Turkey's social challenges

Turkey is considered as a "new"country, that in the latest years has took the interest of the world. It has various types of ethnic groups, and it's like a mosaic of different cultures. However, it has different problems among its borders, and some of them are like others countries, are the most common.

But I want to emphatize people's life, the society, because I want to make others know what's their situation and what type of problems they have to face. First we have social class problem. In Turkey there's a 10% of population that belongs to the upper class, obviously, it he people who are in politics, wealthy business, among other important charges.

In middle class, there's a 20 to 25 % of population that works as employees and other things, to belong to this class. Unfotunately, more than 60 % of population in Turkey belongs to the lower class, and in its majoritym, they don't have the resources to have a house on their own, so they have to build temporary shelters. The problem is that this shelters become permanent, and a group of those is a neighborhood with electricity, piped water and paved streets.

Other problem is school attendance, because there's not enough educational centers, some young persons leave school at young ages to work, the problems for them is that they far away or they don't have the resources to cross long distances.

Other problem is health care, because a decent one can only be found in big cities. In small towns or rural areas, its difficult to fiend a good one, because the doctors in this area doesn't get paid as well as others, so they leave those places.

It's obvious that Turkey has its problems, but they can work to bring solutions that eventually will improve the situation and make a better country.

Operation Valkyrie

When we think about people who were involved in the nazi party, we always tend to generalyze about them, and always is the same thing, they were bad. Yes, they did a lo things that damaged humanity and created a time of horrors among Europe, but they were also people who were involved in Nazi projects, who tried to stop Hitler and his followers to continue the war.

Some of these men, were officers like Friedrich Olbricht and coronel Claus Von Stauffernberg, attempt to bring order to Germany with a plan called "Operation Valkyrie" which involved the assassination of Hitler and a takeover of control of German cities. Between the principal motives they had, there was a strong bond for their beloved Germany, and they knew that Hitler was going to lose and the damages to germany would be bigger than expected.

So they saw an opportunity in Operation Valkyrie, that was an emergency continuity of goverment and control if by somehow one of the leaders could not continue their duty. The Valkyrie team, modified the operation in order to have control of German cities, disarm the SS, and arrest the different leadears once Hitler was death.

The plan was used in 1944, but unfortunately, failed. Stauffenberg was going to attend a meeting with Hiteler and some officers, he left the bomb and in the room and left to Berlin to take control. He started the operation, but when officers were noticed that Hitler was still alive, they arrested Stauffenberg and his associates. They were shot. They knew Germany was heading to defeat in war and destruction, so they wanted to save their home country.

The Pacific

Yesterday, I was watching with my dad the new show called "The Pacific" in HBO, since we are fans of the show "Band of Brothers" and this new show is from the same creators, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, we watched it with interest.

And as we expected it, it didn't dissapointed us, great drama, special effects, history, good characters, and a sense of reality that kept us watching to the screen. As we watch this type of shows, I like to ask my dad about different facts that are written in history, and he enjoys to answer my doubts.

In the episode, the marines are sent to secure an airfield in Guadalcanal, and fight against the counterattacks from the Japanese. In history, when we think about World War II, we foten think first in tha nazi party, mainly Europe, and the Allied armies with their advance throught Europe, but we need to know that this war was greater than we think, it involved different countries, several amounts of people, and great damages to nations around the world.

An example of this what the Pacific War, in which allied forces tried to take down the Japanes empire, and invaded different Pacific oceans. The war began 7 December 1941, with the invasion of Malaya and the Pearl Harbor attack, and it ended with the bombims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945.

I really think that this kind of shows are great, because they involved a type of entertaintment, and people can learn a little of history with them, but it's also good to investigate a little bit at the hostory files of those events, to learn what was the reality of it.

Lech Kaczynski

We all know about the unfortunate news about the plane crash who took the lifes of 131 people, including the president of Poland, his wife, and important members of his governments, on a trip to Russia. He was on a trip to commemorate the killing on Russia of hundreds of Polish people and also the improve the relation between Poland and Rusia. But when I was reading the news about the accident, I saw a comment of a person in Poland about his lost president.

"I've never agreed with him, I don't even think he was doing a good job, but after all he was a person."

So who was the person behind the critics?

Lech Kaczynski used to occupy charges in politics before being president, as a pro-democratic and anti-communist. He was elected senator in 1989. From 1992 to 1995, he was the president of the Supreme Chamber of Control. In 2001, he founded along with his brother, the political party "Law and Justice". In 2002, he was elected mayor of the of Warsaw. In 2005, he was elected president, and he occupied the position until his recent death. In his goals during his presidency, were increasing social solidarity, bringing justice for communist crimes, fighting corruption, among others things.

So it's mainly personal the doubts and critics we have of him, but with all that, thousands of people gathered in presidential palace in Varsovia, to commemorate the death of their president.

Tragedy for Poland

Unfortunately, we never know when an accident is going to occur, and even less, who is going to take the consequences of unlucky acts, but that's life, when it's time, it's time, id doesn't matter who you are or where you are.

Now, Poland has a feeling of sadness, their president, Lech kaczynski, died in a plane crash when he was traveling to Russia, to conmemorate the deaths of thousand of polish people by the secret police of Stalin, in the woods of Katyn, also in an attemp of rising the level of reconciliation between Russia and Poland.

The crash took place in the city Smolensk, they try to land because of the intense fog, but accidents happen. There was 131 people who died in the accident, including Kaczynski's wife, and members of his government. The US president, Barrack Obama, expressed his condolences, as others leaders of the world, and he said that Kaczynski was a leader who was admired in the US for promoting freedom and human dignity, also for being one of the responsibles for the rise of democracy in his country.

The world showed respect for the tragedy, for example, Kaczynski was planning to attend the great match between Real Madrid vs. Barcelona, so the people in the stadium had a minuto of silence because of the deaths occurred, and the players carried a black bracelet in memory those who suffered the consequences of the accident.

Discrimination to immigrants

We often see how some people are discriminate by others, but one that is common is when a persons criticize other because it have a different culture. It's unethical, but people keep doing that because they believe everything should be equal, and there should not be any changes, so for them, when a person who is different from them starts living in their country, it's a new threat right away.

If we start to think, how much a country will change if for one day, the immigrants didn't work, didn't buy things, and start a protest, imagine how this would affect us. First, immigrants will not help with their works, so many sectors in industries and companies would be left alone, and production would slow. Now talking about trade, if immigrants people of a country stop buying and demanding some products, they wouldn't contribute to raise the economy, so demand would decrease for a day.

But in some countries, immigrant people doesn't have the same rights that others, so they are treated different in certain areas, like work, or other public acts. But we have to know and understand that they want to be a part of our society, but they also want to keep a part f their culture, so we have to respect that, not considering someone less because of their beliefs. We are all human, and we have the same rights. We have to learn how to coexist before little differences tear us apart, in order to live better with others in the same world.

Oil scarcity

Oil is a substance very valuable, because it has differents uses and can derivate a long variety of products that serve the most common needs, like gas, for example. But, as we know, oil has a limit on our planet, an every day the price of oil is more valuable, because even if we haven't discovered all the capacity of oil that our planet, because oil is scarce on our planet, people is trying to get more of this resource in order to satisfy different needs and sell it in the market.

But when we talk about oil and its importance, we should try to investigate how countries are intending to get it and what's at risk in this kind of ways. Because of the price value of oil, and the scarcity of it, countries are now more interested and becoming owner of different settlements destinated to oil production and new spots of oil descovery, but how are countries willing to do in order to obtain it?

Well, we have some examples, like the most common nowadays. The USA invaded the Afganistán and then Iraq, because of the attacks in New York City, and the treat of terrorists groups who are trying to create a chaos because of their purposes. But let's not forget that USA has an interest in oil. An article said that: "President Bush's Cabinet agreed in April 2001 that Iraq a destabilising influence to the flow to oil to international markets from the Midlle East and because this is an unnacceptable risk to the US, military intervention is neccessary".

So countries are willing to create new conflicts that could have collateral damages on others, just to get oil and other resourses, we should work together as a planet rather than fighting to get more resourses than others, when is being powerful more important than to live better ?

Environment: not opportunity cost

In the class, we've learn that opportunity cost is the nest best alternative in a choice, is what you sacrifice to get what you want, the other option. However, for big industries and production centers, environment is not considered as an opportunity cost, because they don't care if they destroy habitats, they only care in selling, in producing money. How have we got into this? We have only one world, and we are destroying it just to gain a profit, and what's worrying is that there's a great amount of firms that do this, just destroying part of the planet to product and sell. What we can do is start to help, and get togetjer in programs that can help our environment, because if not, the world and the nature of it will slowly decrease, at the point in which we can't live in a proper way. But still, it's selfish to destroy part of the world just to obtain money and be succesful in matters of economy, but when the world starts to end, money will be just a paper without a value, monay can't save us, only us. So to keep living the way we have, we need to take caro of our surroundings, and to keep the way it was, if we need to take something from the nature, let's give it back, plant trees for example. There are many ways, let's not fool ourselves, the only thing we need is conscious and motivation.

Critics to politicians

We know that every person often critics the type of government they're into and the people that represent them, also those who take decisions that may affect the people. It's easy to say that they're not doing nothing, that they're stealing or that they tricked us just to have some power. This may be truth, but we don't know, we can't ask them. but before making this kind of prejudgements, we need to know that politicias have the pressure of an entire city/state/country. It's not an easy job, manage, distribute and make decisions every day has to be exhausting and difficult, because they have to think in every little thing. When a new politician enters, we suddendly think that he only wants power and big money. Is it politician's fault that we think this way? Well, I think that they have done things, in which they have left their charges to obtain benefits and goods that are not provided to others, like money, or others things. So people have made this prejudgement about people who want to access to the politics world. But I guess people sometimes just say these kind of things just to talk and to make others think that they knoe about the topic, but first, to start making critics, we need to know how is the development of the person in power, and what are the things he's doing, and also evaluate his work, rather than the person or the politician party he's representing.

Black market

When we think of the term "Black market", we often think about movies where illegal transactions are held, usually things like drugs and weapons are the most common. Well we are not far from the real definition, but not just illegal suppliers. "Black market" is a nickname used for underground society, in which people trade goods with a lack of the regular norms of trading, to avoid taxes or to supply illegal things like drugs. Why people do this? Well, because it's easier for people to supply goods if they don't have to pay taxes, so they don't lose money on that kind of things, also when the product it's illegal or stolen, it gives the opportunity to suppliers to sell the product in higher prices than they produce it. It's easy to find this kind of economy in countries where corruption and regulations exist, but we can fint it in almost every country, just in less amount because of authorities. But with these products, there's no guarantee, so people prefer to buy their products from legal suppliers because they demand quality, but illegal stuff like drugs, weapons, and things that you can't find that easy or that are not available for you, you can find it there. But there's a high price for these suppliers, commonly jail, so we shouldn't contribute to this kind of trade because it can lead to worst things.

Social Status

Today, we were reading a Britain's news about how racism has decreased over the last years in Britain, and how the ethnic minorities are no longer automatically disadvantaged. But despite how many people think, there still are some problems that the government should deal about and start coming up with solutions. Yeah, racism could has decreased in this last 10 years, it hasn't dissapeared, but the situation has certainly improved for this topic in England, but there are still other problems that need the same attention, like social class. Britain has a very distinguished social class defined by the wealth, and also the names of the families with higher influence with people in the power. And unfortunately, this brings higher opportunities to people that belong to those social circles, but what about the other people?, there are still in disadvantage because they don't have the same wealth or lineage, it's more difficult for them to reach a higher point in society. We said the racism has decreased significatively, but it's important for us to see what role do race plays in matter of social activities, ethnic people has less opportunities and they're highly more discriminated by others than white people in Britain. This all concerns with human morals, because we're all the same, we are human beings, and our social class shouldn't define who we are as persons. This matter do not concerns just Britain. It is present in almost every country in the world. We should take a look at our country, is it too different? Of couse we're in the very same situation, but we have to start to treat others with respect and see them like humans, like us. Social status shoudn't be one of the things that people has to consider to evaluate a person's value.

Celebrity Cult

People in the world often admire those persons that because of their talent on the field of entertainment, reach a certain level of fame and recognition around the globe. It's not wrong to admire someone, in fact I think it's good to have a role model, but in some cases, people take this into higher levels, creating an obsession for celebrities, and acquiring a desire for being focused about others people's life. The common interest about the lifes of celebrities is presented in almost every type of media: magazines, papers, television, internet.

Celebrity magazines tells everything about the latest gossips about the famoust celebrities in the globe, and it has a large audience among people, especially teenagers. Its caused by an increase focus on celebrity enternainment industry, an example of this, could the television, like we mentioned before, that has various recognized channels which promote in high levels the cult of celebrity.

I personally don't think that is something bad to be concerned with others lifes, only if its just for curiosity. I think that exagerating in this topic is a problem which anybody can suffer, and it can lead to worst things like getting obssesed about someone, or in some cases start stalking the person. Everything sould have a balance, and be concious about the consequences of those acts, mainly, we should live our own lifes without being obssesed about a person that generally we dont even know.

Corruption

On my researchs, I found a map with different levels of corruption, each level had its own color, green was the lowest, and red was the highest. It's sad to see that 6, maybe more countries, are in green. The others are in different levels, but our country, imagine in what level is: red.

I came to realize that the people that claims to serve and protect the people of a community, are the ones that succumb to tentations that go against the laws, leaving our pilitical system in doubt and affecting the very same people that elected them to be in power. Where are the values in this kind of situation? There's a lack of responsability in their charge and their obligations, they should be working and trying to improve the situation of the cmmunity in which they work, that's why they were elected for, but some are just there for the power and the benefits, so they have no problem to accept something that's not approved by the legal system and make it confidential and secret. Of course in our world, there's good and bad people, but unless we know everything about someone, we can't know in what team they play. We have to trust in them. So I think it's unfair, they're not just giving their backs on people just for their own benefits, they betraying the people who wanted them to be there, those who were in their side. We are all humans, we can make mistakes, but if you have that kind of power, at least you could try to do the honorable thing, the one that is better for the people they're supposed to help. So we have to analyze the people who are willing to obtain power, and which are their intentions really.

Violence

A couple of days ago, I was watching a movie about a a group of people which were involved with the Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and were present in the assasination in the Ambassador Hotel, and whose lifes changed. But there was a moment, when in the movie Robert F. Kennedy was being translated to the ambulance, when a speech was being told. It was Robert Kennedy's speech, named the Mindless Menace of Violence. I was curious about it, so I started looking for it. After I found it, I listened to it a couple of times, and it made me reason about this global problem that is presented in almost every place on the planet: violence.
Violence has preseted since the start of civilizations, fighting for territory, resources, and hate. In many cases only to show power and provoke fear in other person, to proclaim theirselves mighty people, over others. We cannot blame those who live near violence, ad those who started, because the past has thought us that fighting is the way to get what you want, how dissapointing.
We have history to prevent us to do the same mistakes that others have made, but it doesn't seems that people have learn to be better, to respect others, and to live in peace like many people would want. We all have a choice, we're not forced to commit bad things, we can prefer to live an honest life, to be happy. Sadly, there many people who keep looking for it by hating others, by hurting, by taking lifes, by destroying any sign of peace that could present in them.
What right do we have to take someone's life, and keep our conscience clean. The victims are from every class, but also human beings, it's just terrible to live without knowing what would happen to us, but with knowing what can happen to us. In this way, we can never achieve peace, violence only brings violence. We are all a family, when we hate somebody, we are hating a brother, to look at them as aliens, as someone not welcome here. We learn to say no to others, to fear them, to hide from chances. We have to know that out lifes are too short, and to start living in peace with others, in a society made by respects and love for others, and stop making others suffer and filling theis heads with fear. Violence is the worst creation of men in history, and yet is something that we have seen since we have memory. Does it's really worth it to make others suffer, that humans keep on hating each others and fight without any intelligent reason. Let's give peace a chance in this world, let's accept others, let's think logically, and maybe for a moment, our fear will take a rest, and step out of our lifes.

Race

Yesterday, I was watching a video which caught my attention. It was mas by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), about a single word with a long history: race.
It was mainly about the United States, but we all know that race is an idea created by people in the past, but many people in the present keep using it, why? There are my reasons, but the question, is why those reasons?
We all are aware of racism, a global issue particularly in the field of society, created by our ancestors, to define a person's value because of their wealth, their culture, but mainly, their color. One example could be african people, forced to work as slaves during the colonies, and people used to discriminate them, saying they had no soul, they weren't humans. Over time, physicall appearence mattered, and african people belonged to the last place in the new social stucture based primarily in skin color. It's just absurd to watch how people can do those kind of things, in 1776, United States, one of the national's heroes of USA, Thomas Jefferson, wrote that are men are created equal in the National Declaration of Independence, when he was a slave-holder, shocking...
What right do people have, to start pointing fingers to others, and say that they are less than human just for being different, if we look close, we are much alike. Everyone has feelings, thoughts, dreams, goals, but the color of our skin shouldn't be something that has to do with who we are, we all are born with the same rights, it's how God wanted it to be, and we humans created a system in which we are allowed to hate others, to believe they're nothing.
It is a matter we see all around the globe, but we have to understand, we are all humans, we have to accept those who different from us, because we're different from them, and we want to be accepted as well. Let's for one day, treat others as we want us to be treated, let's love life and those with who we share it, and for one moment stop hating. Let's start making conscience.