When I first read and heard of Poems from Guantanamo, I thought it may have been  way for curator Marc Falkoff to gain some publicity and make a name for himself.  It would draw international attention, generate a huge discussion amongst the media, extremists and general population while making a historical and precedent setting situation.

But then I though about the other impacts and components of this book.

The phrase, the pen is mightier than the sword comes to mind.  Some of the prisoners who wrote poems were violent criminals who performed terrorist attacks against the United States of America and their own race. By using poetry they are able to take their anger/ hatred and use it to accuse the military and America.  In a sense they victimize themselves through their words which leads people to sympathize with them and work to help them.  words have been used very effectively in the past to create social change, start revolutions and change laws.  Maybe the prisoners cannot be active members in their home countries terrorist/ protest groups but they can have an impact in some small way with these poems.

Now this is not to say all the poets in this book are rightfully imprisoned and were active terrorists. Just as the previous group used their anger to accuse America in protest of their detainment, the innocent internees may do the same but not in hopes of continuing their terrorist ideology but as a way to focus their anger.  It can be a form of therapy, a way to hash out their emotions and inner pain and conflict because I assume they don’t have therapists in Guantanamo. Maybe it leads to an easier experience for both the soldiers and the inmates when they are able to heal in a small way.  This method, if put into an experiment  and proven, could provide a good way for other jails to aid in peacefully pacifying their inmates.

These poems also demonstrate our basic human need to express ourselves.  Whether it’s preteens railing against their parents idea of social norms to demonstrate their ‘independence’ and show how ‘grown up’ they are, or T.V./ Movie characters forced into uniforms who in a staggering plotline stylishly change their standardized outfit into something you would see in Vogue, we all want to be recognized as unique and different (without being too different to warrant the wrong type of attention).  The way people do so is personal, either by singing, writing a story or acting out a monologue; the detainees chose an expression that was not only personal but spiritually uplifting.  This link to their beliefs and religion may provide them some devotional time while they are not allowed the Qur’an or their chosen Holy Book.  Their beliefs are major part of their identity and may be a cardinal reason they are at Guantanamo. Without being able to express that part of themselves they lose even more of their humanity than the soldiers can take from them.

While I may never know if the curation of the poems were selfishly motivated or not, they do serve a valuable purpose. They provide hope for the detainees and a unique insight for the rest of the world.

Falkoff, Marc. Poems from Guantanamo. U of Iowa, 2007. Print.

Poetry has always been something that confused me and interested me. A good poem can make you laugh, cry or make you snap your fingers until they’re raw. The power of poetry and all its forms are showcased in many important events such as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics or in the aftermath of tragedies such as World War II or 9/11.

While reading Juliana Spahr’s collection of poems in This Connection of Everyone with Lungs, I was drawn in by the rhythmic trance of the first poem, but after reading the second series of poems I began to think this connection was more about her and her small circle of people and not the connection with everyone. Then I began to question why she speaks so knowledgably about events in North Korea, Gaza, and France, yet she doesn’t detail the events of 9/11. In a book that frames itself around the events of 9/11 and what happens after, I thought there would be a bit more of an emphasis on the main event.

Then I remembered the story of my friend.

A prolific spoken word poet, she is making a name for herself in the Vancouver scene and was asked to write a poem for an organization that helps the families and victims of eating disorders. She was tasked with writing a poem that would be presented at the annual celebration dinner/ fundraiser that would impact the survivors and their families while making the sponsors see the positives of the organization. She spent a couple months perfecting the poem until it had a perfect ratio between emotional and funny. She submitted it to the head organizer and only a few hours later was told that the poem just wouldn’t do and she would have to write another one. Apparently the poem contained a few things that could trigger the recoverees and their families. The poem they wanted needed to be only about the positives and looking up. So she went back at it and wrote a poem that didn’t divulge into the details of the suffering of the victims and ended up with a poem that was all sunshine and daisies.

Now, I’m not saying that the poem shouldn’t have been positive, I’m saying sometimes you need the details in order to understand properly. While my friend’s original poem brought the listeners through the suffering and then emerged into the positive, the new poem just left the listeners with a falsified image of what eating disorders can be like with no details which shed light on the harmful effects of eating disorders. The organization was too cautious of the details which could have triggered people, which is similar to what I think may have happened in Spahr’s poem.

In ASTU while reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close we talked about the limited knowledge that was released following 9/11 and the sensory that occurred. People don’t want to talk about something so horrible because they don’t know how others will react and they don’t want to do something that may lead to negative consequences. In the case of Spahr’s poems we can see that if she wrote only of 9/11, she would lose a certain demographic, she would have complaints written since she wasn’t that and she couldn’t understand and she would lose sales. By using it as a basis, she gains attention because it is seen as controversial but since it isn’t once read, it gains the market. Maybe I am being too cynical by seeing it more as a marketing scheme to sell her book and raise the profile of her poetry and its style.

This ‘connection of everyone with lungs’ is proven in her poems; there are bad events happening everywhere, we all have beds, we all have skin, we all breathe the same air, etc. The only thing that mystifies me is her use of 9/11 as the frame. It may be the misleading which has dampened my liking for these poems but when there isn’t much being said about 9/11, I believe this book of poems had the ability to really connect with people emotionally about the events. Poems are powerful and we wouldn’t have poems like In Flanders Fields if people don’t just write what needs to be expressed. Maybe by expressing and having something like a poem based on the events, the emotional connection could help in the healing of the victims of 9/11.

How are we supposed to remember what happened in our history if no one cares to write about the details in fear of offending someone?

Cited:

Safran Foer, Jonathan. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. New York: First Mariner, 2005. Print.

Spahr, Juliana. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. Los Angeles: U of California, 2005. Print.

Our ASTU class has been reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer which deals with the terrorist attack of 9/11. While the book follows the aftermath of the attack from the point of view of a young boy, the mass hysteria that followed the attack can be seen in attacks happening now.

On January 7^th 2015 in Paris France, two brothers shot and killed twelve people causing a global outcry. They attacked the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after they had published comics about the Islam religion. It brought into question, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the extremism of Islamists. The hashtag #JeSuisCharlie became one of the top trending hashtags of social media websites like Twitter and Instagram with people all over the world sending their support to Paris.

This attack has seen Parisians banding together and forming a strong front against terrorism. In a way this is the first time they have been vulnerable to attacks since World War Two and it has sent the entire country into overdrive. It has amped up defenses and protective measures which in some cases are a bit extreme.

The Metro published an article about an 8 year old boy who was detained and questioned by police because he refused to comply with the minute of silence for the victims and cried “I am with the terrorists!” Now I’m not encouraging or condoning this type of behaviour, but at eight, I definitely didn’t know what a terrorist was. I also wouldn’t have been able to be quiet and still for an entire minute, it goes against everything my overactive, over talkative eight year old impulses would have told me.

I feel this child’s actions could also have been caused by the lack of exposure this information has had on children. Teenagers and Preteens have obviously gotten behind and understand some of what happened as they were key in spreading #JeSuisCharlie, but young elementary aged children are often kept in the shadows. It is possible that this child heard bits of his parents, teachers, important others, etc. conversations and had to piece together an uneducated decision. Can we really get mad at an eight year old child for being uneducated on issues that elude and confuse many adults?

The final line of the article says, “Dozens of people have been arrested and accused of defending terrorism since the attacks.” Arrested for defending terrorism? If we look at the Allied Western attacks on Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, from the point of view of the citizens from those countries, would they perhaps see our attacks as terrorism? And do we not defend our actions in these countries? Is the war not killing more of their people, soldiers and civilians, than Americans? Excuse me for playing the devil’s advocate, but it confuses me as to why we are outraged at the death of twelve journalists when thousands of innocent civilians are dying daily and no one gives it a second thought.

This relates to the discussion we have been having in our ASTU class in regards to Judith Butler’s book, Frames of War; When is a Life Grievable? She discusses the difference between the collective ‘we’ and how that ‘we’ affects who we grieve, when we grieve and why it is ‘ok’ that we don’t grieve for the deaths of people that are not part of our ‘we’.

I am not defending these horrible attacks, I am merely asking questions that I feel the innocent civilians on the other side of the attacks may be asking.

Source:

http://metronews.ca/news/world/1274512/8-year-old-boy-faces-police-questioning-for-saying-he-supported-charlie-hebdo-attackers/

Colonialism, Globalization, Modernization, McDonaldization; all things that are often seen as positive and are often in our CAP textbooks. While reading through our Geography 122 textbook this past week, the question of whether or not globalisation is having a truly positive effect on our world managed to stump my mind.

Let me explain.

The modern world has seen an increase in global flows both in people and ‘stuff’. While money, emails, skype calls and many more things are easily spanning the world, people are not only country jumping for business but for pleasure. Tourism has quickly become a major impactor of the economic status of many countries. We have seen an entire country’s wealth increased once someone declares their country the new hot spot for vacation; Greece and Thailand for example. While this is a positive change and it is bettering the living situation of many people, the good cannot come without some bad.

If we look at these developing countries we can see that there is the ever present western influence on what they sell and how they try and operate. I had a teacher who has visited 44 countries and regularly took students on tours of the not as popular tourist destinations like Egypt, Peru, Brazil, and China. While in China they went on a hike which required them to take a plane to a remote location, bus to the small rural town that did not have electricity, walk a few kilometers to the hikes start and then make their way up the mountain. When they reached the top there was a man crouching over a small plastic bucket that held those red cans of Coke. Now as impressive as it is that they man carried them up the hill, and as accommodating as it was, those cans of Coke were as out of place as the students! Those cans not only represent the fantastic marketing job of Coke and its ability to reach places that do not have television or internet, but it also represents the need for locals to present something that is familiar to tourists otherwise they will not make a profit.

While this may have just been a Coke can, we can see that other western normalities are infiltrating many travel destinations. While many may overlook this and not care, we have to see the negative in this. By demanding a certain level of service or certain products and brands to be in the country, we are requiring the native country to leave behind its traditional culture to cater to western needs. If they do not provide the things tourists require to have the ‘comfortable’ stay they will have less and less tourism, which will eventually end with them in a bit of a financial crisis.

The Geography 122 textbook, in a section written by geographer Philip Crang, explains, “[Mosaics] are both an arena within which those locals can be recognized (world awareness allows a comparison between places and alerts us to their differences) and the site of forces that can destroy local uniqueness (through the invasion of non-local things and people (24).” I feel this reiterates my point about tourism and creates some controversy over the use of a mosaic to describe the world, or domestically how we describe Canada. If Canada considers itself the mosaic to America’s melting pot, are we doing the same thing to immigrants and their cultures just in a much slower and gradual process?

In a less dramatic sense, this tourist cultural imperialism is like the colonialism/ assimilation of the First Nations by British and French. The explorers, fur traders and colonialists came to Canada and forced the First Nations to change/ forget their traditions, culture, hunting rituals, etc. in order to be more ‘normal’, but really the Europeans were the abnormal ones. Without the help of the First Nations the fur traders would not have been so successful, they would not have had enough people to properly battle other groups and they would not have been able to sustain their population (the Métis). Yet once they were done with the First Nations they took to assimilating them through Residential Schools which effectively scarred the entire culture.

When we travel to other countries we want to see the local cultural things in order to feel like we are actually on vacation, yet when we go to restaurants we are wary of anything that is too far outside our comfort zone, and we do not want to sleep in a traditional hut, we want the five star resort with the full bed and bath. It is in this way that we are using the countries for what they provide us, and needing them to change their culture to better reflect one that we westerners are comfortable in.

While this all sounds like I am discouraging tourism, I’m not. I just believe tourism can be improved. We need to go to places with open minds; the willingness to immerse ourselves in another culture and not expect anything but what is ordinary for them.

This is just my opinion and I am sure others think our tourism industry is working better than ever. I am eager to see what others think.

Meghan

Crang, Philip. “Local-Global.” Geography, Modernity & Globalization II. 6th ed. Canada: Pearson, 2015. 24. Print.

Writers have to go through many drafts in order to end up with their completed, somewhat interesting, print worthy book; Joy Kogawa was no different. While scrounging through the Kogawa fond in the UBC rare books library, I was able to look at drafts, scribbled notes, editor’s notes and rejection letters written by or sent to Kogawa about her novel Obasan. While the finished product is something that will forever be looked at to remember the events of Japanese internment in Canada, there were many changes made by Kogawa and her editors.

The first editor’s note I found was one from Lester & Orpen Denny’s Publishers which read, “I can’t help feeling that when you get this you’ll start rewriting!” Which was then proceeded by lengthy notes on the back of multiple papers. There were notes about how repetitive chapters and pages could be and unnecessary details. This led to many pages and paragraphs to be crossed out. In those sections I found parts about the letters written to apply for Ms. Kato’s citizenry into Canada, more about Stephen’s Claudine, Naomi’s mother and father and more about how Naomi was treated by other children. It is a bit of a coincidence that these sections were crossed out when in a rejection letter Kogawa was told that her “… characters were shadows…” who readers could not identify with because there were minimal details about them. I have to wonder if I and others would have found the book more interesting if the characters were a bit more dynamic and there was a deeper story behind some of the characters.

This subtraction of pages also led to a rearrangement or loss of a chapter. In the draft I looked at, chapter 25 was changed to chapter 24 which means something that may have been a precursor of information to an event that would happen later in the book, or details of something Kogawa may have found important were cut. Another option would be that the chapter seemed to fit better later on in the book, or the details of that chapter were deemed unnecessary of their own chapter and were therefor spread into pre-existing chapters.

I feel like there may have been details that Kogawa left out of the book because to her they seemed mundane or unimportant. It is the same as when someone is telling you a story and they say something in passing that you find fascinating, but they have deemed it uninteresting because it was so normal to them. Therefor details that may have aided us in better understanding the living conditions and the depth of the segregation were left out. While we know about treatment and living conditions in internment camps, we know much less about how they dealt with having to move away from everything they knew and restart their lives. I saw bits of these accounts in the scrapped material which helped me to better understand the mentality of the characters during this time better than some of the metaphors used in the book.

My last observation of the drafts was how many times Kogawa would write sentences in English and then go back and modify them to include Japanese. This is interesting to me because reading the versions without the Japanese made the story and characters feel less authentic, less of an accurate representation of Japanese culture. By adding Japanese language into the book, I would argue that there is a promotion of cultural understanding between the non-Japanese readers and the Japanese-Canadians who endured internment.

I also had the chance to read the draft of Maya Ardahl’s theatre script of Naomi’s Road, the children’s version of Obasan. In the limited amount of pages I read, I was able to gather that we never learn of Uncle’s death, it is all based on Naomi’s childhood with no narration or viewpoint of the adult Naomi, and everything was very repetitive. Maybe it was to emphasize the point/ meaning of the book in the play, maybe it was to represent youth ‘properly’ in script and maybe it was to make the lines easier to remember, but either way it was different than the version our class read in Obasan. It did however make the information accessible to the younger audiences of both the children’s story and play.

The trip to the UBC Rare books fonds was very interesting and it helped to gain a better understanding of Obasan. Seeing the amount of research Joy Kogawa had to do to give an accurate representation of the events that affected Japanese-Canadians in WWII made the novel seem more like a biography; it made you realize that this is not just another fictional story but these events actually happened to real people. It is because of the attention to detail and passion that Kogawa put into the book that made it a true national technology of memory.

I would argue that as a developed species, humans are capable of many things. We have opposable thumbs and technology that set us apart from most mammals and less than eight legs which means we are not arachnid like, so why is it that when it comes to horrific cultural events we tend to have the memory of goldfish?

In our Global Citizens CAP stream and history class, we are talking about the causes, the events, the outcome, minor and major details, key agents, etc. of World War Two. Yet when looking at all the articles, books and texts, it is easy to notice the year gap from when the war happened and when the books were published. For example the Second World War happened from 1939-1945 but Louie Zamperini’s book Unbroken, detailing his euphoric high of competing in the Berlin Olympics to being taken prisoner by Japanese soldiers was only published in 2010. The same is for Obasan, and Australia’s Forgotten Prisoners being published in 1981 and 2007 respectively.

Maybe we can blame this on the lack of resources to record and print these memories/ stories; there was simply no time to write about what was happening after the war because people were too busy trying to rebuild themselves and their community. We could also blame it on the pain that comes with bringing up such recent and tragic events. Yet, there is The Diary of Anne Frank, which details the extent of her time while hiding in the attic from German troops during the Holocaust. Maybe it is because it is easier to heal when you forget than when you have to struggle through the painful truth. My only other idea could be based on Paul Connerton’s theory of humiliated silence (http://mss.sagepub.com/content/1/1/59.short). In his article 7 Types of Forgetting, he uses the German silence after the war as an example of how tabooed an event can become that it leads to mass silence. Connerton also has this to say on humiliated silence,

         “…some acts of silence may be an attempt to bury things                beyond expression and the reach of memory; yet such silencing, while they are a type of repression, can at the same time be a form of survival, and the desire to forget may be an essential ingredient in that process of survival (68).”

Could this hint that in order for the German people to continue to identify as German and live with themselves after such heinous acts of violence, they had to forget? Or that until recently, there have be no adequate ways to describe what happened?

The thing that interests me most about this subject is that when books or movies are released about these tragic events, they become bestsellers. Which is strange because the thing that everyone was trying to hide, is now the thing that everyone is talking about. We see this with Obasan, which is a very famous Canadian novel, and Unbroken which is a Time 2010 Nonfiction book of the year and is about to be premiered as a major motion picture. The other explanation could be that we like to see how other countries messed up, hence America finding Unbroken and Fury, which obviously make the Axis powers seem like brutal, barbaric, cruel people, very interesting movies. Yet this is not something that just applies to World War Two or other terrible world events.

Mental illness is something that the majority of people tend to not discuss. Just as there was a taboo on speaking about World War 2, there is a certain taboo about discussing depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia etc. There are even asylums built to keep people with mental illnesses out of the general population; which is a concept that existed in WW2 where many of these people were killed by the same Nazi regime that killed thousands of Jewish people. A recent example of mental illness gaining a voice and being drawn to the attention of millions of people came in the form of Oscar award winning movie Silver Linings Playbook. It tells the story of a man (played by Bradley Cooper) who suffers from bipolar disorder and a woman (played by Jennifer Lawrence) who is suffering from neurosis. It was nominated multiple times at 29 awards shows, winning many including Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress at the Golden Globes and the Academy awards and Best Film at multiple shows. After that something that had remained a very private issue was the subject of a large public discussion.

In a way we have Hollywood to thank for creating such a large discussion and awareness of the things we used to silence. While we still resemble goldfish as we often forget the things that had been so widely talked about and replace it with a new issue or event, memorials, organizations, etc. are often put in place that leave some reminder.

As Remembrance Day approaches, the silence that is usually held around wars is often dropped. There are veterans scattered around towns handing out poppy pins, there are people everywhere wearing those poppies and the media often broadcasts veteran stories or important details. It is the one dedicated time of year when we pay our respects to the people that served, listen to their stories and make all the memories that were silenced, loud. Although many people forget about why we have Remembrance Day the other 364 days of the year, it is a small step to make the things we want to forget something that we can learn from, remember and use to make the future a better place.

Connerton, Paul. “Seven types of forgetting.” Memory Studies 1.1 (2008): 59-71. Web. 18 Oct.

Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken. United States of America: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2010. Print.

Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.

Twomey, Christina. Australia’s Forgotten Prisoners, Civilians Interned by the Japanese in World War Two.      New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

I would like to think that there are equal rights for all people, all over the world. Sadly I know that is not the case and that most likely it will never be the case. How negative of me, I know. My reasoning behind this is that someone is always going to feel the need to have power and control and some people are always going to feel like they are powerless. Government, police, army, that is where you find the strongest hierarchy of power and the people who believe they are the most powerful. Even in friend groups you will always see a sort of hierarchy of power, there is one person who  leads by example and the rest copy and follow. These hierarchies will inevitably change as new people fight to claim their own portion of power, some will find greatness while others will fall to defeat. In my opinion, what gets forgotten is the lives of the people who seek no power and who put their faith in the powerful to rightfully care for them.

In some countries you could say that everyone has a relatively fair chance to speak their minds and attain a role of power. For example, here in Canada, I can run for a position in municipal, provincial and national governments. Ideally no one would assume they knew what I stood for or how I would use my bit of power because I am a woman. I can get any job I want and get paid the same amount for doing the same thing as men. I will not be judged for doing things that were historically a man’s job like politics, playing sports, being the breadwinner of the family, doing physical jobs, etc. As a woman, my position of power and ability to have a voice would be accepted and encouraged. For all this, I am thankful, but it kind of brings the female morale down when we hear stories about how other women are being treated as second class citizens and are being discouraged, sometimes violently, for standing up for themselves.

Middle Eastern and South Asian women have always been a topic of interest in European and western countries. Even in the late 19^th century/ early 20^th century, British suffragettes were using Indian women as a reason to gain the vote. In Antoinette Burton’s Burdens of History — British Feminists, Indian Women and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915, she depicts the British female view of Indian women as “…helpless, emancipated, and trapped in a zenana existence… [pg. 65]” Therefor it was imperative that British women get the vote so they could involve themselves in the humanitarian side of ‘rescuing’ these women from their religious and cultural restraints placed on them by their husbands, fathers and brothers. Yet, despite this lacking of ‘civilised’ women, there were three whom Burton highlights who upped the standard of Indian women: “… the celebrated nationalist-feminist activist and poet Sarojini Naidu, the social reformer Pandita Ramabai and Rukhmabai, who later became a medical doctor. [pg.68]” With this precedent set, I feel as though it paved the way for women across the Middle East and South Asia to consider what other things they could do with their lives besides be home makers and child minders. So when I came across an article in The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/sep/05/iran-editor-feminist-views) about a female Iranian journalist, Shahla Sherkat, who is an active contributor to the feminist movement in Iran, I was intrigued.

Straight away you can tell that the articles she writes are not being encouraged. In fact before her new publication  Zanan- e Emruz (Today’s Woman), she had been the editor of a title called Zanan for 16 years until it was shut down by former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even though there are “…hopes that [Zanan-e Emruz] might signal greater freedom for the media and women under President Hassan Rouhani.” Shahla is now being summoned to the courts for the content that she is putting in this title. It is because she is “…spreading feminist ideas, which they believe are contrary to Islamic principles…Zanan magazine [is] managed by a woman with feminist and western views… western values undermine feminism, unlike those in the Islamic republic.” If she posted these articles in Canada, she would be commended, but in Iran she could be sent to prison.

Evidently western influence is a growing concern for some Iranians.

Pop culture, the need to be famous, known or heard is quickly becoming synonymous with western culture. Through YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Vine, Keek, Snapchat, many people are claiming that 15 minutes of fame everyone so desperately wants. You can now be InstaFamous, a YouTube millionaire, or a viral sensation; and that is exactly what these 7 Iranian adolescents became. They filmed a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5qdIxVcz8 ) of themselves dancing on the rooftops of Tehran to the catchiest song of 2014, Happy by Pharrel Williams (It was the number one song in 24 countries, was nominated for an Oscar and was the lead single off the Despicable Me 2 Movie). People around the world saw this video (including Pharrel himself) and liked it (as you do on YouTube) and it has garnered over 2 million views worldwide. The world loved it, the Iranian police, not so much. The six were sentenced “…to six months in prison and 91 lashes. A seventh participant, Reyhaneh Taravati, received an additional six months on her prison sentence for possession of alcohol and her role in distributing the video. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/19/iranian-pharrell-williams-fans-happy-video-sentenced )” The courts “…found them guilty of producing a “vulgar” video and conducting “illicit relations.” If they are caught doing anything else along these lines in the next three years they will have to serve their sentence, but in the mean time they had to go on national television and confess to their wrong doing… for being and spreading happiness. Is this just cultural preservation or is it disallowing Iran to evolve into a more diverse country?

In some ways, Iran has come a long way from the monarchic and political oppression they were plagued with in the late 1900’s. President Hassan Rouhani seems to be making an effort to change Iran’s treatment towards women and encourage cultural acceptance, but he does not have the full support of the country. He may encourage and feminist rights and he may think the seven Tehrani video stars should be let free without charge, but what can he do to change the minds of those people who use their voice to speak louder than everyone else?

In conversation with some people the other day, I brought up how Scotland is voting on whether to become independent or stay as part of the United Kingdom. The response I got was; “Is that actually a thing? No way! I haven’t heard about it. It’s funny how Ireland has been trying to be independent for years and Scotland just decides to go and vote.” Despite that being a bit worrying, it does raise a good point. If it is this civilized for Scotland to gain independence, what has changed from the years of struggle against colonialism?

To gain a broader understanding of the voting process and the reasons behind the move for independence I searched the web and found many European sources. As a broad overview I found the BBC’s article, (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29238890) to be a very helpful resource. It has information about when, where and how the voting will happen and when the results will be announced; by the chief counting officer Mary Pitcaithl who will release the final results to the world at GMT ‘breakfast time.’ The flaw with this article was that it did not report on any of the motivations or details of this referendum.  As some Scottish newspapers are calling a ‘British Bais’, I found a Scottish website (http://rt.com/uk/188404-scottish-referendum-live-updates/). Here I found speeches and interviews from both sides, both with very valid and interesting reasoning behind their YES/NO votes. Tommy Sheridan, a socialist campaigner referred to the “Yes” campaign as a “revolt against austerity”, whereas the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond took his stance quite strongly with his referral to British government as the ‘Westminster establishment’ and “So the Westminster parties cobble together separate, contradictory proposals for more powers – none of which offer any answers to the real challenges we face.” My eagerness to learn this world changing result is ever growing since the final pre-vote polls statistics have changed from Yes – 45%, No – 50 % and Undecided – 5% to Yes – 51% and No – 49%, but it also made me consider the numerous other countries that have had to claim their independence over the past few centuries.

In History 103, my Professor has been talking about the independence of colonies like British Honduras (1981), Puerto Rico (1898), and Suriname (1975). The one main example that interested me was the independence of Brazil. Although many of the colonies that formed the Brazilian Empire were made up of Indigenous peoples, Brazil became a nation state as the population was built up by settlers and slaves. Now I consider slavery the main, albeit abstract, link between the Brazilian Empire’s independence and Scotland’s new attempt for independence. According to John Geipel in his article on Brazil’s African Legacy in History Today Volume: 47 Issue: 8 1997 (http://www.historytoday.com/john-geipel/brazils-african-legacy ), he says, “… Over the four centuries of Portuguese involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, an estimated 10 to 15 million Africans were transported to the European colonies in the Americas. Of these, over 3.5 million were taken to Brazil…”  Even though the last Brazilian monarch Pedro II ended slavery in 1850, Brazil was the last country to abolish slavery, and it was because Britain was putting a great deal of pressure on all countries to abolish slavery during that time.

This is a perfect example of Global Capitalism and how despite each country having its own political power, one country can hold enough power to influence the decisions of all the others. That is why I believe that although Scotland may believe that gaining independence from the United Kingdom will give them more governmental power and allow them to take control of things such as currency, oil and postage, the British government will always have a sort of looming influence over their decisions. Through the geographical proximity, historical and existing trade and economic ties, cultural linkages and membership in the European Union, British influence will be maintained.

The global to local link that comes to mind is Quebec’s quest for separation. It has been an ongoing issue even from before Canada was formed, and continues to be one of the most controversial topics in Canadian politics today. Even though they want complete separation from Canada in terms of government and status, they want all the goods that come with having their economy and borders linked to ours. Therefore no matter how much they try to separate from Canada, Canada will always have that historical overhead of power over Quebec which would linger on throughout their newfound independent state.

With the results of the Scottish referendum trickling in and the official results to be announced in an hour or so, I cannot wait to see what is going to come of this vote and how it will change the way we view national identity. Just as September 7^th 1822 is an important date that marks the separation of Brazil from Portugal, September 18^th 2014 is going to be a date our children will see in their history textbooks.  The question this referendum has brought to mind is, as our world becomes more globalized and countries are becoming reliant on trade with other countries to sustain their economy, how will borders be defined in the future, and is there really such a thing as a truly independent country?

–Meghan Cheung