Post 5: Sum up what I learned in Semester I

I've learned alot of history this semester. The first thing I learned about were current events in Afghanistan right now, mostly about the marriage problems involving girls that are too young. Guns Germs and Steel, like, built on it because it gave a really good theory on how global inequality developed. The "Industrialization and Urbananization" unit was allll about how countries turned into ones that mass-produce alot and the society-ish changes.

Unit 4 Nationalism: From Concert to Competition

Recappin'---

Nationalism is a strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one's country. It was inspirational at first and brought out the best in everyone. Nationalism was about Europe starting to work togeeeether, with an emphasis on being individual, unique countries, but eventually it turned into rivalry. A whooole bunch of the european countries got national anthems around this time (most of them were utterly and rediculously emotional, violent, and exaggerated as could be :) It started in Germany and Italy waaaay back in the day, mostly by Bismarck, and eventually wound up uniting them, before that they had all been a bunch of little tribes in the same area. Bismarck knew unifying Germany would make it stronger so he used "realpolitik"---power before principal based on the needs of the country---to get Germany together. He has a very famous "Blood and Iron" speech and was very against socialism. Nationalism and all of the tubulance that was going on in Germany at theee time, spread to Italy. In the end, they both wound up being unified :)

Reviewin'---

The story I did for my puppet show was about the Hapsburgs. They were the royal rulers over the Austro-Hungarian empire, which suffered lots of fighting as a result of the rise of nationalism. That was because it was multi-national. The Hapsburgs were Catholics, they gave partial independence to Hungary under something called a Dual Monarchy. This upset the Balkan people of the empire, who felt alienated. The Balkan people included Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukranians, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, and the Slovenes. Every time that fights happened in the empire, the reforms that were made catered only to the Hungarian, so they were actually counter-productive. I could have done a better job illistrating what was going down in the Hapsburg faaaamily but it I did a decent job explaining the story of what was happeneing when I gave my puppet show, I think.

When Bismarck ruled as chancellor over Germany, he got all super paranoid. He thought of alot of different aspects of life in Germany as a threat to unification and to his power. The main one's that he felt threatened by were the Catholic church and Socialism. So, first he made up the Kulturkampf which means "battle for civilization" where he tried to make Catholic people put loyalty to the state aaaabove loyalty to the church, and then he made all sorts of anti-socialism laws. To turn people away from socialism he gave them insurance for old age, health, and accidents, these which are only socailist thiiings and ideas. it backfired though because people stuck with socialism. Under Kaiser William II's rule, social welfare was made to help certain groups of people and all the schools in the Germany taught loyalty to the emperor, theeeen William poured money into military stuff with hopes of expantion. Aaalll of this, plus rapid industrialization, were results of nationalism and German unification. While all of this was going on, the Austro-Hungarian empire was a complete mess. Even though the Balkan countries started getting independence from the Hapsburgs, they were under the rule of the Ottoman empire too. The multinational state of the ottoman empire caused maaaany many wars and eventually lead to the start of WWI. So, nationalism had very different affects on the two countries.

Reflectin' & Reinventin'---

I think that, like so many other ideas in this world, nationalism works in some situations, and makes things worse in others. As stated earlier, it was originally focused on appreciating what made each country unique, which was goooood, 'cause it was bringing europe together kinda, but it shifted the focus to be on what made each country the best. There's no way in heck that this idea of 'pride in one's nation' and unification can work in a culturally diverse place. The way it could be changed noooow would be like stronger belief in humanity, like everyone together in the world as opposed to pride in individual nations. The the world be more peaceful :)

Unit 3 Urbanization & Industrialization

Recapping--- A main event during this time was that the people were switching from steam to steel as the main energy source. Steel and steam lead to "stronger bridges, taller buildings, and faster railway cars", which was why it's called the Second Industrial Revolution. When some countries started advancing more than others it was cause they had Britain's lead to follow aaand they had more abundant resources. Urbanization means the growth of cities. Mass production made expensive things more affordable to the lower and middle class. New inventions of technology lead to more job positionsin that field. Chemicals started being used for soap and perfume and medicine. Electricity and light bulbs obviously changed the world by making the streets a safer place to be at night time and by getting rid of gas lights it made the air easier to breathe. The assembly line played a big part in the production of cars. Major advances in communication were due to the inventions of the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio. Stocks were invented eventually, which is when someone buys a little piece of a company. Krupp and Rockefeller were called captains of industry and robber barons because some people admired their amazing skills in business but others thought that what they were doing (eliminating all competition) was unfair. and then social changes happened, like the way people thought and what they did with their spare time, that sort of thing. some of the main differeces were in the home, like children were s'posed to be "seen but not heard" and women had to stick to the unofficial laws of the "cult of domesticity". it meant that women should stay at home and play house-wife all the time, and decorate and clean and crank out kids to take care of. if she had a job, society took it as that the famliy was poor ('cause the dad wasn't making enough money to support the fam bam). there was this big old competition to get rich and high in status: the richer you are, the more people think of you as their "betters". You were pretty much guarenteed satisfaction in the popularity-department if you covered every squate inch of your walls and furniture with gold or embroidery, like, decoration to the max, because that was the style. Another humongous social change was romanticism, where all the different kinds of art (plays, books, paintings, you name it) were based on exaggerated emotion and completely went against the Enlightenment. The laaaast major change of the late 19th early 20th centuries were medical. YAY for anesthesia, 'cause before 1840 they didn't use it at all! Florence Nightengale and others started cleaning up hospitals after the discovered that geeerms are what cause diseases, and all sorts of vaccines were being created, diseases linked back to the source or cures are found for them (like for cholera, They also found out that Malaria and Yellow Fever are caused by mosquitos.) As a result, people started bathing alot more frequently and changing their clothes and hospitals started cleaning their tools and having staff wash their hands.



Revisit and Reflect---I would absolutely love to live in Heidelberg again!!!! It's so much different than in the States. I mean, you can walk down the street and so many people are out riding bikes ooor walking their dogs (they're alot more animal friendly there) and the environment is cleaner 'cause that's something really important to Germans, it's really nice. There're bakeries in the town and big old churches and soooo much is different. One of my absolute favorite places was downtown Heidelberg where the Heidelberg Castle is---a reeeeal live castle, and the Heidelberg bridge that crosses over the Neckar River, it's sooooo pretty and totally iconic of the rest of the country :) The castle's been struck by lightning and has the biggest barrell in the world and's just full of so much history, it's theeeeee best. Heidelberg also has an international school (H.I.S.) which would have been amazing to go to. It was started not too long ago and began with only nine students and a rented kindergarten room. The lessons are taught in English but students have to start learning to speak german when they're in first grade. The one and only bad thing about living there would be if you can't adjust to the cultural differences 'cause you reeeally really have to make the adjustment, you can't just tromp around disrespecting someone's laws and ways of life and things like that when you're in THEIR country, besides being extremely dumb and disrespectful, Germans and alot of the Turkish people that live in germany have uber negative stereotypes about Americans; it's the stupid one's that go there that make it worse for everyone else.

Unit 2--- GG&S

Recap- Guns Germs and Steel was mostly about "geographic luck"---it explains that global inequality is a direct result of geography. the first thing about geographic luck is "raw material". advantages of a country include their domesticated animals, which not all countries have enough of. Animals have always played a huge role in society,their usefulness ranging from exposing people to diseases (giving immunity), to food and milk, to muscle power, to fertilizer. it would put a country waaaay behind others if they didn't have animals for these things. Plant species are also extremely important. Back in the day, when countries were still in the early developing stages, what it came down to was that wheat could grow (with the flick of the wrist) in some places, and not in others. Shape of land also has alooooot to do with how countries in the world have turned out today. Geograpic luck would have it that your land was easy to travel across so ideas could be spread more easily. For example, the spanish had an advantage over the incas with their swords because they had copied them (the swords) from someone else. The spanish's "rapierre" was steel, while the Incas were still using bronze weapons. (They also didn't have horses, which further proves the point that domesticated animals played a large part in the development of inequality amongst countries.)

Revisit- Eritrea
The United Nations Development Programme's goal in Eritrea, Africa is to achieve food security and social equality for the people suffering the worst of poverty and violence right now. The European union is also trying to help, they're gonna be giving 122 million euro (european money) over a five year period (from now until 2013.) the money is specifically for Eritrean's most affected by poverty, it'll help by getting some food there and improving transport. US Agency for International Development/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (U.S.A.I.D./O.F.D.A.) helped with health, nutrition, humanatarian coordination and information management, water, sanitation, and hygiene in the country by donating about three million dollars to programs there. Italy was the first European country to invade Eritrea, under the "Rubattino Navigation Company" line. Eritrea has been through sooo much havock and chaos between now and then (like tyring to gain their independence from ethiopia) that I don't think it made toooo much of an impact until in 1935, they were part of the "Italian East Africa" colony at the time, and Italy was planning to invade ethiopia. When the Italians lost in WW2, it impacted eritrea bigtime. Etheopia was on the ally's side during the war so when it was over, the U.N. decided to let them (Etheopia) have some control over Eritrea, and since then it's been a sturggle for indepence, they're getting help though.

Reflect-I think geographic luck is terrible! I mean if it is what reeeeally causes global inequality, everything that contributes to the horribleness around us is just a plain old monstrosity! Quality of life here is so good, and those poor poor people that are starving and homeless and sick, it. is. not. right. it makes me soooo sad that the world we're in can't just come up with a solution to all that stuff, it's all obviosly very complicated, you can't just wish wars away, but problems with poverty? America is so in debt from DUMB things, that money could have been spent giving food and water and clothes and houses to people that need them but no, we're spending money on toys for christmas :( what lack of consciences we all must have!, sleeping in our beds at night when there's soo many people hurting out there, I really think if eeevery sinlge person just helped a little bitty bit it could do SO much for the people who need it. on top of that whole mess, it creates wars and stuff that just adds on to the pile of economic problems everyone's going through right now. it's a terrible mess/:

HOW CAN WE LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE BOTH OF THESE EXIST? :(

Unit 1, Afghanistan

Recapping-MY RESEARCH IS ABOUT WEDDINGS IN AFGHANISTAN. I LEARNED THAT AFGHANI GIRLS GET MARRIED AT A YOUNG AGE, THEIR PARENTS ARRANGE THE MARRIAGES AND MOST OF THE TIME IT IS TO ONE OF THEIR FIRST COUSINS, HOWEVER THERE'S A LOT MORE FREEDOM IN THE "PICKING A HUSBAND" DEPARTMENT FOR GIRLS THESE DAYS. WEDDING CELEBRATIONS CAN BE THE BIGGEST EVENT IN A PERSON'S LIFE. FAMILIES OFTEN EMPTY THEIR POCKETS TO THROW AS MAGNIFICENT OF WEDDINGS AS THEY CAN BECAUSE THE TALIBAN BANNED BIG CELEBRATIONS,THEY FOUND IT SINFUL TO DANCE AND STUFF LIKE THAT, PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO THROW CELEBRATIONS NOW AND THEY LOVE IT. THERE ARE LOTS OF LITTLE TRADITIONS WHEN IT COMES GETTING MARRIED IN AFGHANISTAN, INCLUDING SOMETHING CALLED A "BRIDE PRICE". THE GIRL'S FAMILY AND FUTURE HUSBAND MEET TO HAGGLE OVER THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THE MAN WILL PAY HER FAMILY FOR HER. THIS IS REALLY SAD, IT CREATES A SITUATION (WITH SO MUCH POVERTY) WHERE FAMILIES ARE SHOVING THEIR DAUGHTERS OUT THE DOOR OR GIVING THEM TO ABUSIVE HUSBANDS BECAUSE THEY NEED THE MONEY, AND IT'S HAPPENING AT A MUCH YOUNGER AGE. ANOTHER TRADITION IS THE INTRICATE HENNA DESIGNS THE GROOM PAINTS ON THE HANDS OF HIS FUTURE WIFE AT A "HENNA PARTY". AT THE WEDDING RECEPTION, THE BRIDE AND GROOM GO UNDER A SHAW AND LOOK IN A MIRROR FOR THE FIRST TIME As A COUPLE. AFTERWARDS THEY READ LINES FROM THEIR HOLY BOOK, THE "QUR'AN". I'M SURE IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN MUCH EASIER TO RESEARCH THIS IF I COULD HAVE FOUND MORE RELIABLE SOURCES THAN I HAD. I LEARNED ALOT OF INFORMATION BUT NOT AS MUCH AS I COULD HAVE. IF I WAS RESEARCHING IT TODAY I WOULD TRY TO FIND OUT THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF YOUNG GIRLS IN NEW HOMES AND HOW IT'S EFFECTING THE COUNTRY.

Revisitting-TODAY THERE ARE SO MANY PROBLEMS FOR WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN, GETTING JOBS, HAVING RIGHTS, AND FACING VIOLENCE. THE U.N. ARE IN KABUL WHERE THEY STARTED A CAMPAIGN FOR PROTECTING WOMEN FROM VIOLENCE.ONE BIG IDEA RIGHT NOW IS THAT TO STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS, MEN HAVE TO BE IN SUPPORT OF PROTECTING THEM AND THEIR RIGHTS. THIS IS THE GOAL OF THE UN'S CAMPAIGN RIGHT NOW; IT'LL LAST UNTIL THE TENTH. Another article I read told me that Obama's gonna send thrity thousand more troops to Afghanistan over the next six months. I don't know how the people in Afghanistan feel about having other troops in their country but it seems to me like it might upset them. Troops are there to protect them though, maybe they can enforce the already-existing marriage age laws, which are frequently overlooked. There iiiis actually a limit to how young the girls can be before they get married but so many people ignore it.

REFLECT-I have most definitely learned a whole lot since i started learning about Afghanistan. I think alot of people could definitely agree that one of the things hindering nationhood in afghanistan most is that there are so many different tribes and stuff, like sooooo many different kinds of people there and they don't have anything to unite them. what they need is a common ground, which, let's face it, something they have now is facing the americans, which is terrible, but even mooore terrible is the fact that as soon as American troops get out of the country, afghanistan could be facing even more cival war. The whole thing is a mess. And my researched topic (marraige in afghanistan) is getting to be a worse problem because of the war. Poverty in families are causing major drops in the age they marry their daughters off & utter disreaguard for the marriage-age law, which needs uber adjustment anyways! I think that improvement in the country is on it's way but they have SUCH a long way to go, and it's definitely important for people (even our age) to know what's going on in the world around them, it's gonna be our generation someday so we can't be wondering around without knowing what's going on.