Discrimination

In one way or another, we have all experienced discrimination in our lives. We may have experienced it based on our skin color, nationality, economic status, religion, political beliefs, origin, traditions and even culture. Whether we are victims of discrimination or whether we are the ones discriminating someone else, it is clear that discrimination affects all of us.

But what is discrimination anyway? Discrimination is where you make a clear distinction about a particular thing or person. It is like you have your own set of standards in your mind and when a person or a thing doesn't meet any of those standards, you often look down on that person or thing. It could also mean showing prejudice towards something which is based on a certain class or category regardless of individual merit.

A perfect example of discrimination (which is not a serious type though) is putting labels or stereotypes to certain kinds of people. In our modern day Philippine culture, we tend to associate people who are tacky and who don't have manners with "jologs", "skwater" or anything related to lower class of society or "masa". Whenever we see someone act like that, we immediately assume that they belong to the poor class without even trying to know the person. On the other hand, grave types of discrimination include the killings of Jews during Hitler's time or where blacks were greatly deprived of their human rights during the time of Martin Luther King Jr.

But how do we learn to discriminate? And why does discrimination continue to prevail?
Going back to our childhood days, we are surrounded by different agents of socialization that influence our values and beliefs. Through these agents of socialization such as family, friends, school,religion and culture, we are taught how to behave and interact with other people. We may be directly or indirectly influenced by these agents to discriminate others just by imitating what we see on them on what they teach on us when we were growing up. Hence, how we view others is somehow shaped by what were taught when we were young. But it is still us who decides whether we adhere to those that were taught to us whenever we see or meet someone. Pondering on the question 'why does discrimination continue to prevail?", I think this is because of the fact that since society has set certain rules, norms and standards that we must follow, everyone adheres to that. It is society which dictates what is right from what is wrong. And whenever a certain individual does not conform to it, he/she is treated differently. Moreover, closed minds also cause discrimination to discriminate. Some people do not let their mindsets be mixed with other beliefs because that's what they believe in. In this case, they immediately put a certain boundary or limit to a person who does not pass their expectations.

Discrimination has always been a major issue in our society today. In fact, it is inevitable and although there are already millions of people fighting against it, it may be still impossible to eradicate it completely. There is no promise that discrimination will ever end, but each one of us are encouraged to act our own part in preventing discrimination to destroy our lives. We must learn that each one of us is unique and that no two persons can be of the same thing. We all do not agree on the same thing and it is usually the differences in us that make us more productive and better in this world. We must accept the fact that everyone has their own set of standards, beliefs, cultural background, race and that we should respect that. We must allow ourselves to be open with other people's differences without quickly judging them because of it. Differences may prevent us from agreeing all at one thing or even getting things our way. But what is good about our differences is that it will allow us to grow further and to widen our perspectives by seeing things in different angles.

Lessons Learned about the Media

In our fast-paced world today, we get any information we need in an instant. News, gossips or even the latest trends spread like wildfire all because of media channels. Whether it is from a television, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet, social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube.... we are constantly being provided with information like it's always fresh out of the oven. But with all these information that we consume, are we critical enough to determine what is real from what is not? Or do we just accept everything because how the message is conveyed aligns with our own viewpoints?

Well, unfortunately for my part, I became one of those people who just accepted everything that the media conveys without critically assessing the meaning or agendas behind them. A perfect example of this would be the sudden boom of a propaganda against a certain African criminal through the use of social media. STOP Kony 2012 went viral around the world and its massive popularity made lots of people curious about it. And I am one of them. Since I wanted to know what the issue is all about and that its popularity is just too hard to ignore, I gave in to what everyone else did - watching the 30 minute video. And I must admit, I got so moved and teary-eyed by the story. I've let my emotions from the video manipulate me wherein I almost reached to the point of giving in to the advocacy - buying their $30 worth of Kony kit to help the children in Africa. I was so affected by the video that I hated Kony so much just like everyone else did. I even shared the video to my Facebook friends and encouraged them to watch it so they can also be informed and be inspired to help. There were many criticisms popping out against the video after it was released. I didn't bother to listen or even read about the criticisms because I thought they were just envious of the fact that the video had caught the attention of many people. It also didn't matter to me because I think that the video was for a good cause and that anybody hating about that is pathetic. But when the news came out about Jason Russel (filmmaker of the video) being arrested for masturbating in public, it got me thinking  that maybe I was the one too pathetic believing in everything that was on the video. I felt like I had to know the news about Russel's arrest first before I realized that I should've been skeptic about the video in the first place.  I felt so ashamed of myself because I didn't have the time to critically process the message being conveyed in the video and to verify the information coming from that video.

One of the lessons that I definitely learned from one of our GLOBDEV lectures is that media is always biased. They always try to lean to a particular view of a given issue (Burton 1997). And since our opinions on certain issues are always based on media representations, we must be then careful in analyzing and accepting the things that are produced by the media. Moreover, I've also learned that we solely depend on media about issues happening around us. We cannot say that in order to avoid any biases from the media portrayals, we must be in that actual key event to witness it. We cannot do that since it is impossible for us to be all journalists who should be all in the same place where an important event is taking place. Therefore, since we are all shaped by the information we receive from media, we must give ourselves the chance to filter the important things and be skeptic about everything we hear, see or read. We must also take this opportunity to look at both sides of the issue so that we may be able to clearly comprehend and take a stand on it. I've also realized that we must also be careful of how media uses emotions to capture our attention. It is possible that media is only manipulating our emotions for their own ends (which is in the case happened to me based on watching the Kony 2012 video).  And by manipulating emotions, media can try to conceal their own agenda and encourage us to take a particular stand on the issue. This is not to say that we need to reject everything that the media gives us... or to assume that what the media tells us are all lies. What we need to do is to have an open mind about the issues around us and to carefully assess the information given to us by the media. We must use the media to create our own personal views by basing it on them but not solely depending our own viewpoints on them.

Reference:
Edkins, J. & Zehfuss, M. (eds.) (2009). Global Politics: A New Introduction. London: Routledge.

A Cure for Poverty?

            We all know that poverty exists everywhere we go. It is an inevitable thing wherein many have already tried to eradicate it but have failed to completely do so. As a Development Studies major, I have already been immersed with topics and issues that discuss poverty. But until now, there is still no foolproof solution on how we can end poverty. However, there was a certain book that I was fortunate enough to read about ending world poverty. I should warn you, however, that the solutions to poverty that were noted by the author are based on a macro level. It encompasses more than just individuals but also the states and its development economists. This is how poverty viewed based on the perspective of a Development Economist:

            Eradicating poverty has been a problem of all countries for several years. Until now, there is still no definite solution to the problem of poverty, although a lot of economists and political leaders have been on the quest to resolve this prolonged problem. One of these economists is Jeffrey Sachs who has been continuously trying to find the solution to poverty. Based from his book “The End of Poverty”, he listed and explained several reasons why countries fail to achieve economic growth. These are poverty trap, physical geography, fiscal trap, governance failures, cultural barriers, geopolitics, lack of innovation and demographic trap. However, based from some data that he had gathered, even though some countries that have one or two of these failure characteristics, these few countries still grew despite its disadvantages from other countries. Through Sachs explanation of poverty, he was able to find an end to it. He claimed that development economics should be treated like a modern medicine both in development of fundamental science and in systematization of clinical practice. He then drew out five lessons from clinical medicine to be applied in economics practice. The first lesson is, economies are complex systems like the human bodies. Societies are composed of different systems and a failure of one would lead to the failure of all systems. Therefore, these systems must act as one and help each other in maintaining the survival of every system. The second lesson is economists must learn the art of differential diagnosis just like medical clinicians. Economists need to be trained not just on looking at the underlying causes of economic distress but having a thorough examination of the causes and what particular remedies are suited for a country’s condition. An economist must not always assume of a cause of an economic distress if he has no background with the situation of a certain “patient” or country. Hence, an economist must be able to interact with the “patient” in order to know the underlying cause of economic distress. Third lesson is economics should perceive treatment in “family” terms and not just individual terms. This means that the condition of one country should not be viewed as its own predicament but it should also include the conditions of the global community and its relationship to them. Fourth lesson is continuous monitoring and evaluation is necessary for good development practice. Development practitioners must give their advices based on what they have monitored on the current situations of the countries instead of overlooking the problems. The monitoring and evaluation should be continuous in a way that development practitioners guide these countries in every step of the way until these countries are able to grow out from the “illness” or poverty. The fifth and last lesson is development economics should be taken as a profession. Often, development practitioners do lack the ethical and professional standards with regard to their tasks. They do not exert much effort in finding the right solutions for the problems and just rely on shallow approaches. Hence, they just base their advices from theories rather than practice. They do not give their full attention to the current conditions of the countries because they assume that these problems are all the same and that using the same approaches would solve it. Well in fact, development economics require commitment to thoroughly go into the history, ethnography, politics, and economics of the countries and to give honest advices to these countries. Without the commitment of these development practitioners, I doubt that the problem of poverty would ever be resolved.

            Through the author’s analysis of poverty and solutions for the problem, countries are challenged to thrive hard in order to achieve successful results and of course to achieve the goal of eradicating poverty. These countries should not stop from aiming its goals because nothing is impossible. The poor and rich countries should not stop help one another because each country is a part of the whole global community. Rich countries must not blame poor countries from being poor because these rich countries do have the responsibility to help the poor countries. Indeed, in order to make their way up the economic ladder, these countries whether rich or poor should work together. 

Doubts on International Organizations

United Nations, International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, UNICEF, World Health Organization, and the list goes on... These are international organizations that we often hear or read about. For most of us, our only concern and knowledge about these organizations is that they help in the process of raising the standards of living across the world. End of story. We never really delve into details on what they do, what they promote and what they stand for. And since we don't show much interest on these organizations, we usually view them as powerful, effective and necessary. We have high regards for them because we think that what they do is good for humanity. We think that what they do is out of altruism and that we benefit from it especially those who are in more vulnerable states. Hence, we tend to be skeptical with the criticisms against these organizations because we only know little about them.


Not surprisingly, I am one of those many people who often look up to these international organizations because I thought that they are doing a good job in helping out countries in need. I really didn't give that much attention to them because I'm not really interested with topics related to globalization or international relations. But since I took up Development Studies as a course, I have no choice but to study and learn about these topics. And ever since I was introduced to how international organizations really work, what used to be my perceptions about them changed instantly. My mind welcomed the reality of seeing and understanding the two faces of these international organizations. And it actually helped in reshaping my viewpoints about them. Not to be biased or anything, but after I've read the criticisms against these international organizations by different authors, I think I have to agree with them. Here are some of the criticisms that the authors have noted:


Based on the book written by Joseph Stiglitz (2002) entitled "Globalization and its discontents", he discussed the flaws that he have witnessed against international organizations such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO. The first criticism that he tried to explain is the problem of governance among these international institutions. He mentioned that the seats in these international organizations are dominated by the wealthiest industrial countries. Hence, the commercial and financial interests of these countries usually have a great influence in determining the actions taken by international organizations. Moreover, the IMF is usually headed by a European while the World Bank is headed by an American. The voting process of these heads is  done behind closed doors and that the chosen heads are not required to have an expertise with the developing world.
 Another problem with governance of these institutions is "who speaks for the country". The IMF is usually led by finance ministers and central bank governors while WTO are represented by trade ministers. And more often than not, these ministers serve their own clients within their countries. Trade ministers usually reflect the concerns of businessmen who want to push through with trade policies that can be beneficial for them. While financial ministers manifest the concerns of the financial community who usually work for the government and then return to their financial firms after their term.


Another criticism pointed out  is the unending support of these international organizations to the free market ideology which stems from the Bretton Woods agenda. The Ecologist (2000) cited that these organizations were not created solely for poverty alleviation. They were also created to push for other agendas. In an example provided by Stiglitz (2002), the IMF ignored all the lessons that they could have acquired from their mistakes because they firmly believe that the free market ideology knew all the answers. Any disputes or contradictions against the ideology are quickly rejected because they wanted to prove that their policies and recommendations are accurate and beneficial. Moreover, Stiglitz (2002) also mentioned that because of their market ideology, these international institutions have used the 'one-size-fits-it-all' approach when it comes to giving out their policies and recommendations. This kind of approach neglects the certain condition of a country in need because international institutions believe that their recommendations are suited for all. These institutions do not want to hold public discussions and insisted on discussing policies behind closed doors. Global Envision (2006) also affirmed this criticism noting that the actions of these inernational organizations toward promoting free-market policies always cause undesirable market distortions that often leads to causing more harm than good. In their example, institutions such as the IMF and World Bank provide low interest loans to countries experiencing economic downturns in order to prevent any global economic crisis. However, these loans often come with conditions that an imperiled government must follow by making reforms in its economy to reduce any chances of creating global economic crisis. But what these organizations do not know is that these imperiled countries are not equipped with institutions that properly regulate a market economy than found in developed economies. Hence, forcing a market economy on these unprepared countries result to a 'combination of wealth disparity, increasing poverty and environmental exploitation' (Global Envision, 2006).


Mistakes in sequencing and pacing is also another criticism to be pointed out about these international institutions. Based on Stiglitz (2002), the policies implemented by international organizations usually disregard the broader social context of a country because of their mistakes in sequencing and pacing. An example of this would be the IMF pushing for liberalization before even implementing safety nets, before formulating adequate regulatory framework and before countries could even endure the negative impact of changes in the market.
In an editorial written by The Ecologist, the author noted that although these international organizations aim to alleviate poverty, their policies have done otherwise. It has been argued that over a fifth of the world's population is now poorer. Moreover, the prescriptions given by the World Bank, IMF and WTO have worsen the lives of the citizens in poor countries. 


From all the criticisms that some of the authors noted, would it be better if these international organizations are abolished? Would it do any good for any developing country if these organizations are no longer seen as powerful enough to provide and force a country with their failed policies? Would countries be better off without them and would abandoning these organizations will result to the complete eradication poverty? I say, we cannot assume that we're better off without these organizations. They have failed miserably yet there are still benefits shared by our society that were brought about by these organizations. Hence, in a continuing globalized world, we cannot just do away with these organizations because they have already become part of the process of globalization. What must be done is to reshape these organizations in such a way that they would realize their own potentials and would adjust to the changing aspects of the twenty-first century. 


References:
Stiglitz, J. (2002). Globalization and Its Discontents. New York, NY: Norton & Company, Inc.


"EDITORIAL - Criticism of World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund - Editorial". Ecologist, The. FindArticles.com. 10 Mar, 2012. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2465/is_6_30/ai_65653637/


Global Envision ( 27 December 2006). The IMF and the World Bank- An Overview. Retrieved from http://www.globalenvision.org/library/3/1395

A Threatened Future (Chapter 1) of Our Common Future

            As societies continue to evolve through time, there have been efforts done by countries to achieve prosperity and development in their own terms. However, striving for prosperity can have serious consequences for the other sectors such as the environment. For instance, people nowadays give little importance to how they can maximize the use of Earth’s resources for future generations. Often than not, they try to abuse those resources for their own benefit without thinking much of the future generations that could have also benefitted from those resources. Nevertheless, with the evolution and modernization happening around the world, progress has already been evident in the lives of human beings. Progress is in terms of higher life expectancy, lower child mortality rate, improved standards of living and better educated people.  Furthermore, through this progress, we are able to see hope in finding ways to undertake the necessary improvements and to reflect on our mistakes in order to attain a safer and sounder home for us and future generations here on Earth. But with the presence of poverty that continues to put pressure on countries that are succumbed to further environmental damage to achieve prosperity, the basis for human progress now becomes threatened. Thus, in order to attain progress that countries have wanted to achieve without compromising the environment, there must have be cooperation among the people to build a secure, prosperous and just future; as well as policies that will sustain the Earth’s resources that will also result to economic growth of countries.

            There is a need to understand the symptoms and causes of environmental stress in order to realize what has to be done to achieve progress. The three main factors of environmental stress are poverty, economic growth and survival. In terms of poverty, the symptoms would be seen through the continuing rise in the number of people who are experiencing hunger, rise in the number of people living in slums and shanty towns, increase in the lack of access to potable water and sanitation that would then lead to higher risks on diseases and also the continuous widening gap between the rich and poor countries in terms of per capita income. Through these, more and more people have been caught in the vicious cycle of poverty. But what hindered them from improving their standards of living? One of which is the dependence of poor countries on export earnings on agricultural products that are subject to fluctuation and decline in trade. However, expanding this industry will ultimately give rise to ecological stress. But due to the disadvantageous conditions of technology transfers, protectionist laws, and declining financial flows, the ways in which poverty and ecological stress can be alleviated are restrained. Furthermore, the unequal distribution of land and assets has exacerbated the situation of poverty. The rise in number of population made it difficult to raise the standards of living and also the use of good land for crops being exported has forced subsistence farmers to work on arid lands. It has affected the practice of traditional shifting cultivators wherein they usually cut forests, grew crops on it and gave it time to recover. But now there are no more enough lands available or time to let the forests recover from the activity. Moreover, due to the lack of lands, farmers are forced to cultivate onto steep slopes that increase the likelihood of soil erosions in hill sections to happen. Because of these pressures, it has led to the disasters and natural calamities that often attack the impoverished people in poor countries. Indeed, a country that has been trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty will be committing more environmental degradation that will inevitably lead to greater poverty.   

                        Learning from these, we must understand that we live in a world wherein our actions are inevitably linked to other living things. All living things in this biosphere are all interconnected and we must therefore realize that whatever actions we take would definitely affect others. We must open our minds and wake up to the reality that the environment we live in is already threatened due to the fickleness of our actions. Although there is no a guaranteed solution on how we can stop the earth from experiencing its pitfall or how we can get back everything that was lost, we can surely mitigate the threat by changing our perspectives and really do something about it. Earth is the only planet where humans can live in and we must act now in order to take care of its surroundings because we may no longer have the luxury to pay for the damage done when it's already payback time.  

Reference:

Butlin, J. (1987). Our Common Future By World Commission on Environment and Development. Retrieved from http://habitat.igc.org/open-gates/ocf-01.htm

Commentary on Why are We Shallow

Reading or hearing something negative about us Filipinos makes us all react violently. We don't even process the criticism thrown at us because we do not want anyone to step on our ego or maybe because we are in denial that the criticism being told to us is true. We might end up getting into a fight because we Filipinos never liked to be seen as inferiors. We might also end up cursing the person telling the criticism and probably try to find any kind of flaw within that person so we could get even. This would probably our initial reaction if we read the article that Sionil Jose wrote about us Filipinos being so shallow. But if we read closely and try to absorb every detail without making any violent reactions, then maybe we can learn something from it. And certainly, we can have something to ponder on about ourselves.

He stated some of the reasons why he thinks that we Filipinos are shallow. He blamed it in our educational system in which the quality of excellence is now deteriorating through time. We no longer focus on humanities which could have made us think more deeply. The second thing he points out is that we Filipinos are naturally mayabang. We always think that we are better than others; that we know more and that we can do better than others. Hence, we drown ourselves in ignorance and arrogance that we fail to look at our own limitations as human beings. The third reason is also connected to the second one- we are shallow because we have failed to grasp the knowledge of knowing our own capacities and limitations. We tend to be too gullible with things happening around us that we end up letting those things change us. Fourth reason can be blamed in our shallow media which shows us nothing but pure shallowness. The author himself even said that there is so little to read in our newspapers and so little information to be gathered from our local TV channels which are filled with nonsense talkshows and telenovelas. We are shallow because we don't have the time to go to libraries or bookstores to read books. We do not think of the value of information that we can get from reading books. And lastly, the author pointed out that we are shallow because we have become prisoners of worldly materials. We are focused too much on grabbing those material goods because we think that it's the only way we can satisfy ourselves.

It always fascinates me that articles like this can make a person realize a lot of things (at least that's what happened to me). It opened my mind to a bigger perspective on being a Filipino. And I'd have to agree that we are indeed shallow. But what concerns me is that how did we even get so shallow in the first place? I couldn't think of any comprehensive answer to that but I think it lies in our history as Filipinos. I think that what made us who we are today lies in how we were brought up in this world. The events that happened with our ancestors in the past have molded us to be like this. It is like things fell into this place because some things in the past have made it fall into how it is now. Another possible reason could be seen in our culture. Since events in the past have become a big impact on who we are today, some of these traits were embedded in our culture too. Like we are shallow because it has become part of our culture. We have been raised in this kind of culture that is why our way of thinking and our way of acting are different. And we couldn't blame culture just because we ended up like this. We have to accept the fact that things turned out to be this way because history has allowed it to do so. And the only thing that we could ever do to fix it is to reflect deeply about ourselves and our actions so that we may not fall into the trap of being shallow forever. It is a big challenge for us especially that our culture will always affect our lives but we must prove to ourselves that we can always do better than settling for who we are now. Let us use those negative aspects and turn them into positive outlooks so that we may give ourselves the chance for improvement.

Reference:
Jose, S. (September 2011). Why we are shallow. Retrieved from http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=726155