Reflection on the AIC simulation

Playing Syria was a difficult role as their outlook on how a country should be run is much different form Canada. Their human rights policites are the biggest problem right now as riots and protests are currently taking place. Syria has also received a ban on oil exports due to poor human rights which was a large problem for the economy.

Our NSA for this simulation was very helpful and left us with some positive feedback when the game was finished. The positive points that were made mainly had to do with our focus on getting the EU to communicate. We had trouble at first getting them to respond as we needed to gain back our oil exports for the country so Mr. Muallem (Meaghan) sent out a press release telling them that they had 42 hours to respond or we are going to open oil exportation. We did begin completing a press release on our plan of action for restoring our human rights by giving the citizens a vote in certain matters but ran out of time in the end to complete it.

The only negative feedback was that we started off slow at the beginning of the simulation. It was confusing in the beginning learning how the website worked but once we got everything figured out emails were immediately sent out with regard to our goals statement.

Overall this was an interesting experience and each of the games were very different. It all depends on the leaders of every country and their willingness to communicate. We were pretty lucky in this regard as almost all of the other Countries that we tried to contact, other then the EU, were open to discussion and wanted help that we could provide. It's interesting to see how teenagers are able to think of active solutions to so many of the problems that are happening in the middle east but grown men (and a few women) aren't able to negotiate.

Courage by Gandhi

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.” - Gandhi

Strength is not always something that everyone wants to have because sometimes, as human beings, we do break down. I find this quote over everything a strong motivator that to give up is to take the easy way out. To break down this quote I would say that there are 2 parts. The courage to admit defeat and the courage to move on. Sometimes it is not always possible to move on in all situations and the best path for everyone is to admit defeat. With this in mind it is also equally as courages to pick up the pieces and move on and this is really what is seen as remarkable. This is an attribute that is reflected in many global citizens such as Nadja Halilbegovich who is the author of My Childhood Under Fire. She had courage to write about her experiences and share her stories with the world as well as providing hope for the citizens of Bosnia by going on the radio to speak about her situation. Focus will come as a product of motivation and to be a global citizen it does require courage. It requires courage to stand up for what you believe in and most importantly advocate those beliefs.

"All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing"

Inorder to decipher who a person really is there are three things that need to be foreseen. What that person says, what that person does and what others say about them. this can also apply to the object of good and evil. The good and evils of today aren't so black and white as there are many grey ares that do exist but there are some people in the world who clearly are just evil and their values hold no remorse. This quote suggests that it is easy fro evil to take power over good if nothing is done about it. This reminds of what my dad says about how you will never win if you don't try. An example in the world could be seen as the Americans on their peace keeping missions in Afghanistan. I am not necessarily saying that Americans are good but in this situation they are staking a stand to triumph over evil which makes them better then the countries who are doing nothing. The peace keeping they are doing is an attempt to triumph over the Afghani solders. This may be a far ways from triumph but it is this effort that will begin to start others to stand up against evils.

To Act or Not to Act

Question:

When have you experienced an opportunity to act, but not done it (or maybe you did act)? If you have never experienced this sort of opportunity, try to envision a hypothetical situation where it might happen. In this situation why did you fail to act? Or, if it was a hypothetical situation, what might prevent you from acting?

Answer:

When I was in grade 11 a friend who was graduating came to me with the opportunity to take over one of her major projects that she had been working on organizing with the school and inner city kids in Hamilton. She wanted someone to carry on Spread the Love to make sure that food would be provided to the Eva Rothwell centre for the children that attend the after school program. This was a problem for me as I was considering the work load of grade 11 and the fact that organizing alone would be very difficult. I decided to go visit the centre as I wanted to make sure that it was actually what it said it was and after spending an hour with the kids there I emailed Mr. Zelinsky to help me carry on Alex's project. The main thing that was preventing me from acting in this situation was my failed time management. I am a procrastinator as it is and knew that I would have other prefect duties and friends that I want to hang out with on the weekend. I feel this is one of the main reasons that people decide they don't want to act as it does involve work and action. You could be hanging out with your friends but you could do that any time, when else are you going to be presented with the opportunity to change someones life?

Human Rights

Inspirations in history such as Harriet Tubman and Mahatma Gandhi that have changed the world and have made such influential impacts are what is commonly thought of when human rights are mentioned. When growing up I was told stories by my great grandmother who lived to be 103 years of age and was a Women's suffrage in Britain in the 1900's after the first world war. She fought for the women's right to vote as only white males were eligible at the time. This is a huge mark in history as women begin to gain equal rights to men. Posters and banners were made and worn to spread awareness but some men still followed old traditions of the thought that women should be lead not be leaders. Thinking of the situation, it couldn't have been easy as ridicule and even fights were recorded where many didn't feel that it was right for a women to stand up with her beliefs. My great grandmother is an inspiration as this lead to many of the other rights that women now have and has personally inspired me by standing up for herself. the message to stand up for what you believe in is clear and this is really key in any situation for taking action.

Interdependence

" We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations, far away.... We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Former US President, 1945.

This quote about interdependence is of great significance as it pertains to todays modern world as one large nation rather than independent countries. The quote was written in 1945 which suggests that if globalization was happening then, it must be very evolved by now. The fact in the first line of the quote confides that "we cannot live alone" and the reason that I am stating it as fact is because it is now a necessity in this world to be connected in order to survive. Without connections to other countries we wouldn't be able to live the lives we do to today. An example would be buying produce in the grocery store as without interdependence on other countries we wouldn't be able to go the the grocery store and pick up bananas any time of the year we like. However, if all the countries who are growing millions of bananas to provide for the world suddenly have a disease, no one will receive bananas. We are dependent on different countries to provide different luxuries and this is the point Roosevelt is trying to make when he says that "our own well-being is dependent on the well being of other nations". Each individual person depends on the world for its products. For example computers, all of the hardware inside of a computer is made in different factories as they are all specialized to handle the manufacturing of different parts. The factories are located in different countries which just shows that computers couldn't be in everyones home and be mass produced if interdependence wasn't possible. The last idea that I took out of this quote is that "we have learned to be citizens of the world". We are no longer citizens of individual countries but we are citizens of the entire world as the world is becoming smaller. In the "why the world is flat" lecture by Thomas Friedman this same idea is present in his thought of "Gloalization 3.0". He expands on the idea by saying that instead of countries and businesses globalizing, individual people are as well and this is the next step looking into the future.

AIC Reflection and the Europe Crisis

AIC Reflection:

The main goal I have been working towards with Syria is returning our oil trade from the EU. Oil is what supports Syria's main economy and what will help us make ties with the countries on our strategic goals list. One of our goals that pertains to the oil trade is our Human rights which we are wiring to improve. With this, it should aid the EU in supporting us to regain oil trade.

Europe Crisis:

Italy is causing fear among the eurozone with the idea that Italy is to big to recuse. This is effecting the world markets greatly as investor confidence has dropped due to the lack of bail out funds that are available. This scare has effected markets in Germany as they are main investors in the EU. Since the Prime minister of Italy Sivlio Berlusconi has resigned which is also causing a great scare. Since the EU put him in a catch 22 with the decision for a bail out he decided that it would be best to resign. Seeing as all of the European countries are connected through trade if one of these countries is suffering then they all suffer. It will be interesting to see who the new Prime Minister will be and how the rest of Italy and Europe take the transition.

What I did this summer and how it connects to the world

These past few years have been filled with countless natural disaster that have taken place all over the world. Including the tsunami and earthquake that took place in Japan (click to see story) only a few months ago to the most recent flood that happened in Nigeria.(click to see story) Talking about what I did this summer seems pretty insignificant but there are connections everywhere in the world. At the beginning of the summer I traveled to Florida with some friends and the drought season was starting to begin. I never would have noticed how much this particular drought was effecting the state except for the local air boat tour businesses. They depend on the swamps in florida to run their alligator tours. While talking to the owner of the business after the ride he mentioned to me that the boats can usually travel much faster but because of the low levels of the water they aren't going to get as much business and these were the lowest levels he has seen in ten years. This is only one example of the types of issues that global warming is causing and will continue to cause. The other half of my summer I spent working with my dad counting parts for his business. It sounds very irrelevant but these parts that I was counting were actually semi-conductors (click here to see about semi- conductors in japan) that are made in large factories in Japan. Due to the major earth quake that just took place the conductors were no longer being produced for a period of time due to the state that Japan is in. My dad had bought these parts perviously and had me distribute them to companies all over the world that rely on these semi-conductors for their line of work. they many not have been life saving but to someone it mean their job. Many other events occurred over the summer as well all over the world that connect to everything we do in our daily lives and you never have to look farther then your next meal because chances are it will have any connections with the world as well.