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”.