pierina's global blog

The Collapse of Communism

2009-05-13T06:10:00.000-07:00

Communism was spread all over the place, specially when The Cold War was going on. One nation that became very into communism was Germany, they believe on it so much that they actually separated the side of communist (which was east germany) from the democratic side of Germany (which west germany). The way that they separated Germany by building the Berlin Wal, which was put up in August 1961.
People werent able to cross across the wall, which separated everyone from both sides because they couldn't contact with each other. People were tired of communism taking over their lifes, when communism was still around, there were nuclear weapon threads that could happen at any time. In november of 1989, people went to tear down the wall soon after the country was able to finally make new diplomatic relations.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

2009-05-06T06:13:00.000-07:00

Apartheid means when the Racial-segregation policy of the government of South Africa that lasted from from 1948 to 1994. They would call black citenzens "Bantus". Them and everyone that was not white did not have full blown rights like the rest of them. A example was that they couldnt vote in parliamentary elections. An example of apartheid was when they made Black National States. In basic, apartheid means racial separation.

Nelson Mandela has been a looked as a big hero for Africa. After 26 long years in prison, he had a plan to chage Africa for the better. He had seen first hand how bad it was to be treated unequally because when he was in prison, he had to do harsh work. He was part of a lot things to stop apartheid, for example the ANC's non-violent campaign. Mandela started to negotiated with the white government of Africa to end apartheid. Soon after,he was became president and served for about five years. He believed that all citizens in Africa were the same regardless of their backgrounds, they were all equal to him.Because of his believes, this made him a icon to African people because he believed Africa can live in unity.

Film Lesson: Schindler's List

2009-03-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

Its no doubt that the movie Schindler's List illustrated the Holocaust as a horrible thing that sadly happen to millions of people. It also showed how bad the Nazis treated everyone prisoned in the camps, and how prisoners had to live under the conditions they were put in. As shown in this film, you see that they were first put to work until they died, then the Nazis got tired and just started killing people because they were either dying too slow or they just wouldnt die.

One powerful scene in this movie was when they were taking the kids away from their guardians or parents. I thought it was really sad because you saw the kids being really clueless to what was happening. They kept waving their hands while they were on the cars being taken away, to me it looked like they didnt know what was going to happen to them. One part thats going to stay with me for a while is when they showed the dead bodies that were from little kids to old people, i thought that was really disturbing how they just left them there like if they were garbage. Thinking about those people that were left there dead makes me think it could of been anyone.

Film Lesson: Night and Fog

2009-03-26T06:12:00.000-07:00

My reaction towards this documentary was a disgusting feeling because they showed how the Nazis were treating everyone prisoned in the camps. The pictures showed in Night and Fog were really disturbing and nasty because they showed what the dead bodied looked like after the horrible treatment they got during their time in the camps. In my opinion the scenes from this movie were more graphic and showed exactly how it was in the concentration camps.

Night and Fog illustrates the Holocaust better because it showed how bad the conditions where for the people in the camps/ or ghettos. The Hollywood version was good but didnt quite tell the entire story compared to actual pictures and small clips of when the Holocaust was going on. I found the film very powerful because it gave a clear vision of how it was and how it went.

The Treaty of Versailles (ended WW I)

2009-02-24T06:09:00.000-08:00

After the first World War, there was so many things that were destroyed after this war. Many nations were part of this war, but only one country was blamed for all the disasters and it was Germany. According to the Treaty Of Versailles, Germany had to take all blame. Not only but they were responsible of the war, buy because they were, they had to pay all the damages that was done during the war.

Germany had lost 10% of their land after the war, and their population went down. Many people found themselves outside of the German borders, this was bad news for Germany. Also many overseas colonies that belonged to Germany were shared between the Allies nations, Germany was left with none of the overseas colonies. Germany was forced to do all these things because of treaty. This was an embarrassment to the Germans. Germany had to live by people's rules because they were taken out of the League of Nations. They no longer can show off nationalism when their country had been attacked and embarrassed.
I believe this led to Fascism and Adolph Hitler because Germany felt bitter.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the Modernization of Turkey

2009-02-13T06:13:00.000-08:00

When Mustafa Kemal took power over Turkey, he made many changes about the way the Turks would live their lives and how would they look like. He wanted the muslims to look like the europeans, he didn't want to dress like the traditional way a muslim would do. The traditional way a muslim would dress would be like dresses that looked like bedsheets wrapped around them with a funny looking hat that no had edges, that hat was called a fez.

Ataturk wanted the modern muslims to look like the europeans or americans, with shoes or boots on their feet, or pants accompanied by a shirt or tie with a jacket. He wanted to dress them like that so that the modern muslims would look like the people from european countries. Ataturk also made schools be secular, which made schools non-religious, only a small specific schools would focus a lot in religion.

He made many important changes in order to modernize the muslims on what they wore, how they speaked yet still kept the traditional muslim believes.

Film Lesson- "Gandhi"

2009-02-12T06:14:00.000-08:00

Gandhi became a very important person regarding to the Indian Independence from Great Britain. He did many great effords to get India's independence like making peace-full protests about the unfair remarks the british were doing. An example of one is when they did the Salt March, when he lead this walk to the sea to evaporate water to make salt of their own so they wouldn't have to buy it from the british.

He followed civil disobedience, never once used violence to prove a point. He believed that if they didnt use violence and the british did, it would make the the britsh look like the bad guys. Gandhi also made the indian people make their own clothes so they wouldn't have to buy it from the british also. Gandhi didn't want to depend on the britsh, he thought that Indians should be independent.

Even though Gandhi didnt get his way of independence, Indians got their independence. But i think the indians were bound to get their independence anyway. I believe that Gandhi made it faster to achive the goal.

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2009-02-06T06:30:00.001-08:00

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