A Catholic Priest Faces Excommunication by the Vatican

“Father Roy Bourgeois, a Catholic priest, torture survivor, Vietnam veteran, Purple Heart recipient and SOA Watch founder faces excommunication by the Vatican.” You will probably ask why. Well, he simply expressed his beliefs. He uncovered his opinion on ordination of women, and was given 30 days to take back his public statement.

This is a very serious case of disobedience of the freedom of speech. Although I believe the Vatican should allow people to criticize them, I think the father did not make the best choice in starting what could be a movement in the Vatican. In my opinion, he should have started in a small church and afterwards progress till reaching higher and higher. In this case, the small and meaningless individual tries to defeat the big, powerful, with a big amount of members, authoritative and influential Vatican. He would have more possibilities of winning and probably more self esteem if he would wait till creating a movement or something similar. Since always, the Christian Church, or any other religious power, was effective in making people not try to criticize them or to go against them. Only slight changes were able to happen, like in the case of Protestantism, in which many people, in many parts of Europe revolted against the Catholic Church. Most ways were similar to this one, or to the more famous Galileo Galilei’s case, in which he demonstrated, with proofs, the fact that the planets orbit around the Sun, and not around Earth. The church punished him with home imprisonment till he took back his comment, to survive. It was only many years later that Copernicus was able to make society accept this fact, so maybe ordination of women still have hope.

Harry Nicolaides, the Australian who Made Lese Majeste in Thailand

            Harry Nicolaides published a book where, in one of his chapters, there’s a paragraph where he includes a fictional rumor about Thailand’s king. He is in jail since then (three months), sentenced of practicing lese majeste. The Australian government, which states to have good relations with Thailand, is trying to negotiate the writer’s freedom, having in mind the obligation to respect the other country’s policy and laws. The family and lawyers of Harry try to pressure Australia to take more effective actions.

            In my opinion, this is a delicate issue. As a monarchy, Thailand had to imprison the writer, since everything is controlled by the king. As an ally of Thailand, with good relations, Australia can’t act too aggressively against that country. Also, Australia has even more problems because Harry’s family is reasonably pressuring the government to take action. I believe Thailand shouldn’t have imprisoned the writer, since his novel was fictional and, as it said in the article, out of the 50 published copies, only 10 were sold. On the other hand, I do understand why Thailand would arrest this writer, since it’s a country with a long tradition and where most people adore their king. This case reminded me of the monarchy in Spain, which could fine you or even arrest you if you take any action in anything against their members or if you even helped a little bit. I think these cases are terrible because Spain can’t be known as a modern nation if these things still happen, and it is not like such a big percentage in the population even likes the monarchy.

Kareem Nabil Sulaiman

Kareem Nabil Sulaiman, a 24 years old Egyptian man, was arrested November 6^th, 2006 for expressing himself. He posted on his blog his opinion concerning Islam and Mubarack, the Egyptian President. The government sentenced him for a total of four years: three for insulting Islam and one for doing the same thing to Mubarack. The government reasoned their decision also by stating that his actions brought down Egypt’s reputation.

Responding to this case, some people started a site called “Free Kareem”. For the second “anniversary” of the period Kareem was in jail, this group of people, which has expanded, started protests in many different parts of the world, including Paris, San Francisco, Rome, London, Brussels, Stockholm, Berlin, Bucharest, Washington DC, New York, Berne, Rhode Island, etc. In these places, groups of people gathered together around the Egyptian embassies to protest in favor of Kareem’s freedom.

This article touches many subjects. In my opinion, when the Muslims arrest or kill someone for criticizing them, they just bring their reputation even lower and cause others to express their opinions about this religion. This is what happened in this case, where a Muslim government arrests someone for saying something bad about Islam, in order to not hurt their reputation. But, by doing that, they hurt it even more.

In my opinion, it is not fair that such a big group of people protest only for one prisoner that is an example of the violation of freedom of speech, when there are thousands of other prisoners that were in jail for much longer and not for only four years, like in Russia, China, or Turkey.

The Global Network Initiative

The Global Network Initiative is a worldwide organization of companies. Its role is to prohibit some technology and information companies to respond to some governments pressures that try to persuade them to follow laws and policies of their countries. Some of these laws contradict the human rights that state that every person has freedom of expression and the right to have privacy. What this organization does is to protect these human rights. The Global Network Initiative had already worked for two years, negotiating and succeeding to expand these rights throughout the world. Jordan, currently, is aware of its effectiveness.

In my opinion, it is really a win for the human rights in the world to have an organization like this one. If it’s as effective as Jordan describes it, it might as well start new branches in other fields of human rights. If this program advances properly, it can be very successful, and become more powerful, so it will be easier to fight the other human rights violations. I find it interesting that this group is not very famous. I don’t remember seeing any kind of move from the Global Network Initiative to get donations. Is it a nongovernmental group? Or is it financed by a government? Which government? Maybe the United Nations?

Audio Revisions of Assignements

In my opinion, audio corrections of assignments  are not a good idea. First, When I started the corrections of my essay, I felt lost, and I thought it would be much easier to have it written on a paper, instead of having to pause, rewind, adjust volume, etc. A day before the corrections were due, I sat on the desk, in front of the computer, opened an Internet window, entered my e-mail account, opened the attached audio revisions of my essay, and, then, discovered it was not able to play it on my computer. Writing down the errors in an essay is much more effective and will cause less amount of trouble.

For some reason, every teacher in the Benjamin Franklin International School of Barcelona decided this school year (08/09) to have a big use of the computer and a smaller use of the traditional printed/written paper.

The Role of Religion in Modernity

How do you feel religion had changed throughout the centuries? Did it change? Did it become more important? Did it become less important? Many people in the past had divided opinions about this matter. This resulted in the expression of the numerous sets of beliefsduring a time most known as the Modern era Some were saying that religion was important, and had their logic.In the same time, others explained their own rationale to believe religion was not important. Throughout Modernity, people had different opinions about the role of religion.

Many people continued the traditional belief that religion is important. Mohandis K. Gandhi, in Hind Swaraj, clearly shows this when he uses Hinduism to demonstrate the world has progressed in a wrong way. “This civilization is such that one has only to be patient and it will be self-destroyed…Hinduism calls it the Black Age.” Gandhi is not very optimistic about the future. He believes that the society would be better if religion would have more importance. As well, the orthodox Jewish society named Jabbad Lubavitch is known to have a lot of money and to be very powerful. This shows that religion is still remaining significant in some parts.

On the other hand, most people left this long-established view and began to see religion as something which is not that important. During the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, society has already begun to question religion and to go farther away from its path. Galileo Galilei, for example, found that the planets were going around the Sun, the contrary to what the Church had suggested. He questioned what the Church told him. Jean Antoine Nicholas de Condorcet reveals this in his The Progress of the Human Mind (1794) where he states that the world will be civilized only when the countries will have some cultural change. The religious countries should become less religious, according to him. He says that all civilizations will take the same path as the French and Anglos have taken towards cultural modification. “Will not every nation one day arrive at the state of civilization attained by those people who are most enlightened, most free, most exempt from prejudices, as the French, for instance and the Anglo-Americans?” Another thing that represents this is A Declaration of Beliefs by the New Youth, which declares that, to progress, society should get rid of religion, as well as many aspects of tradition, superstition and some kind of thinking. Its authors believe religion is supersticious. It states these factors should be replaced by philosophy and science.

During the modern era, people had different ideas of what religion should mean in their life. Some thought, or suggested thinking, that religion is important, like Mohandis K. Gandhi, or the role of the orthodox synagogue today. Others, and most, on the contrary, believed religion should not take so much significance in everyday life. Some of these lived so long ago like Galileo Galilei, while others, like Jean Antoine Nicholas de Condorcet, lived in the 20^th century. What do you think the role of religion will be in the next century?

When did I become aware of the world?

When did I become aware of the world? I don’t believe there was only one event in my life that made me become aware of what is happening in the world. Although I don’t have a specific moment, I can think of many events that might have had a critical influence. These could be from a news report that I’ve seen, to personal experience.

One of these personal experiences could be my trip to the United States and to Canada. This was my first and only experience with the Americas. I’ve been to places like New York, the Niagara Falls, etc. This showed some things; at least that is what I remember from this trip, since I was only six years old. Since then, I didn’t have any physical experience from the “far West”.

If I would have to choose the exact moment I became aware of the world it would be the day after the terrorist attack of bus line 37, in Haifa, Israel. On that bus, at the time it exploded, many middle and high school kids were riding it. One of the unfortunately dead kids was a boy that used to go to my elementary school. The day after the terrorist attack, his friends prepared a stand in the principle entrance of my school and showed pictures of him and his yearbook page. It was a weird feeling. It could be anyone I know. When I saw the pictures, the boy really reminded me of a friend I used to play basketball with, so the impact was much stronger in that moment. In addition, the horrible bomb exploded right in front of my grandmother’s house. Luckily, nothing happened to her. Even today there is still a wall with the names of all the killed people in this attack and how old were they.

Another big event that helped me to become more aware of the world was a news report that took place in September 9th, 2001. This was important, although it was not my first awareness of terrorist attacks. This event showed me that the same problem that affected my country also affected other nations, don’t matter how far they were. I was aware, in that moment, I believe, that terrorism affected many other countries, not just Israel. As well, this was the first memory I have from a conflict in the West.

I believe no one can point one moment in his life in which he/she became aware of the world, but they can point out some events and experiences that led them to this accomplishment.

Gapminder Graph #1

In this graph, I compared surface area in squared kilometers with CO2 emmissions in tonnes per person. An obvious pattern that can be seen is that, as a country has less surface area, its population emmits less CO2. This is understandable, since many CO2 emmissions come from vehicles, and, if there is less distance to travel, cars are used less, emmiting less carbon dioxide. Some countries don´t follow this trend. For example, Russia has a big surface area, but emmits less CO2 than other countries. In this case, Russia is big, but really dispersed, with a lot of territory unoccupied. Another bizarre territory is Qatar, with a small surface area, but emits more carbon dioxide than any other region.

As I said before, this graph is appropriate, since what is expected is that, with less surface area, less CO2 will be emmitted. But this is not the case in various regions. This can be used to limit countries like Qatar and reduce carbon dioxide emmissions. This graph can be used to battle global warming. For example, a country can be sanctioned if it passes the limit the UN, for example, puts on them.

Although this graph is justified, some factors have to be kept in mind. The US, China, Brazil, Canada and Australia continue Russia´s path. They are big countries with smaller emmissions than other places. As well, Russia only is included in the graph since 1993, and in the last years its emmissions have been growing. So, according to the previous years, Russia´s emmissions will keep growing. Russia can´t be 100% depended on in this case since it is ¨fresh¨.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

When we were talking about happiness in 20th century History class, and how statistics measured happiness, I directly thought of Maslow’s pyramid of the hierarchy of people’s basic needs. I thought that, as someone completes one level, and continues to the next one, he is happier. This way, the levels can also classify happiness.

This is the pyramid:

In the first layer, all crucial activities are included. This level has what is needed to survive. The next layer includes all activities and needs for the safety of one’s self and property. Love, friendship and any other interactions with other people make the third layer. The fourth one takes care of all needs one has to have in a personal level. Lastly, the fifth level is the one that includes logic, intelligence, and all related factors.

 

This makes sense, because it includes all factors that should stay in mind when trying to figure out how happy is someone. For example, when a man who won the lotery is compared with a man that lost the ability to move his legs, after a year, scientists found out both were in the same level of happiness. When I saw this, I questioned it immediately, but then I thought of the pyramid, and how much sense it made. Although the rich man had a reason to be happier, maybe he missed one of the needs that the man who couldn’t walk had. The first thing I thought of was sex, or maybe friends and family.

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan-Blog Entry #5–Chpts. 12-14

            Some treaties showed some pieces of hope among the world’s politicians. One of them allowed the deported prisoners to come back to their houses with their families. This was helped a lot by the public letters exchanged between Dalia and Bashir. Although some progress has been made, attacks still took place in both sides. Something even worse for the negotiations was the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister that was the closest of all to get a peace treaty with the Palestinians, by Yigal Amir, Israeli religious law student. This stopped the hope-giving progress. Elections chose Ehud Barak as the new Prime Minister, who tried to bring back the political situation that had stopped to exist when Rabin died. But, unfortunately, Arafat was not as open as he was with Rabin, although Barak offered him the most territory any other Prime Minister ever dared to. Sometime later, Dalia took a visit to Bulgaria and to the family who stayed there. When she came back, she would go to Bashir’s house and talk, most of the times about politics, but many other times about the kindergarten that Dalia and Bashir accepted to build in the house with the lemon tree for the Arab kids in Israel. At the end, the lemon tree died, but it was Tu B’shvat, the New Year for the trees, and Dalia saw it appropriate to plant a new tree.

            In my opinion, I believe it is needed to observe something in the first whole paragraph of page 227. It talks about a Jewish man from Brooklyn who entered a part of the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron with an M-16, killing twenty-nine praying Palestinians. In response, Hamas abandoned its policy of only killing militants and began to kill civilians. The thing is, that Baruch Goldstein, the American killer, was not a member of any organization, and was not representing any part of the Israeli authority. But, Hamas, a terrorist/political organization, does represent someone.

The mentioning of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin reminded me of my school in Israel. The date of his assassination, every year, all the schools in Israel remember him and show pictures of him. I remember that, one year; my dad showed me a picture and told me to bring it to class. It was a picture taken right before the shot, where Yigal Amir and Yitzhak Rabin are clearly seen.

The elections between Ehud Barak and Benyamin Netanyahu for the position of Prime Minister of Israel, mentioned in the story, are very meaningful for me. One reason is the fact that these are the first political elections I remember. Also, these elections showed me the first political jokes I can remember. Because of these, and many other reasons, these elections are very important for me, and that is why I think they should be mentioned in this section.

One quote that called my attention was the one that said “Palestinians seek ‘moral high ground by deploying children to stand in front of men with machine guns who fire at Israelis.’” The first thing this reminded me of was the Arab kids throwing stones at Israeli tanks and soldiers while their parents don’t even try to make them stop. Then it also reminded me of a picture:

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan-Blog Entry #4–Chpts. 10-11

            One day, there was a terrorist attack in a supermarket in Jerusalem. Israel Gefen was there and fortunately survived the bomb attack, and was able to report of the experience in the future. Bashir was accused of organizing this terrorist attack and was put in jail for it. He was accused of being the organizer because of his past as the leader of the lawyer strike some time ago in the West Bank. He waited many time for his trial to find out he will stay there for fifteen years more, although he was luckier than others accused, who were given more years and even life time. When Bashir came out of the prison, he reported of tortures and bad treatment. The next years, after he left the prison, he would pass even more time in jail, accused for other crimes. Once he was able to form a family, with two children, he was taken in jail again, but, this time, the authorities decided to deport him and others accused to Lebanon. From Israel, although with detected cancer and pregnancy, Dalia did all she could to bring back Bashir to the West Bank.

            Although not of much importance, I would like to mention the great hospital of Sha’are Tzedek of Jerusalem, where Israel Gefen, the survivor of the supermarket bomb attack, was treated after the incident (page 165). This hospital is known worldwide for its high technology, high quality medical treatment, etc. People go to this hospital from all over the globe, because they know of its efficiency. There is a sentence, in page 193, which is really significant, interesting and meaningful. It explains: “Israel, long portrayed in the West as a David in a hostile Arab sea, was suddenly cast as Goliath.” “This is so true” I thought. I also liked the metaphor, since it was so appropriate and showed exactly what Sandy Tolan meant to state. It also made me think of the perspectives of other people in the world. For example, on the other side of the Mediterrenean Sea, in Spain, Catalunya is willing to independ itself from the rest of Spain since always, even before Israel existed. That is why, in the past, the Catalans were in favor of the creation of Israel, because they saw themselves reflected in that conflict. But, currently, most Catalans, the new generations, are in favor of the Palestinians to form a state, for the same reason the past Catalan generations were in favor of Israel. The younger generations see themselves reflected in Gaza, how a small part of a country wants to be heard. Another paragraph that needs to be mentioned is the second in page 198, which brings me even more nostalgia. It described “the shoreline of the Mediterranean snaked north from Jaffa and Tel Aviv toward Haifa and Acca…the Jordan River trickled south from the Sea of Galilee toward the Dead Sea.”

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan-Blog Entry #3–Chpts. 7-9

            Dalia’s family arrives to Ramla and settles in the house the Khairi’s left. Dalia remembers how children’s life used to be, with the separation between Western Jewish kids, mostly from Europe, and the mizrahim, the Eastern Jewish kids. A small time after the arrival of the Jewish families to the new territories under Israeli authority, including Ramla, a war broke out. A guerrilla movement arose, with Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir becoming exceptional. Because of many back and forth attacks, the war started, and Israel took over many territories, including Ramallah, where the Khairi’s lived. There, they wanted to organize a judging system, but no lawyer would come to court, since there was a strike, organized by Bashir. After the strike was over, Bashir was able to go take the visit the book started with to al-Ramla to visit his house, where he met Dalia. This meeting opened the minds of both sides.

            These chapters also included words and expressions that brought me back to the land where I was born. Some would be the mentioning of the sabra fruit in page 112, the song that says “David the king of Israel is alive. Alive and present. David is alive…” in page 141, the newspaper Ma’ariv in page 115 (that apparently was running for always, though I thought it was more recent), or the Sabra man in page 119, referring to the symbolic Israeli man, with a specific personality looked up to by everyone. I found it pretty funny that the author of the book thought it was appropriate or even needed to include the physical description of this Sabra in page 119: “They wore the Sabra ‘uniform’-khaki shorts and a khaki or faded blue work shirt and ‘biblical sandals.’” This actually became the way to represent a “traditional” Israeli.

            A line that I found significant because of its meaning, not because of what it said, was: “Almost no Arab lawyers would come to court. A general strike had rendered the new Israelicourts virtually silent and empty. The strike had been organized, the Israeli authorities would soon learn, by a young West Bank lawyer named Bashir Khairi.” This shows that some conscious members of the “rebel” population in the West Bank used legal insurgencies through civil disobedience, unlike the guerrilla members that acted in violence, just putting more wood into the fire.

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan-Blog Entry #2–Chpt. 4-6

            In the next three chapters, the narrator brings us some years to the past to explain some parts of the lives of both Bashir Khairi and Dalia Eshkenazi. When Bashir was born, a big happiness arose within the Khairi family, for it was Ahmad’s first son, and many ceremonies took place. But, during the same time, as well, tensions between British, Arabs and Jews became more significant in Palestine. Therefore, Britain left, and the UN suggested a partition plan for two states sitting on the territory, a Jewish one, and another one for the Arabs. Unfortunately for the Khairi family, the partition plan dropped al-Ramla in the Jewish territory. Meanwhile, Jews kept on arriving from Europe into Palestine. One of the Jewish families was Dalia’s parents and her. After many conflicts, the Khairi’s had to leave al-Ramla as many other families also in Lod. The Eshkenazi’s in Israel decided to go to al-Ramla, and, by coincidence, chose the Khairi’s house to live in.

            I found many parts of the text in these chapters interesting, since I learned a lot of some Muslim cultural activities that were not known to mẹ. One of these was the fourth paragraph of page 44, which says: “His [Bashir] hair was cut and weighed; the family would give to the poor the value of that weight in gold. Sheep were slaughtered, and two-thirds of the meat would again be given to the poor. The clan had a feast with the rest.” This called my attention because it reminded me of the five pilgrims of Islam, more specifically the one that involves charity. I found this an interesting tradition. A question rose to my mind: Why does the family give the amount of gold according to the wight of the baby’s hair instead of having a specific and independent amount like the two-thirds of the sheep to be given to the poor?

            The most important text included in these three chapters, for me, is Hatikva, found in pages 84 and 85. It meant a lot for me in the moment I began reading it. I remember that, before I began, I sang it to myself in the head. I believe Sandy Tolan did a pretty accurate translation, with maybe only one or two errors. I recognize that most people, when reading the book, just read through it, but I stayed and starred at it for some seconds, remembering many ceremonies in which it was sand, some happy, many sad. It woke a feeling in me that I can’t explain in a simple blog, mostly because none of the readers would actually care or understand.

The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan-Blog Entry #1–Chpts. 1-3

Bashir Khairi and two of his cousins are on their way to the town of Ramla (that they call al-Ramla), the place where they passed their childhood before they had to leave because of the War of Independence (or Nakba, “the Great Catastrophe”). They began their trip in Ramallah, a town in the West Bank. The goal of their journey was to visit the homes where they used to live. Bashir was lucky that his house was used by the Eshkenazi’s, a Jewish family from Bulgaria whose daughter, Dalia, allowed Bashir and his cousins visit the house that Bashir’s father built years earlier. The most important thing in the house was the lemon tree in the back yard, the “protagonist” of this book.

There were some significant and some simple parts of the texts that meant a lot to me. First, I feel obligated to mention the two paragraphs in page 2. I remember how I just started reading the book and I was already able to perceive the taste of Israel, the land in which I was born and raised. These paragraphs contain little details that are only in Israel, like the group taxi the cousins took. Other things that were described were the characteristic descriptions, from which the most significant for me, surprisingly was simply the word “heat,” since it’s one of the most common nouns to hear when someone describes this territory. But, from the entire page, I liked the fact that the cousins take in all of these characteristics as I do, with love and nostalgia. Another part of the text that called my attention was on page 6, where it said “most of the old buildings were covered with brightly colored signs in blocky, indecipherable Hebrew lettering.” This was enough significant for me to include it here because, when I finished reading this, I felt confused and immediately disagreed with it. This is because, since always, ALL the signs in Israel are written first in Hebrew, then in Arabic, and then in English, even the street names, as shown in the image attached. To clarify this, I will use the example of the buses in Barcelona

, where it is first  written in Catalan, then in Spanish and then, most of the times, in English.