CC #4 (9): Women in Korea

Authors Foster Klug and Hyung-jin Kim describe the the repercussions of the election of South Korea's first female president and how that may complex the relations of the two Koreas in the article "First Female South Korean President Faces North Korea Crisis". North Korea continues to push the envelope in their pursuance of developing their nuclear programs. The United States, along with many other prominent world powers, have insisted and warned North Korea of the consequences of acquiring greater weapons of mass destruction.

The country north of the 48th parallel recently debuted a national propaganda commercial which illustrates an American city resembling New York City engulfed in flames. The country in the greatest state of urgency is South Korea, the north's blood enemy. The two Koreas represent the contrast of democracy and totalitarianism in which the south has flourished economically and the north is struggling to stay afloat. In attempt to conclude the north's nuclear pursuance, the newly inaugurated female South Korean president, Park Guen-Hye, has been placed in a potentially precarious, life threatening situation regarding the north.

President Park, South Korea's first woman president, was also the daughter of the later South Korean dictator, has stepped back into her childhood presidential mansion. Park has a hard history in politics. An assassination attempt on her father's life accidentally killed her mother instead. Park has also become a South Korean inspirational figure for women. South Korean women have the lowest income rate amongst developed democratic countries. Park will surely spark a women's equality revolution within the border(s) of South Korea, while on the other hand, North Korea has repressed both men and women in their society.

Women in North Korean society have a greater array of opportunities than that of most Arabic women, as long as they remain within the borders of their respective countries and regions. The found of North Korea, Kim ill-sung, attempted to eliminate their patriarchal social systems through reforms in their laws, such as the implementation of sex equality, the labor law, and the law of the nationalization of essential industry. North Korean women are allowed to work within the countries work force, most likely because the country wishes to fully utilize their able bodies.

Women of the north primarily dwell within the lower class work force, but a minority of women has broken into upper class jobs. Those jobs, however, were presented to those women through family ties, and the ratio of women to men in the upper echelon of jobs is far smaller than that of the lower class of jobs. Although women are in theory supposed to have greater freedom due to the disestablishing of the patriarchal system, North Korea still follows neo Confucian teachings, which states the women must answer to men unconditionally.

The tradition of neo-Confucianism (spell check) will most likely conflict with president park's attempts to quell the north's nuclear ambitions, if the north would be willing to comply in the first place. The north's disregard of women's equality can affect tensions between the two countries in first place, along with park's heritage as an enemy of the north. The north and the south have been notorious archenemies for as long as the baby boom generation can remember. Technically, the Korean War still commences until this day. An actual treaty has never been implemented but rather a cease fire or an armistice has.

The likely hood of North Korea responding positively to South Korea was slim to begin with, not to mention the south's new female president will draw little favor from a male dominated north society. The future of the Korean peninsula in general seems to be grim, but as for the south's womanhood, their future has just begun. Women in the south may begin to experience the recognition and equal respect that they so surely desire.

CC 3 (8) Malala Yousafzai and Women in Islam

Robert Mackey reports the health condition of a young women's rights activist in his article "Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Girl Shot by Taliban Militants , Speaks in News Videos". The article allows the reader to imply and invision the circumstances that women living in Islamic countries must experience on a daily basis. Women's role in our society has evolved from a level of social inferiority to an equal, socially and politically, to that of man. Events and revolutions in women hood spanning between the 1840s to the World War 2 era have brought women a vast array of rights and privileges that were not present in the first century since America's birth, including the right to vote and rightful place in the workforce. Unfortunately, much of the world off the shores of America still visualize women as a merely an expendable possession. Islamic countries have long since retained the tradition of repressing womankind with outrageous rules ranging from the illegality of exposing your face or any part of your body in public to the illegality of driving, rights taken for granite in our free society. Women who do speak out against their abominable living conditions are immediately punished for their "high" crimes, even to the extent of execution for adultery.
         
One young 15-year-old heroine, Malala Yousafzai, spoke out publicly against Taliban operations in Pakistan. She had been preaching women's rights and education activism since she was 11 (approximately) in the Swat Valley, where Taliban militants have repeatedly attempted to take control of. She began writing a blog to BBC detailing her life in Taliban repression under a pseudonym to protect her from the Taliban. However, recently, she was a target of a Taliban assassination attempt, where they shot here once in the neck and in the head after she revealed her identity in protection of her schoolmates. The Taliban publicly admitted their involvement and desire to kill the girl and her father who spoke blasphemy and heresy against the Book of Islam. She was left unconscious at the scene. Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that she is the "symbol of infidels and obscenity".
          
Malala was treated for intensive care in a military hospital in Peshawar. Doctors performed a decompressive craniectomy, where a portion of her skull is removed, allowing swelling within the brain. Her chances of survival were around 70%. A CT scan indicated that although there was swelling of the brain, her vital organs were functioning correctly. She was supposed to be shipped to Germany for better care as her condition improved. Offers to treat her spanned from many countries, including offers from US Representative Gabriel Giffords, who too was shot in the head by a deranged lunatic in 2011. Western civilizations acknowledged Ehsan's assassination attempt as an injustice. Their reactions to the assassination attempt shows the drastic contrast between the two cultures. Instead of punishing Malala, Western countries applaud her for her actions.
           
Malala is now recovering in England. On October 17, she had been reported to have come out of her coma and has a good chance of recovering without any brain damage. The young activist said this since she awoke from her coma,"Today you can see that I'm alive," Irony ensues since she claims that her recovery was God answering every one's prayers and the reason that she was attacked was because she spoke out against the supposed teaching of the Quran. Malala underwent a 5 hour surgery to reconstruct her skull and reestablish hearing in her left ear. The Western countries were able to provide Malala with the proper treatment that she would not obtain otherwise.
          
Malala's presence will impact on both the Swat Valley and other Islamic cultures across the Middle East and possibly Africa. Her voice will me a major inspirational motor for other women repressed in Islamic culture. She acts as the first step for women's rights in under developed countries who still abide by the sexist laws of the Islam. Women eventually won their long war for women's suffrage and rights in America since we were a free country, willing to listen to the voices of the needy, however, the war for women's rights in Middle Eastern countries will be far more improbable and gruesome.Those countries are not based on the values that make America great. The battle for women's rights in Islam will begin with Malala, launching an ushering of a new era for women in Islamic countries.
           
Women in the Middle East have not had the opportunity to experience the freedoms that Western cultures grant. Women of all cultures deserve the liberty and justice that so very few possess. If women wish to experience equality in the lesser developed portions of the world, democracy must flourish there. The process of democratization may or may not succeed in the Middle East, but it's experiement has begun in countries like Iraq.

Booooooook Revieeeeeeew 3: Elie Wiesel's Night

          Elie Wiesel's Night illustrates in discreet detail the horrors within the barb-wired confines of the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz. The book reads fairly easily, although the sophistication of the language and writing style most likely faltered due to the novel's rough translation from Yiddish, a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, to English. Night allows the reader to effortlessly imagine the trials and tribulations of the average inmate in one of Nazi Germany's many slaughterhouses, although I personally found that the book's tone failed to truly epitomize and fairly demonize the atrocities performed by the Third Reich into a fashion that allows the reader to fully comprehend evil. Elie Wiesel's Night, however, succeeds in condensing what was one of man's most malicious acts of genocide in recent memory into a short narrative.
          Night contains a multitude of various themes that can be inferred by a reader of any caliber. One theme being that of self-preservation and the power of will. Each and every piteous soul begins their journey without any idea of the rapidly approaching fate, whether their destiny glistens with glory or travails in torture. Those souls soon find that their fates have been placed in another man's hands, hands that show no empathy for the wretched who wonder into his grasp. Hope of retribution has been immediately crushed by the relentless wrath of the SS soldiers stationed at the death camps. The names of inmates are replaced with numbers, both to organize them and to demoralize them into a sub-human. Souls found unfit or unworthy of survival are quickly cast aside to the pits of hell, the furnaces of Auschwitz and Dachau. For those who have passed examination have either two options, continue their sufferings while maintaining a shred of hope or accepting their fate and succumbing to death. Those who lose hope and have lost the will to live are the first to perish. They become just another forgotten number engulfed in the smoke stacks ascending from hell into the heavens. The theme can comfort readers who envision Elie's struggles as a motivational tool to re-evaluate their own personal character.
          Elie Wiesel writes his narrative from his own personal perspective of Auschwitz. Night practically embodies a biography of Elie's life within the clenches of death. Elie draws himself as a commoner living in a relatively peaceful town away from the German/Russian theatre. He possesses family consisting of three sisters, his mother, and his father, Shlomo. He seemingly wants the reader to be able to relate to his life prior to Auschwitz in order to hammer the horrors of his hell into the hearts of his readers. Elie's character possesses the purity of man as he continually wishes to do best for his fellow man. He attempts to encourage a fallen comrade to push onwards in order to survive, however, his efforts prove futile which immediately reflects another aspect of his character. After his friend refuses to continue his suffering, Elie seemingly forgets of his existence and continues his march of death as if he has became so well acquainted with Abaddon, the Hebrew Angel of Destruction,that the sight of the Reaper no longer phases him. This proves the ability of the SS to effectively beat what makes someone a human out of a human. Without humanity, man reverts to that of a beast, or in this case, cattle. Elie's experiences in Auschwitz also robs him of his faith in god and humanity. "Behind me, I heard the same man asking: 'Where is God now?' And I heard a voice within me answer him: 'Where is He? Here He is--He is hanging here on this gallows.'" Elie's resentment of God distinguishes the depth of hopelessness in his situation.
          The setting of Elie's hell has haunted the hearts of all those who have suffered from within those fences.  The walls of Auschwitz can be compared to that of a slaughterhouse, and her inmates are the cattle, but instead of the healthy being sent off to their demise, the weak are the ones hastened to their deaths. The halls were they rest possess nothing to provide warmth or comfort. Prisoners are given rags as a means to cover themselves. Disease and starvation ensues as the average prisoner is provided a small piece of bread and occasionally soup. Corpses litter the grounds until they are hauled away by their brothers and perhaps the most daunting addition to the suffering, the smoke stacks. Bellows of smoke rise into the heavens along with the ashes of their friends and family, leaving an eerie reminder to all of the prisoners that insolence and weakness will not be tolerated.
          I recommend Night to anyone who wish to learn more about the trials and travails of a real story of survival rather than these silly teeny bopper books such as the Hunger Games. Anyone, who in fact enjoyed Night, should read Un di Velt Hot Geshvign in an English translation, of course. The latter book is an extended version of Night and more in depth as a result.