Second Environmental Discussion

Overall, the way the three students gave their presentations concerning the environment were much better than the way that Sethi gave her presentation. Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of the local environment, these students gave compelling stories about the progress they have made in promoting a greener life. Rachel, a graduate from Berkeley, was the first person to present her story. Although it seemed to drag on for a while, sometimes repeating information, Rachel did a great job in showing how just a small campus organization can substantially benefit the environment and society. In a matter of years, she helped students raise over 15 million dollars to fund campus greening. Now, just out of college, she already has a stable job going around to schools across the country to promote green education. Her story gave a great example of how we can do something to help the environment, and it really showed that a few people can definitely make a big difference. The next student, Billy, also gave an impressive story, this one relating to climate change. Billy, a Yale student, founded the Energy Action Coalition, an organization which has quickly become the world's largest youth advocacy group. Through his discussion of how he formed it and what the organization does, we got an idea of another way to help out the environment. Like Rachel, he focused on a very positive experience that showed that we can make change happen by simply devoting ourselves to something we love. Lastly, a Stanford student named Erica shared her experience of growing up as a Mexican immigrant in a very unhealthy environmental situation. With hard work and dedication, however, Erica was able to substantially aid her local community through an abundance of volunteer work. Although she seemed to concentrate a little too much on the racial issues in society, she still got her point out that all it takes to help the environment is a dedicated group of people. Like the other two presenters, Erica gave a very encouraging, uplifting story that made much more of an impact on my views toward saving the environment compared to Sethi's rather negative, critical presentation.

Analysis of Turkey's Apology

As discussed in the previous post, Turkey did make some sort of an apology for its actions during we what call the Armenian Genocide. The apology, however, was not made by the government or any significant Turkish people; instead it was made by 200 average Turks as an online petition to show the Armenians that they regret what happened. Within a few days of being live on the Internet, thousands of people had “signed” the petition. Nevertheless, the effect of the apology was rather negative. Since the apology came from regular Turkish citizens rather than the government, it did not represent the country’s apology as a whole – it just showed a few people in the country who were sorry for what Turkey did in the past. Secondly, the thousands of people who signed their names amounted to only a small percentage of the Turkish population (around 7 million), which certainly did not portray the entire nation. In addition, the apology was not very strong since the writers referred to the genocide as “The Great Catastrophe.” Failing to acknowledge one’s wrongs it the first step in creating a genuine apology, and by avoiding the word “genocide,” Armenians can’t really view the apology as completely sincere and regretful. What most Armenians want, therefore, is a more formal apology with the word “genocide” in it given by the current president as it would represent the whole Turkish population. This way, Armenians would have an easier time accepting the fact the Turks are sorry for their past actions, and they would have an easier time moving back toward a harmonious state with Turks.

Turkey's Apology for the Armenian Genocide

Between 1915 and 1918, the Ottoman Empire led what is now known as the Armenian Genocide. During this time, the Turkish government led the killings of approximately 1.5 million Armenians for no reason other than the want of a completely Turkish society. The Turks forcefully removed most of the Armenian population from Turkey and Armenia to Syria, where they left them in the desert to die of hunger and thirst. For those Armenians who were not deported, they were subjected to torture, abduction, and mass executions, thereby wiping out the vast majority of Armenians.

It wasn’t until last year that Turkey issued some form of an apology for this atrocious event in history. About 200 Turks set up an internet website with a petition that said, "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them." Within a few days of the posting, over 10,000 Turks had signed this “apology.”

Some say that this apology was sufficient, that it did its job by showing the Armenians that they were sorry for the past. Many Armenians, however, view this apology as a pathetic attempt to make the Armenians stop complaining about the genocide. A major aspect of the apology that the Armenians don’t like is that the Turks don’t even admit to it being a genocide, rather they refer to it as the “Great Catastrophe.” Most Turks have been in denial of a genocide ever happening, and to not even refer to the event as a genocide in the apology really upset the Armenian population. In addition, Armenians were mad that the apology was in Internet form; many of them would have preferred a formal, oral speech given by the current president since it would have represented the entire Turkish population.

Click on this link to watch a video about some attitudes toward the apology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqvPXNHLQ4

Simran Sethi's Presentation

I wasn’t very impressed with Sethi’s presentation on Tuesday. I felt that she only focused on the negative things about LA’s environment and that she didn’t offer many solutions to the problems. Her speech didn’t affect me at all or influence me to pursue any environment-saving endeavors; it just made me annoyed with the way she approached the topic. The aspects that I liked most about the presentation were the two videos she showed us. Although they still focused on problems without many insightful solutions, at least we got to actually see the problems instead of just hear her talk about them. By seeing all the families living right next to the polluted oil refineries, Sethi was able to show how detrimental the environment is to many people in LA. If she were to give this presentation again, I would suggest to her that she should devote more of her speech to discussing solutions to the problems. Even though we know there isn’t a concrete list of specific actions we should take to help the environment, she should at least give her own opinion as to what methods she thinks work the best.

The Dying Manchu Language

In the Manchu village of Sanjiazi, China, there is a population of a little over 1,000 people. Three-fourths of the people in this village identify themselves as part of the Manchu culture; however, only 18 people in the entire village are able to speak Manchu fluently. During the 17th century all the villagers could speak Manchu, but due to the drastic increase in the predominance of the Mandarin Chinese language and culture, the majority of the villagers abandoned their native language and started to learn Mandarin. By learning Mandarin, it was easier to get jobs, communicate with other people from outside the village, and understand what was going on politically and economically in the country. Throughout the generations, therefore, the number of people who learned Manchu kept getting smaller and smaller because of the language’s relative unimportance in society. To try to preserve the language, the Manchu people set up an elementary school that teaches the language. Only 76 people go to this school, however, which is obviously not enough people in order to save the language. Soon, the entire Manchu language will be lost, as well as the culture since the most of the Manchus have forgone their native customs and taken up Mandarin ones in order to fit in to Chinese society. There are no longer any Manchu-style homes in the village, less people own or wear ethnically Manchu dresses, and Manchu rituals are not practiced as often as they used to be. Sadly, it is inevitable that the Manchu culture be lost to history, ceasing to exist in the near future.

When to Save a Language

When deciding whether to save a language or to let it die, there are many factors to consider. First of all, there must be a significant number of speakers of the language – at least 20,000 or so. If there are not many speakers, then it would be very difficult to preserve the language and have it passed down to future generations. Another important condition is the presence of a written form of the language. If the language has a written form, it is a good indicator that the language is worth trying to save. If there is no written form, however, there is much less incentive to attempt to save it. Without a written form, there are no books, poems, dictionaries, documents, etc., that give a complete picture of the culture of the language group. In order to fully understand a language and its culture, linguists really need the language to be written down so they can immerse themselves in the culture and thereby figure out the best techniques to save the language. One more condition that is essential to deciding whether or not to save a language is the attitude toward it by its speakers. If the speakers really want to preserve the language, then there’s a good chance that they will focus on learning/maintaining their language throughout future generations. If the speakers feel it is just better to give in to the more dominant languages of society and forget about their own language, an attempt to save it would be futile since the natives would have no motivation to keep it alive.

Critical Thinking in Linguistics 115

Our Social Issues class incorporates the idea of critical thinking by making us ponder about how languages develop over time. By the professor giving us several examples of diglossic societies, mutually intelligible languages, and regional dialects, we the students can use this information to form our own hypotheses about how other languages have developed over the centuries. Since all this lecture information is relatively new to most of us, we can't rely on past information or experiences to think of ideas about other languages' histories. Instead, we have to "think outside the box" and come up with our own reasons as to why other languages have converged, diverged, or died out completely. This also brings in the idea of the accommodation of the uncertainty. Since we are not experts in the linguistics field, we cannot say for sure why and how languages have developed or faded away. We have to formulate our own guesses (although they may not be certain) and try to back up our ideas with the examples given to us in class.

The Pope and Germany Pre-WWII

In Daniel Jonah Goldhagan’s article, “A German Lesson: the Fallacy of One True Path,” Goldhagan makes an analogy between the pope’s way of thinking and the state of Germany before WWII. He makes this comparison so he can draw a parallel between the pope’s and Nazi Germany’s narrow-mindedness in regards to having one group of people dominate over all other groups. Before the war, Hitler’s idea was to elevate the Aryans to the highest and most superior race on earth. In order to do this, he and the Nazis had to exterminate all other races that stood in their way, no matter what the cost. Likewise, the pope regards Catholicism as the best religion in the world, and he “denigrates other religions as not being true religions or paths to salvation.” In addition, the pope’s mindset and the state of Germany pre-war are connected since both worked hand in hand in developing a very anti-Semitic society. Contrary to popular belief, the catholic church “supported the Nazis’ and fascists’ anti-Semitic race laws. … With regard to Jews, the church was not a fundamental antidote to the problem, but part of it.” It seems that the pope and the Nazis have more in common than most people think!