Definitions and examples:

“Urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities.  Historically, it has been closely connected with industrialization. When more and more inanimate sources of energy were used to enhance human productivity (industrialization), surpluses increased in both agriculture and industry. Larger and larger proportions of a population could live in cities. Economic forces were such that cities became the ideal places to locate factories and their workers.”

(http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/population/urbanization.htm)

Both desertification and deforestation refer to the degradation of land. In one urbanized society, roads were paved penetrating through out cities so people can transport easily by automobiles, motorcycles, buses, and so on. The development of Singapore exemplified this phenomenon. When we looked at the documentary of Singapore, we can see that Singapore was transformed from a tropical forest to a modern city. A few decades ago, almost all of Singapore was covered by trees. Comparing with the view of Singapore right now where trees were planted neatly along the roads, the face of Singapore is no longer the same as before. Besides, in ancient times, many forests were deforested for the pastures and agriculture, in order to feed ever growing residents in cities. A good example is the situation in Scotland where should have been covered by rich forest, instead, there are pastures every where right now; Still another example is the desertification in Beijing. People were encouraged to grow grains. The result is overusing of the land, so the land is desolate and became one of the victims of desertification. Thirdly, many countries became urbanized because of the exploitation of forest. Aside from food, a city also needs energy to develop its industry, so people chopped down the trees and then accumulated wealth. In early days, people chopped down the trees of their own country, but after entering 19 century, many places were colonized. Colonizers became to “import” raw materials from colonized countries. The rainforest in Amazon is a prominent instance.

Is it possible that a place is becoming urbanized without deforestation and desertification, neither in their countries, nor in other states? While the premise of an urbanized city is to be well planned, all the nature places in cities have to be considerately schemed as well. More over, since a city need to have energy to be urbanized while the city itself is not able to provide the need to its citizens and industries, the city becomes eager for the materials from foreign countries, the cheaper material the better. Last, through out history, we can’t find even one example of being urbanized without exploiting the environment. In my opinion, at least in a short run, urbanization is still proceeding along with deforestation and desertification.  

Identity is formed on the basis of our interactions with others. What people say about you and how people treat you have effects on your identity, then this identity starts to affect the way you think and act. In today’s world, there are usually one more groups in one society. And usually there exists one dominant culture. Take The US for example. The US is a society consists of different ethnic groups like Anglo-Saxons, African Americans, Italians, Irish, Chinese, etc. What dominant group, Anglo-Saxons, think about their society is that different people can be assimilated in the mainstream and the mainstream culture can also absorb new elements from other cultures, and at the end the US can create a unique culture. The American society can be a “melting-pot”.

Being assimilated means the people from ethnic groups have to give up their original identity while the ethnic groups might not be willing to do it. Abandoning one’s identity makes one lose his/her “roots”; identity might change, but the precondition is that assimilation happens under one’s willingness. If a country keeps insisting in assimilating different cultures into the dominant culture, this should be called repression instead of assimilation, and the result will probably be the conflicts among ethnic groups.

No matter an ethnic group is assimilated into a society or not, since they have already lived in a society for a very long time, they pay the tax, they have got the citizenship, and they fulfill the obligations of being a citizen, they ought to acquire the equal rights as others. Why can’t an ethnic group get the equal right since they have already fulfilled the obligation of being a citizen? A government should not have the right to force ethnic groups to abandon their own identity so they can get certain rights. It is against human right. Every human being is guaranteed of having the right of expressing their own opinions, and every human being is guaranteed the freedom of choice. Singapore is just a good example of not assimilating different groups into the mainstream while each group still has equal rights. As we can see from the instance of Singaporean society, keeping a society plural is also feasible. 

Under the reign of Jaime Lerner, ex-mayor of Curitiba, this capital city started its makeover and its transformation. New transportation and bus system were built; the city is covered by more and more parks; new educational system was established, etc. Curitiba is one of the most livable cities in the world now.

Besides the successful transformation of Curitiba, what also caught my attention was the statement made by a man in the last scene of the movie. In his point of view, one of the reasons which made the city such a livable place was dictatorship. Jaime Lerner was appointed by the military dictator in 1960s, and Jaime Lerner seized the power for about 12 years. Consequently, the decision of transformation of the city was actually lack of citizens’ participation. However, since leaders of the city didn’t need to concern about the slow democratic process, they carried out their transformation plan not only efficiently but also immediately. A very good example was the accomplishment of making the blocks into pedestrian zone in three days under the command of Jaime Lerner.

If we compare Curitiba with Singapore, we can find some similarities. The most prominent one is that Singapore started to implement its urban planning without the democratic process, just like the situation in Curitiba. And if we analyze the urbanized process in other countries, we would probably find a lot of problems relating to urbanization. For instance, the slums, pollution, sanitary problems, high crime rate, etc. In democratic countries, governments are not able to solve these problems, because if the government wants to implement a bill concerning the development of a city, this bill has to get the approval of legislative body, and if its people are not satisfied with this plan, they protest. Thus this made me think about the relation between urbanization and democracy.

We can’t deny that urbanization brings more opportunities. Rural places evolved into cities, so civilization was produced, and this made a big leap in human history. While urbanization brings hopes to many people, it also brings desperations; it can be positive experiences to some people like the urbanization process in Curitiba, but it can also be negative ones like Lagos where there are a lot of slums. In my view, a visionary dictator might help the city or the country to develop and to be in order, but after that, the people have to educated and socialized, so they will realize the truth of urbanization, so they will not care about their own profits only. Finally, Urbanization will bring advantages to all human beings.

Su, Tzu-Jung

Venus

Epidemic diseases have become more powerful and have been able to reach different parts of the world. Due to globalization, transportation is much convenient than before. People can move easily without spending a lot of time. They travel, immigrate, and work in different places around the global village, while they also bring virus with them to everywhere they go. In 2003, the panic aroused from SARS was prevailing. But right now, SARS is within our control. However, AIDS, with more than 40 million infected in the world, claims about 8 thousand people’s lives everyday. There are more than 1 million AIDS patients in China in 2001, and the number keeps increasing.

There are “3 kinds” of AIDS in China. These “3” are differentiated according to different ways of contracting AIDS. The first one is called “GuangDong” Model: Patients are infected because of sex industry. The second one is called “YunNan” Model: People contract AIDS attributed to using drugs and sharing needles. The last one is called “HuNan” Model: People got the disease while selling blood. People in GuangDong Province engaged in sex industry because they are poor, especially female. People grow poppy and are willing to take risk to sell drugs to drug dealer in YunNan Province because they have no other doors to wealth. This made YunNan a importance stop in trafficking route. Many residents in HuNan province became blood donors, or, more precisely, blood seller. People sell their blood in order to make a living. Poor people are prone to getting AIDS.         

In order to control AIDS, Chinese government has implemented several policies. Chinese government has reinforced sanitary education in schools. But there are no sufficient qualified teachers; there is even no school in many rural areas. Chinese government has advocated using condoms. But many condoms on market are under quality standard. Chinese Government has also provided access of testing and counseling for pregnant women in order to prevent mother-child transmission of AIDS. But in many poor villages there is no hospital, and no doctors. Chinese government didn’t realize the root of the problem, that is, poverty.

People engage in the industry with high risk of contracting AIDS mainly because they are poor. Sex workers have no other choices but “sell their bodies”; Blood donors keep “donating” their blood using the same needle with other blood donor; farmers can not give up growing poppy to make profit. We saw inequality between the rich and the poor when talking about disease. If Chinese government fails to provide more working opportunities the poor people and fails to develop rural areas, the government can never defeat the disease successfully.    

There are countless IT products circulating in our society now. Those IT products have not only transformed the whole world but also made every individual’s life different.

Technology has brought many advantages and disadvantages to the whole global village, to every individual country, and to each person. Each country is linking to other countries closely through the network created by technology thus the division of labor among different countries has become more and more prominent. Consumers can purchase commodities which are made with lower cost at lower price. On the other hand, the issue of inequality between the rich and the poor among countries and within a country has been unveiled. The rich has more access to technology and information whereas the information is inaccessible to the poor. But what is the influence that technology has brought to a society where educational system is well established so everyone has the access to information and also knows how to “use” the information? Other than the issue of inequality, the progress of technology has also made people aware of the issue of privacy, and the progress has brought a big change to the relationship between government and its people.

In 2007, protests mobilized by text message in XiaMen province and an uproar on the internet against slave labors in Beijing indicated the change of relationship between government and its people in China. Even in a communism state where the government bans citizens from protesting, a protest was still organized by cell phones. Will a communist government be able to control the whole society as strictly as before since the people now have more ways to communicate with each other and with the whole world? People are no longer ignorant under the control of Chinese government. They are now asking for the right of speech, trying to promote human rights. On the other hand, will the government be able to keep its people under more rigorous surveillance because of the progress of technology? Some reports mentioned that Chinese government has been monitoring its resident more rigorously. The surveillance invades people’s privacy thus is against human right.   

People now can make a difference simply by texting a message or by posting an article on the internet. Although the phenomena of inequality might be reinforced due to unequal access to technology, there are also more opportunities for inequality to be eliminated since people know more about the real situation in the society they live thanks to technology. As what was mentioned in the text book, technology is just like two side of a sword.   

By the way, you can read the article about the protests in China by clicking on the link below:

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_JPGSDVV

War as legitimate violence?

Will the borders among countries disappear on day?

There’s a vague line between crime and war. Crime is defined as illegal violence, while war is deemed as legitimate violence. Why can war be viewed as legitimate violence? The unconvincing answer is because the states are the main actors in wars, and they have to protect their citizens. But the criminals are also protecting themselves from poverty, from death, and sometimes protecting their beloved ones from getting hurt. If war is legitimate violence, what’s the definition of legitimacy? Is that defined by the international law, the United Nations, or the country itself that starts the war?

In contemporary world, there are many newly independent countries, especially the countries in Africa through the application of principle of self-determination. But within many states, this principle not only brings tragedies to them, but also raises a controversial question: If a nation can gain independence according to self-determination, what about a tribe or an ethnic group or a religious group within a country? Can this group of people form an independent country, too?

Both Russia and Georgia sent troop into South Ossetia not long ago, because South Ossetia, a province of Georgia, is trying for secession from Georgia. The residents in South Ossetia think they’re different from Georgia in terms cultures, languages, and race. Under the circumstances, Georgia government “invaded” its own province, wanted to regain its dominion. On the other hand, Russia army also got in this area in the name of protecting the residents there because the USSR controlled this region before its own collapse. And Russian troops are not only occupying South Ossetia, they are also invading other provinces in Georgia. Residents living in these provinces were massacred, plundered, and the entire province was burned, they were in the edge of surviving.

Analyzing the case above, what really confusing me is that in a multiethnic country, can a government force people with different ideologies, different cultures, or mother tongues to subordinate violently, but “legitimately”? This behavior violates the principle of self-determination, and also, this transgresses human right. Right to subsistence is basic human right. How can an act of starting a war be called “legitimate action”? The country that starts the war defines its own action. War is legitimate violence, while legitimacy is a product of power.

The other issue which grabs my attention when I analyzed this Russia-Georgia war is that, will the borders among nations disappear in the future thus a world government will be formed? Cold war is over now, but regional conflicts are still on the stage. And through Russia-Georgia war (I am not going to analyze Russia’s motivations of invading Georgia in this essay), it can be seen easily that some ethnic groups still want to establish their own countries. Although some people who believe that because of the stronger and stronger interdependence among countries, especially in the field of economics, there will be less wars, and the process of forming a world government will be accelerated. But there are just too many instances proving this theory wrong. If the world government is to be formed, there will be a universal currency, a universal value, universal law and so on. It will become easier to trade commodities and to travel around… However, the premise is that every country has to give up its sovereignty to answer to a higher power, so the problem is that, are they willing to do it? In my opinion, being selfish is one of our human nature; we always do something beneficial to ourselves. And we are socialized to acquire certain value which might be quite different and even confliction comparing with the value of another tribe or religion; these differences sometimes become the reasons for wars, just like crusade.

I don’t think “legitimate” violence exists in the world. People with strong power and the party with more resources define “legitimacy”. But this so called “legitimacy” is not legitimate in the essence. And I don’t think the borders among countries will disappear in the future because of selfish human nature and the result of socialization.

Su, Tzu-Jung

Pondering on “Parole”

After reading “incarceration around the world”, one section in the assigned reading, some questions centering on “parole” keep haunting in my mind. What is the goal of parole? Is the system of parole necessary? How to interpret the high rate of re-committing crimes after receiving parole?

The system of parole was originated in the UK; its goal was to let the mending criminals return to society earlier. The purpose of this system is good; however, according to the statistic in America and in Taiwan, the rates of re-committing crimes remain high. I will put my focus on crimes relating to taking drugs. For example, in Taiwan, the rate is 68% which is the second highest one.

Why there are more and more people taking drugs? In my opinion, one reason is that more kinds of drug are now circulating around the world thanks to globalization, so people got more choices. The second reason is that globalization leads to increasing unemployment rate thus makes people turn to take drugs as a kind of escape from the reality. The third is that high unemployment rate usually leads to the breakdown of families so families are not able to provide the function as being a refuge anymore. The last reason is because of the mass media, as mentioned in the textbook; people began to use drugs in mimicking some popular singers.   

Most of the countries in the world implement the system of parole, but since the rate of re-taking drugs remains so high, does this system need to exist? Do these governments use the feasible evaluation standard for evaluating whether a prisoner mended his way already or not?

The advantage of parole is to be a motivation, in order to encourage the prisoners repenting. But it seems that disadvantages outstrip the advantage. Some people argue that most criminals re-commit crimes right after receiving parole. And since these criminals serve shorter sentence than what they deserve, the panic among citizens might soar.

If the criminals could not be cured of their addictions, the system of parole is just a cock-and-bull story, so the government should carry out the drug treatment and use a good measure to make sure that these criminals really mend their ways. Or the parole will be unnecessary. Moreover, if the government fails to revive its economics and increase the employment rate, people still have no hope for their future, families keep on being dysfunctional, and people may try other ways to escape from the reality; crime rate is surely to remain high. Government can use globalization as a turning point.

The reason to the object to parole is usually the high rate of re-committing crimes. However, I don’t think the problem is lying on the parole itself, if parole can serve as an encouragement for criminals to mend their ways, then we should support this system. The real problem is lying on the bigger system- the globalized society.

Su, Tzu-Jung

Does democracy equal more freedoms?

Every human being should live under the seven freedoms, especially in a democratic country where government should guarantee its people of the basic rights. These rights are:

1.      freedom from discrimination- by gender, race, ethnicity, national origin or religion;

2.      freedom from want- to enjoy the decent standard of living

3.      freedom to develop and realize one’s human potential

4.      freedom from fear- of threat to personal security, from torture, arbitrary arrest and other violent acts

5.      freedom from injustice and the rule of law

6.      freedom of thought and speech and to participate in decision- making and form associations

7.      freedom of decent work- without exploitation

Totalitarianism deprives people of many freedoms and rights for sure. In totalitarian regime, people have to obey the dictator; the dictator can arrest his or her people without any reason, and treat them in inhuman ways. Take USSR for example, in the age of Joseph Stalin, people with different ideas were arrested and were exiled to Siberia, and people who could be seen as a threat to Stalin’s dictatorship would be murdered. On the other hand, in democratic countries, there’s a constitution protecting people’s basic rights. In reality, some countries carry out its promise of human right; some take their constitution as a mere formality.

In some countries that do implement their constitution and give its citizens the seven freedoms, people can criticize the government; people have the right to vote; people can gather together and form an association; people can protest on the street and strike, etc, are these people really “free”? According to the definition of freedom, freedom is to follow our own will which is not influenced and is not constrained by external force; and freedom is to avoid other people’s interference when a person is conducting activities in accordance with the law.

But in many democratic countries, people are controlled by the new “dictator”, namely, the media. There are more and more newspapers, magazines, and programs about commenting on the government or politicians. In Taiwan, you can easily tell which party a person supports by what newspaper he or she reads. Newspaper thus became a new instrument controlling people’s minds. Newspaper became a tool of conveying an ideology held by one party; the worst is that in Taiwan, parties are differentiated along the “ethnic line”(most of residents are the offspring of Chinese, while some of their ancestors came to Taiwan before 1949; some were after. Which period of time did your ancestors came to the small island became the standard for differentiating different “ethnicity”). The newspaper reporters can write articles without the pressure government’s command, thanks to the freedom guaranteed by constitution. But the people who read these articles are to be instigated to resent other parties. People’s thoughts are confined in a certain scope.

The constitution guarantees people’s right of speech, but this freedom could also become a trap for people; people might lose their own judges, as the people living in a totalitarian country. Compare with Singapore, where is also a democratic country but “not so democratic” as other countries, people lead a happy life, people get alone with others from races peacefully. This really makes me think, what is the value of democracy? People can have freer right of thought and speech, people have the right to participate in public affairs, etc. But do people really gain the freedom in the essence?  

Division of labor brings efficiency and helps the market to increase, as what Adams Smith proposed: “this ever increasing division of labor as the key to prosperity”.

The pattern of division of labor began to change in the 1970s and 1980s. Take the US for example, big companies started to move overseas in search of cheaper labor during these years. And the finished goods will be exported back to the US. In this process in this period of time, Taiwan, this developing country, was viewed a suitable place for establishing assembly line. Investments came, plants came, “RCA” came.

RCA built its own plant in Taiwan in 1970, hired 20,000 to 30,000 local employees, and closed the plant in 1992. During 1970s and 1980s, Taiwan government boasted of so-called economic miracle: people got richer, material lives become more abundant, more and more children could be educated, etc. Two years later, serious pollution cause by RCA was made publicity, mainly because of the dumping of organic solvents which polluted groundwater. In 1998, former RCA employees declared getting different kinds of cancer due to drinking polluted water. According to statistics, the ratio of getting cancer of former RCA employees to ordinary people is about 20 times. Until today, these employees are still fighting with RCA to get compensation.

David Ricardo was pro-division of labor; he extended Adam Smith’s idea and believed each country should focus on fostering its comparative advantage where the product could be made at the lowest price but the best quality. However, there is dark side to comparative advantage. “What if the comparative advantage of a nation is in providing cheap and docile labor force that won’t demand higher wages or better condition”? In order to develop, government make regulations in favor of big companies, but these regulations are quite adverse and harmful to its own people and environment. This is the dilemma faced by many developing countries. And this is why so many women lost their fingers to the saw in factory because of overloaded work; this is why so many child labors have to work since 3 years old; this is why so many former RCA workers in Taiwan got cancer for drinking poisonous water. Follow the rules of the “free trade game” made by rich countries, developing states paid a huge price for economic miracle, and they’re still paying today.

http://www.tahr.org.tw/site/case/rca/index.htm

http://www.jrf.org.tw/reform/file_5_2.htm

Su, Tzu-Jung