Idi Amin

Today I will play the role of the devil´s advocate. I will defend the acts of Idi Amin while president of Uganda between 1971 and 1979.

Amin was accused of a lot of violations against Human Rights, namely the kidnapping, the torture and the murder of 300.000 people.  Although this may seem incriminatory, Idi Amin only did those things for the best interests of his country and for its people. He was a man of good and always fought for the best for his people and they knew it. He tried to improve his country, making new schools, new hospitals and new houses, making his country better, stronger and free and to do all these things he was forced to “strip those people out of the scene”. Those who were against Uganda have to get out of the way of those who want the growth of Uganda and the best for Uganda. Amin was not a bad man; he was what recent countries without good conditions need to get better: a man with a strong fist.

Besides all this, he knew exactly what those poor people suffer since he has had an awful childhood and so, he could identify himself with the people and solve their problems. Another thing in his side is that he was just punishing the traitors; and betray your own country is a thing that it is still punish severally by law with life imprisonment or even with death penalty in develop countries too (it is called treason and it is the capital crime), like Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and USA.

As you can see and to conclude, all the bad things that are said against Idi Amin is perspectives of who wasn’t there to see how the things real were or just didn’t want to see. A lot of people who were close to him have nothing but good things to say about Amin.

note: all the things said in this text was based on a theme of a project work, not in a personal opinion.

References:

2011, ‘Idi Amin’, Wikipedia, viewed 25^th November of 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin

2011, ‘Treason’, Wikipedia, viewed 25^th November of 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason

2011, 'I Knew Idi Amin - 04 Feb 08 - Part 1 (Repeat)', viewed 25^th November of 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYD7EQqz1M0

The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights(UDHR) was written on December 10 of 1948 as a result of the atrocities made throughout the 2^nd World War an after the creation of the United Nations.

                                              

“Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.” This is the Article 10 of the Declaration of the Human Rights, an article that basically says that everyone should have the right to a trial by a fair court. The purpose of this right is to ensure the proper course of the justice. As a minimum the right to fair trial includes the following fair trial rights in civil and criminal proceedings:

·         the right to be heard by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal ;

·         the right to a public hearing;

·         the right to be heard within a reasonable time;

·         the right to counsel;

·         the right to interpretation.

However, are these minimum requirements respected? Let´s see some examples of violations of the article 10 of the UDHR and examples of respect for this right.

Beside all the atrocities made by the son of the former Libyan dictator Muamar Kadhafi, Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, the United States of America demands that the Libyans grant him a fair trial because respecting the humans rights is a way of show that Libya is in the right path to have a future of peace and democracy.

Howsoever, in the United States, a single law firm, which represents maybe a hundred or so corporate clients, earned US$1,000,000,000 (one billion) while the U.S. Federal government was only willing to spend US$300,000,000 (300 million) on legal services for forty million poor U.S. citizens.  The combined U.S. governmental expenditures on civil legal services for the poor-US$600,000,000(600 million)-represent only 0.5% of the more than US$130,000,000,000 (130 billion) the people of the United States currently spend on lawyers. So, we can see that not everyone have the opportunities to have a fair trial.

The human rights are constantly being violated and not just in poor/undeveloped countries. It is our duty no to pact with these violations and to help to reduce them in every way we can.

References:

The Universal Declaration of the Human Rights, Copyright © United Nations 2011, 10^th December 1948, last view at 19^th November 2011, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

History of the Document, Copyright © United Nations 2011, 10^th December 1948, last view  19^th November 2011, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/history.shtml

Right to a fair trial, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, last view 19^th November 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_a_fair_trial#

Justice Earl Johnson, Jr., 2000, Fordham International Law Journal, last view 19^th November 2011, http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ilj

First Approach to Human´s Rights

What it’s done, it’s done. The only thing that we can do now it’s respect them and accept them as equals because that is what they real are. We are in the 21^st Century and last time I heard we were all humans.

Of course I’m talking about the relations between the white people and the black people and about the horrific actions of our (white people) ancestors.

If it was not enough that the black people had been forced to leave their countries to be slaves, they were discriminated for the following centuries, too.

Therefore, they started to get ways of express themselves like trough music (gospel, jazz...), writing (Maya Angelou, Largston Hughes...), painting and so one.

Romare Howard Bearden (1911-1988), an African-American artist, musician and writer, was one of those people. Trough literature, music and art, Bearden could fight for civil rights and he could show to people the life of the black people in America like in his collage “The Street” (1964) where Harlem street life through the eyes of Romare Bearden.  He used the art to speak out against the limitation on Black artists.

Romare Howard Bearden, in his army uniform,

a photograph taken by Carl Van Vechten, 1944

                                        

During the 60s, he got more socially conscious and fought for justice and equality to the black people, helping to found an artist's group in support of civil rights and it was there that his artc became representative of the black people’s civil rights.

Roamare Bearden, The Street (Harlem), collage, 1964, Swann Galleries, New York

The black people are fighting for their rights for centuries. I think it is about time to live as one, as humans.

Romare Bearden, The Calabash,collage,

1970, Library of Congress

References:

Site credits, 2009, Romare Bearden Foundation, viewed 11^thNovember 2011, http://www.beardenfoundation.org

Site credits, viewed 12^th November 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romare_Bearden

Project works- 2

Today my post will be my classmates’ project works, again. This week, it was very difficult to choose the best project work.

After a lot of weighing, I chose the Ana Margarida and Cristiana’s work because it has shown a great effort of these girls to have good materials such as the fantastic presentation and the papers, which aloud a strong interaction with the audience.

The only thing that I recall as being a weak aspect was the fact that they showed us a lot of regions and their different accents, however, they have just associated the regions with known towns when they talked about Birmingham’s accent and so we, the audience, could not make a relation between the accent and some known towns (e.g.: Manchester, Liverpool...).

Good job, girls!

I want to end up extolling the tremendous courage of Kcénia to go there just by herself. I was sorry that she was so nervous, nevertheless that it was perfect understandable.

Great Job, mates! Continue to work, always.

Project works

My post for today will not be the same as usual. Today I´ll say my opinion about my classmates’ assignments.

In my perspective, the best project work till now was the boy´s work. I think that Hugo Santos, Hugo Cardoso, Nuno Simões and João Santos had made a fantastic work to turn a theme that probably will be boring for the most of the people into something pleasant to see.

I also thought that it has demonstrated the great effort of Nuno, who made a great presentation, and Hugo Santos that clearly “commanded the troops”.

However, and because perfection is something almost impossible to reach, there were some negative aspects. Mainly, the fact that João has needed so much the paper and Hugo Cardoso has been so nervous when his mates have done a great job before he had to speak.

Yet, balancing it was the best project work, no doubt.

One final note, It should be noted the tremendous improve of Beatriz, who looked like the My Fair Lady of our class. A total makeover! Rita Batalha has made a great effort too and it could be noticed miles away.

Great Job, mates! Continue to work, always.

The old and the new discrimination

The twenties brought us a lot of new things, new ways to think and a lot of new possibilities.

After the end of the First World War (1914-1918), Europe was starting to get rebuild but the money was short. So, a lot of countries in European changed to totalitarians governments. The Nazi’s were getting more and more strong and Lenin took power of Russia.

In United States the alcohol was forbid and appears the first cases of bootlegging of liquor, led by Al Capone. Unfortunately, the Ku Klux Klan was growing and it was being accepted. One a more bright side, the Jazz was a vulgate to this decade and it has so much power that U.S. they often call the 20´s “The Jazz Age”, the technology and science advances were a lot with scientists like Einstein and the Charlie Chaplin movies were letting people with stomach ache from laughing so hard.

Other great thing has started in the United States at this decade: The movements for the women’s rights, also known as Women´s Suffrage. Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office and it was extend to other social fields. It was a fight for the end of sex discrimination.

This is the bridge for my post’s main theme of today. When, mainly, the sex and the race discriminations are disappearing, a new type of discrimination as emerged and it is known as positive discrimination in United Kingdom or affirmative action or reverse discrimination in United States.

This affirmative action began with an executive order signed by John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961 and its purpose was to achieve equal opportunities. A practical example of this is quotas: for example, some universities give priority to minorities or women. Quotas are now forbid in U.S.A. because it is think to be discrimination and hence unlawful as it is in Sweden. However, a lot of European countries are true believers of quotas and it is in a lot of social life fields, like education, employment and politics.

My point and my case for today´s post is the following: Should be people choose for a job, a college, a political party or so ever by their race, their gender, their religion, their nationality or their sexual orientation? Shouldn’t a person won a place for his or her inner qualities?

In my opinion, the only way for a person to get a place in a college, to get a job, etc, is by work and for those person´s capacities, not for things like gender or race.  The purpose of affirmative discrimination it is great but it cannot be taken to extremes. I think that like in Sweden and in U.S.A., quotas should not be legal.

If you want to discuss more about this question leave your message on the comments and I will try to answer the soon as I can.

References:

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage#Suffrage_movements

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920s#Popular_culture

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_discrimination

MTV: Changing the world and itself.

MTV famously claimed its first casualty with its premiere video, aired August 1, 1981. But since video killed the radio star, a lot has changed.

MTV changed the world. It turned possible a lot of things like making great careers for singers like Michael Jackson or Madonna, it has invented the Reality Shows in ’92 with the creation of The Real World, it succeeded to make the rap music cross the colour barrier with Run-DMC–Aerosmith “Walk This Way” video in 1986 and more important it showed for the first time in television the African problems to the world with the video “We Are The World” released in March of 1986.

Besides of changing the world, MTV changed itself, too. It is no more a channel that broadcast music videos 24/7. If you want to see some music videos, you should take a look take a look at the schedule, if not you will shock with a wall of shows like Jersey Shore or Made.

But the real problem is that those shows are no longer educative. Shouldn´t shows like Jersey Shore have some parental advice when it is on? Should it be on air at daily basis? After all it is a show that only promotes bad things on teenagers (bearing in mind that MTV is target to teens), as violence and alcohol, etc. It is even legal? In its 40 minutes on air you can only see them on bed, drinking, fighting and boasting them because they had sex with a lot of people. If this show has so much legal issues why MTV doesn’t cancels it like it did to a lot of other shows?

There is no piece of education in those shows and MTV´s changes do not seem to be too good for the kids and teens. Should the MTV put these shows on air? Are these the values that MTV tried to pass during thirty years? MTV changed the world and the youth culture, is this the way to change it nowadays?

The Americanization of our thoughts

How does America influence the life of a non-American citizen?  How does it influence their (ours) life´s chooses? Let´s see.

America emerged as a superpower at late 40´s and 50´s, after save the allies from a certain defeat with the Nazis of Adolf Hitler and after help in the reconstruction of Europe. The marketing of the so called “American Dream” started at this point and America was an example for everyone. We like their movies, their series, their brands, their celebrities, their sports, their culture, their music and their art, all of their media and so one.  We started to love America!

Probably, when you think in an alternative reality for you, you think it in America. It happens to me and it happens with a lot of people. I know it because I´ve had a great example in my classroom. When my teacher ask us to think in an alternative synopses for the play Romeo and Juliet almost all of my classmates chose the United States as the set. Some people have already told me that sometimes they think they know best the United States than they know his own country. This is called Americanization and, in this particularly way, this is the Americanization of our thoughts.

To relate this issue with “Suits” and with all series in general I’ve got some great examples of this Americanization of our thoughts. How many people have chosen a life career based on one American TV’s series/film/show as a medical series or a lawyers one (like House M.D. or Suits)?! Luis Filipe Borges, a Portuguese comedian with a degree on Law School, came to my school and admitted that he chose advocacy due to the influence of an American TV´s series but in the end, he was very disappointed because it was not like he saw on TV and I bet it was just a case among a lot of other ones like this.

Concluding, the rise and influence of the United States of America over the world began more than seventy years ago and it seems that it will continue for a long period of time.

Relating "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" with "Suits"

How do we resolve problems at our days? How do we punish the "bad guys"? And how do our methods differ to the methods of punishing at "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"?

In "Suits", the firm of the main characters always chooses the fair path to resolve their cases, never trying to manipulating nobody to gain their causes. Elizabeth always choose the same path, for instance, when she refuses the gold because they came from Spanish ships, and the two Native-Americans because she thought that they should be treated well, or when she doesn't let her going for the court advises and remained with the idea that everyone should have freedom to choose their beliefs. At her time it was something incredibly rare and modern, some vanguard's ideas.

However, while we take our criminals to a trail to be or not arrested, they were a "little" more barbarian. They chose to cut off the heads, hang or burn their criminals. Although, this makes me think: Are those violent acts so outdated as we think at the first look?

The answer is NO. In Third World countries people are still hang and stoned, sometimes for small, senseless crimes. But these countries are not the only ones. The United States are the only develop country that still approves the death penalty. A few weeks ago Troy Davis, a man sentenced with death penalty twenty years ago, was executed and the protests to stop this macabre act intensified. Will we see the end of death penalty in U.S.? I hope so!

Bottom line, we've got to try to always think one step ahead of our time and realize what is wrong before it is too late.

"Elizabeth, The Golden Age" - Film Review

 

Elizabeth, The Golden age (2007) is a film directed by Shekhar kapur and produced by Tim Bevan with a very good cast, including the actors Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth I of England), Geoffrey Rush (Sir Francis Walsingham), Clive Owen (Sir Walter Raleigh), Rhys Ifans(Robert Reston), Jordi Mollá (Philip II of Spain), Abbie Cornish (Bess), David Threfall (Dr. Dee) and Samantha Morton(Mary, Queen of Scots). Guy Hendrix Dyas was the film's production designer and co-visual effects supervisor and the costumes were created by Alexandra Byrn. The soundtrack was composed by A.R. Rahman and Craig Armstrong. This film has a historical background: With the early death of Mary I of England, Elizabeth's sister, King Philip II of Spain tried to marry Elizabeth to reach England´s throne, which English Parliament had refused to grant him when married Mary. For revenge he sent, with pope's blessing, the Spanish Armada to attack England, Protestantism, and the Queen.
This is a drama/romance/history film is based on the hard times of Queen Elizabeth who has to fight for her position in a men´s world, for the position of England in the world, for her people's freedom of beliefs and, finally, for her personal life, since she is unmarried and does not have sons to ensure the continuation of the Tudor dynasty while the king Philip II of Spain, a Roman Catholic country and the most powerful country of Europe, afraid of Protestant England and frustrated with English piracy of Spanish ships, wants to start a war to see his daughter Isabella taking Elizabeth's throne and begins to make the Spanish Armada.
Sir Francis Walsingham advises Elizabeth to marry and presents her some candidates, if not, Mary, Queen of Scot gets her position after her dead. Sir Walter Raleigh is presented at the court to show de products that he brought from The New World, as potatoes and gold, two Native-Americans and gold from Spanish ships. Elizabeth commands that the Native Americans be treated well, and refuse to accept the gold. She is attracted by him and his stories.
Meanwhile, Jesuits in London are making a plan to kill her with the King's of Spain help. Some of this people are caught and killed, including Bess' cousin, Queen´s Elizabeth lady-in-waiting. At this point Bess looks for comfort from Raleigh and they start a secret relation, hiding it from the Queen that is also in love with him.
Walsingham finds out a plot against Elizabeth because he was intercepting letters and he finds out about Spanish ambassador. Elizabeth confronts him and they almost get on a sword fight. Then when she was on a cathedral praying, a man called Babington points a gun at her and shoots at her but with an empty gun. She learns about Mary's involvement and after a lot of deliberation she decides to kill her. Mary was beheaded.
After some time, Walsingham realizes that it all was a plan of Philip II to have pope´s acceptance to start a war and that he used Mary's death for it.
In the meantime Raleigh says to the Queen that he wants to come back to The New World and to avoid it, she knighting him and making him Captain of the Royal Guard. Bess is pregnant and when she tells him he decides to stay even though she wants him to leave. They secretly marry but Elizabeth discovers the truth about all and banishes Bess from the court and imprisons Raleigh because Bess couldn´t marry without Queen's permission.
The Armada is reaching England and the English army is substantially smaller. At this point Queen forgives Bess and Releigh and some others prisoners, claiming that "England is their country, too". The battle begins and Sir Francis Drake is commanding English army and, in a turning point of the events, a storm blows the Armada towards the beaches, breaking their formation and ships. They drop anchor, and the Armada becomes an easy target for English cannons. Elizabeth walks out to the cliffs and watches the Spanish Armada and Philip´s plan sink in flames.
Finally, Elizabeth visits Walsingham on his deathbed, telling her old friend to rest. Then she visits Raleigh and Bess and blesses their child. Elizabeth had a lot of personal triumphs, however she were all her life the Virgin Queen, being "just" the Mother of England.
This film was recorded in some parts of United Kingdom and it has duration of 144 minutes. The lighting such as the music changes according to the moment, getting darker in sad or frantic occasions (like in the battle) and vice-versa. Some shooting techniques are used to emphasize a few things as in the scene that Mary is to be beheaded with a red dress representing Catholic religion and the blood spread at that "Holy War" and looks at the throne, representing the power of England. At that same scene when Mary dies the sound is cut off when a woman is screaming, representing a silent dead, being Mary almost a puppet in Spanish´s plans.
In my opinion, "Elizabeth, The Golden Age" is a great film because it shows to the audience a great piece of the true History of England and of the world; also showing the importance of being fair and how a good conduct can solve big problems.