Thursday, January 25, 2007

Holocaust Memorial/Genocide Awareness Week

I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages. I've been incredibly busy with classes, and life in general. As some of you may know that in the beginning of the year, I joined a group called SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tolerance). This week, our efforts have finally turned out a finish product. This week was Holocaust Memorial/Genocide Awareness Week on my university campus. It was an amazing week. Absolutely. We had three lectures, one featuring two Holocaust survivors, Sally Wasserman and Philip Riteman; one on Darfur with Norman Epstein, the founder of Canadians Against Slavery in The Sudan (CASTS) and part of the Save Darfur Coalition; and one tonight from Juliet Karughe (I'm spelling her name wrong) who witnessed the events in Rwanda in 1994. The turn out for all three of the major events were fantastic. More than we expected. For the Holocaust lecture, around 300 people showed up. Great, considering seating in the auditorium is only about 200! I spent the day with Philip and his wife, Dorothy. They are both some of the most amazing, sweetest people I have ever met. Wednesday, I made sure I spoke afterwards to Norman Epstein. He is doing such amazing things, balancing a full time career as an emergency doctor and an amazing activism career. He makes me feel like I should be doing more. This evening, as it was the last event, I spoke with Juliet. You would never know to look at her that she saw the horrific things that had happened in her home country. She didn't speak much about it. All of these people have such amazing strength. They make me feel so small. I need to organize myself so that I can do much more. We currently have around 100 letters signed to send to the Prime Minister about Darfur and what the Canadian role there should be. We should have more tomorrow. I'm kind of involved with STAND (Students Taking Action Now: Darfur), well, I'm the main contact here at STU for anything STAND has going on. So I guess that makes me super involved. Not a whole lot is going on though. Maybe when my brain is working again I may be able to do something more. But anyway, this has been a great week. I'm so glad that I got involved this year and didn't wait. I just want to let everyone know, those who helped organize it, that I appreciate everything you've done and all of the amazing things you've helped me learn, about myself and about situations around the world, so much. Thank you for being my friends. To those who came out to the events, thank you for making this week a success. We all worked very hard to make this happen. Kudos to us!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

I am a horrible blogger >.>


So, I've definitely not blogged in like, a month. I'm sorry. University has turned me into a giant ball of slacker. Picture at the side is one I took when I was at home for Thanksgiving. It's Province House in Halifax, the oldest legislative building in Canada. It's a lovely building inside. Anyway... I have many, many a thought. I love, love, love my classes. They're all incredibly interesting, even the math class, LOL. We're doing calculus now. I'm not amused. My political science class is one of my favourites. Well, my favourites are religious studies and political science. It's just so interesting to learn about all of these different things. However, political science has essentially eaten my soul, and this is where I will start.

If you have never read anything in depth concerning globalization and poverty, don't. It will make you feel like a horrible, horrendous human being if you have a heart. I can't even enjoy the (RED) campaign, because I know that because the merchandise is made in China, it's part of the problem. Let's see if I can explain this. You have the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization essentially in charge of the global economy. The "Bretton Woods trio," with the IMF and the World Bank both housed in Washington. Now, we all know about Third World debt, right? Developing nations borrow money from the IMF and the World Bank in order to do developmental projects in their nation. In order to get these loans in the first place, they have to agree to a set of "structural adjustment programs," which the IMF or World Bank perscribes so they can pay the loan bank. Basically, the SAPs require the nation to slash just about every social program you can think of, health, education, food subsidies for the poor, etc. and in the case of Brazil in the early 90s, even amendments to the constitution. There is another connection to this, which I will go into after in Part Two, but first I want to cover why the merchandise if part of the problem. The IMF and World Bank also stresses exporting goods over import of goods, under the idea if you're exporting goods your making money while if you import you're losing money. Makes sense, right? Now, in order for these countries to start exporting more goods, they must attract foreign companies (multinational corporations) to come and invest (by means of factories, etc.) in their country. So, what do you do to make your country more attractive to multinationals? Lower wages, environmental restrictions, work safety regulations, offer tax incentives, whatever. This is leads to a "cheap labour market," and there are many, many cheap labour markets. The competition between cheap labour markets, like China, India and all of those other places, through processes of (economic) globalization has essentially destroyed the national economies of places like Africa. Africa has tried to make itself an attractive cheap labour market, crippling national economies that can't compete with places like China.

Part Two. Alright, so we have structural adjustment programs instituted by the IMF. That's a good place to start. Now, a large part of the SAPs is slashes in health care. The health centres are no longer state run, but are the responsibility of the town and become reliant on traditional medicine wisepeople and volunteers in the villages. It essentially becomes "privatized" so that the state can redirect the money spent on health care and other social programs to the external debt it owes to the IMF and World Bank. The interest on these loans is also ridiculously high. Often, the country is unable to make enough money in order to meet their loan payments and has to get ANOTHER loan, solely to pay the interest on the last loan. The prinipal of the loan is never repayed, instead more debt is acquired. Here's a lovely, staggering figure: debt in Africa has increased by 400% since the World Bank and IMF started managing national economies. So you can see how it would get worse and worse. The lack of a health care system, as well as education, through the structural adjustments of the IMF and World Bank, has made the AIDs epidemic just that, an epidemic.

The (RED) program is certainly drawing attention to the problem and has the right idea, but it's not addressing the underlying economic issues. Instead, it is actually part of the vicious cycle of globalized poverty, and while there may be money going towards AIDs relief, its participating in part of the reason WHY there is an AIDs epidemic. Until someone calls for the IMF and World Bank to be responsible for the damage they've done to the national economies of so many nations, and to the social degradation they've caused around the world. There's a reason why people protest the G8 summits, which I would like to do by the way. And now you all know why my soul has been destroyed. I can't really enjoy something with good intentions knowing it's part of the problem.

Alright, NEXT! For a slightly more upbeat note!

I've joined SHOUT (Students Helping Others Understand Tolerance) here at STU, and so far, I've really been enjoying it. I've also started going to Amnesty International meetings. I really enjoy being involved, learning new things, meeting new people and getting in on some really great experiences. There's an opportunity to go to Poland to visit the concentration camps there, which I think would be a phenomenal experience. I've met some really great people, and I've really found an interest in human rights, even more so than last year. I think I may minor in human rights, as STU has a great human rights program. I don't know, we'll see! But it's looking excellent. With SHOUT, I'm one of the main members, as I have the strongest background with Darfur. People seem to be rather impressed with it. They're also impressed that I'm a first year, and already I'm involved. Oh well. It's nice.

I am going to New York in March! So excited for that. It saddens me greatly that CNN is offing the Inside CNN: NY tour. I was going to go, for sure!! Gah. They are trying to ruin my life.

I have a fish. His name is Sushi. I had one named Anderson. He died. I was sad. I'm going to get an Anderson II after this weekend, after I come back from being at home. Sushi looks lonely, even though I bought him a castle to make him feel better.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

My First Anderson Comment!

I got my first post on a blog by Anderson!!! *fangirl squee*

Anderson, it is a truly horrendous world to live in where an innocent child can be violated in such a way. I hope that the work you are doing in Congo and the team is doing in Darfur exposing all of the heinous crimes being committed against our fellow human beings will inspire the world to act on a massive scale. Today is DarfurFast, an international day where people may give up an item of luxury and donate the money they save to a charity working in Darfur. We all must do our part to help these people. Thank you for your work, thank you for keeping us informed and showing us what is really happening.
Posted By Chelsea, Halifax, Nova Scotia : 12:58 PM ET

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/10/this-is-not-fairy-tale.html

DarfurFast

Today is DarfurFast.
Give up one luxury item for the day and donate the money saved to a charity in Darfur.
You can find a list of charities currently operating in Darfur here.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Why can I not get onto the Anderhideaway page. It refuses to come up >< FRUSTRATED.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Nationalism



Look at that face! So cute, holding his Emmy, all proud. This is not the reason I'm blogging tonight, although I'm watching the live C-SPAN stream online of the Emmys.

This is a question that I think about a lot. Almost obsessively, really. When watching, reading or listening to the news, there is always an emphasis on nationality. I get news alerts in my inbox from CNN, one of which the keyword is "Canada," because being Canadian, I like to know when Canadian news hits CNN. I got an alert a few minutes ago about a story in Thailand, about free shelter for widows of war there. This is the reason why it came into my mailbox:

On September 23, bombings in a tourist town claimed the insurgency's first Western fatality, a 29-year-old Canadian teacher, and wounded an American and a Briton.

So, my question as a person is why does nationality seem to matter so much? It's always reported as "blank killed, this many Americans die." I know as a journalism student, that the answer is because facts matter, and because it hits closer to home if someone from your own country has been killed elsewhere. But as a person, it's always confounded me because we're all the same. Nationality doesn't matter. It's almost insulting to everyone else there that died, and are not addressed in the same manner simply because they don't come from the right place. It bothers me. It always has. It shouldn't matter. We should honour all people the same way, no matter the country they come from. This nationalism, division, only causes problems and differences between everyone. My political science teacher would tell me I'm being an idealistic liberal right now, but can't we all just get along and be from the earth?

I've been blogged again!

My second comment posted on the 360 blog, partially in response to a comment before mine. Again, it wasn't an Anderpost, but it was about Darfur.

It is too bad that this is all getting in the way of CNN covering the horror in Darfur first hand. The political posteuring on part of the Sudanese government is a convenient excuse so they don't have to let anyone in that may be able to get the message to a huge audience. On another note, I'd like to point out that the genodice in Darfur is not, in fact, Islam-led. It is ethnically based off of territorial disputes between the Arab and African tribes in the area. It is the Arab-led government and janjaweed that is causing this atrocity, not Islam. Islam has a bad enough wrap as it is, no need to make it worse through misinformation.
Posted By Chelsea, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada : 5:49 PM ET

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/09/so-close-yet-so-far.html

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can now go vote in the next election, whenever it may be called. YAY!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Early Happy Birthday!



Andy is looking around to find me. He's getting ready to wish me an early happy birthday. My birthday is Thursday. Someone needs to give Andy some ideas on what I'd like (besides him!).

My brain hurts. Being sick sucks. More later.