ABORIGINAL TRIBUS = CREATE DIVERSITY - END DISCRIMINATION

You knew that? ... The Aboriginal tribes around the world represent and provide 80% of cultural and biological diversity in the world. 

But... they occupy only 20% of the land surface. They live in most countries and almost every continent in the world. The tribesmen around the world are very different in some countries comprise almost the entire population but others are only reduced to a small group of people, however it depends on them, the promote of different cultures.Some of these tribes seek to preserve traditional ways of life, while others try more involved in the current state structures.

As all cultures and civilizations, the tribesmen are always adjusting and adapting to changes in the world. Despite such wide diversity in Aboriginal communities around the world all have one thing in common - they all share a history of injustice and discrimination in our society.

Aboriginal tribes have been tortured, discriminated against, enslaved and isolated. They have been denied the right to participate in government processes the existing schemes. Today's society tries to steal their dignity and identity as indigenous peoples and the fundamental right to self-determination.


SO... THE QUESTION IS, CAN YOU LET THIS HAPPENING?





I LEAVE HERE A LINK ON ABORIGINAL RIGHTS IN AUSTRALIA...

www.convictcreations.com/research/aboriginalrights.html

Bayard Rustin: Gay, Activist, American

Bayard Rustin was one of the most influential  leader in social movements for civil rigths, socialism, nonviolence, and gay rigths of the 1950s and '60s, yet he maintained a low profile, reserving the spotlight for other prominent figures, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Phillip Randolph. He was a firm believer in and practitioner of nonviolent forms of protest.

Rustin was a gay man who had been arrested for homosexual activity in 1953 (which was criminalized in parts of the United States until 2003). Rustin's sexuality, or at least his embarrassingly public criminal charge, was criticized by some fellow pacifists and civil-rights leaders. Rustin was attacked as a "pervert" or "immoral influence" by political opponents from segregationists to black power militants, from the 1950s through the 1970s. In addition, his pre-1941 Communist Party affiliation when he was a young man was controversial. To avoid such attacks, Rustin served only rarely as a public spokesperson. He usually acted as an influential adviser to civil-rights leaders. In the 1980s, he became a public advocate on behalf of gay and lesbian causes.

He also testified on behalf of New York State's Gay Rights Bill. In 1986, he gave a speech "The New Niggers Are Gays," in which he asserted:

"Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new "niggers" are gays.... It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change.... The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people." 

During the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin served on many humanitarian missions, such as aiding refugees from Communist Vietnam and Cambodia. He was on a humanitarian mission in Haiti when he died in 1987.

What if...

A young Gloriana, Elizabeth I

We all know the history of Queen Elizabeth I. She did not marry, nor conceived any heir but kept a very religious and overall profitable reign in many aspects despite the uncommon decision of not marrying.

Many advised her to marry someone; it could’ve been someone from inside the realm to boost national pride, or the advantageous option to marry with a foreign sovereign to solidify an alliance with a friendly neighbour kingdom.

Well, she chose not to anyways. She ruled successfully for 45 years and she is well known for doing it alone.

Now we can play a little bit and ask ourselves a very interesting question; what if she had married? I mean, it’s an important part of Elizabeth as a character and picturing her with a husband could mean destroying completely the image and meaning of a Virgin Queen. This goes beyond the mere title, the idea of a seemingly strong, independent woman of the XVI century could have been totally shadowed by the presence of a king and thus this early representation of female strength such as Gloriana herself could have never happened.

A king for our queen?

We can keep going with the controversial questions and wonder if Elizabeth’s connotation in history is solely because of her self-imposed loneliness? Does being an unmarried woman made you stronger back then? And is it the same in the present?

Let’s talk about this possibility of a king for Elizabeth. Many may think that this figure could have been just a consort and nothing more than that, but what if this king becomes more influent than our strong queen? Maybe Elizabeth with a man by her side would have softened a little and totally changed her performance at her determined ruling, if she was still the one making decisions and pulling the strings and not withdrawing to a more passive role as a queen, just living in luxury and enjoying life while your country is ruled by your husband.

Some queens prefer it that way

To finish off, you can always get information on Elizabeth in her Wikipedia page, but if you’d like to read a little related to this topic you can check:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/elizabeth_marriage.htm

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=538938

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=272855

I would like to say goodbye now and let you with all the questions I made above and if you have any other question please let me know.

The National Sorry Day in Australia

As you may or may not know, between 1910 and 1970 many Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families as a result of various government policies. The generations of children who suffered from this treatment are known as the Stolen Generations, and their wounds are something that is still in the process of healing.

So, you’re probably wondering, what is the National Sorry Day? It is an Australia-wide observance held on May 26^th every year. In this day, people come together and share the steps towards healing for the Stolen Generations, their families and communities. Many activities take place in this day, such as concerts and barbecues, reconciliation walks or street marches, Sorry Day flag raising events, speeches and so on, and in this day people can also write their feelings in “sorry books”.

However, even though this observance started being held since 1998, it took more than ten years after that for the government to make an official apology to Australia’s Indigenous people, and Kevin Rudd was the first Prime Minister to apologise to the Stolen Generations on February 13^th, 2008.

While watching and listening to his speech and seeing the faces of the Aboriginal people who were there, I could feel a strong emotion. Talking to a friend from Australia, she explained to me that this day was very important because Aboriginal people had been waiting and working hard for this apology for 11 years and more, and after this, the Aboriginal elders who were there forgave white people for what they did to them.

What if we take this to our current context in Chile? Perhaps in here we don’t have anything like the Stolen Generations, but we know that Aboriginal people were mistreated in many ways and what’s worse – they’re still being mistreated. Do you think that if our government decided to finally stop neglecting Indigenous people’s requests, listened to them and maybe, apologised, too, we could make our situation change for the better? Why or why not? What should we do? Should we keep pretending to be deaf and blind? 

Can we considerate Elizabeth I, as a "Feminist"?

Judging from the results of a survey in 2002, Elizabeth I is the best known and most admired English monarch. Her life was so full of incidents and drama. I think that Elizabeth’s ability as a woman to exercise power successfully in a man’s world that earned her the votes and the respect of today’s people. Actually her highest score, it was on her bravery and leadership qualities.

I'd like to raise a matter of debate: Was or Is Queen Elizabeth I a feminist icon?

Elizabeth I, was the most powerful woman of her era, at a time when the women were nothing more than "possessions". Strong, intelligent, dogged in her refusal to be constrained by a political marriage, Elizabeth I is viewed by many as a modern feminist icon. Not that she would’ve seen herself that way. She was the monarch and felt she’d been appointed by God despite being a woman and that set her apart from the rest of humanity. In a way she was a complete contradiction. Some people said that she didn’t think women should be in a powerful position politically. She was quite keen to rid certain places in society of women. Everything she achieved was unarguably brilliant. She was unarguably brilliant but in a modern context was extremely sexist: anti-woman in many ways.

 “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England, too”- Elizabeth I

She was bound to serve her people, and, though she knew not much of the affairs of politics and war, she was determined to convince her subjects that she did indeed know of such things that lie within the man's world.  In her Speech to the troops before the attack on the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth declares that she, too, will die on the battlefield beside her subjects, and will die for her country.

Finally in my opinion, Elizabeth’s image was not so very different from that of her male predecessors; like them, she emphasizes her regality, religion and role as career of her people.

The part that Elizabeth’s reliance on tradition played in making female rule acceptable to male subjects.  In that sense Elizabeth was no a feminist icon. Her reign however showed that a woman could be an exceptionally successful ruler even in dangerous times. In this sense, she was!

 So, what do you think?...








Sources:
http://womenarepersons.blogspot.com/2012/03/was-queen-elizabeth-i-feminist-icon.html
http://www.historytoday.com/susan-doran/elizabeth-i-gender-power-and-politics

MLK's last affair before death?

First of all, I want you to read this article. Scroll down a bit until you find the “King was a serial adulterer” subtitle. And this article. (Yes, People Magazine, that gossip magazine) (Yes, it existed in 1989.)

Remember when we talked in class about how nobody talked about MLK’s private life? Nothing about extramarital relationships? Well, someone did, and he did not get a good response from the audience.

Ralph D. Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. were both leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, they even went to jail together. So, why would he talk about King’s unfaithfulness on his memoirs book?

Rumor has it Abernathy was mad and jealous because he did not get the recognition, respect or publicity King did. So in his memoirs, a couple of pages caught everyone’s eyes. He wrote about King’s last night alive, and how he spent it with two women in a hotel room (If you know what I mean) and a third woman whom he "knocked across the bed... and for a moment they were in a full-blown fight, with Martin clearly winning." Funny how the first article does not mention this last part? Or funny how a gossip magazine does?

My point here is not that King was an adulterer, that he cheated on his wife in multiple times, or that his right-hand was jealous and wanted some kind of “revenge”. My point is how the story is told in this two sources. We know magazines like People are looking for that little bad thing someone did to expose them and create a big scandal and have the exclusive. But it seems to me that International Business Times is not that type of magazine or website. They don’t mention the violent event that may or may not have happened. I even came across the thought that they may be protecting King’s public image, or his legacy.

What do you think about this event? Or about how both websites cover it? Why would he bring this up after King's death? Let me know!

Maori Tattoo: Ta Moko

               Have you ever wondered why Maori people have tattoos on their face? This type of art is called Ta Moko, it was brought from Polynesia and it is a highly sacred tradition. Maori consider the head the most important part of the body, that's why during adolescence they tattoed their face as a part of an initiation ritual.

"Ta Moko was worn by both men and women. It was applied to the face and buttocks of men, and to the chin, lips and shoulders of women.  Depending on their ranking, they may also have Ta Moko on their face. Occasionally women would put small markings over their faces or shoulders as a sign that someone close to them had died". Australian Museum, 2012.

 Maori have another explanation: "The legend of Mataora" 

           It says that there was a young warrior called Mataora, who fell in love with the princess of the underworld, called Niwareka. Niwareka came above ground to marry Mataora, but Mataora mistreated Niwareka, which made her return to the underworld. Mataora, sick with guilt about the way he treated his wife pursued her to the underworld, only to be greeted by her relatives who laughed at his ragged appearance and smudged face paint. Mataora apologized before Niwareka’s family, and this act won Niwareka back. Before returning above ground, it was said that Niwareka’s father, the king of the underworld taught Mataora the art of ta moko. Mataora brought back these skills to his people and that was how the Maori came to have their distinct type of tattoo (Zealand Tattoo).

               These tattoos are unique and very painful. Each person chooses the design of its tattoo, that's why no two tattoos are alike. They don't use needles, they use knives and chisels made of shark teeth and the ink is made of burnt wood. Even though this is not an usual practice anymore, there are people who still do it.

               Most people might consider this an old-fashioned tradition, but I think this is an intertesting methd to keep their traditions alive and to be true to their culture. What do you think?

Segregation at  School:  The case of Linda Brown and The Little Rock Nine

 

The Declaration of Independence stated that "All men are created equal” but history itself says something different. Due to discrimination and segregation African American people started to fight against these injustices and for what they thought was right. Education was not the exception and that is why I chose a very significant case in the history of laws in the USA. Brown v/s Education which decision was the first step to inclusion in terms of education

In the 1950s, In Topeka (Kansas), schools were divided by race. Each day, Linda Brown and her sister had to walk through a dangerous railroad switchyard to get to the bus stop for the ride to their all-black elementary school ,Although there was a school closer to the their house, it was only for white students. Linda Brown and her family believed that the segregated school system was against the Fourteenth Amendment and took their case to court. The result: the Supreme Court stated: We conclude that the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." —Chief Justice Earl Warren.

After the decision of this case, another significant event took place in Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957, by the inclusion of nine teenagers (known as “The Little Rock Nine”) whose first day of class was even covered by the media. They received verbal abuse and threats from the crowd outside and when they realized they had successfully entered the school, violence erupted, and seven journalists were attacked.
Segregation doesn't has to do just with the color of skin. Actually  there are many cases of discrimination due to cultural diversity. Mendez v/s Westiminster preceded Brown v/s Education.In this case, nine year old Olivia Mendez was segregated from an "only white" school because of her mexican origin.Her case went to courtin 1947 and she won.

In spite of Supreme Court’s decision, segregation in public schools can still be seen and after more than 50 years Martin Luther King’s dream hasn’t fully became true, not yet.

I encourage you, as future teachers of English to think about the topic discussed here. and share your opinions and points of view ¿Do you agree that segregation is still a problem nowadays?

The Real Role of the Queen

Queen Elizabeth II. She is the Queen of England right? We all know that. But what does she really do? She must have a royal duty or something like that right? Does she just sit there in her throne asking for the heads of disrespectful peasants who dare enter her presence without a proper tribute?

 First of all, Elizabeth is actually Queen of something a little bit more complex. She is the Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms. But that doesn’t answer our question. What does she actually do?

Well, to clarify, her role is mainly symbolical, although she is Britain’s head of state but her executive powers are limited by constitutional rules so no heads rolling.

Being the visible face of the country, her role can be fulfilled by doing multiple chores like having audiences with important people like overseas ambassadors. She also meets people who have won prizes or awards in diverse categories.

Being a Queen you would expect some political powers or influence that she may have, and she does, two of them potentially very controversial. First, she may refuse a government's request to dissolve parliament and call an election, if she believes a government can legitimately be formed. Second and last, she has the right to choose the prime minister, ignoring all elections.

Concluding, the Queen is a figure recognized worldwide whose role is mostly symbolical with some remains of what a queen used to be. She still have some power over her country and her realms but recently reduced to a diplomatic role between her European island and the rest of the world and according to the royal website her role “focuses on national unity”. If she accomplishes that is a question we might answer some other time.

Too cold to go out? That does not happen in Canada.

When winter falls and increases the cold in Canada, go outside can be a dangerous adventure. Because of this,  Canada has underground centers, that have wonderful and huge underground cities that connect office buildings, shopping malls, subway stations and rail and even sports grounds. The best known are:

The underground city of Toronto (PATH), consists of 27 km of walking and 1,200 shops that link many important buildings and attractions of downtown with five subway stations. An estimated 100,000 pedestrians frequent the PATH daily. The PATH allows access from the main hotels to the most important and stadiums, basketball and baseball tourist attractions. Also,Toronto has a smaller underground city, which connects several buildings and two subway stations. 

And...The underground city  RESO of montreal over 32 km of tunnels that run underneath the city and are accessible from public buildings and subway stations. It is an ideal way to beat the winter cold, because in them is everything, restaurants, cinemas, more than 2000 shops, and even a university campus. 

But Canada has more underground cities, perhaps not as well known but just as attractive as in Edmonton, there is a small system of tunnels and pedestrian overpasses called "Pedway" connecting the buildings and stations LRT (light rail transit) of the core City, Downtown Halifax in which no point is more than 10 minutes away on foot or Vancouver has a shopping promenade called Pacific Centre that extends almost 3 hectares, which contains within over 200 underground shops. 

So.. you still think that in Canada you don't  go for a walk by cold?

Received Pronunciation? Posh accent? British accents!

Many people think that all British people talk like the Queen –that is, they talk using “Received Pronunciation” (R.P) also known as “Standard English”–, in a very “posh” way. Well, let me tell you that you’re very wrong!

There are a lot of different accents in England and the United Kingdom and each of them is very different from each other, letting you know where the person who’s talking is from the moment you hear them speak.

Most foreigners either like R.P a lot or strongly dislike it, but the thing is that when you’re studying British English you tend to try to learn Received Pronunciation thinking that’s how all Brits talk when in fact only very few people use it nowadays (mostly old people) and it’s not all that very well seen – it can even annoy people sometimes.

In the video above you have some cultural reasons as to why R.P is not the ideal accent you should learn mostly because you will hardly hear it if you ever talk to a British person.

Well now, I bet all of you are curious about how do people in the United Kingdom really sound! In the video below there are examples of 17 different kinds of British accents. Yes, seventeen!

Impressive, right? Some of the most known British accents are the “Queen’s English” (R.P), Liverpool, North England, Birmingham, Newcastle, Scotland and London’s East End dialect called Cockney Rhyming Slang.

If you start to wonder how is it possible for Brits to talk so differently from each other, have in mind that, only in London, 250 languages are spoken, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. Imagine how it is all over the UK and how it influences people’s accents.

An "Ice Hotel" in Canada

When you mention Canada, I can think only of the maple leaf and the funny uniforms. I never imagined that Canada is one of the largest countries in the world and because of this it is very rich in culture. It is a bilingual nation (Anglophone and Francophone population) and is in third place, as one of the coldest countries in the world.

In eastern of Canada, we can find the province of Quebec, one of the largest and oldest in the country. It is the only predominantly Francophone region of the country and North America.

In Quebec we can find many wonderful places, but one of the most impressive is the "Hotel De Glace" (Ice Hotel).

 This hotel is the only one that exists here in America (I mean the continent). And is in operation since 2001 (this year turned 15 years of operation).

They need approximately 11,000 tons of snow and 350 tons of ice to build it and take five weeks.

 It is an each season construction, which of course, is constructed with the first snowflakes of winter. To "melt" in the end of winter. This is roughly between January and the end of March each year.

The hotel has 44 beautiful rooms, a chapel, a huge hall with large chandeliers, two courtyards, a bar and much more.

In the spring, more than 2,500 bricks of ice will be consumed by the awakening of the sun. And that’s mean an end of the year for the Ice hotel.

When I saw this in the thousands of pages that I visited, I could not help thinking that must be thousands of people who build this large hotel. Also I could not help imagining the Castle of the movie Frozen with all its characters, while I was writing this.

I hope if you have the opportunity to travel to Canada, and especially to Quebec, in winter, you have to visit the

 Hotel De Glace, so they can live a unique experience!

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ciiHYmscGY&feature=player_embedded 

The legend of “Stingy Jack"

The legend of the first jack-o'-lantern comes from Ireland and involves a man called Stingy Jack. The legend has it that Stingy Jack had a drink with the Devil. Jack, being stingy, didn't want to pay for the drinks, so he tricked the Devil into turning into a coin. Jack put the coin inside his pocket next to a sliver cross that prohibited the Devil from changing back. Stingy Jack was able to get the Devil to promise him that he would be left alone for a year, and that when Jack died, the Devil would not claim his soul.

The next year, Jack met the Devil again. This time Jack tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a cross into the tree's bark so the Devil could not come down until he promised Jack not to bother him for 10 more years.

Soon after, Jack died. He was too evil to get into heaven, and the Devil could not take him to hell without breaking his word. So the Devil sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has roamed the Earth with it ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," then simply as "Jack O'Lantern."

In Ireland and Scotland, people began making their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack.

Immigrants brought the jack-o'-lantern tradition with them to the United States, where they began carving Stingy Jack's face into pumpkins.

Jamaica's Guiness Record

When you heard the word “Jamaica”, what is

the first imaget that comes to your mind? Probably a Rastafari with a three coloured cap singing “Jamming” in a hammock under a palm tree by the sea. A very stereotypical perception of what Jamaica is. Isn’t it? 

Is for that reason that I would like to bring up a phrase that the novelist Chamamanda Adichie said in a remarkable speech :” Stereotypes are not wrong, but incomplete".

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Having said that ,Jamaica is more than the caricature that we described at the beginning. Can you belive that this country is in the Giness Book of World Records? Believe it or not, Jamaica has more churches per square mile (1600 in total) than in any other country in the world (except the Vatican City itself) 

                              

                               

The reason , is  that the majority of these churches are based in poor communities ,where the Gospel must be preached to the poor for their needs are greater.But uptown people enjoy  going to churches as well ,and all of them have a great time by singing and sharing their faith.This is just one of many interesting facts about Jamaica that can contribute to your idea of what this country and  its beliefs are and thus, to leave behind  this steriotipical image , this  "single story" about a country that has so many things to give and show to the world. What do you think?