Chapter 8 T&R on Political Geography

Trevor Jones
1/31/16
Per. 3


Sources: Human Geography: People, Places, and Culture: Chapter 8 - Political Geography

Republic of Abkhazia and Republic of South Ossetia: http://listverse.com/2011/09/02/top-10-controversial-territorial-disputes/

Gerrymandering Solved: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/

Texas is About to Turn Blue: http://www.greenvillegazette.com/texas-is-turning-blue-and-the-republican-party-may-be-on-the-verge-of-extinction/

Lines in the Sand: https://dawsonschool.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/715/download/download_1695098.pdf

Benedict Anderson, Man Without a Country: https://newrepublic.com/article/125706/benedict-anderson-man-without-country

Former Yugoslavia: http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/fmryugoslavia.htm

The Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia were both little known territories that wanted independence from Georgia, but Georgia would not allow this would not allow this, so, despite the consequences the Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia saw their chance and declared independence from the state in the 1920’s. Conflicts continued throughout most of the 1900’s and when the USSR, who had control over Georgia and all of its autonomous republics, declined, Georgia rebelled and took back their independence. Then, the autonomous republics and Georgia returned conflict, eventually leading to wars in 1992 and 2008, and the republics ultimately being recognized by two independent states by Russia in 2008. 

Gerrymandering Solved: 

Rather than having an independent panel redistrict the state, algorithms have been created in order to draw legislative districts after each census, which ensures that the district boundaries reflect actual neighborhoods and don't arbitrarily cut through somebody’s house or business. This process reduces gerrymandering on a district, by cutting down on minority-majority, however, algorithms do not take into account “communities of interest”, which is already a very difficult problem to solve due to its vast definition. 

Texas is About to Turn Blue: 

Texas is becoming an increasingly democratic state, due to immigrants who support democratic policies and despise conservative policies that suppress them, which could make is near impossible for the Republican party to win an election, due to Texas’ influence on the outcome. As California is important to the outcome of the Democratic party in elections, Texas is the most important in terms of Territorial Representation for the republican party, whom will most likely go extinct than change their ideals. 

Lines in the Sand:

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the middle east’s political boundaries were drawn primarily at Paris by Britain and France, taking into account regions sharing certain natural bonds and commonalities, but would not always conform to the region’s underlying social, religious, and demographic contours. Geographers in Paris aimed to define the nation-states’ configuration as they already exist, rather than how an outside “we” would see them.    

Benedict Anderson, Man Without a Country:

Benedict Anderson was an adept linguist as well as an author that saw nationalism as an integrative imaginative process that allows us to feel solidarity for strangers, however as a nationalist, it is hard to distinguish what nation he belonged to. He had roots in Britain, China, Ireland, America, and Indonesia, however he found a strong sense of nationality in Indonesia, where he died in 2015.   

 This is a map of the former Yugoslavia, which today is comprised of individual states known as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. The reason i chose to color a map of the modern day-countries forming the former Yugoslavia, is because it is the perfect example of a multinational state. With the fall of the Austria-Hungary empire at the end of World War I, the victors threw together a new country which was composed of more than twenty ethnic groups - Yugoslavia. Due to this variety, war constantly broke out between the ethnic groups and eventually between the USSR as well, due to the negative relationship between Stalin and Tito, which improved upon Tito’s death in 1980. Following Tito’s death, the ethnicities of the state demanded more autonomy and eventually fell apart into the jigsaw puzzle that we know today due to the fall of the USSR in 1991.

   

Thoughts & Ruminations on Ch. 7: Religion

Trevor Jones 

1/8/16

Per. 3

Sources: 

Human Geography: People, Places, and Culture: Chapter 7 - Religion 

Religion: Is Christianity Fading in the U.S.?: https://dawsonschool.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/715/download/download_1748415.pdf
Center For Reduction of Religious-Based Conflict- Hotspots in the Middle East: https://dawsonschool.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/715/download/download_1736776.pdf

Singapore: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/singapore.is.the.world.capital.of.religious.diversity/36676.htm

Israel & Palestinian Conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli–Palestinian_conflict#Jerusalem

Since the middle of the 20th century up until today, the Israelis have wanted complete control of the city of Jerusalem which they view as holy, but other religious groups see this city as holy as well, such as Jews and Christians. So, in 2001 the United States proposed a plan in which the Arab parts of Jerusalem would be given to the proposed Palestinian state while the Jewish parts of Jerusalem were given to Israel. Then, as predicted, this proposal fell apart leading to unrest among the religious groups and various acts of violence and terrorism in the time leading up to the current date. 

How is religion fading and leading to secularism in modern countries such as the USA and also being reinforced in the form of extremism in others such as Middle Eastern Countries?

Religion has been around since the dawn of human civilization. It is what defines us and gives us order and meaning in the universe. Religion can be seen in many forms: faith, devotion, even terrorism as an extreme example. However, it seems that as many of the countries of the world develop and industrialize, the need to seek faith in religion has become less of a way of life. Generally, the modern trend is that more globalized and industrialized countries tend to be less religious than developing countries. The reason for this is determined by a number of things, but is mostly due to people’s uncertainty in everyday life, therefore believing that a god can give them guidance through tough times. The United States has the highest number of religious adherents of any industrialized country, and is comprised of many ethnic religions and universalizing religions. Even though the number of adherents are high in the U.S., many believe that religion is fading in the U.S. and giving rise to secularism. Conservative views expressed in many universalizing religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and many more is nowadays being associated with intolerance, such as battles against woman rights and abortions, causing many to stay away from religion and all associated with it. Over the past decade, fewer americans have associated themselves with a religion causing the pattern of less religion in developed countries, to stand strong in the United States. 

In other countries around the world, religion continues to be a way of life and has even stemmed religious conflict between different religions. A perfect example of this is in the middle east, where religious groups fight over territory that has been a part of their religion for centuries. Religions in the middle east share the same scared sited (like islam and judaism share jerusalem as a holy city) which leads to religious conflict and in some cases, religious extremism. An example of this dating back to 3000 years ago is the conflict between Judaism and Islam, which does not reduce to a religious conflict alone, but certainly stemmed from one. This conflict has been ongoing for millennia and continues today, almost exclusively in the middle east, however examples of the conflict exist outside the middle east as well. For example, In late December, 2000, two Islamic men stopped a school bus carrying 50 Jewish children between the ages of 8 and 10 at gunpoint near Paris, France, and residents of the mainly Arab suburb stoned the vehicle. These acts of violence are random and frequent among Judaic and Islamic adherents and will not cease due to the two’s long history of conflict. In short, globalization and religious conflict based on territory negatively impact the worlds most prominent religion’s adherents by discouraging new members from joining and can lead to random acts of terrorism and religious extremism due to an overlap of sacred sites or ideas. 

The reason that I chose to color this map of Southeastern Asia is because it contains Singapore, a small island city-state off of southern Malaysia. Singapore is the most religiously diverse country in the world, with 33.9% of its population following Buddhism, 18.2% Christian, 14.3% Muslim, 5.2% Hindu, 2.3% adhering to folk religions, and 9.7% falling into other religious groups. Those who adhere to no religion in Singapore account for 16.4% of the population. This is surprising to hear because generally, developed countries are less religions than un-developed countries, making it seem strange that the ninth most developed country in the world is the most religiously diverse country. Nevertheless, Singapore contains the most diverse religious landscape in the world, followed up by its close neighbors Taiwan and Vietnam respectively. 

Research Blog Post #1: The Bridge at the Edge of the World - James Gustav Speth - Pages 119-260 - Introduction-Between Two Worlds

 Humanity’s impact on the earth is increasingly problematic to the natural environment, causing crises such as deforestation, extinction of species, depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, and many others. Our economy has gathered an increasingly large momentum towards a collapse, catastrophe or disaster, leading to environmental deterioration. Modern capitalism is the operating system of the world economy, however it can be detrimental to the environment, so the human race must figure out a way to divert the present destructive path of capitalism to avoid a total global crisis. 

Thoughts and Ruminations on Chapter 6

Thoughts & Ruminations on Chapter Six - Language

Trevor Jones

12/10/15

Per. 3 

Sources: 

Human Geography: People, Places, and Culture: Chapter 6 - Language 

http://www.grammarly.com/blog/2015/english-words-from-around-the-world/?utm_campaign=Blog_Augment_1&utm_source=Facebook_org&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_post 

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/aramaic-middle-east-language/404434/ 

http://taskandpurpose.com/how-americas-wars-have-changed-the-english-language/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share&utm_content=tp-share

http://www.pangeanic.com/knowledge_center/country-with-the-highest-level-of-language-diversity-papua-new-guinea/#

          Many people, mostly including travelers, businesspeople, scientists, and technological experts, want to see a creation of a global language, but this has been proven impossible by several examples around the world because language is not just a form of communication to people, but also means of self identification and preservation to certain groups, so the human race has accepted the use of multiple official languages around the world with little restriction, then local languages can keep their language, but more importantly their sense of identity and culture that is related to the language that they speak. 

How is a global language born and how does that language develop and prosper before its decline? 

          Throughout the time period of 600 and 200 BC, the Aramaic Language served as a Lingua Franca from Greece and Egypt, across Mesopotamia and Persia, and all the way throughout India. This language was the global language of the day, and was commonly used for trade among people of different linguistic background. This same language, was virtually nonexistent in the century after that, which poses the question of: How is that possible? The Aramaic language began the was most languages would, as a local language spoken by a group of people with a similar identity, but what differed from most languages is the people's social structure. 

The Aramaeans were a group of nomads, seeking for land to rule. In the 11th century, the Aramaeans rules a large area of territory in Mesopotamia, encompassing parts of modern day Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, and the city of Babylon itself for a short period of time. However during this time period, the Aramaic language slowly spread throughout the kingdom of Mesopotamia, and by the time the Assyrians took control of of the kingdom in 911 BC, the language had become widely heard of throughout the Middle East and Europe as a whole. The Assyrians deported Aramaic speakers to a variation of distant locations, which rather than clearing the territory of Aramaic speakers, instead infused distant cultures with the Aramaic language that they had heard so much about. This lead to language convergence and and the birth of new dialects of the Aramaic language all throughout the continent. The language continued to spread whilst being modified by several different ways, including times of war. This is similar to the modification of the English language based on the Korean, Vietnamese and world wars' affects on the language. These wars modify the way we speak and think in the form of a sound shift know as slang. As the Aramaic language diffused around the world, the language was also influenced by other languages, which alter vocabulary and the sound of the language. This can be related to the English language as well, which was influenced by Latin, French, Spanish and many other languages. 

Because Aramaic no longer had a strong hearth, the language slowly faded and took the form of the languages they converged with, names we know today as Mandaic, Assyrian, and more not listed here. Aramaic was in a splintered state, and was eventually diminished by the Greeks and Islam (Arabic), both of whom pushed their languages upon the people of their kingdoms. Because English seems like a good language to compare to Aramaic, both being considered linguistic superpowers of their time, somebody could easily say that English will follow the same path as Aramaic did. This is most likely not true for many reasons, including the English language's print, widespread literacy and omnipresent media, however languages are fluid and nothing is inevitable.  

          The reason I chose this map of Southern Oceana, was because it included the country Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is the most linguistically diverse country in the world, with over 820 languages spoken by its people. That means there is a language for every 8,563 Papua New Guineans, if the languages were evenly distributed among the population. However, this is not the case, Papua New Guinea has three official languages: English, Hiri Motu, and Tok Pisin that are spoken by a large percent of the population as a primary or secondary language. There are several reasons why this is the most diverse country, but like many other countries, Isolation players a big role. Papua New Guinea has a lot of natural diversions, that have created natural barriers between peoples of different language. Also, the country is part of a larger community of Polynesian culture that spreads wide across Oceana, meaning language evolved from isolation after stemming from a unified source.

 

First Semester Extra Credit for Movies

1. Witness: 

In this movie, a Amish boy witnesses a murder while he is in a train station bathroom. For the rest of the movie, the boy and a detective named John (Harrison Ford), try to avoid the murder and his posey, eventually killing them. Throughout the movie, John is shown to become more Amish representing his transition from the way of popular culture to an Amish local culture. This shows how local culture can sustain itself against popular culture. 

2. Korean Drama- You Are The Only One: 

We watched episode 118 of the Korean Drama, You Are The Only One. It was hard to pick up, but in this episode we learn that Grandma Jo has had fraud committed on her fruit company, and her fortune and will be taken away from her. Meanwhile, dowon and his new wife are planning a honey moon and learn of the terrible news about Grandma Jo.  

3. Good Will Hunting:

 Good Will Hunting is a movie about Will Hunting's (Matt Damon) change in outlook on the world. In the beginning of the movie Will is working at a school at as a janitor, and solves a very difficult math problem assigned by a teacher. A good deal of the movie goes by, and Will is being put through personal therapy by a psychologist (Robert Williams). This movie represents a change in identity in Will Hunting. In the beginning of the movie, we are shown how tough of a life Will has been brought into, especially growing up as an orphan in the ghetto. Will is abandoned by the people that were suppose to love him most, which is why we see a defensive mechanism in his personality: his ability to leave people before they can hurt him by leaving him. We also see this in the form of him not revealing personal information to people that aren't his close friends, in other words, he feeds them lies. Throughout the movie, Will's identity is shaped by his girlfriend, Skyler, and his psychologist, in order to open him up to them, which represents his change in identity for the better. 

4. The Gods Must Be Crazy: 

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a comedy about a tribe in Africa called the Kalahari. This is a tribe about 600 miles north of a booming modern 1984 civilization, oblivious to modern technology. When an overhead pilot drops a coca-cola bottle from his plane, the Kalahari pick it up and are negatively impacted by it. The members of the tribe begin to fight with each other and the leader decides to throw the bottle off the end of the earth, eventually questioning the existence of his gods altogether. This coca-cola bottle represents popular culture invading the Kalahari's local culture, and turning the tribe members against each other.  

Thoughts & Ruminations on Chapter Five - Identity: Race, Ethnicity,Gender, and Sexuality

Trevor Jones

11/19/15

Per. 3 

Sources: 

Human Geography: People, Places, and Culture: Chapter 5 - Identity: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality 

The Big Heart - by Tony Perrottet

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27102643 

The Nuer rebels of South Sudan wanted control of the Bentiu oil well, which produces 90% of South Sudan's revenue, but the Dinkas had control over the oil well at the time, so the Dinkas sought shelter at a nearby Kali-Ballee mosque in order to avoid violence from the Nuer rebels. Then, the Neur rebels slaughtered 200 civilians in the mosque, leading to a large migration of 22,000 people trying to seek refuge at the UN peacekeeping base over the boarder of Sudan.  

This video is a "rap" done by African-American kids in Ferguson, Missouri about how racism affects minorities, specifically African-Americans, in the United States. 

          How was the city of Huston able to move away from its cultural stereotype of an Angelo "cowboy city", and emerge with a new identity? 

Houston is a largely diverse metropolitan area in Texas, known for its oil industry and redneck rodeos. But what most people may not know, is that Houston also contains the most equitable distribution of the nation's four major racial and ethnic groups: Asians, Hispanic people, and white and black people that are not Hispanic. Throughout the 60's, 70's and 80's, Houston was an overwhelming Angelo city, taking up of 63% of the human population. This was mostly due to big oil businesses hiring Angelo workers at a low price, but still a higher price than the alternative of working back home, which lead to an influx of Angelo population. However, the eight-decade long Texas oil boom fizzles, and the city lost over 100,000 jobs, most being low wage Angelo jobs. This lead to the decrease of Angelo population in Houston from 63%, to under 33%. Consequently, with all of the lost job opportunities for minorities, Houston became the most income-segregated of the ten largest metropolitan areas, with the greatest percent of rich people living among the rich, and the third greatest percent of poor people living among the poor. This lead to residential segregation and racism throughout many neighborhoods because most poor people in Houston were non-white minorities. All of these factors contributed to Houston's ethnic identity of a cowboy city that has massive amounts of oil, and as a cultural wasteland. 

Houston has done a fair bit of structural modification with the addition of skyscrapers and endless concrete highways, but has also managed to develop its ethnic identity in the form of artistic expression. Over the past few decades, Houston has constructed a multitude of museums, galleries and 17 block theatre district, that claims to have the largest concentration of seats outside Broadway. These buildings as well as many others contribute to Houston's growing artistic identity. One of the more notable buildings is the Rothko Chapel; a masterpiece of religious art, with 14 rich-colored paintings mounted across the octagonal space. This silent sanctuary allows for people to contemplate life, as well as pray to their God with the addition of over two dozen religious texts hung over benches. Another example of artistic expression is known as Project Row Houses. This idea, originating with artist Rick Lowe, began by renovating a block of decrepit shotgun shacks into gallery spaces. By doing this, these abandoned spaces are given a practical use, and turned into social hubs. This as well as many other examples gives the people of Houston a sense of place and allows them to construct an identity, rather than conforming to the previous 'cowboy city' identity. Houston began to draw attention from outsiders who wanted to share their artistic expression with a community. This process was also made easier on migrant's into Houston due to the low rents, lots of wide open spaces, and cheap food. Due to the vast amount of ethnicities in Houston, most migrant's who come don't even need to speak English, by identifying with art, ethnically different communities can find their own voice. Although Houston still retains its former identity of a cowboy city to a certain degree, it is slowly developing a new identity constructed around artistic expression within a community. 

 This is a map of Northeastern USA. I decided to color this map because it contains New York, New York. New York is a large metropolitan area with the greatest number and diversity of immigrants of any city in the world. Around 65% of the city is composed of Hispanic ethnicity, including Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Dominicans. There is also the presence of other ethnic minority groups such as Asians, Pacific Islanders, and African Americans. This gives ethnic minority groups a chance to create their own identity and share it with the rest of New York. 

Yugoslavian Civil War Project

Trevor Jones 

11/16/15

Per. 3

Yugoslavian Civil War Write-up

In 1945, Josef Tito  became the monarchical communist dictator of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Under his tight rule, ethnic tensions were kept in check in a region where such feelings were flaring amongst the many diverse groups of people forced to live together in a single sovereignty. When Tito died in 1980, the tensions that built up over the past decades exploded, leading to division of the people, a bloody civil war, and the perpetration of atrocious crimes against humanity. This conflict is unique in the fact that it was not sparked by a single factor, but rather many factors and differences between the people, built upon each other until they finally reached a tipping point and exploded into conflict.

The first factor that helped start and continue the Yugoslavian civil war was the impact of Nationalism on the conflict. This was caused by the high amount of diversity in the country, with over 4.4 million people who were 40% Muslim, 33% Serbian and 19% Croatian. Of the ethnic groups that inhabit what was once Yugoslavia, the main group is Slavic that includes Serbians, Croatians, Bosnians, Slovenians, and Macedonians. There are also Italians, Hungarians, Albanians, Turks and Gypsies living in this region. The amount of diversity in the country worked well under communist rule, but when the communist party fell, the strict rule of the president, dictator Josef Tito fell as well. This meant that the different ethnicities were free to fight each other, and claim land. An example of this is when Serbia wanted to create a greater Serbia by carving out enclaves where Serbians lived in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and adding them to Serbia. When Serbia defeated the Turks in Kosovo in 1389 giving the Serbs a feeling of ownership of the region. However, Kosovo is the cradle of Albanian nationalism in Yugoslavia. Another factor that lead to Serbian dominance was the fact that The Yugoslav army was Serbian led and dominated, which lead atrocities committed by the Serbian army during the War. These are just a few examples that help us understand why such a diverse country can have conflict, and why nationalism was a major cause for of war.

One of the slightly more important causes of the Yugoslavian civil war was the economic aspects of it. Several economic aspects contributed to the growing feud between peoples, such as Serbia’s want for expansion and sea access. Geographically, Serbia was landlocked and separated from the Adriatic Sea in the 80’s so they wanted to take enough of Croatia’s land in order to have access to the sea. The Croatians were obviously not keen towards this idea which brought up problems in the Serbian and Croatian relationship. The 1980’s also marked a widening of the gap between communist and capitalist economies. However, the spread of communism was slow, as well as considered technologically backwards by some, and lead to chronic shortages. On top of all of this, inflation was growing rapidly and in the early 90’s, inflation levels were at 2600%. This impacted the economy greatly, and even resulted in a strikingly high unemployment rate of 20% in Yugoslavia, as well as a national debt of over $23 billion, an internal debt of over $14 billion, and a personal income level that had decreased by 20% since the 80’s. These figures had a great impact of the identity of the country as a whole, as well as individual groups within the country. The economic causes leading up to the Yugoslavian civil war were severe, however there were several other types of causes that contributed as well.

Another factor that greatly contributed to the onset and continuation of the civil war in Yugoslavia is the political complications of the tensions and conflict between groups in Yugoslavia. With over 40 political parties and no predominant nationality in Bosnia & Herzegovina alone, political tensions and division of the population is inevitable. Additionally, the fact that the European Commision would not recognize Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina's nations effectively set the stage for major conflict because it forced groups with different political views and platforms to live together under a single political body and to identify against each other. Even though Yugoslavia had only been a democracy for only eleven years as of 1989 due to it’s history as a single body under authoritarian rule, the contribution of the ongoing global conflict between the democratic world and the communist world created unique tension between the Serbians and the Croatians because Serbia still favored a communist system and a united Yugoslavia while Croatia favored independence and a free market democratic system. When all of these sources of political tension are combined under a single government that had been gradually decentralizing since the death of Josef Tito, it is impossible to prevent the spark of a major conflict between the multitudes of ethnic and political groups forced to live with one another in Yugoslavia.

    In conclusion, conflict caused by economics, nationalism, and politics created heated and potentially deadly tension between ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, and when communism fell, the tension was released, causing a deadly civil war that lasted ten years. By analyzing these these factors, we can conclude that conflict in Yugoslavia was caused and sustained by economic, nationalist, and political tension.