Blog #8

Haiti was the richest colony in the world. A slave labor force was the vast majority of the colony's population. About 40,000 divided plantation owners, merchants, and lawyers were poor whites. A third social group consisted of mixed-race background. The French Revolution lit several fuses and set in motion a spiral of violence. Some of the principles of the revolution meant different things to different people such as the rich white landowners suggested greater autonomy for the colony and few economic restrictions on trade, but resented the demands of the poor white people who just wanted equality of citizenship for all whites. Both rich and white groups opposed to the insistence of free people of color that the "rights of man" meant equal treatment for all free people regardless of race. According to the slaves, the French Revolution was a personal freedom that challenged the entire slave labor system. In 1791, rumors were spread that the French king had declared and end to slavery. This caused the slaves to burn plantations and kill hundreds of whites and mixed-races as well.
Haiti's independence defined all Haitian citizens as black and legally equal regardless of color or class. Economically, the country's plantation system oriented towards the export of sugar and coffee,had been destroyed. Both private and state lands were redistributed among former slaves and free blacks and Haiti became a nation of small scale farmers.

Blog #19

Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam functioned as a transregional culture that spread beyond their places origin. Buddhist ideas and practices spread to the West, while Christianity of various kinds spread widely in non-Muslim African, South Korea, and parts of India. Christianity found some sixty two of its adherents in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Some missionaries from these regions set about the re-evangelization of Europe and North America. Millions of migrants from the Islamic world spread their religion in the West as well. Religious exchange was not only a simple transmission of Western ideas, but a religious pluralism that characterized many of the world's societies.
Fundamentalism; a militant piety-defensive assertive, and exclusive, that took shape to some extent in every major religious tradition. Scientific and secular focus of global modernity challenged the core beliefs of religion by focusing on the unseen realm reality. Although science and global modernity were not the only problem, social upheavals connected with capitalism, industrialization, and globalization upset customary class, family, and gender relationships that were sanctified by religious tradition. Military defeat, colonial rule, economic dependency, and cultural intrusion came at the hand of the Westerners. Fundamentalism represented a religious response. They searched for an alternative modernity that was infused with religious values.Extensive educational and propaganda efforts, political mobilization , social welfare programs, and sometimes violence, were among the means of fundamentalists.
For some people living in Asia, Africa, or Latin America has been a working environment in foreign-owned production facilities. Companies that are in wealthier countries have an advantage to build facilities in places where labor is less expensive or environmental regulations are less restrictive. In terms of child labor, low pay, few benefits, and dangerous working conditions have been called  sweatshops. In Fig.23.1 it illustrates a Chinese owned company producing Western-style blue jeans in Lesotho.

Blog #18

The end of colonial empires focuses attention on fundamental contradictions in the entire colonial enterprise. Christianity and Enlightenment thought sat clumsily with the colonial racism, exploitation, and poverty. The democratic values of European states ran counter to the dictatorship of colonial rule and the ideal of national self-determination was at odds with the possession of colonies that were rejected any opportunity to show their national character. The force of nationalism now played a major role in its disintegration. 

Europe had weakened from the world wars while discrediting the sense of European moral superiority. The U.S and the Soviet Union opposed the older European colonial empires even as they created empire like international relationships. In the meantime, the United Nations provided a platform form to conduct anticolonial agitation. All of the contribution to the global illegitimacy of empire, transformed social values that encouraged Africans and Asians to seek political independence. 

Social and economic assets within the colonies generated the human raw material for anticolonial movements. Largely male, had arisen throughout the colonial world because they were familiar with European culture. They were deeply aware of the gap between its values and its practices, they no longer viewed colonial rule as people's progress and they increasingly insisted on immediate independence.   

Blog #17

In section 5 of CST, two of the main points that were viewed were the requirements of the common good and the advantages of individual ownership of property. It also focuses on the material things necessary for a good life should be available for use by the whole human community. Although, the Catholic tradition testifies the benefits of individual ownership, not only encouraging the most efficient and orderly of arrangements for material goods but offers people to be productive and to care for the goods God has created. The teachings also taught that the Creator intends the common gift to be used for nourishment and sustenance not just for the benefit of a few privileged people of society. As regarding property now, those who held a great amount of property hurt the poor  by allowing their plantations to lie fallow for long periods of time while nearby peasants were close to starvation.
In section 6 of this packet, it focuses on the conditions of labor. Government has now become the routinely enforces prevailing labor protections such as minimum wage laws, safety and health regulations, pension plans, social insurance, and the rights of workers to organize into labor unions. The most controversial though, is the Church's abiding and enthusiastic support for labor unions. Workers' rights to organize and enter collective bargaining are considered an important outgrowth of other human rights. Although, labor unions have come under substantial criticism. Some of the criticism they went through were them being associated with corruption and being a threat of disruptive and potentially violent strikes. The Catholic's teachings forthrightly contends that a world without labor, unions would witness a much less favorable environment for achieving justice and sharing the earth's resources. Although, its practical benefits were that human labor carries theological  significance as it contains the human response to the God who invites all people to become cocreators of the material world.

Blog #15

The most obvious division was among competing states, a long standing feature of European political life. Historical rivalries further sharpened as both Italy and Germany joined their fragmented territories into two major new powers around 1870. Arrival on the international scene of a powerful and rapidly industrializing Germany, Germany was a disruptive new element in European political life, especially for the more established powers such as Britain, France, and Russia. In the early twentieth century, that balance of power was expressed in two rival alliances, the Triple Alliance of Germany, Italy, and Austro Hungarian Empire and the Triple Entente of Russia, France, Britain.  These two commitments undertook in the interests of national security transformed a relatively minor incident in the Balkans into a conflagration that consumed almost all of Europe.

In June 28,1914, when a Siberian nationalist assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Surging nationalism of Serbian Slavs was a mortal threat to the cohesion of their fragile multinational empire, which included other Slavic people. A system of alliances intended to keep the peace created obligated that drew the Great Powers of Europe into a general war by early August 1914. Slavic nationalism and Austro-Hungarian opposition to it certainly lied at the heart of the war’s beginning. Rulers of the major countries of Europe saw the world as an arena of conflict and competition among rival nation states.

The Great Powers competed intensely for colonies, spheres of influence, and superiority in armaments. School, mass media, and identities were profoundly and personally meaningful. Public pressure of these competing nationalism allowed statesmen little room for compromise and ensures widespread popular support for the decision to go to war. British women were encouraged to present a white feather, a symbol of cowardice, to men not in uniform, thus affirming a warrior understanding of masculinity. While the conservative governments, prospected the of war as a welcome occasion for national unity in the face of the mounting class and gender based conflicts in European societies.

Another contribution was an industrialized militarism. Europe’s armed rivalries had long ensured that military men enjoyed great social prestige and most heads of state wore uniforms in public. All Great Powers had substantial standing armies, except for Britain, relied on conscription to staff them. An example of a quickening rivalry among these states was a mounting arms race in naval warships, mostly between Germany and Britain.Each major state developed “war plans” that spelled out in great detail the movement of men and materials that should be occur immediately upon the outbreak of war. Rapid industrialization of warfare had generated an array of novel weapons, such as submarines, tanks, airplanes, poison gas, machine guns, and barbed wire. This new military technology contributed to the staggering casualties of the war. Majority were male.  The Ottoman Empire entered the conflict on the side of Germany which then became the site of military actions and witnessed an Arab revolt against Ottoman control. After initially seeking to avoid involvement in European quarrels, United States joined the war in 1917 when German submarines threatened the American shipping.

The war relentlessly went on for more than four years before ending in German defeat in November 1918. Trench warfare resulted when the military experts expected a war of movement and attack but then went down on the western front into a war attrition. This warfare resulted in an enormous amount of casualties while gaining or losing only a few yards of muddy, bloody soaked ground. Everywhere it became a “total war” requiring the mobilization of each country’s entire population. The German state assumed such control over the economy that its policies became known as “war socialism”. Therefore, propaganda campaigns sought to arouse citizens by depicting a cruel and inhuman enemy that killed children and violated women. Labor unions agreed to suspend strikes and make sacrifices while the women abandoned the factories since they were replacing the men for the vote. 

Call to Action

            During Call to Action day, I and along with some other students, went to the creek to pick up trash alongside the creek and within the park. This experience made me realize how careless people can be by just throwing their trash or leaving their trash wherever they feel like it. At one point my group and I found a shopping cart in the creek. Honestly, that was pretty ignorant of someone to dump a shopping cart in the creek. That was a very unintelligent decision because now the cart cannot be lifted because rocks and trees have made it one of its own and now it is engraved into the dirt and water and it is very hard to pick out. After a period of time, the rust of the cart will bleed into the water, probably destroying the small creatures that live in that environment. The cart was not the only thing that was there that was disgusting. There was a lot of plastic bags and broken pieces of glass scattered throughout the creek. Pulling the plastic bags from the branches of the tree were gross because it was wrapped around multiple branches and it was filled with dirt and water.

            When my group and I were picking up the trash alongside the creek we noticed somewhat of a cave. Most of us went in there, but then soon got scared because we heard noises coming from the darkness. In general, the location was very beautiful. It was peaceful and quiet and it had a nice scenery from wherever viewpoint one was looking at.

Towards the end of the experiment, while walking back to the meet up point to put our supplies away, an older man thanked us for what we were doing. This showed me how thankful he was for us doing something to keep the environment clean and trash free. 

Blog #13

Section seven talked about colonialism and economic development. In the Catholic teaching a major topic that is taught concerns the legacy colonialism and the challenge of economic developments in the poorest parts of the world. Formal patterns of colonization was an ongoing discussion, while observes expressed concern about equally pernicious practices known as neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism.

 Not only did colonizers wrought political and economic changes by the Europeans, they also pursued a religious agenda. The European ships carried priests, preachers, and missionaries seeking to spread Christianity to indigenous people. Present economic order features a gap between the world’s richest and poorest lands. History of European colonialism and superpower imperialism have played an important role in causing these disparities.

Catholic social teachings offers two sets of ideas. One is the consistent part of its message that the church repeatedly insists that all people have a moral obligation to care deeply about the world poverty and  to do all they can to address this scourge on common humanity. Hunger and disease is a concern for all people an demands urgent attention. The richest nation to combat poverty in the poorest lands are needed and encouraged to express human solidarity.The second catholic social teaching addresses poverty and underdevelopment by inviting believers to ponder the cause of these problems and offer suggestions for improvement.