Today in my ASTU 100 class we were discussing Guantanamo Bay and the various issues and debates which revolve around the Military prison and the people who are imprisoned there. The prison is where many prisoners of the war on terror are imprisoned once they have been arrested or captured. One of the biggest issues that many people have with the prison is that it is said to violate the human rights of the people who are imprisoned there. Multiple current and past prisoners have reported abuse and torture which were all denied by the authorities. Authorities in charge of the prison and the people who were responsible for the torture or mistreatment of prisoners commonly claimed that they did so looking to get important information out of high value prisoners. While I can understand why someone might want to believe that that’s a necessary thing to do to prevent more terror attacks against the USA and other countries, I don’t believe that there is any circumstance in which torture is an acceptable tool to acquire information from someone. Someone who had lost family members or loved ones in the terror attacks on September 1^st 2001, could be so upset that they would decide that the US should use any means necessary to get the information they need to save lives and stop future attacks. It was also admitted by authorities that the torture and interrogation techniques which had been used on the prisoners to get information where largely ineffective and didn’t produce any real information which could be acted on. Whether or not you agree that the torture of the inmates is wrong, you can’t argue that it was an effective and successful way to acquire the information that they wanted, it just didn’t work. Since they didn’t learn anything from the interrogation of prisoners it was largely pointless and completely unnecessary, not to mention an extreme violation of the human rights of the prisoners.

This week I have been reading “extremely loud and incredibly close” for my ASTU 100 class. The book depicts the story of Oskar, a nine year old boy whose father dies in the terror attacks on the world trade center on September 11 2001. Oskar is described as being a troubled child, he frequently describes feeling depressed and the feeling that he is wearing heavy boots which weigh him down. Since his father died he struggled with issues such as depression and multiple other issues. He has an extremely active imagination and his thoughts often wander to things which most people would consider impossible, but Oskar comes up which a massive amount of invention ideas which I believe kind of helped him to escape reality. It allowed him to go to someplace where he could control how things worked. One day while looking through some of his father’s things he finds a key with the word “Black” on it. After finding this key he sets out on a mission across New York City to find the lock to which the key belongs. The book is a story about Oskar looking for answers to questions which most people couldn’t answer for him and so he has to find them himself.

During our last ASTU 100 class we went to the rare books library at UBC and had the chance to look at the archives of Joy Kogawa. Some of the different artifacts which are in the archives included letters, pictures, as well as newspaper articles and reviews of some of her books. One of the most interesting things that I saw was the letter from a publication company which stated that they were not interested in publishing her book, Obasan,  for a variety of different reasons such as poorly constructed characters(aunt Emily), and not a strong enough narrative throughout the story in general. I thought this was interesting because all I knew was that the book Obasan is now used extensively throughout the school system as a book to help learn about that part of our history. I did not know that the book was not initially successful. Another thing that I found very interesting is that when I am reading a book whether it is fictional or not it can be hard to connect with the author and really see them as another person. By being able to go and look through the files which contained letters to and from Joy Kogawa and other artifacts from her personal life, it made the author and her story much more real to me. I found it very interesting to be able to read not only letters to other people and articles that she wrote, I got to read notes and things like that that she had left for herself and written to herself. The trip to the archives gave me a much better view of Joy Kogawa as a persona and not just as another author who wrote a book.

This week I wanted to talk about something that occurred to me in our ASTU 100 class while discussing the graphic narrative Persepolis. One of the more prominent themes in the book is the violence and the brutality that the common people were faced with on a day to day basis. This made me think about how in western countries many people get the idea that these violent acts and conflicts were a perfectly normal common occurrence in the middle-east. If I were to go up to a number of people and asked them what was the first thing that came to mind when they think of a middle eastern country, the majority would talk about something to do with terrorists, war, or any kind of violent conflict. What a lot of people do not understand is that the vast majority of the people are regular everyday citizens who are trying to go about their lives and don’t necessarily have any part in the conflicts. With the internet and media, people see so many videos and news reports talking about the latest ISIS attack or countries around the world sending troops to help fight these terrorists they often forget that it isn’t normal for people to do that in that part of the world, it might be somewhat common, but that doesn’t make it normal. The people living in those areas probably don’t think that it’s a perfectly normal thing to do, go out and cut someone’s head. But people here see that on the news and think oh look someone else was killed this morning and then that’s all they know about those countries because that’s all they see. For me the part of the book that really stood out was how the author mixed the normal everyday life, with the stories of the violence and how quickly she would switch back and forth between them. Before I read the book I never really thought about how there are kids there who are doing normal kid stuff, not just terrorists. Before reading the book I expected it to be exclusively about the war and conflicts, I was surprised by the way that the author mixed her memories of what we would consider a normal childhood, with the memories of the violence and brutality.

Recently I read Persepolis which is a graphic novel written and illustrated by Marjane Satrapi. Persepolis is the story of her childhood in Iran during a time when the country was divided by conflict. My favourite part of the book were the illustrations. The drawings are done with not a lot of fine details, and are colored only with black and white but still manage to add to the story as well as carry messages not included in the writing. Though it was an interesting book, I had trouble relating to certain parts of the story because where I live I have never had to worry about many of the issues that Marji, and her family or friends had to deal with. I don’t live in a part of the world where political and religious ideologies are forced onto me, so I don’t fully understand what those people went through when a party took over their country and forced people to dress and act a certain way, or be punished. During my lifetime Canada hasn’t been in any major conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq war, so it is hard for me to really understand how terrifying it would be to live during a time when you don’t know if you are going to have a place to go home to when you finish a day of school. Though I do appreciate the hardships that people in those situations face, it would be wrong for me to say that I understand what they have gone through and that I know what it is like to live in those circumstances. I was surprised by the amount that I learned about Iran as a country and its conflicts with other countries as well as its internal issues. Though I did have trouble relating to the characters in the book, I did enjoy the story.

In the essay “The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning”, author Farhat Shazhad writes about the effect that an individual’s community can have on the way that they perceive and remember events. She conducted an experiment involving ninety nine university students from a variety of national backgrounds and cultures, and asked them to give an account of their memories and thoughts about the war on terror. One of the students interviewed was an eighteen year old second generation immigrant from India. He wrote “I don’t know, all I heard is partial and biased stories told by our media and politicians.” (Pg. 310). He says that he doesn’t know what to believe, because he has only heard one side of the story. He recognizes that sources of information such as media, can send out extremely biased information regarding an event because of private interests. I feel the same way about the war on terror as he does because the only ways that I learned about the war on terror was by watching television, or discussing it with people. Both of those sources can provide extremely biased opinions based on what they want to believe, or what they want other people to believe. When listening to other people give their opinions on issues such as the war on terror it is important to remember that just because they believe that they are correct about something, doesn’t make it fact. It is very hard to know both sides of the story unless you have actually witnessed whatever you are discussing. When listening to another person’s point of view it is important to think about what they have said and sometimes question it because of the possibility that they do not know all of the facts.

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!