Final refelction

This course is finishing and with it and at least, our Batxillerat!!!! Now, our days in the high school are numbered: after four years ins ESO and two horrible, stressful but also, fantastic and full of great moment two years in Batxillerat, finally, we can say that we have achieved it and we are ready to face a new and an important stage in our life that personally, I’m looking forward to starting.

So, as I have say, a new stage is about to begin but before, I would like to look back and see how has been this last year and above, all related to my English. For this, we must go back to 2013 – 2014 course, when I started 4th ESO and also, when I created this blog. My first publication was “MY DREAM” and reading it I can’t stop laughing, I didn’t remember that my dream was to be a professional football player… anyway, I don’t think that we can find one of my favourite post in this year because now that I’m reading all of them (they aren’t very extensive) I can see that all of them are a little simple, I’m mean, I used to use a very simple vocabulary and simple syntactic structures but  I’m not very ashamed of this because now I can see how much I have to improve. If we continue reading the next posts, we reach first Batxillerat, where the things started to change.

One of the big changes was the way to present the blog: I remember that when I started first of Batxilerat, my blog change radically, I created a new wallpaper, I changed the title of the blog, I started to put more “impressive” pictures,… Another difference that we can see are the topics. In the first year, I used to talk about thing like my favourite band, my favourite song, my favourite film, my favourite and my favourite, I mean, very simple thing that only interested to me, but from Batxillerat, I started to express my point of view of different topics as the gender violence, the consumerism or “major” problems in our society as why was so hard to see black and blue in a dress. One post that I would like to headline is the one called “Just do it”. I like this post because I talk about how absurd it seemed to me the “new year resolution” and in fact, I still considered that you don’t need to wait until 1st January for changing your life, we all have 365 days (sometimes up to 366) to take up something or make a change in our life, so we should use all of them. Another improvement we can see are in the news, now I don’t like to talk about the things that everybody can see in the new, I like to search new as theft of art that seemed like movie plot or news related with topics that I can have a point of view as the ones related to the fashion world or the stereotypes. 

I have to say that I’m very proud of all the work that I have done in this blog because now that I’m reading the compositions of this year, I can see a big difference and not only in the writing but also in oral presentation: now I have more fluency and I’m more self-confidence. However, I’m aware that I have a lot more to change and improve and although there are many ways to do it, making a blog is one of the best: in 4th ESO, I had never thought that do this blog, what seemed to me a bummer but I have end enjoying it, would help me to improve my English, so I think that I will consider continuing writing in English, maybe not on the internet or in this blog but in a more personal way.

AN E-MAIL TO HUMAN RIGHTS COMITTE

Dear Madame or Sir, 

I am writting in order to let you know about the women situation in China. I have been traveling around the country for about three years studing the situation and the pressure that all Chinese womens have since they are little often because of ancient traditions. 

Now, we would like to take to light and get to know a big injustice for all women: in China, if you are over 27 years and you are not married, you will be considerate as "useless" women and you will be a disappointment for your family, and this is not the only problem,there also exist different places with specific schedule for fathers take there their daughters in order to finda partner for them, 

I think that this kind of "tradition" or "ancient mentallity" are, nowadays, unacceptable because they violate theright of women to decide if they want to get married or not and, in adittion, put all of them under a big pressure.

because for all of this, I would like t hae your support for promote a new adverstising campaign to try to prevent and concert all chinese women about the right to choose to get married or not and aso, to try to change this mentallity in chinese families. 

Yours faithfully

organmat@gmail.com

618445789

27 years behind bars

The last known prisoner that left in the Chinese prisons for participating in the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen 1989 will leave prison this October. Miao Deshun was sentenced to death penalty although that the sentence was suspended and now he is serving a life for burn a tank during the clashes with the army, when the Chinese government decided to use force to dislodge the thousands of protesters who had occupied in a peacefully way the square shape for months.

Miao had been 27 years behind bars and his sentence has been reduced three times; he entered in prison when he was 25 years old and now, he’s 51. He will be free on October 15, according to ONG although the Chinese Justice has not confirmed the information yet.

He was one of the 1,600 detainees who received formal prison sentences. Despite being a misdemeanour, his sentence was so long because, unlike other prisoners, Miao refused to sign letters of repentance and did not carry out prison labours. In fact, he not even appealed the sentence when he was sentenced to death at first.

The prisoner hasn’t had any contact with the outside world for several years, he hasn’t seen his family for a decade because he asked them not to go to visit him and even, sometimes, he refused to meet with the people who go to prison for seeing him. In fact, one of his companions in prison said that Miao has "severe mental problems", including schizophrenia, besides being sick of Hepatitis B.

China punished thousands of people after the harsh repression of demonstrations by the army. In addition to the thousand who were sent to prison, much more were assigned to forced labour camps to be re-educated and to be labelled as "counterrevolutionaries”. Currently, the families of the victims continue to seek justice and compensation for what happened, but Pekin continues silencing the facts and subjecting to surveillance the activists and families every time that the 4th June approach, the day that tanks of the Chinese army entered the streets of Pekin and ended in  with dreams of democracy of the student movement.

Three Spanish journalists released in Siria

Spanish journalists Antonio Pampliega, Jose Manuel Lopez and Angel Sastre, who had been kidnapped in Aleppo (Syria) since October of the last year, have been released, according to government sources. All three are safe and are now in Turkey, where the Spanish authorities have already sent a plane to facilitate their repatriation.

The same sources have also reported that the release of the journalists had taken place few hours ago and the Prime Minister, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, has already contacted with them. She has also suggested that the release has been possible thanks to the work of many public servants and the collaboration of allied and friendly countries, mainly in the finals from Turkey and Qatar.

The last time that the authorities had contact with  them was on 12 July 2015. They were in the city of Aleppo, under control of Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. The three journalists, who worked as a freelancer (self-employed), had entered in Syria from Turkey only two days before.

The zone where the journalist disappeared had been the scene of heavy fighting. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported shortly before the trail Pampliega, Lopez and Sastre were lost, that at least 11 journalists more were killed.

One of the journalist that had been rescued, Antonio Pampliega, owns a very interesting blog (https://unmundoenguerra.wordpress.com/). Pampliega, since 2008, is dedicated to cross the world of war and in this blog, he writes about the experiences, the interviews that he had with people around the world, … in that way, this blog becomes a way of show us “the other part of the world”, a world in war that also exist and where the line between life and death is governed by a Kalashnikov bang; as Pampliega says, “this blog is our eyes for reveal truths that remain dormant and is the voice of the people who don’t have one”.

So in this blog, you can join the journalist for this world of wars that almost have no place in media, he has made possible to accommodate all those forgotten conflicts and rescue from oblivion all who had suffered because of the war and have given voice to them for tell their stories.

The American Sniper

Recently, I've seen the movie "American Sniper", that it's about the real history of the Texas marine Christopher Scott Kyle, the deadliest sniper of the US army. He is destined to Iraq with the mission of protect his mates from the rooftops, windows... while they enter and inspect the Iraq houses searching terrorist. His precision with the weapon saved a lot of lives of his army and Kyle, becomes known as "the legend" for all his mates but he also became the main objective of the Iraqis who put price on his head. In the film, we also see the four missions which the sniper participated and he beat record of deaths as sniper in the US army.

I really enjoy the film because is entertaining and the end of the film surprise you. For this, I was interested in the real history of this "American hero".

Christopher Scott Kyle, was born in Texas. He was the older of two brothers and his parents were religious and farmers ("God, country and family" is one of his mottos). His first weapon was a rifle that his father gave him when he was eight years-old. He learned to use it hunting with his father. In 1998, Kyle enter in the army of the US with the intention of be form in the unit Navy SEAL (snipers) and at 1999, he was destined to Iraq. 

Between his achievements, stand out get hit a terrorist from 2.100 meters and survive to a six attacks with bombs. He also came to kill more than 40 terrorist in only one day trip. Is attributed to him more than 150 deaths (although there are more because the army only count those who have had witnesses). 

All this history can be seen in the film, the most "spectacular" of his man is that the normal thing is go to a one mission to Iraq and then, not want to go back anymore (as his brother), but Kyle went to a four different missions having family and sons.

Unfortunately, at the age of 38 years old, he was murdered in a shooting rage by Eddie Routh, an old friend of the army that after return from Iraq, suffers mental problems. After this, he was condemned to life imprisonment.

This film has received a lot of proses but also, a lot of critiques. People complain that the paper of a sniper it isn't the same paper of a hero that is with which is compared in the film. Others criticize the racism of the film and also, the fact of do a film of a person who had had declarations as "I don't care about people of Iraq, I hate this wilds, I just want to protect my people and finish with the evil" (I think that it’s normal that a persona that have been in the war of Iraq for times, say this). So we can say that some people see the film like the exaltation of a murdered and a solder with traumas because of his job, and others see the film as the history of the tragic lost of one of the most important members of the army. 

I think that both positions of the film are respectable because it’s true that the job of this man it's not like the job of a hero, I mean, they dedicated to kill people but in the other hand, is what he have to do. I'm sure that if the people that the sniper had kill where in the states, for example, who criticize him, would reconsider him as a hero. He only try to protect his mates and he also try to end with the terrorism and killed the terrorist is one way. It’s a man who had been in the war and for this, is normal the “hate” that he have to the Iraqis. 

Relatios Salvajes

I few days ago, I saw this film because my siter Berta had seen it in the cinema and she was delighted with it. This is a weird film because consists in six diferents stories indpeendent one from the others, the only conexion between each story is that all of them are about the alteration thta all the characters suffer for diferents reason and in differents ways and that lead the character to the "outbreak" I mean, all the characters suffer an extrem reaction wich lead them to react also in a "extrem way". Well, when I tell you what's about each history you will undetsrand why I mean.
All the stories were shoot in Argentina and directed by Damian Szifron, Cristian Trebotic and Natalia Urruty. The firts one, "Pasternak" is one of the shortests histories but also, one of the best! It take place in a plne whose passengers start to talk to each other and they find out that all of them have something else in common than the fact of have risen to the same plane, and is that all of them, in one way or another, have participate, causing a "misfortune", in the life of Pastenak.Suddenly, the plane start to lose altitude because the pilot (who is Pasternak!!) is directing the plane in to his parents house. Pasternak make a revange to all the people, including his parents, that in one way or another, have ruined his life.

The next story, "The Rats" it's about another revange. In this case the action take place in a restaurant in the middle of anywhere; when the cooker of this restaurant learns of the injustice committed by some of her customers to the restaurant waitress, she decided to put poison in the food of the client; the situation get worst and the cooker decided to kill this client with a knife!

The next one, "The Strongest" is also one of the best and i think thta it's my favourite. It's about a dispute on the road between a man who drives an Audi and another who drives a ramshackle car. This "road fight" ends in a battle for kill the other and at the end, both of the men die after make blow one of the cars and the best is that when police arrives, describe the escene like a "passioal crime" because the men die one cought to the other while they were trying to strangle each other.

The penultimate story, "The proffer", it's about a millonaire father who through accords and briber the others (police officers, lawyers, ...) tries to blame his gardener of the crime of his son.

And at least, the last one: "Untill death do us apart" that it's about a Jewsih wedding that can not get worse: during the celebration, the bride learns of a betray of the groom and she decided to take revange and bertrays the groom with one of the waiters, there are fights, woundeds,... and when all is in his limit (both groom and bride are with their clothes shattered, falling apart, both families confronted,...) the couple reconcilies. 

I think that with this film you have to go far  for not see only the violence. It is about human feels like revange, justice or portection taken to the limit untill the charcater can't hold back any longer and blows up and then, is when the violence appears, I think thta it's a good example (taken a little to the limits) of our society. I recommend it because also it's a little hard to see, I think that worth it!!

You are wrong if you think you can't change the world

Rosa and Bernarda are two sister from La Patrona, one of the most poor places in Mexico.  Twenty years ago, they were with their purchase waiting for the train to pass to cross the railroad way to their home. Then, when the train pass, they saw that there were people hanging and climbed on the roof wagon shouting and asking them something to eat or drink. 

These poeple were the first inmigrants who climbed the wagons of a for try to cross the border and enter in the USA. Every day, hundreds of inmigrants of Mexico, set off one of the most dangerous journeys: cross Mexico for try to arrive to North America with the hope of have a better life, and most of them decide to do this trip hanging in the wagons of the train well know as "The Beast" or "The train of death" since this inmigrants run the risk of fall down of the train, they may suffer an amputation and also, men, women and childrends travelling in this way are constanly battered, kidnapped and even raped by criminal groups. Even that, every day, up to 500 inmigrants, go over 3.000 km in this conditions and with all this risks. 

When the sisters saw this people asking for something to eat or drink, they felt bound to give them the food that they have just buy. Since then, all the days untill now the mother and the siblings of this family cooked things like rice, beans,... and put it in bags and boxes together with water and give it to the people who travel in this train. 

With the time, this women have become a group know as "Las Patronas" formed by 14 women of the same village that every day, so there isn't a day that there aren't poeple hangig on the train, coocked almost 15 kg of food (each one) for this thousands of inmigrants. Now, they recive food from some neighbourts and organitzacions but at the beggining, they have to cook and give the food from her own houses.

At first, her work was a little improvisate but now, they assigned task and responsabilities between them: they start the work early in the morning and cooked twice daily. When they hear the train noise, they aproach to the railroad with wheelbarrows full of bags and boxes with food and water and, with the help of some volunteers, they share out it between the inmigrants. For make sure that the inmigrants take the food, they tie a rope to the bags and they pull it into the wagons: they have less than 15 minutes for devide morethan 200 bags!

I think that these women have become a symnbol of solidarity, in fact, they have recived several awards from fundation and organitzacions of Human Rights and this story has also been move to documentary films. This kind of things show us that it isn't necessary have a lot of money for try to change the world: these women live in one of the most poor areas of Mexico and even so, they probably give the only food that these inmigrants would eat in all the journey aboard the train, so you are wrong if you think you can't change the world. 

Is vegetarianism the solution of global issues?

After start this essay, I thought that thinking about why someone could become vegetarian, that searching on internet pros and cons about being vegetarian and even, asking some friends that actually, are vegetarian, I would have solid arguments for defending a reason for not become vegetarian but now, I have to admit that I was a little wrong...

Is well know that some of the main reason for becoming vegetarian are been against the intensive animal husbandry or be against the way that animals live on our farms. There’s no doubt that we have become the domestic animal in a product, we enjoy the food completely alien (and we are alien to our own will) to their origin and processing. So in that way, vegetarianism could become a good way and option of protest until the meat production model reinvents or retrieve the values of responsible and sustainable livestock that produce less and keeps animals in large areas outdoor and does not alter the ecosystem which states. In this cases, we can accept typical arguments as “I don’t eat meat because I feel sorry for the animal”… Even so and as a counterpart, it’s important to remind that eat meat has helped us to become humans; without the proteins of the animal meat we would not have developed the intelligence that differentiates us from the other species and although nowadays and unfortunately, this food is not available to everyone (what contributes to highlight social inequalities), is still and important element in our diet.

Despite this, I think that the best reason for become vegetarian is to believe that vegetarianism could solve global issues and in fact, it can! Apparently, we all say that we have an ecological awareness and we become extremist with the recycling, but I don’t know till which point we are conscious that the meat production and consumption are one of the biggest factors of pollution in the world and, at the same time, is the main destination of the increasingly scarce land resources. Giving an example for proving this: 50,000 liters of water are needed to produce only a kilo of meat.

So not eating meat is a good way to fight against climate change. The breeding and feeding of the livestock, the methane and nitrous oxide realised during this processes or the industrial livestock produce and emit large amounts of gasses that pollute our atmosphere, our lands and our water. In fact, is estimated that  a vegan world, that is to say, a world were any livestock derivate were consumed, would reduce carbon emissions by 17%, methane emissions by 24% and nitrous oxide emissions by 21%. So yes, quitting meat can reduce your carbon footprint significantly and more than quitting driving.

As Albert Einstein said, “nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” And if you’re not willing to go vegetarian or vegan, even just significantly reducing the amount of meat in your diet can have an important impact. Besides, if we don’t stop and reverse climate change, all we’ll have left to eat, if we’re lucky, is fish…whoops, looks like we’re running out of fish, too. 

Europe and the refugees

Whatever it said, there're multiples reasons for welcome with the maximum generosity the hundreds of thousands of people that, since the break out of the refugees crisis, are seeking asylum in Europe. It's not about migrants: it is about fugitives fleeing of a violent death and fleeing of the war in their countries.

The first reason for to host these desperate people is moral, is completely wretched having thousands and thousands of people, including elderly, women and children, dying of cold, hunger and diseases in our borders in the same way that there isn’t any human form of justifying that more than three thousand people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. Allow this daily apocalypse is equivalent to throw in the trash the reason “of be Europe”. The second reason for welcome refugees would be legal: what is happening now and what starts almost a year ago is a clear violation not only of the Human Right Declarations of 1948, but also of the Refugee Convention of 1951 and of the European Convention on Human Rights of 1953; refusing to grant to these people the right of having rights put us out of the law. A third reason could be a political one: with the asylum policy that we are showing, we are proving and suppose a confirmation that liberty, equality and fraternity of western rhetoric is just that, a rhetoric, nothing, an instrument for show off. And finally, another reason could be an economic one: some relevant economist warn that we need refugees almost as much as they need us because in countries as our countries, aged and with very low birth rates, refugees will be who will pay our pensions.

There are much more reasons for host refugees (without having in account the common sense; we can put a door in a country, we can’t put a door in the middle of a field). What is safe and what is clear is that the Europe reputation is in danger, like the values on which this state has been built (political freedom, religious tolerance and law equality).

I think that the Europe of the future should be reconstructed as it was done at the begging; assimilating what is not Europe, assimilating other cultures, other lifestyles and other values and converting them in Europeans. In this way, we will become a free society, more prosper and more peaceful: a society in which all want to live, in which all want to look like.

"Kalimán en Jerico" - Àngel Burgas

As we are working  and learning how important are human rights, today I would like to talk about a book that I recently read: “Kaliman en Jerico”. The author of this book is Angle Burgas, from Figueres.

In August 2011, Angel Burgas travel to Medellín and there, he visited the Fundacion Faro, in Jericó, where the boys of the street are treated to join the society. Most of them get it and some of them, then, became volunteers to help others boys in the same situation as they to get out of this kind of life.

Burgàs wanted to explain the stories of this young boys as a denouncement to our western mentality and eyes and as a help from this side of the world that had become in a bitter novel.

In the story, Àngel transfigure in Santiago, a basketball coach that travel to Medellín with a mission: “I came to Medellín looking for Adrián and I met Nahum, Hernán Darío, Jonathan,  Víctor Manuel, Fernando, Juan Esteban, Rubén Darío, Wilinton, Douglas, José Daniel, Ángel Antonio, Julio and Fabio. In Barcelona I am Santiago, but here at the Foundacion Faro in Jericho, I am Kalimán*, the hero who hear the real stories about boys injured, abused, outcasts of the good life. You cannot erase what lived, and learn to walk again is not an easy task. But “los pelaos” of Faro are also Kalimanes, they have left the street, the drugs and the bad life to start looking to the future with hope. For all of them, Kalimán never gives up.”

“Los pelaos” are children who survive or barelysurvive on the streets of Colombia immersed in the world of crime, prostitution and drugs. It’s hard to explain the stories of this guys, sometimes, of an unimaginable cruelty and brutality, without something breaks inside you because the stories that Àngel tells to us are as real as the boys that star in, what makes the story more hard because at the end, you realize that even the things that all these boys have done and have lived, they are just kids not very different from us at this ages, with so short live and, at once, so long full of hardships, drugs and violence: they only want what all boys of these ages want, a PSP, be an astronaut or play in Barça. The only difference is that they don’t have family or anyone who take care of them so they have had to make living in the streets of Colombia stealing, selling drugs, working with mafias and other criminal organizations and even, killing. For this, although Santiago is seen as a hero for all the boys of Faro, the character leaves clear from the beginning that this boys are the real heroes.

With this book we are able to see how a lot of children in Colombia, Mexico and other cities live. Most of them don’t have family so they have to make living on the street, doing and seeing things that are so far from what correspond to any child of this ages: instead of play football, going to school or going to the park with their parents, this boys are selling drugs (and in some cases, consuming it), are stealing and in some extreme cases, they are members of criminal organizations that required them to torture and kill.

This is a big injustice: all child deserve an infancy without worries and nowadays, there are a lot of kids without this right so is laudable the work of many organization as Faro that is working for remove children from the streets and try to give the childhood that they lost or without going further, get that boy stay away from this life is an achievement

*Kaliman is a comic hero born at the beginnings of the sixties in Mexico and that nowadays, is famous throughout south America. In the book, Kaliman is also the name that the guys of Faro give to Santiago, seeing him as a hero.

An example of world's injustices

Not many days ago, we went to MACBA (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) with school and something a little weird happen to us. The whole art history class were in the museum with a fantastic guide when suddenly, out of the blue, a man join us and start to follow us in our visit for the museum. Anybody said nothing and in fact, I didn’t notice that he was in our group until he started to speak. I have to say that he was a little bit strange man and also, it was a strange situation! It seems that he was an expert of philosophy because he talked about different philosophers, theories and he said something that really grab my attention: “we are in an era full of images that we didn’t understand, we don’t understand our own world, it’s like we were backing instead of going on”.

Why I’m explaining this? Is not for start a philosophic debate about this statement but I would like to talk about a thing that grabs even more my attention and thta was related to this sentence. If you have traveled abroad, you will know what it’s read ads or posters in the street and feel a little strange because you don't understand anything! But imagine something worst, imagine that you don't even know read. Then, you understand less of what are around you. This, in 21st century, can seem something very strange that only happened in specific places, in specific situation and in specific people but in fact, this is a pitiful reality that is happening nowadays and not only in the “third-world”, as many of us will think, it’s something that touches us very closer because is happening  in our country.

Some days ago, I was taking an English lesson outside high school and suddenly, a group of old African immigrants (the youngest one was 50 years old) enters in the place and we asked our teacher if they were also taking English classrooms. Our English teacher explain to us that they were trying to learn write and speak our language what impress me a lot! Many of them have been living there about two or three years and they have been walking around without understanding which enveloped them and what is worst, is that except one of the five, anybody even know how to write their  own language; they were starting from scratch.

I found amazing, impressive and astonishing that I was sitting in a classroom studying English, my third language, and just at the other side, only separated by a door, a group of people was trying to learn how to write for the first time… it’s something that you can get easily. How can be that something as important as education that in our country reaches to bore most of the pupils, in other places is something that not all child have access? It’s a great injustice because educations is considered a basic right.

For this, I would like to say that I found praiseworthy what these people are doing, they are not only an example of overcoming because we have to take into account that at these ages, it’s very difficult to learn a new language and even more, start learning from the beginning: when you are a child all is simple, you are growing up and you are more receptive. Our English teacher talk about the difficulties that she have to teach and also the difficulties that they have to learn, it’s a very slow process. With this example, we can also reconsider the lucky we are for have born in a place where we can have not an easy but a compulsory access to a basic education. These people are a perfect example of the big injustices that exist in the broad 21st century and that it is in our hand change it, look them: it’s never too late for an education.

Greece faces the challenge of handling thousands of requests for asylum

Exhausted by the economic crisis, now Greece has to face a huge migration crisis. This July, when Greece moves away from an “economic crack”, every day thousands of migrants arrived at the Greek islands, a flow that keeps growing. In only December, arrived more than 200.000 persons but then, Greece were just a scale, the Greek authorities only have to attend the emigrants a few days and then, let them continue their journey to the north, to Germany especially. But now this is impossible, the borders are closed and Greek is overflow.

Since January, the Greek authorities have received more than 10.000 asylum applications what suppose a problem for the government: the process of revising this request can take years, each case must be attended individually, in a confidential way, interviewed by asylum experts, with interpreter and a lawyer and for this, the government has decided to approve a new law with the objective of examining in an expressway (by 15 days) the asylum applications.  Meanwhile, more than 2.800 refugees are living in makeshift refugee camps in hockey and football stadiums.

I find this new interesting because we can see very clear that although each government of each European country is very conscious about human rights and the importance of respect them, into practice, all is very different. This is not one of the worst new you can find about what refugees are living. Day after day, hundreds of people try to arrive at our countries risking their lives and also, the life of their families and leaving everything behind. 

This last weekend I was watching a football match on TV and I see a poster that gets my attention: “Not to racism”. Immediately comes to my head the image of thousands of refugees who day by day try to cross our borders and reach Europe while we close the door. Is not this a form of discrimination? I know and I understand that a country can’t welcome thousands of refugees day in day out, but governments should be more conscious about the situation of these people and must take decisions: it can’t be that millions of men, women, child,… have to be living in precarious conditions in our borders because the governments are still “taking decisions”, many of the refugees that arrive at our countries have already faced many problems (the war, what supposed to leave your country, the immigration journey,…) for finding our doors close. For this I think that what Europe is doing with refugees it can’t be considered racism, the racism is de discrimination toward a person and Europe is dehumanizing refugees.

Original new: http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2016/04/07/actualidad/1460053870_468835.html

Let's talk about Human Rights

I’m pretty sore that all of us have heard about the human rights and the importance to respect all of them because unfortunately, nowadays, this is one of the most current topics in all political and social discourses, both authorities and civil society organizations and public opinion and I think that it’s a shame selling the idea of human rights in that way because, how many of us comprise the true meaning and the importance of human rights? Or does anybody know how many human rights are? Or when and why were they created? Celebrating human rights once a year is important, but living human rights every day is essential.

So let’s start for the beginning. What are human rights? Human rights are rights inherent to all human, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination.

Now, we can tackle the second question: when and why were they created? The idea that all human should enjoy some basic and common rights could be found in some of the oldest civilizations but it will not be until the 17th century that we would find the modern concept of Human Rights and it’s also in that moment when the firsts great statements of human rights were written in the English colonies of North America, driven by their conflict with the English crown and followed by the United States Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal and all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which there are the right to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ... "  - Thomas Jefferson. And a decade later, in a Europe shook by the French Revolution, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were proclaimed.

During the 18th century, Montesquieu and Rosseau ideas were fundamental and, in fact, we can say that that century and the next one, were an important ones for what human rights respects for the slow consolidation of the ideals proclaimed in the French Revolution but then, the 20th century comes accompanied by two world wars, countless regional wars, civil wars, bloody revolutions,… but we learn from our mistakes, or the say, and the WWI were followed by the creation of the Society of Nation, that although it was unable to prevent WWII, it had the merit of being the precedent of the creation of the United Nations, that followed the WWII.

Finally, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved with a list of thirty rights.

Now that we know a little more about human rights, I would like to deepen in one right in particular: the freedom from slavery, that said the next.

Article 4th, freedom from slavery:  “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms”.

Slavery is an event that has been going on for many years. This practice has appeared almost universally throughout history among peoples of every level of material culture; from Ancient Rome to the United States in the 19th century, however, in no other culture had slavery been exclusively associated with one race, so we can define slavery as ‘the involuntary servitude of one person to another or one group to another’. We have to be aware that the slavery has existed in each continent since ancient times, in all cultures, religions and historical periods.

In ancient, the slavery was completely assimilated and it was no questioned. In fact, Aristotle, like most thinkers of antiquity, defended his need. The slaves were considered "Chattels", "stuff" or "objects" so they could be bought and sold as commodities, they didn’t have any right and in the best of the cases, if they were treated minimally well, it wasn’t for the fact of being a human but for the necessity of the owners of having a worker in good conditions. In  women, the cases were a little different because their slavery was related to their sexual exploitation.

In the 20th century the traditional slavery was practically wipe out, but out of the blue in different places and moments, appears a new brutal way of slavery blind together to the German and Japanese expansionism and the dictatorship revolutions and giving place to Japanese reclusion camps, to Nazi and soviets concentrations camps,…

The abolition of slavery in Europe and America was the result of the tireless activity of some individuals and groups, but the truth is that with the freedom, it doesn’t come a life of quality and equality but the slavers continued suffering from their “condition”: they weren’t treated in the same way that the people who used to own slaves and, in fact and unfortunately, this “mentality”, somehow or other, continues present in our societies.

Despite the enactment in 1926 of the Slavery Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 in the 21th century,  still exist various forms of slavery: the traditional ones related to the slave trade, sexual exploitation,… and other ways of slavery related to forced labour, child labour,…

In fact, after thousands of years after this injusty appearance we can’t yet say that we have ended with the slavery in the world because, moreover, new ways of slavery continue to appear. We can say that it’s a crime difficult to identify and above, it provides great benefices to those who take advantage of this businesses: it’s in all countries around the world and it’s a sad reality of the 21th century.

This business makes children women and men, often motivated by their dreams and expectations of having a better live, be subjected to exploitations of all kind and directed by companies or individuals.

If we look at the datum, we can see that the numbers are frightening: 4, 5 millions of women and little girls are sexually exploited while more than a milion of people  are forced to work in activities related to the manufacturing and domestic jobs and in very poor conditions: working more than fifteen hours a day, in filthy places, without breaks, without any guarantee or security and with a very, very, very poor salary.

So as we can see, not all Human Right are respected for everyone and everywhere and this is something about we have to work because there is nothing more important for having a great life than the fulfilment of these.

"Why I hate school but love education" -Suli Breaks

I'm coming across with an inpsiring video: somehow Suli Breaks has bagged millions of hits with his breakthrough monologue "Why I hate school but I love education". In only six minutes this british student makes you doubt if education has the value thta you've always have given to it and even, if the educational system thta we have is the best one. So I recomend you to take a minute to watch the whole video because it woth it. 

“Education is about inspiring one's mind not just filling their head”, said Suli Breaks. If you search “School is” in Google, you will get: “School is a waste of time”, “School is boring”, “School is prison”… If you search “School makes me feel”, you will find: “School makes me feel suicidal”, “School makes me feel worthless”… And that’s because the educational system is not working properly; if you fail a test, it makes you feel like a failure and this is not a way to inspire or teach people. Now Google “Education is”, and you will get “education is the key to success”, “educations is freedom”, “educations is the great equalizer" “Education inspires, with an education you can chase your dreams, with an education you can do whatever you want…” In fact, there also are sentences that we are used to but I have to say that not once in school I have learned how to “chase my dreams”, how to explore what I want to do after college,… but of course, I have learned where Uganda is and the complexities of polynomial systems.

I believe that one of the main problems of school is that we should not solely be learning about other people’s theories, ideas or perspectives on a subject and then, throw up it in an exam and forget what you have “learned” forever and pass to the next theory, idea or perspective because, how many of us has study something so hard for then, forgive it after the exam? For this, I thik that education should be find and learn about our own perspectives and ideas and what that means.  School should be about inspiring people to strive for the best in anything that they do instead of showing students at what 

they are good or bad according to a mark, education should  be about showing students new skills and opportunities and not crossing they answers because they are “out of the checklist”; education shouldn’t be closing students in a grey room and teaching them about hyperboles and Pythagoras theorems and convincing them that knowing this techniques will bring them a better life or that a university degree will solve all your problems because, in fact, that’s the way our society runs: you are told day in day out about going to primary school, going to secondary school, get a degree, work, have a family and put your child in the same cycle. But, "let me ask you this; what are you studying for?" People say that education is the key to success and I’m sure you have heard your parents, your teachers and most people in society saying that you need to through high school, get into the best college you can and then, get a job. And there’s so much pressure to follow this path. The whole process is about being six hours in a classroom, trying to get a grade, trying to pass the next text and trying to finish the latest assignment. School is about memorizing dates, times and numbers for what? You will never think again about the year that Cervantes loose his hand or where Tirkemeinstan is; I’m still waiting the moment in my life when I can use all my knowledge about subordinate sentence.

With this, I’m not saying that school is wrong and it’s better not to go, I’m saying that the way that it works, the way that it “educates”, it’s not the best one. Education is about experiences, building yourself and learning. I think that the first priority of all education system should be hep students to find their potential and not make sure you can finish a book before the year ends and schools, at the moment, are not providing this. We are just told how great other people have been and what’s the next step we should take for have a “good life”; we never learn what we can really do or about what ideas we have and what does it mean.

Finally, If you search the definition of “education” in a dictionary you will find the next: “the act or process of educating; to teach (a person) by instruction or school” and in fact, this is exactly what our education system is doing nowadays, you go to school for “filling your mind”, for instructing yourself, instead of “inspire” your mind. For this, I would like to end providing a new definition of what I think that education should be: “Education is the process of inspiring, engaging and encouraging people to construct their own view, to build their own ideas and their own thought processes”.

Children tales

A few days ago, I read an article written by Santiago Rocalingo that talked about what he thinks about the children's STORIES or the fairy tales. The author believes that the children's STORIES shouldn't be for educated the children or for give them certain "good" values, it should serve to entertain them. For this, the author is against the modification of children's books like Hansel and Gretel, The Little Thumb and many more which the original plot talked about leave the sons in the middle of the forest, children who steals,... and rewrite them trying to turn them in "politically correct stories" as the author says, where the bad character always lose (but without violence) and the good one always succeeds, the families are always nice and the characters an example. The author think that in this way, we are not protecting our CHILDREN, we are creating drag stories and making that children prefer the TV or the PlayStation where they can PARTICIPATE in wars and kill as many people as the want without anybody says nothing. I DON'T not totally agree with the author. In one hand, it's true that children's stories could be a little BORING because are always the same: there’s a good character with who the child want to identify because should be the hero of the story, should have a lot of friends and should win against the bad character. This bad characters is the one who the child don't want to identify because should be ugly, rude, without friends (in some cases he have a henchman who isn't as bad as his master but who will follow him anywhere he goes or will do anything he say) and should lost against the good character. This is in that way because children's stories are directed to a public who is still learning to differentiate between what it's right and what it's wrong and for this, they need to set in a good model who have the right attitude and with who can be identify. If it weren’t in that way, which role model we would be teaching to the children? But on the other hand, I think that it's also true that nowadays, it's useless try to change the children's books because they can play with the more violent play in the PlayStation, the computers,...

"A castle for my princess"

Like almost every girl in the world, Emily Heaton wanted to be a princess. This don't have anyhing of strange or excepcional and neither her model: it wasn't the Spain queen otherwise a Dinsey princess.

Jeremiah Heaton, the father, is the owner of a security company in the coal mines in the region of Abingdon, at the south of the Virginia State. Two years ago, he was asked by his daughter if some day she would be a real princess. He thought that she was acting like every girl in her age (she was 6 years old) and he answered of course she WOULD. The problem was that Emily was talking seriously and she said thait "it was soemthing importnat for she". So that, Heaton STARTED to search around the world a place without owner where his doughter could be the princess, and the last month he finally has found it: he planted a flag (made by the three soon of Jeremiah) in Bir Tawil, a piece of te Sahara desert of 2.060 square kilometers and between Egypt and Sudan and until now, unclaimed by any of the neighboring countries. So since the last 16th of April, Emily is a princess, but this is not all: recently, Disney had announced that after almost a year of talks with the Heatons family, they have decided to make a film with this story: the adventure of the father for try to give to his doughter a place where she could be the princess. Emily can't ask for more!

But, like in every Disney movie, there is always the bad character althought in this case, here are two bad characters: the reality and politics. It's true that Bir Tawil is a "empty place" I mean, anybody has claimed it untill now, but you need the approval of the International Comunity (starting with Sudan and Egypt) for impose a sovereignty. Further, you need to pas by Sudan or Egypt for arrive to this area and in one side, Sudan appears in the list of "The states sponsors of terrorism" and the United States don't allow you to travel to this country. In the other side, the departament of Egypt took motnhs fo give a permission to Jeremiah for travel to this area and besides, it tooks three days to him to arrive to Bir Tawil so it's a little inaccessible place.

Heaton has explain thta it will took a lot of paperwork achieve the recognition of the International Comunity and the governements but he also say that it will not stop him and even less since Emily explained what she wants to do in her kingdom: she wants "a garden" in for give food to everybody. So as a result of this wish, the intention of Jeremiah is try to create the infraestructures to convert this "kingdom" at the headquarters of a reserach center for the fight against hunger. 

In the other hand we have the second "Dinsey witch": the political. What for someone is a fairy tale, for others is the same colonialism did in the last century: a white man planting his band in an african country for make happy to his doughter. 

I don't know what to think about this NEW, it seems a little stupid, you know? In fact, at first, I didn't believe that it was a real notice, I mean, is nice that a father do wathever for make sure his soons are happy, but there are limits, aren't it? Besides, this is what the girl wants now when she is 8 years old (I don't know how to descrive this girl: ambitious for aspire to have a kingdom with her age or maybe capricious and spoilt because we don't have to forget that the father is doing what he can and more for make sure his daugther is a real princess), but what would she want when she grow up? Althought, it has to be said that the girl have good intentions: fight agains the hunger... Anyway, I would like to know what it's going to be her next birthay present, this is insuperable!! Well, maybe no, you never know with Jeremiah Heaton. 

Cashing Ice

Both at CMC and English class, we have deal with issues related with the enviroment, the pollution, the causes and the consequences of that problems,... and recently, I have seen a documentary about the thawing of the Poles, Groenlandia,... This documentary impact me a lot! It was a visual example of how dramatically is the change of the weather in our planet. The docuemntary was made by the photographer James Balog (USA), that before recieve an assignment of National Geographic in 2005, he started to record and preserve during more that six years pictures of this changes. In the docuemntary, he said that he wanted to find a way to capture and show what was happening in the Artic and in the glacials from around the world. The result of this has been this documentary: "Cashin Ice", based on 25 different cameras aiming to 16 different glacials in Alaska, Greenland, Iceeland, Switzerland, Canada... Each camera took pictures every half and hour during the day, producing almost one milion of pictures altogether. Balog said that do this documentary has change his point of view of the climate change and see this documentary has had the same effect on me, what you see in it shocks you! I rememeber one scene of the documentary in wich Balog appears seeing the pictures taken by on of the cameras and saying: "This is the memory of a landscape, a landscape that has already disappeared and will never bee see againg in the story of the civilitzation".

I think that of all the places recorded, the Arctic is which has cuaght more my atention because is the one that has change more. In Semptember of this year, the ice layer was the lower record registret ever! It wouldn't be a problem if during the "cold stations" this ice were formed again, but it is a problem because althoug during this "cold staions" the ice grows, each summer it melts more and more so the Arctic, since 1979, has been reduced by 40%.

Another shockin case is Greenland and the Antarctica hat according to the NASA, the thraw of this areas is now irreversible. The ice in this places decreases 2km each year and in the last decade has disappeared abou 35 km of theur area! 

I think thta what we should ask to ourselfs is: Why is happening this? And what we can do to solve this problem?Well., along the history of the Earth, the climae has been always changing: there has been seasons more and less hot oR cold, there has been glaciations,... and bound to this changes of temperatures, there has been setbacks and expansions of the areA coberted by ice. This changes happened in gradually ways, but now it's different; nowadays, the effects has increased as a consecuence of the human activity. The increasing pollution, the increasing emission of gases, the deforestation, the gases emitd by the trasnports and the industry, the use of fossils materials,... that cause the greenhouse effect are contributing at the increasing of the force and quickness of the climate changes. With the greenhouse effect, the global temperature increase a lot (just in the last decade it has increased 1,8ºF) and as a consecuence of this, there is an increase of the temperature of the ocean, a hole in the ozone layer,... that help to the thraw of our pols, to the extintion of many species, to the increase of the extreme weather events,...

The problem according to James Balong, is that althought the technological and economc solution for stop the impact of the climate change already exists, the only thing left is a greater political and public undertanding for try to conscious the population what are we doing to our planet  and how can we stopped this.