save their own lives.

2.4 and 2.5

c) How does Changez feel in the office of Underwood Samson?

  •  He feels very excited, and he felt proud to be one of the only ones who got the job out of five at the internship.

d) How does Changez compare Pakistan and the USA?

  •  He compared Pakistan and USA with the economy, and he said that when Pakistan started out rich – the country just got poorer and poorer while America has grown to a huge country with many financial goods.

e) What does Erica´s father say about Pakistan? What is Changez reaction to what he says? 

  •   Erica´s father pointed out that the economy of Pakistan was falling down, he talked down about fundamentalism and that there is a huge difference between the rich and poor. Changez reaction was that he felt bridle, but tried to keep his act together and he answered nicely that his family still lives there – and that they lived well.

f) When Erica shows Changez her novel manuscript, she compares herself to a certain species. Which one? In your view, why does she make the comparison?

  • She compares herself to an oyster, and in my view, she made her comparison because she felt that she has worked hard with her novel – but right at that point where it comes close to the ‘finishing stages’, she is frighted.

 

2.5

a) So I kind of miss home too, “she said. “Except my home was a guy..”

  •  Many believe that home is a person, like Erica did. Her ex-boyfriend was her safe place, her home – and I believe that if you are a hopeless romantic this is something that occurs to the most of us.

b) “I was immediately a New Yorker.”

  • He felt like he was blending in the all the other people in New York, that he no longer felt any special.   

e) “Nothing troubled me: I was a young New Yorker with the city at my feet. How soon that would change! My world would be transformed, just as this marked around us has been.”

The reluctant fundamentalist

In class, we are reading a book from the author Moshin Hamid, and his book The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This book is about a man named Changez and his story when it comes to ethnic tolerance and America. We have only been able to read two chapters so far, and I will say that I have never read anything like it before. To start on the first chapter, it only showed Changez dialog and we do not get to hear what the other persons have to say. The thing that was quite special about the first chapter was that even though we do not get the other person thoughts, we can see what the answers because of how Changez response. 

I later found out that we have the same humor, and I like that we get an ‘insight’ of his thoughts on everything, which makes it more personal. The way he talks in the second chapter about Erica, the girl he has an interest in, is so sweet. This is, of course, him talking in past tense about a trip they took to Greece with the class. I was hoping that in the second chapter we got to see their whole dialog, and we did so I was happy about that. I found it quite irritating that we only got his part of the story. 

When he explains how he felt about the group he was traveling with to Greece, he mentioned that they were rude to the elderly and that they were wealthy people. Being that Changez was the person that talked down to the group made him the superior? In the book, he said ‘I, with my finite and depleting reserve of cash and my traditional sense of deference to one’s seniors, found myself wondering what quirk of human history my companions – many of whom I would have regarded as upstarts in my own country, so devoid of refinement were they- were in a position to conduct themselves in the world as though they were its ruling class.”

When Erica asked him about Pakistan, he had many answers. It was from desert to farmland, that alcohol was illegal to Muslims so he had a Christian bootlegger to bring him booze for him to drink, and he told her about the road trip he made with his family to China through Karakoram Highway.

When he told the group he wanted to be ‘the dictator of an Islamic republic with nuclear capability’ he obviously made a joke, as he stated, but the rest of the group seemed shocked except Erica. While she just smiled at him, he got no response from the others. I think he made that joke to show self-irony and that because he had a beard, he followed the ‘prejudice’ opinion and made a joke about him and his religion. 

Justin Trudeau’s speech – assembly of first nations

In his speech to the Assembly of First Nations in late 2015, he announced that he wanted a complete renewal of how Canada’s relationship with its indigenous people is. Firstly, he made a personal commitment to bring new leadership to Ottawa, which is Canada’s capital. He wanted to build up his trust with the indigenous people, and he stated that no other relationship is as important to him than with Canada’s indigenous population. One of the top priorities to The Minister of The Indigenous And Northern Affairs was to create a national public inquiry into the indigenous missing and murderer woman/girls in Canada. 

In an article that I found from September 20th in 2017 he stated that Canada still remains in progress, and then he said this “We can’t build a better world unless we work together, respect our differences, protect the vulnerable, and stand up for the things that matter most, but I remain confident – for Canada’s experience shows this to be true – that any challenge can be met if we meet it together.”  So from his speech in 2015 and to his latest report from 2017, he actually has not made any huge changes that he promised he would do. I feel that he is mostly no action, just words – and as we all know, actions speak louder than words. He said that for him to make changes, he needed the nation to work together, and when he did not see any changes in this process he kindof but the blame om the indigenous people for not have made any changes. He is called the ‘media-charmer” which seems pretty accurate.

Amnesty International made an article stating that violence against indigenous woman and girls are a human right crisis, and that has deep roots in racism, poverty and marginalization. 

Language features I found in Ophra’s speech: 

  • Slang: she uses words like “you´re, he´s, wouldn’t” for her speech to make it more personal.
  • Positive words 
  • Variation of sentence structure

Literary devices:

  • similie, to compare herself to other black people who have fought for their rights and became famous.

Sources I have used:

Amnesty International, May 12th, 2014. Retrieved 10.1.18

Thimoty A Clary, last updated 20.september 2017. Justin Trudeau speech about his progress in the Indigenous population. Retrieved 10.118

questions after Cameron’s speech

David Cameron is the former prime minister of Great Britan, and also a former party leader for The Conservative and Unionist Party which is the largest party in British politics. His speech touched subjects like terror attacks, Muslims vs. Islamists, the army and how the native groups are treated.

The way he presented his ideas to the audience and how he spoke felt very informative and important, regardless of how he touches on some sensitive themes. He was straight up and spoke directly to the audience, with also a bit of humor. Him being the former prime minister of Great Britan makes him a man that I feel many people look up to so that he held that speech on multiculturalism probably made many people feel more safe and secure considering they most likely trust his decisions and meanings. I believe his idea of this speech was to bring awareness that it is not only the foreigner who carries out terror attacks but also our own. 

  • Non-violent extremists are just as dangerous as violent ones.
  • Universities are bastions of freedom of speech and democracy; therefore, all ideologies no matter how extreme should be allowed to be taught.
  • Multiculturalism separates groups of people from each other, assimilation should be encouraged.

As my chosen statement I wanted to write a bit about this particular one: Multiculturalism separates groups of people from each other, assimilation should be encouraged. In his speech, he made it clear that “state multiculturalism” had failed, and made some valid point of why the UK needed a stronger identity to prevent extremists. My meaning upon all this discussion on what is right and what is wrong with multiculturalism is that it does not separate groups unless the people in it are not willing to do something about it. I understand the importance of stricter rules against the foreigners considering all the terror attacks done by the Muslims and so, however, I thought it was great that he brought up that there are people from our own race who also carries out terror attacks to their own citizens. 

 

A letter by way of explanation

The text I have liked the best upon the multicultural topic is ‘A Letter by Way Of Explanation’ by Mushin Hendricks, which tells by a letter a raw, heartwarming story of his explaining his experiences growing up as an Islamic, gay cleric and how it was growing up with tight relations with the mosque. 

By knowing this is a real letter to someone, it gave me a reality-check that there are people out there facing hard times, and some that goes most of their life living a lie to try and make their families happy. Mushin’s story begins with him growing up in South Africa with a family that are strictly religious towards the muslim religion, and facing problems like being left handed (everything was done right handed, he was forced to do everything with his right hand), and later finding out that he was gay – however getting three kids and marrying a woman being that he did not want to tell his family about him being homosexual. After 6 years of keeping the secret from his family, he told everyone the truth and started ‘The Inner Circle’ to help other men in the same situation. 

This story has taught me that when everything comes down to the end, the smartest thing for you and the people around you is to be real to yourself. It is not worth it to keep a secret to keep your family happy, as long as you are not happy yourself. When he told the secret to his family, he probably felt extremely relieved that he could continue his life as an accepted, homosexual cleric. 

#MeToo

The #MeToo campaign has circled around a lot of film stars and actors from Hollywood to come forward telling the world about what they have experienced with sexual harrassment and abuse from specially the film producer Harvey Weinstein.

“Even rape victims are sometimes killed by their own relatives, who believe the shame attached to rape is worse than the suffering of the rape victim.” This quote is from a post from New York Times, where in the article they discussed different Afghanistan women who has been sexual harassed in different ways. This particular quote stood out to me, by that simple reason that I had to read it twice to actually accept and take it into me what was written. I chose to include this into my text considering it is the reality of many Afghanistan women, whom we do not hear from enough.

My impression of the Afghan society is that the women are sincerely ‘under the power’ of men, and the fact that someone gets sexual harassed everyday breaks my heart.  I do believe in equal rights to both men and women, and that not only the men but also the women should learn how to treat each other with respect. Men, especially, need to be held accountable for their actions and be teached from a young age how to look at women – that they are not an item, nevertheless a sex that should be more harassed than the other.

This is basic rules that should not only be used in Afghanistan, but everywhere else. There has been, and there still is sexual harassment going on all over the world that few people know about, due to anxious women afraid of how the ‘aftermath’ will turn out if they speak out about it. After the hashtag #MeeToo came out, there has been a huge demand of celebrities speaking up about it, which comforts other victims and also gets truly much attentions and respect, also because they speak for them who do not dare to do it themselves.

 

 

Gran Torino movie poster analyze

We got as an assignment to analyze the movie poster ‘Gran Torino’. The poster is fronting a large, white male who is middle-aged, holding a riffle in front of a black car. We can see that the posters background is black, and there is a contrast between the background and the text, which is orange. 

The main actor, Clint Eastwood, is both on the poster and his name is clearly located right next to him. The poster is giving me a feeling of an action movie with the colors being dark, the look of the man’s face and the seriousness of the riffle. The poster sets the mood to a bit dark and scary, which makes the people who likes action- and scary movies excited to see the movie. 

The poster itself is quite simple, the only thing that ‘stands out’ is the orange text of the movie title which is written in big letters, and all the credits and the production company. Something else that I noticed was that the man has a white light over his dark clothes, which also makes the contrast between the black background and the white lights. There is also no slogan in the poster, furthermore I believe that the ‘less is more’ rule applies in this poster considering the focus is on him, and the orange text. 

 

 

Free for all & My Son The Fanatic comparison

 

Bilderesultat for cultur differences

In class the past week, we read a short-story called ‘My Son The Fanatic’, along with the short-story ‘Free For All’, both being some kind of similar stories yet with different turnouts. In this text, I am going to discuss what these two stories tell about being an immigrant, and how it is raising a family in a different culture.

First of all, both of these stories have similar outlines and surroundings when it comes to family. The content of these two stories is about the relationship between a father and a son, however, religion comes into the picture and the relations change.

My Son The Fanatic shows us how it is to grow up in a ‘stereotypical’ cultured household, when you live in America – where the father works long hours and the wife is at home being avoided by the husband, being the ‘underdog’ and of course the child, who works hard with college and yet being criticized for doing something wrong. The son, named Ali, suddenly change behavior throughout a period of time and goes from being a good student to throwing out valuable things, dropping his education and disappearing from home. His father, Parvez, shortly finds out that Ali has found an interest in the religion Islam and begins to go to the Mosque, and pray. He begins to feel worried about his son and after a big discussion between the two he ends up beating up his son – and Ali’s only response was ‘So who’s the fanatic now?’

On the other hand, we have the short-story Free For All which is quite similar to the first story, being an immigrant family in America and not surely being shore about The US policy when it comes to hitting a family member as a punishment. This story involves a teenage boy which loves his guitar more than anything, using his spare time annoying his father with the guitar-playing in his room. This is the huge conflict in the story, where the father is being coercive that the son quits his passion and should rather focus on school – resulting in the son getting hysterical as a consequence of the father denying him. He ended up slapping his son, and ended up in a 24-hour arrest for child abuse. When he was let out, he contacted his brother in Pakistan and planning a trip there – where he again hit his son with the guitar so it smashed, and the difference was – there were no cops that stopped him, is that in Pakistan punishments like hitting your child is seen as ‘parenting’.  

When comparing these two stories, we can say that the parents both experience culture shock when it comes to what was allowed in their previous home-country, in contrast, what is allowed in the US. Being that they were immigrants and not surely know what all the rules were, it should be quite obvious that wherever you are, you should respect and follow the common decency regardless of the religion/country. 

To raise a family in another environment and a different culture can be difficult, especially being an immigrant where everything is different from home. Moving to a new country where there is a different behavior, a way of thinking and new rules could be seen as a culture shock for many families who are coming from for instance Pakistan. 

A multicultural society is positive in many ways, yet there are also downsides. Being that there are thousands of immigrants who immigrate from different countries around the world, we end up in a society which has a mix of very drastic differences when it comes to what they are used to, skin color and behavior. These two stories tell us about multiculturalism is a way that many could think is extreme, but sadly is the reality to many families. For example that in Pakistan there is a different way of ‘parenting’ than in the US, and when you move from a country that is used to that kind of rules to a new place where everything is different, you end up having to develop understanding and starting to behave properly. 

Having said all this, living in a multicultural society have its challenges, but it all comes down to ourselves and working towards learning how to cooperate with different religions and helping each other out. 

 

Sources I have used: 

– Culture Shock picture from google, downloaded 22.11.17

-Free For All handout-story. Buner, Tony, m.fl. “Global Visions”. Aschehoug, Oslo. 2017 

-My Son The Fanatic handout-story

 

Multiculturalism in the English-speaking world; homework

Homework for Monday, November 20th. 

Task 2: Main Content

Make a topic sentence for each of the main headings in the article, starting with ‘Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.’ Compare your sentences with those of partner. Adopt the best and then compare them with another pair’s topic sentences. 

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

  • Although we have a long history of multiculturalism and have a great knowledge of where it came from, it did not make a cultural difference before after World War Two – and it all started in Australia.

The United States

  • The multicultural populations are all found in English speaking nationals all thanks to the British Empire, but do you know why the United States is referred as to the ‘Nations of Nations’? 

What is a nation?

  •  Being that the United States is a mix of all different types of nations and people, many believe that the debate over national identity in this multiculturalist generation is either held by a community or as an association.

Debating multiculturalism 

  •  There is always someone who stands out of the crowd, unhappy about a situation when it comes to multiculturalism in a society – whether it is that foreigners threaten their values, or they just like starting organizations to get rid of them.

Multicultural flashpoints: Great Britain

  •  Racism and prejudice have been a huge problem for the cultural minorities all back to the 50’s and 60’s, and in Great Britain, it sat a huge impact on the colored – feeling left out making Britain’s people separated into stereotypes. 

Tolerance and contributions

  •   Even though there are discussions about multiculturalism, it has brought many great and new, important decisions to the table. 

The debate continues: Beyond multiculturalism?

  •  Though foreign important people have made an impact in British society, there are a number of inhabitants that believe it could ruin Britain. 

Flashpoints in multicultural America

  •  Minority groups and different cultures have been mixed for a long time, and many agree – and disagree with the knowledge of what is next to come for America. 

Flash forward

  •  As the discussion on ‘who is a real American and who is not’ continues, people are suspicious over the two biggest, ethnical groups in America.

American Muslims

  •  we, as humans, are particularly good at throwing every person under the same bus: especially if they are foreigners, because of prejudice and the fear of other religions.

What is an American?

  •  Being that the foreign people are afraid of not being accepted for who they truly are by the reason of their religion, having a president who uses racial statements are not making it easier.

Flashpoint: Australia and Boat People

  • The American and Australian immigration policy is quite different, and as the Americans are not in the nearest future changing their policy, the Australians has set their foot down.

Multiculturalism in the 21st century

  • As the multiculturalism is still standing, more and more people are getting used to it and accepting that it may develop different challenges, but when it all comes to all, we all have the same human rights and the chance to make it a better place to grow up.

Task 4: Vocabulary

A) What do the following words bring to mind, in other words, what do you associate with them?

Citizen – Where you belong, that you are a part of a community.

loyalty – Someone you trust and having loyalty to each other.

territory – To protect what is yours.

commitment – That you settle down with someone, making a commitment.

minority – A small group of people living in a community.

security – To live a place where you feel safe and sound.

separation – Being separated from a loved one.

extremism – When I think about extremism, the first thing that comes to my mind is extremely violent groups of terror, like Boko Haram where they use violence and killing for their form to make a statement.

acceptance – That you accept the recognition of a state of mind.

B) Choose 5 words from the list and write definitions of them in your own words.

Homogenous – When you live in a neighborhood where everyone is the same, and when you talk the same, wear the same. It is a very light description of ‘following the stream’

Inequality – When there is inequality it means that there is a difference between how women and men are treated, for example at work – like paychecks.

Heritage – When you inherit something, from a dead relative or is given a gift (perhaps a family ring) that you can bring downwards into the family three when it grows.

Indigenous – The people who originally lived at a spot, for example, the Indians in The United States.

Multiculturalism – When people from different religions, that has different skin types and perhaps talk different languages live in the same spot.

5) Belonging to Norway

Many believe that even though you live in Norway, you’re not a Norwegian. It is because many people come from different places, so they have different names. For example Ezienne Okparaebo, she is a Norwegian athlete – but has a name that is not typical Norwegian by contrast to Cecilia Brækhus, which is also a Norwegian athlete, with a Norwegian name. My point is that many believe that you have to have a Norwegian pass, have a pale skin color or being born in Norway with a Norwegian name.