Multiculturalism is defined as a nation that consists of  two or several cultures. So it basically means a society with cultures, including ethnic minorities, living together side by side. Britain is often regarded as multicultural society. The UK has welcomed newcomers for centuries. For example, there are over 1 million muslims in Britain, mostly asians.

Also the Irish people have come to UK for many many years, looking for job. After WW2 Irish people had to take factory jobs, and since Britain couldn’t get enough workers to work in the new Health Service the employers also looked to former colonies and Commonwealth countries.

Early in the year 1600s to middle of the 1900s Britain colonised and took controll over India. India was a jewel in Britain’s crown and they had a lot of benefits from colonising a country with a population on 300 million. Today the indian culture is influenced by Britain. The British brought their medical skills, administrive and legal system into India. Political and social reform in India was achieved as a result of the European political rules that Britain brought to India. There’s no doubd India is influenced by Britain.

Living in a multicultural society with people with different perspective and traditions makes people communicate with each other. We get to know that just because something is different, does not nececcary  mean it’s wrong.

Immigrants have become a source of diverse and knowledge all over the world. Many immigrants in Britain have increased innovation, creativity prosperity. Today Britain has so many different ethnic resaurants, grocery stores and clothing stores. The schools develop cross-cultural lesson plan, which broadens all children’s understanding of the world.

However, we can’t unsee the fact that if there are benefits with  a multiculutral society, then there are also some disadvantages. Accoarding to the 2013 NatCen British Social Attitudes survey, almost 30% British people report that they have some feelings of racial prejudice in Britian.  But what does that mean at a time and in a country where one in five people identify with an ethnic group other than white British?

Racism in Britian isn’t just about the white British hating on other ethnic groups or the opposite. People from other cultures and ethnic groups often becomes ethnocentic if they aren’t integrated good enough in the society, which means that they place their own culture in the centre of the universe. This leads to racism and culture conflicts.

 

Sources:

Wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism

The Guardian- http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/nov/19/does-the–have-a-problem-with-racism

BBC-http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/uk/2002/race/short_history_of_immigration.stm

 

Hey Blog!

We discussed a little bit about Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood in class, so I wanted to share with you guys what I learned

First of all Hollywood was the “birthplace” of movie studios.

Since its time of inception, Hollywood has proved to be a source of inspiration for Bollywood. Bollywood is basically an Indian version of Hollywood. It has long been considered a member of TWC (Third World Cinema).

I need to highlight the cultural strenght of Bollywood, even though the ideal in Bollywood is to be more western they’ve still kept tight reins to their traditions and culture. On typical thing with Bollywood movies is the singing and dancing. It’s a bit more musical movies with a lot of emotions. Another thing is their beliefs; In almost every movie, they show some videoclips of their Gods in hinduism or maybe showing a scene where an actor is asking for help from his hindu-God. This shows that Western cultural imperalism can be stopped in third World countries.

And we can ask ourselves; If there were not elements of western culture that TWC identify with, would Hollywood have such a global success? Well, both yes and no. Hollywood movies are in Engish, and English is a lingua-franca. That leads to the fact that it’s easier for Hollywood to spread globally than it is for Bollywood. Bollywood on the other hand has a small amount of movies in English, or even with subtitles. Therefore, Bollywood doesn’t reach that much out globally compared to Hollywood.

Btw, unless you’ve been living under a rock I guess you’ve heard about Nollywood! No? Don’t worry,, the first time I heard about it was in one of my IE classes. But surprisingly, Nollywood is today the largest film industry. Basically, Nollywood is a “low-budget” film industry in Nigeria. Usually Nollywood movies don’t make it to the cinema,  only on DVD’s.

While Hollywood and Bollywood produce kind of a “get-away from reality” movies, the Nigerian movies focus on the problems in their society, such as poverty and crime. Even though the movies are in low quality, they show the reality of the society in Nigeria.

 

Sources:

http://www.psu.edu/dept/LAOnline/blogs/LASCapstone/2013/03/bollywood-hollywood-and-globalization.html

http://www.desiblitz.com/content/influence-hollywood-bollywood-dance

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121632501511962929

This wilderness management program is actually an advertisement! The purpose of this advertisement is to attract people into volunteering to the program.

Let’s take a look at the beginning of the text: it’s starts with “you”, and it doesn’t stop there. They continue using this word throughout the text. This makes the reader the target.  So this text is written in a way to adress you personally, and the language is focused on you! It’s based on personal interests and plays out on “saving the planet”.

The author of the text uses imperatives, for example “live and work..” “..do your bit”, “make a difference..”. This is to make the reader not only read it, but take actions. You know the difference between “honey you should probably go clean your room” and “go clean your room!” yea it’s kind of like that.

Another thing to notice in the text is the emotive words such as “overwhelming, breathtaking and astonishing”. They are convincing words that makes the reader feel that Svalbard is a beautiful place.

Lastly the text also have a metaphor :”nature’s precious jewel”. This metaphor is used to give the readers a desire to protect this beautiful area.

All in all, this a very easy and a good  convincing advertisement with language features and literaly devices.

Sources:

Paper in class

Only when Europe is experiencing crisis at close range, we are concerned about the things that are happening far away. Once refugees stands outside of our door, then it becomes important to help in the war’s neighboring areas.

Distress in the close areas has been there for a long time, we just didn’t wanted to see it until the need came to us.

This year, hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers traveled by sea to Europe. The external borders in Germany are falling, registration and receptyion apparatus for asylum collapses and refugees die on the run. Europe really has something to learn from those who knows how to deal with such crises.

Usually when refugee crisis arise, the aid agencies are quick and effective, but obviously they need money in order to help. International aid agencies, cooperating with the UN, has for 4 years been helping two million refugees in Turkey, a  million in Lebanon and a million in Jordan.

Let’s take a closer look to the Syrian refugees, one of the most biggest refugee crisis so far this year. Because of the Syrian Civil War, more than 4 million syrian have left the country during the course of war. The refugee crisis began in 2011. The war has become more deadly since foreign powers started to interfere in the conflict.

Reasons why Syrians are fleeing from their home:

Children’s safety: Children in Syria have lost their loved once, lost their schools, hope for future and all the things we barely appreciate because we are so used to these goods. So children’s safety will be very high priority for the Syrians that are fleeing from their homes. The Syrian children are the nation’s hope for a better future.

Ruined infrastructure: In Syria, education, healthcare system and other infrastructure have been collapsed. The economy in this country is shattered. This also is a very big reason why they are fleeing from the country.

Violence: As I mentioned, because of the Syrian Civil War, many people have been killed, many people are homeless and many people are alone.

The refugee’s greatest needs:

The refugees need all the basics to maintain their lives. Food, clothing, health care and a household. Clean water and sanitation facilities are very important and basic needs.

When it comes to the children, they need a safe environment, and a chance have fun and go to school. Adults need employment and have job for a living. Now that the winter has arrived, the refugee’s also need warm clothing, shoes and heaters.

 

Sources:

• HumanRightsWatch– Author: HumanRightsWatch- Published:NOVEMBER 16, 2015
• Wikipedia– Author: Unknown- Published: September 25, 2015
• Wikipedia– Author: Unknown
• BBC news – Published : November 25, 2015
• UN News Center

Press freedom (or freedom of speech) is the freedom of communication through various electronic mediums, such as social media, news websites and commercials.  Even though many countries are in a good situation when it comes to press freedom, there are till some with a critical situation.

(Picture Credit: Reporters Without Borders, Link)

Accoarding to Reporters Without Borders, Countries such as Russia, India, Indonesia and mexico are in a difficult situation. I wanted to focus on press freedom in China it’s the largest country among the other few countries with very serious situation.

over many years the Chinese government has kept tight reins on media. The reason why is to avoid potential upheaval or subversion of it’s athority. It’s tactics often involve strict media controls using monitoring system, shuttering down websites and punishing journalists, activists and bloggers.

Accoarding to Freedom house (link in the below) China was concidered as worlds most restrictive country in 2012 with press freedom. The scores from 2013 weren’t  any better. The score was 83, where 0 is the best and 100 the worst.

Then how free is Chinese Media?

This is a very tricky question. Cause you see, China’s constitution does ALLOW it’s citizens freedom of speech and press, but the vagaueness of Chinese media regulations allows authorities to crack down on news by claiming that they expose “state secrets” and endager the country. This reason is not always the truth. Censorship in China is largely seen as a way to maintain the rule of Communist Party of China. It basically helps to prevent unapproved separatist, reformist and religious ideas from organizing and spreading themselves.

 

(Picture Credit: PoliticalCartoons)

Factors that influence the press freedom

First of all, moral is one very important factor that influence the press freedom in China. It may sound weird, but some censorship has been justified as upholding propar morals. This includes limitations on violence in films and limitations on pornography.

Secondly, the Chinese culture. The political party in China has used censorship to “protect the country’s culture”. During the Cultural Revolution, foreign literature, religious works and symbols of Chinese culture were considered “reactionary”and became targets for destruction.  However, much greater cultural freedom exists in China today.

Lastly, (well there are some others too but,hey who got so much time to write all of them) the censorship in China has been charged for being used not only for political proctionism  or morals and cultural values, but also for economic proctionism. The PRC party banned the website of the French organization Observatoire International des Crises in 2007 after it posted an article on the risks of trading with China.

So just to sum up in a few sentences, censorship in China is so extreme is to prevent political conflicts, not let the Chinese citizens  learn about the past failure mistakes the political party made, and to have a good image of China internationally.

Sources:
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