...giving some information on the author and the background of the book and its historical context, and then exploring the elements of the novel itself, including plot, characterization, style, intended audience, and the contribution the book makes to an understanding of African life and history. A People's Voice: Black South African Writing in the Twentieth Century. Abrahams style is clear and simple. The book is certainly demonstrative of the political, cultural and economic life in South Africa in the 194 s as well as in the 199 s, and in any African country where imperialism and exploitation continue to exist. New York: Collier, 197. Shava, Piniel. With this offer the symbolic alternatives for the poor black as represented by Xuma are clear---he can lose his life and soul to the capitalist system which is epitomized in the mines, or he can become corrupted through the business of helping other poor, miserable blacks to become numb through the use of alcohol, thereby corrupting himself at the same time. The major characters around Xuma in his awakening to this politically radical position are Leah (who has adapted to the corruption spawned by capitalist exploitation by building her own bootlegging business); Ma Plank(who has been worn down by her hard life but who has acquired a deep visceral knowledge of life and death); the drunks Liz, Johannes and Daddy(who have given up and turned to the numbness of alcohol); Eliza, Xuma's love interest (who yearns, essentially, to live the life...
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...The Consequences of an oppressive British Imperialist system and its effect on the psyche of the Indian Population Presented by: Renato Abate / #0530456 Presented to: Diane Labross 300-301-LA: Integration Seminar in the Social Sciences Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 The existence of vast imperial strength and its steady maintenance has always been attributed with a tyrannical system of government accompanied by an oppressive method of control over the native population from the days of expansion of the Roman Empire in Europe or the Qing Dynasty in China. The use of excessive force and the application of various methods of segregation which limit revolt have always been viewed as a necessary means to maintain order among enormous populations that inhabit regions all over the globe. The British Empire was able to utilize such methods during its extensive domination of the Indian subcontinent and reap the financial and material benefits from the mid seventeenth century with the founding of the East India Trading Company until the establishment of Indian independence in 1947. However, the use of these methods over many generations brought about the unified will to revolt among the Indian population, provoked by the negative psychological strain which stems from an extensive period of suppression. The discussion relates to the unvarying inability of an occupying nation to install a foreign government that attempts to preserve social stability over native inhabitants through...
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...Task Essay Question(s): Evaluate feminist views on the role and functions of religion in society today (18marks) Patriarchal Vehicle Evidence of patriarchy; * Sacred text, places of worship etc. Woodhead, Armstrong etc Criticism and strengths. Task Essay Question(s): Evaluate feminist views on the role and functions of religion in society today (18marks) Patriarchal Vehicle Evidence of patriarchy; * Sacred text, places of worship etc. Woodhead, Armstrong etc Criticism and strengths. Evaluate postmodernist explanations of the role & functions of religion in contemporary society (33marks) (Plan and case) Evaluate postmodernist explanations of the role & functions of religion in contemporary society (33marks) (Plan and case) Feminists see religion as a patriarchal institution; maintaining male dominance over women by allowing them to believe that it is their divine right to dominate. As well as this, they believe that religion functions as a patriarchal ideology that is a vehicle that perpetuates inequity and such beliefs legitimizes female subservience and oppression. El Saadawi, says that religion is distorted to acquiesce patriarchal domination in which they exploit women in multiple ways; prostitution, slavery and abortion. However, functionalists believe otherwise and argue that its function is not to oppress women but necessary as to keep society stable whilst Marxists believe that religion oppresses the working class and serves capitalism not females...
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...Fine Arts & the Creative Process: Theatre Emphasis April 26, 2012 Cloud 9 Critical Response The play Cloud Nine examines questions of gender identity, sexuality and individual freedom, as they exist within two traditional, oppressive ideological models: colonial imperialism and masculine supremacy. By contrasting these worlds of political and sexual dominance, the play draws a parallel between the paralysis exacted by both frameworks upon the development and expression of unique, authentic personhood. The play dramatizes the argument in startling fashion by challenging the touchstones of theatrical convention. Specifically, it defies usual methods of depiction, for some of the main characters in Cloud 9 are portrayed by actors who do not, in any physical or obvious way, resemble those characters. Because the play distorts and uproots the standards of dramatic characterization in such a bold way, the staging of Cloud 9 can potentially border on the ludicrous. So thrown is the audience, that members might start to disengage from the activity of the play and dismiss its theatrical experimentation as too obvious to be regarded seriously, too overdone to be clever or provocative. However, if such an impression of Cloud 9 is registered, I believe this is a failing not of the play but of an audience conditioned to assign fixed attributes to characters in order to render them intelligible. Cloud 9 is not interested in offering satisfaction in this rather simple manner, or of treating...
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...many. Victorian literature for the most part has been the product of the middle class or as commonly put by Karl Marx the petit bourgeois. The bourgeois was comprised of small-scale capitalists such as shop-keepers and government employees and in the case of Wuthering Heights it is no different. Written in 1846, Emily Bronte’s novel contains a turbulent ideological storm, demonstrating an apparent crisis of the Victorian era petit bourgeois class to which Bronte was born. Throughout the novel the various crises surrounding the estate and the family are all explored, but more importantly, Wuthering Heights examines the crisis of individuality versus custom, since the contradiction between the social expectations of class privilege and the selfhood advocated by the materialistic pursuit of the capitalist system is the very essence of Victorian consciousness. Bronte appears from the onset of her story more interested in showing the reader a realistic world that is not shackled by fantastical dreams and desires. Rather she shows a world beset by the same conflicts as her own. Her highly integrated and mysterious approach utterly defies the prevailing methodology of fiction literature to remove the reader from the discord of their existence; much...
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...White Feminism: the Self-Appointed Savior of the World The movement of (Eurocentric) feminism has been superglued to its privilege ever since the term “féminisme” was first coined in 1837 (source). Marked by its relentless, unapologetic, prioritization of the voices of middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, white women over the experiences of queer women, women of color (third world women) , transgendered women; the movement has become an obstacle for equal rights in the broader sense. While “white” feminism is absolutely vital today and has produced outstanding achievements for women in the Western world, the byproducts of its undeniable privilege has been detrimental, to say the least, to women of third world countries in particular. Western...
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...Native American Oppression Santucee Bell Case Western Reserve University Native American Oppression Introduction & Focal Population Imagine living in a world that consistently devalues your existence and is heavily populated with individuals who are quick to use and abuse your resources, but are slow to share the wealth that is accumulated from those resources. How would you feel? Unfortunately, certain populations do not have to visualize the disparity that is pictured above. This is because inequity is one of the most demoralizing social issues that plague America today. The worst thing about inequity is the fact that it continues to disproportionately burden individuals who are categorize as being minority in today’s society. This is especially true for the American Indian/Alaska Native population. This population continues to be one of the most vulnerable minority groups. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010 (2011), “American Indian or Alaska Native refer to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central American) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment” (Humes, Jones, & Ramirez, 2011, p. 3). 2,475,956 out of 308, 745,538 people that live in America are believed to be American Indian/Alaska Native, including those who report affiliations with tribes and South and Central American Indian groups (Humes et. al,, 2011, p. 4). This number is...
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...One example is Will Kymlicka (1989, 1995) who bases his claims on strict liberal ideals. His argument is twofold: he emphasizes the need of group rights for the development of self-identities, but he also sets limitations on the granting of group rights that does not fit into certain criteria. The reason that a rich and protected cultural structure is essential for the development of a person is that they act as the background in which the members are able to build self-respect and the capacity to make independent choices. Language and history are tools for individuals to build a strong identity and the context in which the can build the capacity to make choices about future aspirations. However, critics like Okin counter-argues that instead of focusing on the importance of the role of cultures in the development of self-esteem and social roles, we need to pay attention to where one is placed within than culture and whether the instilled social roles are enforced by that culture. If, for instance...
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... 12/5/03 What Is Imperialism? “Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism…characterized by monopoly corporations and the compulsion to export capital abroad for higher profits. Unlike capitalism in the earlier stages, in the imperialist stage, capitalism has no more progress to bring the world…the cause of contemporary militarism” – Lenin “The policy, practice, or advocacy of seeking, or acquiescing in, the extension of the control, dominion, or empire of a nation, as by the acquirement of new, esp. distant, territory or dependencies, or by the closer union of parts more or less independent of each other for operations of war, copyright, internal commerce, etc.” – Oxford dictionary The word imperialism derives from “empire.” As such, it is useful to spend a bit of time to define the word. In working towards a minimal definition, Stanford Professor of Archaeology J. Manning in his first lecture on Ancient Empires starts with: “An empire is a territorially extensive hierarchically political organization.” Unfortunately this definition is too vague. All states encountered in human history are by definition hierarchical, and many nations today are vast compared to the empires of the ancient world. Thus, Manning rephrases his definition of empire to be: “A territorially extensive hierarchical political organization involving the rule of one or more groups over other groups of foreigners.” But what causes empire...
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...CROSSING BORDERS IN THE NEW IMPERIALISM (published in Colin Leys and Leo Panitch (eds), Socialist Register, London: Merlin, 2004) Bob Sutcliffe In words which seem uncannily relevant today, two mid-nineteenth century fugitives (in today’s language asylum seekers) wrote that “the bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country”[i]. This cosmopolitanization (or in today’s vocabulary globalization) turned out to be neither as continuous nor as complete as they expected. By the beginning of the following century other emigrant followers of these two men began to argue that the full economic integration of world capitalism would be prevented by strife between the industrialized countries. Imperialism in this sense seemed to mean that globalization would be a task for post-capitalist society. This appeared to be confirmed by the following half century of war, protectionism and deep economic crisis until, in the middle of the twentieth century, cosmopolitan capitalism made its big comeback. Globalization is more than anything else the feature of today’s capitalism which leads many to argue that there is a new imperialism, or even that imperialism has been replaced by something else (for instance, by “post-imperialism” or by “Empire”). The real newness of the present is, however, debatable. In trying to discern the character of an age, it is tempting to argue that everything...
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...” - Georges Bataille Blurring the boundaries of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality has become a common denominator in defining personal identity in the twenty-first century. Exploding previous notions of these categories as fixed and static, artists today are taking an active role in exposing them as mere constructions. Nevertheless, transgressing these boundaries is still a delicate dance, and individuals who succeed in walking the line between identity categories occupy a precarious position. The purpose of this study is to explore the resistance strategies that trans-genders utilize when met with adversity and the ways that trans-genders see their trans identity as providing them with a form of strength and resiliency. Trans-genders are often analyzed from a pathologizing lens within the sociological and psychological literature. I wish to investigate the ways that trans-genders are currently pushing back against the oppressive forces that they encounter every day in hopes of increasing awareness of trans-genders resiliency and strength within the sociological and psychological fields. Terminology Transgender is often used to refer to people who “do not conform to prevailing expectations about gender” by presenting and living genders that were not assigned to them at birth or by presenting and living genders in ways that may not be readily intelligible in terms of more traditional conceptions of gender. Transsexual is...
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...Every year the imperialists’ influence on Bangladesh becomes apparent when the Bangladesh Development Forum (previously known as Paris Consortium) meeting is held. This year this meeting was held on May 16 and 17 in Dhaka. In these meetings Finance Minister, Saifur Rahman, met the so-called ‘development partners’ (IMF/World Bank and others) who gathered to pledge money (loan and aid) to help develop the nation. The meetings were hailed a great success as $2 billion in aid were promised to Bangladesh over 3 years. Our governments boast at the amount of funds they can manage from the donor agencies. They present their ability to get money from these donor agencies as a sign of their brinkmanship and claim that this is the only way to solve the nation’s economic problems. In this paper, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Bangladesh exposes the oppressive capitalist nature of the budget and shows how the entire economy of Bangladesh, through a complex package of measures, is being brought under the total grip of the imperialists. ! " # $ % & ' Every year when the budget is presented, one of the most common discussions is that revenue target has not been achieved. Tax is the main source of revenue in Bangladesh (around 95% of total Government of Bangladesh GOB revenue), especially import duties (around 66% of tax revenue). Contribution of VAT (including import) currently stands above 40%. In the name of reform of tax regimes and restructuring of the tax administration, the GOB reduces the...
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...Jamaica: The Rastafarian Movement Introduction to the Rastafari Phenomenon By Nathaniel Samuel Murrell Seldom has such a relatively small cultural phenomenon as Rastafari attracted so much attention from young people, the media, and scholars in the fields of religion, anthropology, politics, and sociology. The signature long, natty dreads on the heads of Rastafarians, who fearlessly chant down Babylon (Western political and economic domination and cultural imperialism) with the help of reggae music, make Rastafari a highly visible movement and "one of the most powerful cultural forces among youths in Jamaica" and in countries around the world where one least expects to find elements of Afro-Caribbean culture. Between the 1930s and the 1950s, few people bothered to study the significance of the political and ideological concepts in Rastafarian culture. Even Jamaicans who may have understood the philosophy of the movement regarded Rastafari as another passing fad, which would die a natural death once the novelty wore off. Former Rastafarian and practicing psychologist Leahcim Tefani Semaj noted that during this phase of the movement, the dominant public opinion toward the Rastafarians was "The damn Rasta dem, wey de Rasta dem want, we just put dem in a damn boat and put dem out in the sea and sink the boat-say dem want go Africa!" Prior to the 1970s, images of the unsanitary-looking, marijuana-smoking "Natty Dread" with unkempt dreadlocks, often controlling...
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...Introduction Globalization is an idea whose time has come. From obscure origins in French and American writings in the 1960s, the concept of globalization finds expression today in all the world’s major languages (cf. Modelski, 1972). Yet, it lacks precise definition. Indeed, globalization is in danger of becoming, if it has not already become, the cliché of our times: the big idea which encompasses everything from global financial markets to the Internet but which delivers little substantive insight into the contemporary human condition. Clichés, nevertheless, often capture elements of the lived experience of an epoch. In this respect, globalization reflects a widespread perception that the world is rapidly being moulded into a shared social space by economic and technological forces and that developments in one region of the world can have profound consequences for the life chances of individuals or communities on the other side of the globe. For many, globalization is also associated with a sense of political fatalism and chronic insecurity in that the sheer scale of contemporary social and economic change appears to outstrip the capacity of national governments or citizens to control, contest or resist that change. The limits to national politics, in other words, are forcefully suggested by globalization. Although the popular rhetoric of globalization may capture aspects of the contemporary zeitgeist, there is a burgeoning academic debate as to whether globalization, as an...
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... 19 April 2011 PolSci 111 Exam 2 I.Ds: 1. UNDERDEVELOPMENT- Frank reading. Underdevelopment is when a country exists with shortcomings or even lacks in areas of industrial growth, social welfare, jobs, political stability, education, and literacy. These countries typically have much poverty and unequal distribution of wealth. This is significant to comparative politics because we study how underdeveloped countries come to be more successful nation-states with prospering markets. We also study examples of countries that have failed at this. Some of the more successful countries would be Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Africa and Afghanistan would be prime examples of countries that still have trouble with underdevelopment. 2. SYNCRETISM- Sil reading. Syncretism is the strategy of Nation building that combines foreign/modern and native/traditional values. Sil believes that in order for a Third World country to move forward, traditions must be reconstructed with newer, more modern ideals. This is significant to Comparative Politics because it is a way of understanding how social mobilization affects modern nation building. 3. ZAIBATSU- Johnson and Fukai reading. Zaibatsu are eastern Asian industrial and financial conglomerates that unleashed entrepreneurship in countries like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. They focus capital in developmental projects in underdeveloped countries and constitute compromise between inefficiencies of purely state enterprise and indifference...
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