GHS208-05 Fall 2019 China and the Islamic Middle East

Do you talk to the people you sit next to on a plane? A lot of people I have asked this question said no, which was very surprising to me! I am someone who always talks to the people sitting next to me! I am a decently talkative person, so I guess it makes sense. But I genuinely think that talking to the people you sit next to is a great experience to meet some very awesome people and learn some interesting stories.
Since I have to fly home for school I have quite a few opportunities to talk to people on all of my flights. On the way home I was sitting next to a very nice lady named Jane! She was telling me about her son who just graduated from grad school in Missouri! She was a teacher at a small college in the state as well, and her husband worked at a high school. We chatted for a while before plane took off. During this flight the flight attendants came on the speaker and asked for a doctor or nurse on board, and Jane raised her hand! Once she was done helping the person on the plane she was telling me all about her time as a nurse and all of the crazy patients she saw and how much she loves to help people! To the average person, just looking at Jane is just another normal person, but I really love to hear regular people’s stories! Everyone has something interesting to share, and it’s fun to hear about!
On my way back to butler, I met a very sweet older couple named Jim and Laura. They were in California to visit their son who works there! They are from Florida, so they had to travel pretty far to see him. We had just boarded our plane when there was a hour delay because something on the plane was broken, and this is when the three of us started talking! Laura and I were sitting next to one another so she was telling me all about their trip and what they did with their son! She was telling me how he is an engineer who loves his job and loves California. They also had some cool stories about their lives and travels and it made the delay go by faster! As time went on and we were still sitting on the plane on the ground you could hear more and more people around us talking as well, people in rows all around us were chatting, introducing one another, and shaking hands!
If you are ever in a safe environment and you have the chance to chat with someone you don’t know, I would absolutely recommend it! You never know what you could learn!!

In class today, we talked about what China or the Islamic Middle East would be like if a notable event in history didn’t happen, such as Christopher Columbus or lack of US military presence in the Middle East. When class ended, I was still thinking about this, and I remembered an article I saw back in September. The article tells about a hurricane that was nearing the New York area in the days leading up to September 11, 2001. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the storm ended up shifting directions and never actually made landfall. The big question is this: what would have happened if the storm ended up making landfall in New York?

The airports in the area would have most definitely been closed, and flights would not even be able to pass through the area. Basically, the airspace in the area of the storm would be temporarily closed. Would this have either delayed or prevented the 9/11 attacks? Would the hijackers have tried again at a later date? What if the plane had already been hijacked, but then they realized they couldn’t get to New York, would they try to crash somewhere else, such as the White House or maybe another major city like Chicago? Would they have just scrapped their plan altogether?

If the attacks never happened, what would the country be like today? I wonder if there would be as much security as there is now, and I wonder if there would be less of a negative connotation that is paired with the idea of Islam. There are too many what ifs that go along with this situation, and I am actually starting to get lost in all the possibilities, but I just thought I would share this interesting thing I realized after today’s class.

Today in class, the topic of China’s one child policy came up briefly as we discussed current events in the countries we have studied this semester. In that brief discussion, a deep memory that I forgot was even in my brain popped out, and it is related to this one child policy. When I was in fourth grade, we read a book called Among the Hidden, and it was written by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It is a fictional story about a government that is trying to control the population and combat a food and resource shortage by implementing a law that states that families can only have two children, and that any additional children will be killed and the families will be put in jail. The book focuses around the life of a boy named Luke, who is a third child, also called a Shadow Child, and he has to stay in hiding while his older brothers, Matthew and Mark, go to school and his parents are at work. He is not allowed to leave the house and must be quiet so he is not discovered. Eventually, he realizes that he lives next door to another Shadow Child named Jen, and they become friends. Jen wants to organize a rally via an online chat room for all the Shadow Children in the country and invite them to protest in front of the government to allow them to come out of hiding and have the same rights as everyone else. Luke has a bad feeling about this and chooses not to go. Needless to say, the rally does not end well.

I know that Wikipedia is not always the best source, but I have found that it is excellent for plot summaries of books, so here is the page with a more detailed plot summary than what I provided. I thought this was an interesting connection, because while fictional, it has its similarities to the situation in China. Additionally, despite the fact that I read this book nearly 11 or 12 years ago, it was the first book I read that got me into dystopian fiction, so it has always stuck with me.

Another interesting connection I found is the names of the characters in the book. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all brothers, and these three names also correlate to three of the Gospels. Going off of that, the name Jen sounds an awful lot like John, aka the Gospel not mentioned before, so there is definitely a religious connection in this book. I didn’t realize this as a fourth grader, but I noticed it just now when I looked up the book to double check on the character’s names to make sure I had them right. I know for a fact the author did this intentionally, because that is too strange of a coincidence.

Overall, some interesting connections between this book and the class. While it is not necessarily at college reading level, it is a good, quick read and I recommend it. I also found out that it is part of a series, which I did not previously know, so I will definitely be checking out the remaining books to see what they are about!

Something that I have seen in the news and all over my various social media feeds has been the concentration camps in China. Located in the Xinjang region, these “re-education” camps are aimed solely at Uighurs and are aimed at “stripping Uighurs of their identity and [indoctrinating] them into being secular and loyal party supporters” according to this Washington Post article. These camps are truly abhorrent, with gross breaches of Muslim religious practice being forced upon those held within the camp. China continues to claim that these are “re-education” camps for Uighurs, as there have been “several thousand” Chinese citizens that have died in terrorist attacks supposedly committed by Uighurs. However, this seems like no excuse to place members of this religious minority in a concentration camp. It is plain to see in even just reading one article about the situation that the Chinese government is trying to hide the fact that these are, in fact, concentration camps. The New York Times recently published several pages of leaked documents from inside the Chinese Communist party where these camps are referred to as detention centers. This article has prompted the most recent outcry about the events, but publicity has since died down for this religious minority. It saddens me that this event has gotten so little press or media coverage, as some people are calling it a “modern day Holocaust.” I think that it would help if more people were educated about this, and felt comfortable speaking out in support of the Uighur people. This is definitely a situation to follow.

The current state of Iran’s economic standing is not looking very promising. For the past year there have been protests across the nation, with protesters pushing back against the everyday hardships they face. Just recently an Iranian protester, Hamid Rasouli, was killed by security forces. Iranian forces demanded that if Rasouli’s family wanted his body back that they would have to pay them nearly $8,000 and say that their son was a member of a state militia who died at the hands of protesters.

This is just another example of how dire a situation the Iranian people are living with on a daily basis. The US has been hurting Iran by imposing economic sanctions on the country, forcing Iran to look towards other sources of economic opportunity besides the oil industry. Gas prices have been spiking in Iran, which has contributed to the protests. Iran is in a tough spot by trying to cut fuel demand at home to generate more revenue of selling more fuel abroad.

Iran is feeling the economic squeeze in particular through their foreign exchange reserves. These reserves represent the emergency cash that countries use to pay off trade debt, safeguard currency and stave off financial turmoil. The International Monetary Fund estimates that Iran’s foreign exchange reserves are currently $86 billion. This number is lower than in 2013 when Iran’s poor economy forced them to negotiate on their nuclear program. However, the $86 billion is quite misleading. Classified US intelligence suggests that Tehran only has access to about 10% of those cash reserves, as sanctions against the financial sector prevent the government from tapping into them.

It will be interesting to see just how desperate Iran is over the coming years. As their oil exports continue to decrease while already in a 3% trade deficit, Iran is running out of economic options to uplift their struggling economy. If they reach a breaking point it could mean good news for the US and the West as Iran would be forced to make concessions on their nuclear program and striking down homegrown terrorism.

Sources:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-cut-off-from-vital-cash-reserves-is-approaching-economic-peril-u-s-says-11575369002

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-takes-hard-line-to-keep-protests-down-11575288000?mod=article_inline

Sufism is a dimension of Islam that emphasizes introspection and spiritual closeness with God while shunning materialism. Some of the most famous pieces stemming from Sufism are written by the poet Rumi. The modern view of Sufism is of love peace and tolerance which is why Sufism is sometimes targeted by extremist groups. I found an article about a terrorist attack on a Sufi mosque conducted in Turkey and became interested in the differences between the beliefs of these varying Muslim groups. The views of Sufi Muslims are viewed as a threat to the religion by fundamentalist Muslims. Many externalists believe that only a fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam is valid and the devotion to saints is viewed as inappropriate and disrespectful to God. Some attackers believe that Sufi Muslims in Egypt are tied to the government making them a targeted group. Overall, I found this story interesting because people tend to generalize Islam as one religion, however there are many different dimensions and styles of worship just as there are many different denominations of Christianity and other religions.

If you haven’t seen it yet in the news, the tensions are rising in Hong Kong. These battles between the police and protesters has been going on for quite some time, but have just gotten even more violent and aggressive. Students and protesters have basically locked themselves into a campus as their home base, they have been in there for over 24 hours while the police have been trying to break in. Students have been using gas bombs and bow and arrows to keep the police away. As the battle goes on longer the police have gotten less patient and they have been threatening to use live rounds. The police are saying that the only option for the protesters is to surrender, the police are trying to keep the people inside the school. Some of the students tried to escape but the police shot them with rubber bullets!

People are being urged to leave the campus and surrender, but as some of the students have tried to do so they were just shot at more. Some of the kids inside were able to escape by climbing out of the building, but not everyone can do that! This has to be a tough situation for people in the area, the people on the inside do not want to surrender because they are standing up for what is right!

This conflict has been going on for a very long time and things seem to only be getting worse. Reading about things like this make me think about all of the things that we have here in the U.S. and take for granted. The root issue of this conflict is voting. There are supposed to be elections coming up, but there has been talk about possibly moving it back, but they are unsure if that would help the situation or make it worse.

One thing that I have perpetually noticed while volunteering at Nur-Allah mosque is the levels of security that the people of the mosque entail in order to make sure that all of the people of the mosque are safe while attending service. The mosque has a security guard every time that people are in the mosque. There is a brother that sits by the door and opens the locked outside door when someone wants to come in. The doors are always locked as well. The mosque is also looking to possibly switch locations to a more secure building. While attending a banquet, not only was their security but there was also a police officer stationed outside the venue in his vehicle making sure that there were no issues of security or safety. Sister Caroline, who is a teacher at the Sunday school, has told us stories about how the children have been scared that their safety was at risk because they are muslim. She told us that after the election of 2016, some children came home from school crying becuase they thought they were going to be deported. These setements break my heart. The poeple that I have met at Nur-Allah are truly some of the kindest poeple that I have ever met and it is so sad that they live in fear for their safety just because they follow the Islamic faith. I understand that other places may have seciruty, but I have never been in a church that has to go to the security lenghts that Nur-Allah has to go to. It breaks my heart that in a place that poeple are supposed to have the freedom to follow whatever religion they want, they are scared for their safety for following their chosen relgion. Hopefully, we as a nation can get to a place that people are not scared to practice their religion.

I think following current events is a crucial aspect of understanding the world and being aware of what is going on to different people from all over the world. Recently, Iran, a state that is majority Muslim has had massive protests. These protests began in protest of the government raising the price of gasoline and cutting subsidies of gasoline. Protests erupted in over one hundred cities, and there have been around forty deaths due to the militias retaliating against the protests. The government has also shut down the internet, leading to a lack of communication between the people of Iran and the outside world. On top of the people protesting the government raising the prices of gasoline, prices of food have gone up, and there are large amounts of corruption in the government. These protests have gained large amounts of traction within Iran and it may lead to a change in regime. I will continue to follow this story, and if you are interested in current events in the world this is a story to watch. I found all of this information here:

While now it is in December and I can be full of Christmas cheer, I thought it would be interesting to look at what this season is like in China. It appears that China isn’t very into the Christmas spirt, only about 1% of the population celebrate it, because only about that percentage is Christian. If it is celebrated, it is typically done in the major cities, because this is where majority of the tourists are at. In this city, the mailman will dress up as Santa the days before Christmas to get into the spirit, which I thought was funny. The odd tradition that they have is on Christmas Eve they will give apples to one another that are wrapped, this is for showing appreciation and friendship towards others.

 

To me this seems very different, because when December comes around all I look forward to is watching Freeform (ABC Family) 25 Days of Christmas movie marathon that is on all month. Personally, I like majority of them, but one of my favorites is the classic “The Year Without a Santa Claus” when they are Claymation’s. My favorite scene is when they are singing Heat Miser and Ice Miser songs.

Until next time

 

Patrick