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IA Blog Post:Cultural Diplomacy and the Global Cold War

I attended the Cultural Diplomacy and the Global Cold War presented by the History Department here at Ohio State University. The Cold War was a battle of ideological projects USA focusing on political freedom while the USSR focused on social freedom. The battle took place in the cultural context, using propaganda and others media to spread their respective ideologies.  Both sides hired different artists to spread their ideas around the world, for example, the USA used jazz artists and the USSR used dancers. This was a time of cultural importance to enhance and promote the countries’ personal cultures to better promote nationalism. Cultural diplomacy was marching a fine line between culture, propaganda, and political ideology. The motive of this cultural enhancement was for countries to project their global visions.

Being born into a western post-Cold War world hearing from a speaker who grew up in the heat of the Cold War in Bulgaria from an Eastern perspective was very enlightening. I have never thought about the Cold War from a cultural standpoint and the huge part it played in the ideological battle. This was very interesting because both sides were using the same type of tactics and enhancing their respective cultures to promote nationalism to then better get their points across.

IA Blog Post: UNA Guest Speaker: Celeste McCarthy

I attended the United Nations Association Meeting featuring guest speaker Celeste McCarthy. McCarthy is an advocate, activist writer, artist, and musician with many different publications and pieces of art to show for her years of work. She was inspired by her mother who was a civil rights activist. In 1987, McCarthy came out as gay during a very trying time for the LGBTQ+ community. She felt a need to be an advocate for a group that was not very well represented. During her college years, she found herself in politics, lobbying against a governor that would jeopardize the rights of many different minority groups. Her efforts did not go to waste because the largest voter turnout her state had ever seen was achieved. McCarthy then moved on to being a woman rights advocate as well going to many women’s clinics and making sure that women could obtain abortions without being harassed.

McCarthy told us about how she is working on her memoir and showed us the artwork that is being included in it. Many were watercolor pieces telling her story of how she got into activism work and her struggles throughout her childhood.  I really enjoyed her presentation and her story was really inspiring to hear.

IA Scholars Blog Post: Performing Solidarities: Third World Alliance as Choreographic Practice

I attended the Performing Solidarities: Third World Alliance as Choreographic Practice lecture given by Emily Wilcox. Right off the bat, this lecture was very intriguing the first topic that was brought up was the opposition to racial discrimination of US imperialism by Mao in China. I have never heard of this opposition from the Chinese perspective and this is the first topic brought up to explain the dance piece we were about to be shown. The dance piece we were shown was about the black American experience and this was performed by all Chinese dancers meaning most of the performers were in black face. This juxtaposition of antiracism performed through a racist trope of black face was shocking to me, this whole new perspective of concepts I have only seen played out in the Western perspective. The dance touched on police brutality and the strength of the black community. There is then a scene in front of the capitol building with dancers dressed as KKK members with a burning cross which seems to be a huge statement on the American government being part of the perpetuating racism. One of the characters rips off one of the KKK member’s cloaks revealing a police officer.

In short, this presentation was shocking and fascinating. I have come to realize I have never seen any outside opposition to American racism by other countries, especially through art. This was very interesting to see and has given me a lot to think about.

IA Blog Post: Suicide and Mental Health in Japan During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan

I attended the Suicide and Mental Health in Japan During COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan seminar hosted by Michiko Ueda. I decided to attend this seminar because I know very little about Japanese culture and what suicide looks like there and how it was affected by the pandemic. The speaker did an amazing job explaining the cultural aspect surrounding suicide in Japan before getting into the effect of the pandemic. Before the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, the suicide numbers were declining over ten years. I was shocked to find out that during the pandemic female suicides increased emotionally. There was also a huge increase in female student suicides. I wonder why the pandemic had a more substantial effect on the female suicide rate.

The speaker went on to explain the potential factors of the increase in suicides including economic factors, mental health conditions, and media reports of celebrity suicides. The industries that were affected the most were industries that are mainly comprised of female workers such as travel, food, and service. This trend was seen in the number of suicides and the change in the number of female non-permanent workers.

This presentation was very well done and covered many of the different aspects of suicide and the pandemic that I had not even considered. I was at first surprised to find out about the increase in suicide in females during the pandemic in Japan, but after hearing the many factors I began to realize that there might be a similar trend in the United States due to the similar circumstances that we experienced during the pandemic. I now am left with the question if the female suicide rate also increased during the pandemic and if there were similar circumstances for causes as the ones in Japan.

Final IA Current Event Night

I watched the recording of the final current event catch up.  I was sad I did not have time to make it to the final current event night because they were my favorite IA scholars event to attend. The first story that was talked about was how Miss Grand Myanmar spoke out against the military coup in her country. This was very shocking to many, as beauty queens tend to stay away from political statements. The unrest in Myanmar continues after the military started a coup when the democratic party won a recent election. The military has killed hundreds during protesting against the coup. By taking a stance she is drawing attention to the issue and was a brave move on her part. The second story brought up was how Oracle is in a 10-year lawsuit with Google. Oracle is suing over a copyright technology that Google stole from them. The software that is being debated over means that if Oracle won the lawsuit they would have a monopoly over modern phone technology. The United States likes to try and avoid monopolies when possible so there is a big problem trying to balance the theft of an idea and product and avoiding monopolies. The supreme court overruled a lower court decision on this case in Google’s favor.

The third story that was talked about was how pop singer, The Weekend, has promised to donate a million dollars to Ethiopians caught in the conflict in Tigray. The Weekend is the son of Ethiopian immigrants and has taken to help those millions of Ethiopians who have been left homeless due to the conflict. The million dollars he will be donating will be given to the United Nations to be distributed. In the last story, we talked about how two dozen world leaders have signed a treaty to pledge to avoid prioritizing isolationism and nationalism as an act to prepare for future pandemics. Among those who have signed are Britain’s Prime Minister, the German Chancellor, and the Kenyan President. The treaty comes after current struggles with international coordination with Covid and the distribution of vaccines. I think this is a great initiative and the United States should get involved especially because we have a bad history of taking nationalism too far.

IA Community Meeting

During this meeting, we had a guest speaker from the Dayton Peace Museum, Kevin Kelly. This was our last community meeting of the semester. Kelly’s background is media and eduction but has now ended up in the non-profit world. The peace museum in Dayton was started by a local farmers who wanted to create a contrast to the very military driven Dayton. So the peace museum was created with an anti-war message in mind. The focus has shifted more to the protection of rights.

The museum has been closed for a year because of COVID, but they have been actively working on new projects during their time of closure. A current focus of the museum is gun violence and education. We went into a talk about red lining which is very important topic to me. I go to an African Methodist Episcopal Church and our church burned down. While trying to get approval to buy land in my hometown of Lebanon, Ohio the city consul only approved use for a undeveloped plot of land in the only black neighborhood in Lebanon. The mayor actually outlined the plot in red. The locals refer to the area as “Brown Town” and is the most underdeveloped neighborhood in the area. I think when we talk about red lining we need to acknowledge that yes the affects of past red lining is going on, but POC are still being red lined to this day. I am glad that he brought up the problem though and it was acknowledged in the Dayton area where I now live.

IA Current Event night

During this current event night, we started with a Kahoot, which I won. We then jumped right into current events starting with talking about Switzerland Mask Plead. They voted to ban face coverings in public. This is very targeted towards the Muslim minority who do use face coverings as part of their religious practice. This is a questionable move especially during a pandemic where many wear masks for public safety. Hopefully, the public will move to encourage the Swiss government to repeal this.

The second story we went over is George Floyd’s family got a large settlement for his death. This is a huge settlement at 27 million dollars after almost a year after his death. I am glad that his family finally receive this well-deserved settlement. The third story is about the Bolivian arrest of a former leader. Jeanine Anez organized the coup against leader Evo Morales. Anez announced there is a warrant out for her arrest after Morales returns to power. This is a very tense time in Bolivian politics.  The fourth story we discussed was the EU struggle with vaccines. The EU is behind Isreal, UK, and the US in vaccination percentages. Italy’s Prime minister announced restrictions and national lockdown for Easter weekend. This is a sad reality that based on where you live depends on your access to healthcare and the right to protection against illness. I hope that countries can start working together to move us towards a healthier covid free world. The last story that we talked about is how Amazon put in a policy that it will not sell books that frame gender or sexual identities as mental illnesses. Conservative politicians in the US were being mad that a conservative author was silenced. A bill was just passed in the House that helps stop transgender discrimination. I am glad to hear Amazon is taking a stand against any kind of discrimination.

IA Meeting #3- Spring 2021

In this meeting we had a guest speaker talking on the topic of Coping with Food Security: The Experiences of Agricultural Communities in Developing Countries. The speaker Rafael has an extensive global background in agricultural studies and is well-traveled. He started talking about food security and how COVID has impacted the food security problem in our world. Developing countries receive the first impacts of pandemics. A great point Rafael brought up is that the people you are trying to help in any field have the best knowledge of what they are dealing with because they have first-hand knowledge. I think this is a very important thing to remember in any kind of work that deals with people are to first take into account their experience and knowledge.

We then talked about the importance of water in our life and what having a clean water source means. Food security can span over very many aspects such as culture, gender roles, economics, agriculture, and many more. These are very important to keep in mind when addressing food security. With these aspects in mind, Rafael went over different communities and how they helped the community with a need they had. We went over the different classifications and strategies used to address food security. The focus shifted to specifically central america where Rafael is from how this food security is playing out there and how it is affecting the area.

Food waste is the biggest problem in developed countries that are contributing to the food security problem in our world. Growing up my family never wasted food, we ate expired food and leftovers all the time because my family has a very Appalachian culture where you eat what you are given and never waste. As I got older and saw my friends family throwing away leftovers and adults and kids not finishing their plates I was shocked. I think there needs to be a culture change in the United States around food and specifically food waste.

IA Current Event Night Pt.4

I watched the recording of the International Affairs current event night that was on Monday. The first event talked about was the Myanmar Coup. This is a coup happening in Burma by the military after the election of a new democratic leader. There are protestors calling for the release of the new leader and others detained by the army. There has also been an internet shutdown to stop people from protesting. I thought it was interesting that they are using the hunger games three finger salute in protest against authoritarian rule.

The next event discussed was Russia expelling European diplomats. This is the result of the countries joining protests in support of opposition activist Alexis Navalny who was jailed for speaking out against Vladimir Putin. Hundred of thousands have protested across Russia in support. I think its interesting there are two protest in two different countries opposing authoritarian rule.

The third news story covered was the post Vale dam compensation. Two years ago 270 people were killed by a dam disaster. The communities affected will get a 7 billion dollar payout from the company Vale who is facing murder charges. This is only an initial payment and they will have to pay more if needed. I am glad that these communities and families are getting justice for the disaster that was caused by Vale.

The fourth story we covered was the Perth bushfire. Hundreds of Australians have had to evacuate their homes because of a bushfire on the outskirts of Perth. This area is in the middle of a coronavirus lockdown which is complicating safety advice messages for the population of 2 million. This event brings up the important idea of an immediate danger taking priority over another potential danger and weighing the pros and cons of the actions that need to be taken.

 

IA: College Mentors For Kids (CMFK)

I attended this presentation in person and we learned about the College Mentors For kids organization. Right now the program is virtual but they plan to go back in person. This organization brings kids from elementary schools to campus in the greater Columbus area. It is Monday through Thursday and you assigned a buddy to mentor for a couple hours. To be a mentor you have to fundraise for your kid, which is very easy. As a mentor you can do so many activities on campus with your buddy on campus and widen their horizon.

This program sounds very interesting to me especially because I love working with kids. I loved being a camp consular over the summer and I think this would be a great program to get involved in to continued that kind of work. I plan to look into this program further because I really want to get involved in service work. This opportunity would be great to better support the Columbus community.