The Times They Are Still Changin'

The 60’s were a period of radical change for the world. John F. Kennedy was shot, The Vietnam War started, the man got to the moon and Martin Luther King preached about “his dream”.  This was exactly what inspired Bob Dylan when he wrote the song that would represent a whole generation of people who were ready for a change. The name of that song was “The Times They Are a-Changin'”  

It’s hard to believe that when Dylan first released this song in 1964, everyone said that it would be outdated right away. This was mainly because critics though that the fight for freedom and civil rights would be over really soon. But is this song outdated? Were the critics right about this?

From my point of view, this song is more relevant than ever. The last ten years have been really important to show that people is tired of how this society is working. Because, even if Afro American people have found respect in the last several years, there are still a lot of minorities fighting to be treated like normal people and to have equal rights. For example, the Mexicans working in the States or the Peruvian people working in our country are really segregated; they are treated like criminals even if their only sin was to search for a better life in another country. This also applies to all the sexual minorities who are treated like second class citizens who have no right to live their lives the way they want to. Even if the song does not make explicit reference to these problems, it still talks about injustice in general and how we, as citizens, have the obligation to fight for what is right because this is our only chance to make a difference.

 Come writers and critics

Who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide

The chance won't come again

We can also relate this song to one of the topics that have invaded our lives the last seven years, the student movement. In 2006, students decided to step up against the system because it is putting in jeopardy the future of our country with a terrible educational system. Many times this movement has been misinterpreted and many people are still unable to understand what this is all about, and this is clearly reflected in the lyrics of the song.

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

This song might have been written almost 50 years ago, but it has aged brilliantly. Everything it talks about and everything it represents is still relevant for us today. I hope that just like the song states, politicians can hear how people is screaming for a better system and that they have to stop blocking our way.

Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside

And it is ragin'.

It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin'.

So, what do you think about this song? Is it still relevant? I would love to know your opinion, so please leave a comment!

Advance to progress?

Freedom has been a constant struggle throughout world history. While major political and social leaders say there are significant steps in this, these are less than empty words.

                                         

Are we aware that the world has not improved on society topic? I think not, and we are far from understanding this. First we must consider that progress, rather than material, is linked to the social topic. Until today's times, people do not understand the concept of equality.

Do you have a dream? If the answer is yes, then prove it. Show the world that it is a good desire, and like Luther King’s, it seeks equality.

‘‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’’ (King, 1963)

So, we've all heard about the famous Martin Luther King, who fought for American’s Civil Rights Movement, but being more general, he fought for equality.

Do not stay in the past where some races thought they were superior, in this globalized world we are all equal, we are all family. Don't show your stupidity discriminating. It is easier to demonstrate intelligence through tolerance to others. You need more people contributing to the progress of equality, to help people and to fight constantly, as did Luther King and many others who have remained anonymous.

I'm going to share with you the speech of Martin Luther King named ‘‘I have a dream’’ from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

He spoke powerfully and eloquently of his desire for a future where black and white people could coexist harmoniously as equals. And while this was accepted in a good way, other people were insisting that ''black people’’ were inferior and should not have the same rights. From that day everything changed, even if not come to a complete equality, the speech touched the hearts of many people.

Let's fight for the equality, stop with the ignorance. I want to make it clear, that this entry, more than to inform, tries to create awareness about what happens in this world.

                       

                                

The Stolen Generation: Is it OK to call it Genocide?

Cootamundra Aboriginal Girls Training Home

“The Stolen Generation” is the name given to the Aboriginal children forcefully taken away from their families between the 1890s and the 1970s by Australia’s government, with the aim of “breeding out” the aboriginal blood. Thousands of children were taken and put in institutions and foster homes, where most of them were physically, emotionally and/or sexually abused. Almost none of them were to see their families again, but surely all were left scarred for life.

We can’t deny this is an act of violence; forcing kids away from their loves ones and making them lose their culture. There is a racial thing here too; the whole idea behind this plan was to “breed out” the Aboriginal blood, making Aboriginal girls marry white boys. They had even calculated that, after 3 generations, kids wouldn’t show Aboriginal traces anymore.

Bringing Them Home report's cover

One of the first attempts to fix the damage done was the “Bringing Them Home” report, published in 1997, which explained what had happened and gave the numbers of children taken away. "Indigenous families and communities have endured gross violations of their human rights. These violations continue to affect indigenous people's daily lives. They were an act of genocide, aimed at wiping out indigenous families, communities, and cultures, vital to the precious and inalienable heritage of Australia".

As you can see, this report treats the measures taken by the Australian Government as pure genocide. I believe we can all agree that what was done was terrible. It is truly a violation of human rights, the way these kids were removed and treated afterwards. And the consequences are extensive; they were forced to leave their culture behind in order to fit in the white world, but they could never really integrate, and so they suffer from this lack of identity. They are neither this nor that. They know they were stolen, and so spend their whole lives trying to find their families, suffering from alcohol and drug abuse because of the depression caused by the pain.  

Aadvertisement of a person looking for their family

However, there are people against the idea of referring to this as genocide. For the past years, since this topic came became a spotlight, there's been a great deal of debate around the issue. It’s true, it didn’t involve killing, but its ultimate objective was that at the end of the process the Aboriginals would have disappeared. This is why some people call it a “cultural” genocide.

Taking this into consideration, are the past policies towards Aboriginal children comparable to those of Nazi Germany- being this the most common case of genocide? Was it less important because there was no killing? Or was it really an act of benevolence towards these children, to give them a “better” life, as some people argue?  Is it necessary to apologize to these stolen children? Is it OK to call the removal of Aboriginal children genocide?

Enriching the Rainbow…

Most people don't live in mansions; those are

great houses for the very rich. Lucky people

have houses with clean water, without bad smells,

and with walls that keep out of the sound

of neighbours shouting. Unlucky people have

only shanties to live in- houses made out of

bits of old metal or cardboard or paper.

   And some people only have dreams…

Cardboard mansions is a story from the book “Changing their Skies: Stories from Africa” about an Indian family living in South Africa under poor living conditions. The main character, Dadi-Ma, wants to take her grandson away from all of this in order to give him the opportunities she did not have in life.


This story was written by Farida Karodia who is a recognized South African novelist and short-story writer born in 1942. Farida was forced to leave the country in 1969 and decided to live in Canada for a few years where she started writing novels, when she returned to her country she started writing about the post apartheid living conditions of South Africans, specially about minorities.

Her books have captured the Minorities life experiences produced by a poverty environment such as health problems, violence, alcoholism, drug addiction, etc. The interesting fact is the author goes beyond the social boundaries of ´gender, race, class´ by creating white, black and Asian, male and female, rich and poor protagonists whom she allows to speak as narrators.

I decided to post about her after we read “The Rubbish Dump” from Steve Chimombo, I realized there was another short story, written by Farida that showed another aspect of South Africans life conditions, I think it is important for us to read as much as we can about this topic told by people that has been through these experiences and not just as a piece of information, besides we are not used to read about this very often.

This video, “Enriching the Rainbow” tells the story of the 150 year old history of Indians in South Africa, how they got there and how they live now, it isvery interesting and it is something that we have not discussed in classes so I really hope you can take a look at it.

Triumph of the Human Rights.

     With the existence of racial segregation were recorded several cases of people with their own actions they wanted to change racial differences and fight for their human rights. Some facts more symbolic than others; as was the Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a 'white', beginning the so-called "boycott of Montgomery buses".

The word Segregation Racial is utilize when blacks and whites lived in the same places, but they were kept away from each other. Triumph of the human rights. With the existence of racial segregation were recorded several cases of people with their own actions they wanted to change racial differences and fight for their human rights. Some facts more symbolic than others; as was the Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a 'white', beginning the so-called "boycott of Montgomery buses".

 All the trial concluded in against the law of racial separation in the buses, and helped in other demands that were being developed against racial segregation. Years later, in 1955 something happened very similar, that a more radical change; when a woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white, and at the time of being arrested and jailed, caused a new movement among the african-american citizens, the "civic movement of USA." Those who wanted to change the racial discrimination, but in a non-violent means. It was in this movement appeared that Martin Luther King, at that time he was only a pastor, but led the "Boycott of Montgomery buses", a protest against racial segregation on buses. Was that the african-american citizens did not take the bus, for this is organized in such a way that used to be transported, their own cars, bicycles, the same taxi drivers to these African Americans were citizens at the same price as a bus, and even the same white women wore their lullabies in a car to work. Measures imposed by the authorities, but it did not put an end to this protest and the case reached the Supreme Court of Justice, achieved victory and the end of racial segregation, not only in buses, but to the racial segregation in all aspects. This became an example for all United States, and national and international recognition of Martin Luther King. 

The term of the segregation was caused by the citizens, who decided to make a complaint by their civil and human rights, and that the action of a man as common as a Pastor, has made the citizens unite and fight without violence for their rights as human beings.

Camila Quinteros T.

Sharing God: a.k.a Power Abuse

Through history the same situation has happened over and over again: violation of human rights, power abuse and iniquities. I am talking about one of the contents that have impacted me most in this third unit, and taking as main example Queen Mary I, known as “Bloody Mary”.

Queen Mary I of England was born on February 18, 1516; daughter of King Henry VIII and his first of six wives. At the age of 37 she got to the throne and reigned from July 19, 1553 until November 17, 1558, the very last of her days. His father disjoined England from the Roman Catholic Church and expanded it across the kingdom while he lived, but Mary kept her faith in the Roman Catholic Church and disagreed with him.  When Henry VIII died she came to the English throne and made everything that was in her hands to keep her position safe and bring the Roman Catholicism back to the English Kingdom, so her first violent act took place at the moment and her nickname “Bloody Mary” was born: on February 12, 1554 she executed her cousin Lady Jane Grey, who could've gave her power struggle being alive. This was just the beginning, Bloody Mary turned the zone back to Roman Catholicism by force and 273 people were sentenced to the stake for being against this, just to please her. What I’m trying to say here is how can someone put her beliefs ahead of people’s precious life, full of opportunities to cooperate in the world? And I think she, as many other colonizers, being catholic and following the good values it gives such as “don’t kill”, how could she have the strength to call herself a believer and giving such example of abuse and disrespect for people?

The mass murder and abuse tend to happen when there are colonization and religious reasons as I showed you here, just because some people think that what they believe in is the right belief to follow and everyone who is not might be underdeveloped or heretic. They tell you how to act, how to think, how to dress, who to kiss, how to believe in and so the endless list goes on. But this “powerful” people often act depending on their self-convenience, instead of following their values consequently as it should be and avoid falling into a cynical and hypocrite attitude. Why am I putting this here? Because this is one of the most important and shocking examples of dehumanization. Among time, things like this have frequently happened in human history all across the world, we lose lives just because of a bunch of closed minded people, just because some people want power, money or whatever. We need to think about this, open people’s mind and don't let them do this anymore; we need to empathize and then maybe we can reach some harmonic connivance in the world. 

What if?

"Chile as a dependent country and one that swears loyalty  to the Monarchy of Spain"

Some classes ago, we were talking about the elaborations of maps and how these maps attracted or focused attention toward certain countries to make them look greater and more important, and at one point Miss Cardenas asked us what would have happened if these maps had been developed in reverse, if Chile was up instead of down, and recalling the exposition about the countries of the Commonwealth by my classmates just a few days ago, it came to my mind a similar question to which Miss Cardenas made us​​:



"What if Chile were part or swear loyalty to the Spanish Crown as well as the Commonwealth countries swear loyalty to the British Crown?"

After thinking about this for a while my first thought was "yeah, the idea of having kings and queens sounds pretty cool", and immediately after that I started thinking about the pros and cons about being under the rule of a parliamentary monarchy having the king as the head of state, of course the most of the commonwealth nations are former colonies of England, nonetheless, they are independent countries so they have their own political system and just 16 of them recognizes the Queen as their head of state, following this idea, if Chile is to be part of Spain, would it be while it still was a colony of Spain or would it be after the independence war? In the first case and after the national referendum of 1978, Chile would be just another autonomous community just as Navarre, Aragon, Asturias and the rest of the autonomous communities from Spain, but Chile would still be part of Spain as a whole. In the second case, I believe that the former Spanish colonies would form something like the "Commonwealth of southern american nations", but being independent and autonomous from Spain.

And so I started thinking about how would affect us culturally, in both cases, being in some way "connected" to Spain, would we be still speaking the so called "chilean-spanish"? what about our accent? would we be still considerate as thieves? would there be the same restriction to enter to Spain as chileans have it today? Would we be a more "advance" country by having the direct support and help from Spain and the countries of this southern commonwealth? Anyways I believe that now days we are more connected to the english-speaking world rather to our so called motherland, chileans tend to see Spain as a old enemy and oppressor, who will conquer us again just given the opportunity.