During my reading of Chapter 11 in Collapse, I stumbled upon a very interesting man: Joaquin Balaquer. Balaquer was elected as president of the Dominican Republic in 1966. He took on office for three consecutive terms, was out of office from 1978 to 1986, and took up president again until 1996. After reading what he did - in and out of office - and how he did what he did, he really struck me as someone who knows how to take matters into his own hands. Not long after he first became president, he put a ban on all commercial logging and all sawmills in the country. When that didn’t seem enough - as some people were moving their businesses out of view and only running their sawmills at night – he used military action to enforce this new law. There was even a program initiated for survey flights to watch out for any illegal activity. This man knew something had to be done and he used everything that his power allowed him to ensure that it was done. The closing sawmills and logging businesses was not the only drastic thing Balaquer enforced; he did a number of things. He banned the use of fire as a clearing method for agricultural use, raised taxes on mining companies, banned hunting for ten years, protected land 20 yards from rivers and 60 yards from ocean shorelines, and even insisted that people use live rooted trees as a part of their fence instead of felled timber. I found this last idea rather interesting – to use live rooted trees as part of a fence. It makes perfect sense and it seems so obvious. The fact that some president actually made this a rule because it is so obvious and it would be helpful towards the environment just astounds me. It makes me think that there are probably several other more natural ways of doing things or using the environment as is to create structures we use today.
I am inspired by Griffioen's willingness to use the city of Detroit as the centerpiece of his artwork. Personally I feel like Detroit has been decaying tremendously for the past decade or so. Detroit has always been a place of festivities and it's very sad to see that a place that I have known very well which has also had a great impact on my life but now seems to be meaningless to folks. Some people feel like Detroit is just a place of mediocrity which has nothing to offer. But Griffion looks beyond the hopelessness of the people. He sees the beauty in just the structure of the rugged areas in relation to nature. I'm not opposed to the composition of the photos taken, I just wish more of them were up close and personal because the detailing really gives it a feel for the struggle. I love his artwork and one of the images that speak the loudest to me is the one entitled "the new book of knowledge" because it has such a mysterious setting about it . It makes you wonder what was the legacy behind the book of knowledge and what ever happened to the people who were going to receive an education at that place.
I am having a hard time understand the amount of corruption that leads the lives of leaders. How can people so cruel just to stay in power? I can understand that the Hutu would have some sort of anger towards the Tutsi but they went about settling differences all wrong because of the people in power. Also, Germany and Belgium should have found a way to bring the two together while in rule instead of separating them even more. If anything, both Hutu and Tutsi should be angry at the Germans and Belgians for making things a little worse then leaving with out uniting the two. (the book doesn’t say how Rwanda got their independence.) Despite the ethnicity differences and history, the real issue was land and poverty but still leaders could have gone about things a little differently. Instead of using hate to gain power to begin with, they should have found a way to settle peace. By using hate at the beginning, people got used to using violence instead of democracy and knowledge. Another problem in the country was the large amount of breeding. How can this society see the devastation that overpopulation was bringing to the land and continue to breed? Obviously people put off marriage because of the over population but still there is an increase in people despite that. Plus, they keep talking about divorce people breeding over and over again with different partners instead of taking time to find one person and only having kids with them. I don’t think that this country will ever be able to find peace until the people finally find a way to agree with each other, stop breeding so much, treat the environment right and have leaders with high ethics. I know that at one time they had leaders that wanted peace but then the civilians started killing them. This leads me to why any country or the U.N. would want to help a country that is bent on killing it’s own populace for no good reason? I can understand why the United States didn’t want to help because random home life civilians are killing leaders. I just don’t know how this can be settled with out a miracle of understanding, tolerance and birth control. One thing I truly do believe in, now that I have been exposed to these type of stories, is chaos. I am slowly starting to think that there will always be confrontation between others and that we will never be able to unite the human species in peace because people will always find a reason to fight with each other.
ADP weekly statement In this weeks reading in the book Collapse, I found the chapter on Rwanda very intriguing. I watched Hotel Rwanda for the first time two weeks ago, so it was interesting to here more information about the history, and how and why the genocide occurred. I knew just from watching the movie that the amount of people killed over those few weeks was unimaginable. I can’t image having so many people go on a killing rampage and take out friends, and neighbors. Diamond mentioned a third group of people that I had not known about before this book, the Twa or pygmies were also killed during the fighting. Even though they only represented one percent of Rwanda I still don’t hear much information about them. Diamond also believes that one of the main causes of the genocide was that there were too many people populating Rwanda. I agree that this could be a part of why the genocide happened. I think the main cause was through brainwashing people through the radio. It is shocking that so many people decided to join in on the massacre and start killing, or trading in Tutsi’s for there own survival. Which is what I think makes Hotel Rwanda such a good movie. The movie portrays both the good and the bad of the war. Even though some people were willing to kill there own teachers, doctors, patients, and so forth there were still people who would do anything to protect someone of a different ethnicity then there own. The main character in the movie is willing to pay the Hutu militia however much they want so that he can keep is family and neighbors alive. If it weren’t for people willing to protect others, and stay out of the militia, there may not be any Hutu left. For the Hutu and the Tutsi to have had to classify themselves as either one or the other is ridiculous. There isn’t very much difference in the two ethnicities. It seems ridiculous now that they would be willing to kill each other over ethnicity. But if you add in the fact that they were over populated and were scarce on food it makes since that they would be fighting, just not so violently.
James D. Griffioen’s work is very interesting and thought provoking yet seems to lack an aesthetically appealing edge. I find his work to be very enlightening and important. It offers viewers a way of looking at nature that they might otherwise overlook. In addition, the relationship between the demolished houses as subjects in his photographs and the fully standing houses with greenery is frightening and eye opening. They represent different stages of life for trees. He photographs them in their natural environment and then crawling up houses and finally in paper and wood forms inside demolished houses. Another interesting aspect of Griffioen’s photography is the titles that he chooses to call each piece. Each title helps to explain the photo it is associated with and gives thought to the process behind the artist’s intentions. The one issue I have with his work is that I do not think each image could stand alone as an artful piece. While I am not a photographer, as a viewer, I am critical of the subject matter and context of Griffioen’s photos. Still, as a group of photos where the viewer can see the process of image’s subject matter, I think his work is successful.
James D. Griffioen's work is extremely interesting and special in the ways in which is able to capture nature and the hidden treasures of the world. His work is so strong because of all the unique traits that it holds by being both delicate yet, powerful. In his series entitled the "disappearing cities” especially the Feral street houses- I found to be the most interesting and enticing to look at; the aura that his photographs gives off is almost magical and enchanting which, is what draws in the audience's attention to it even more. I find his work to be extremely effective in portraying the message of sustainability and a green-er world. The environment and nature are unique like his photographs and precious in that we only have one change with nature in this world and the things we have destroyed are not coming back so we should furthermore enjoy what we still have on this earth and put in our greatest efforts in hope to preserve the nature due to the fact that it is irreplaceable. The Detroit public school deposit is remarkable because it is so misleading it attracts the attention of the viewer especially the tree piece because it is ironic and contrasting beauty with destruction and what was a tree and what now is a tree. It is almost sad the way he makes the composition seem so beautiful when really it is just a pile of waste and destroyed trees- and destroyed nature that cannot be un done.-brynn kurlan
I found James D. Griffioen to be one of the more interesting artists I’ve looked at based on this class. The feral houses series plays with the idea of natural made things and manmade things. Each photograph shows a way that nature has wrapped around something manmade and almost hides the structures. I felt as if Griffioen was trying to send a message that mother-nature will take over our Earth, and as if it was a sign that something bad would happen in nature to effect our everyday living. When I read Griffioen’s blog on Feral Houses, I began to feel a new sensation. I felt sad that all these houses are abandoned in the Detroit area and I was some what sad that he refered to them as “wild beast.” It is nice that he tried to capture the beauty in these abandoned houses during the summer, but I find it odd to glorify how nature has taken over these houses when they were meant to have people living in them. I do admire how Griffioen decided to compare these houses to the idea of wild dogs, it was an ambitious attempt.
After learning a lot about the genocide in Rwanda during high school, I thought the chapter pertaining to this subject in “Collapse” would be the same old discussion that I’ve had before. I had learned about the different ties to agriculture or pastoralism that each ethnicity had, but it was only used to further the argument that Hutus and Tutsis were two distinct races. Looking at the difference being one brought about overpopulation and food deprivation makes the whole situation harder for me and the rest of the Western world to swallow. When we pin the killings solely on differences of ethnicity, we can justify our lack of preparedness in preventing such an outbreak. But we cannot say there weren’t any clues to warn us of a possible genocide if the causes stem more from population and food. We don’t want to take responsibility for the killings in any way, so we need to pin the killings on some unforeseen and random occurrence. With part of the problem coming from overpopulation and not having enough food, there must have been clues that would have warned us that such a catastrophe could come. In fact there were, as Diamond points out. Overpopulation has plagued Rwanda and Burundi, and a lack of food for much of the population was present in decades leading up to the genocide. As outsiders, we should have been able to look at these numbers and realize that bad things could happen, but inaction is easier than action. Instead of providing aid in supplying food or finding out ways to reduce population growth, the West looked the other way, up to and including when the genocide broke out. The lack of effort to prevent such a disaster is horrifying, yet it happens all the time.
Another example is that of environmental degradation. Billions of dollars are spent trying to fix all of the damage that has been caused, when it would have been cheaper for the previous generation to act but again inaction was the path they followed. We burden future generations with our mistakes, and it seems one of the most expensive problems will be climate change. Instead of changing our habits of burning fossil fuels and spending a little extra money to find greener technology, we wait until the problem is so bad we are forced to change, and then must spend billions upon billions of dollars to undo the negative effects of the previous generations actions.
In observing James D. Griffioen's artwork, I experienced a lot of mixed emotions. I was feeling intrigued, influenced, happy, and confused all at the same time. I think it's great that Griffioen bases the majority of his artwork in detroit, given the fact that it is not the most "green" place in the world. I thought this juxtaposition was fantastic. Looking at the rest of his work was very interesting and influential. He creates these massive designs of trees and bushes and anything green for that matter around areas that seem to truly lack the affect of nature. Also, the fact that his work is mostly in Detroit makes it so much more interesting because, in Detroit there are a lot of factories and buildings and nothing green what so ever. His artwork show people what this particular place is lacking and reminds us of how thing should be.
Griffioen's work reminds me of the artist posted here on last week's Weekly Statement blog, Joel Sternfeld, in that they both portray the beautiful and sad juxtaposition of nature and manmade creations. I'm not sure if I like the aesthetics of Griffioen's photographs; maybe the green is overpowering. But then again, maybe that's the point! The viewer definitely gets the sense that nature has dominated the manmade structure in each photograph. Over one weekend earlier this year, my roommate and I took a drive to a town an hour out of Ann Arbor. On the way, we came across a completely dilapidated farm overgrown with plants and weeds in the middle of a vast field. We pulled over to take pictures, and it was a completely humbling experience. The wood had rotted, and it almost looked like these pieces of fragmented wood were growing out of the field, rather than the plants growing through the pieces of wood. The process of decomposition and nature's reclaiming of its resources and space was amazing to see in progress. It seems like Detroit's been getting a lot of attention these days, attracting artists that are interested in capturing the city's almost ghost town-like qualities. In that sense, it's interesting to see Griffioen's work because it captures and emphasizes the power of nature more than it does the destruction of industrial structures.
Reading about the Rwandan genocide was extremely sad. What is even more upsetting was the fact that hatred between the Hutus and the Tutsis formed because of the European favoring the Tutsis for their appearance. Not only did they form a sense of class in the society that was content previously, they create an even bigger gap between the two with the use of identification cards. This feeling of jealousy builds up and eventually ends up with the Rwandan genocide. From an outsider looking into what had happened, I see the root began with jealousy, jealousy that the Tutsis receive better treatment than the Hutus. This then became hatred, which eventually led to genocide. Something that I took out from this story was that emotions will blur reason. In the reading it talked about how Americans did not get involved but called it “tribal conflict.” Had this happened in the US, the court will play a large role putting people in their place, reason, laws, and documents will be put in use to understand what has happened and why. This was not the case in Africa, jealousy lead to hate, hate led to killing, and killing caused an outrage from the opponent, and the circle repeats again. Propaganda was also discussed on the readings, saying that not all Hutus wanted to kill the Tutsis, but often these officials will disappear, replaced, or killed. I felt like what had happened is that the “barbaric” side of mankind comes out when it comes to blood. To ensure that no doubt was planted in the minds of these outraged Hutus, the extremists ensures that all the government officials are in the same “boat.” Coming off from the lecture last week about art and propaganda, the government seems more and more suspicious when controversial issue arise.
In December of 1991, my grandfather was asked by the WHO to travel to Yugoslavia and look at health conditions on the ground. The country was breaking apart. Already Slovenia to the north had managed to win its freedom in a limited Ten Day War in June 1991. The WHO was concerned that the human cost to civilians would extraordinarily high, should more conflicts break out. My Grandfather was both a retired US Army Colonel, an MD, professor at the USUHS, and a specialist in planning for disaster medicine. He flew directly from Europe to our house for Christmas that year. His assessment of the situation was that conflict was almost inevitable and that it was going to be very bad. His fear was that the worst place would be a small place known as Kosovo. Kosovo was comprised of a Serbian minority and an ethnic Albanian majority. These groups had hated each other for the better part of a century. It was going to be a bloodbath.
It did of course come to war and to that bloodbath in the spring of 1999. NATO began bombings in March on strategic Serbian targets. The Serbs then spread out and suddenly 800,000 Albanians were fleeing. There were mass graves. When those were televised, the Serbs dug up the remains and burned their bodies. By May 20, 1999, one-third of the Albanian population had been expelled from Kosovo. The refugees fled to Macedonia and Albania.
I bring this up of course to draw parallels to Rwanda. We read about the various factors leading up to the genocide. How the economic, political and historical precedence led to the mass slaughter. So I felt that it required that another example of such factors at work. We can see the hidden gears turning again given the fact that the nearby chaos of the collapsing Albania set fire to the cultural mismatching of religion and cultures due to the leaking of former military arms into the regions. These genocides cannot simply be explained away under one pretense such as race.
Although what I have read thus far of Griffioen’s work has been very interesting and thought provoking, I still manage to find myself questioning his overall set of guidelines. It seems to me that something as major as the rise and collapse of societies would be very complicated and I have a hard time agreeing that the criteria simply fit into his set of rules. I recognized that his criteria are fairly broad and that they do encompass many of the factors that people blame the collapse of societies on but I still cannot manage to grasp the idea that these are simply the reasons for societal changes. We as humans try to find the reasoning and blame for everything in existence and in this case I feel that we cannot come to terms with what exactly could end us. In this case, we may use these guidelines to help us avoid a collapse but we must also realize that certain factors are beyond control and explanation. In addition to questioning the ability to categorize the reasons behind a society’s collapse, I also question his right as a single person to make such a huge generalization. It is clear that he has done extensive research and that his conclusions are not just arbitrarily made but I still question his authority. I believe that if society turns to believe the opinions/conclusions made by a single person without questioning their process, this is where we will find problems.
The recent readings lead me to become more conscious about my own personal consumption of goods, which are not exactly necessary, and about my responsibility to provoke change for the environment and for the future. I really experienced the concepts preached in this course first hand as I worked at Kohl’s this past weekend. I took a job at Kohl’s as a bagger for the holiday season, and quickly realized how many plastic bags I had personally used just on black Friday as I bagged for one register. I was required to be at work at 2:30AM, which I found completely insane. Consumers were lined up outside and rushed the doors as soon as they were opened. With the large number of consumers that were coming through the lines, I found that I went through more than 2 large boxes full of shopping bags. The readings made me think about the fact that most, if not all, of those bags that I was distributing would end up in the trash later that day. The fact that plastic takes an extremely long time to decompose made me think about the fact that would be tons of bags just sitting at the dump waiting to decompose, which would take years. Aside from just the store that I was working at, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many bags would be used that day just in southeast Michigan alone. One thing that I viewed while working which did give me some sort of hope was the fact that there were a decent amount of customers that brought their own reusable bags shopping, so that they did not have to waste a plastic bag.
During my reading of Chapter 11 in Collapse, I stumbled upon a very interesting man: Joaquin Balaquer. Balaquer was elected as president of the Dominican Republic in 1966. He took on office for three consecutive terms, was out of office from 1978 to 1986, and took up president again until 1996. After reading what he did - in and out of office - and how he did what he did, he really struck me as someone who knows how to take matters into his own hands. Not long after he first became president, he put a ban on all commercial logging and all sawmills in the country. When that didn’t seem enough - as some people were moving their businesses out of view and only running their sawmills at night – he used military action to enforce this new law. There was even a program initiated for survey flights to watch out for any illegal activity. This man knew something had to be done and he used everything that his power allowed him to ensure that it was done.
ReplyDeleteThe closing sawmills and logging businesses was not the only drastic thing Balaquer enforced; he did a number of things. He banned the use of fire as a clearing method for agricultural use, raised taxes on mining companies, banned hunting for ten years, protected land 20 yards from rivers and 60 yards from ocean shorelines, and even insisted that people use live rooted trees as a part of their fence instead of felled timber. I found this last idea rather interesting – to use live rooted trees as part of a fence. It makes perfect sense and it seems so obvious. The fact that some president actually made this a rule because it is so obvious and it would be helpful towards the environment just astounds me. It makes me think that there are probably several other more natural ways of doing things or using the environment as is to create structures we use today.
I am inspired by Griffioen's willingness to use the city of Detroit as the centerpiece of his artwork. Personally I feel like Detroit has been decaying tremendously for the past decade or so. Detroit has always been a place of festivities and it's very sad to see that a place that I have known very well which has also had a great impact on my life but now seems to be meaningless to folks. Some people feel like Detroit is just a place of mediocrity which has nothing to offer.
ReplyDeleteBut Griffion looks beyond the hopelessness of the people. He sees the beauty in just the structure of the rugged areas in relation to nature. I'm not opposed to the composition of the photos taken, I just wish more of them were up close and personal because the detailing really gives it a feel for the struggle.
I love his artwork and one of the images that speak the loudest to me is the one entitled "the new book of knowledge" because it has such a mysterious setting about it . It makes you wonder what was the legacy behind the book of knowledge and what ever happened to the people who were going to receive an education at that place.
I am having a hard time understand the amount of corruption that leads the lives of leaders. How can people so cruel just to stay in power? I can understand that the Hutu would have some sort of anger towards the Tutsi but they went about settling differences all wrong because of the people in power. Also, Germany and Belgium should have found a way to bring the two together while in rule instead of separating them even more. If anything, both Hutu and Tutsi should be angry at the Germans and Belgians for making things a little worse then leaving with out uniting the two. (the book doesn’t say how Rwanda got their independence.)
ReplyDeleteDespite the ethnicity differences and history, the real issue was land and poverty but still leaders could have gone about things a little differently. Instead of using hate to gain power to begin with, they should have found a way to settle peace. By using hate at the beginning, people got used to using violence instead of democracy and knowledge.
Another problem in the country was the large amount of breeding. How can this society see the devastation that overpopulation was bringing to the land and continue to breed? Obviously people put off marriage because of the over population but still there is an increase in people despite that. Plus, they keep talking about divorce people breeding over and over again with different partners instead of taking time to find one person and only having kids with them.
I don’t think that this country will ever be able to find peace until the people finally find a way to agree with each other, stop breeding so much, treat the environment right and have leaders with high ethics. I know that at one time they had leaders that wanted peace but then the civilians started killing them. This leads me to why any country or the U.N. would want to help a country that is bent on killing it’s own populace for no good reason? I can understand why the United States didn’t want to help because random home life civilians are killing leaders. I just don’t know how this can be settled with out a miracle of understanding, tolerance and birth control.
One thing I truly do believe in, now that I have been exposed to these type of stories, is chaos. I am slowly starting to think that there will always be confrontation between others and that we will never be able to unite the human species in peace because people will always find a reason to fight with each other.
ADP weekly statement
ReplyDeleteIn this weeks reading in the book Collapse, I found the chapter on Rwanda very intriguing. I watched Hotel Rwanda for the first time two weeks ago, so it was interesting to here more information about the history, and how and why the genocide occurred. I knew just from watching the movie that the amount of people killed over those few weeks was unimaginable. I can’t image having so many people go on a killing rampage and take out friends, and neighbors.
Diamond mentioned a third group of people that I had not known about before this book, the Twa or pygmies were also killed during the fighting. Even though they only represented one percent of Rwanda I still don’t hear much information about them.
Diamond also believes that one of the main causes of the genocide was that there were too many people populating Rwanda. I agree that this could be a part of why the genocide happened. I think the main cause was through brainwashing people through the radio.
It is shocking that so many people decided to join in on the massacre and start killing, or trading in Tutsi’s for there own survival. Which is what I think makes Hotel Rwanda such a good movie. The movie portrays both the good and the bad of the war. Even though some people were willing to kill there own teachers, doctors, patients, and so forth there were still people who would do anything to protect someone of a different ethnicity then there own. The main character in the movie is willing to pay the Hutu militia however much they want so that he can keep is family and neighbors alive. If it weren’t for people willing to protect others, and stay out of the militia, there may not be any Hutu left.
For the Hutu and the Tutsi to have had to classify themselves as either one or the other is ridiculous. There isn’t very much difference in the two ethnicities. It seems ridiculous now that they would be willing to kill each other over ethnicity. But if you add in the fact that they were over populated and were scarce on food it makes since that they would be fighting, just not so violently.
James D. Griffioen’s work is very interesting and thought provoking yet seems to lack an aesthetically appealing edge. I find his work to be very enlightening and important. It offers viewers a way of looking at nature that they might otherwise overlook. In addition, the relationship between the demolished houses as subjects in his photographs and the fully standing houses with greenery is frightening and eye opening. They represent different stages of life for trees. He photographs them in their natural environment and then crawling up houses and finally in paper and wood forms inside demolished houses. Another interesting aspect of Griffioen’s photography is the titles that he chooses to call each piece. Each title helps to explain the photo it is associated with and gives thought to the process behind the artist’s intentions. The one issue I have with his work is that I do not think each image could stand alone as an artful piece. While I am not a photographer, as a viewer, I am critical of the subject matter and context of Griffioen’s photos. Still, as a group of photos where the viewer can see the process of image’s subject matter, I think his work is successful.
ReplyDeleteJames D. Griffioen's work is extremely interesting and special in the ways in which is able to capture nature and the hidden treasures of the world. His work is so strong because of all the unique traits that it holds by being both delicate yet, powerful. In his series entitled the "disappearing cities” especially the Feral street houses- I found to be the most interesting and enticing to look at; the aura that his photographs gives off is almost magical and enchanting which, is what draws in the audience's attention to it even more. I find his work to be extremely effective in portraying the message of sustainability and a green-er world. The environment and nature are unique like his photographs and precious in that we only have one change with nature in this world and the things we have destroyed are not coming back so we should furthermore enjoy what we still have on this earth and put in our greatest efforts in hope to preserve the nature due to the fact that it is irreplaceable. The Detroit public school deposit is remarkable because it is so misleading it attracts the attention of the viewer especially the tree piece because it is ironic and contrasting beauty with destruction and what was a tree and what now is a tree. It is almost sad the way he makes the composition seem so beautiful when really it is just a pile of waste and destroyed trees- and destroyed nature that cannot be un done.-brynn kurlan
ReplyDeleteI found James D. Griffioen to be one of the more interesting artists I’ve looked at based on this class. The feral houses series plays with the idea of natural made things and manmade things. Each photograph shows a way that nature has wrapped around something manmade and almost hides the structures. I felt as if Griffioen was trying to send a message that mother-nature will take over our Earth, and as if it was a sign that something bad would happen in nature to effect our everyday living. When I read Griffioen’s blog on Feral Houses, I began to feel a new sensation. I felt sad that all these houses are abandoned in the Detroit area and I was some what sad that he refered to them as “wild beast.” It is nice that he tried to capture the beauty in these abandoned houses during the summer, but I find it odd to glorify how nature has taken over these houses when they were meant to have people living in them. I do admire how Griffioen decided to compare these houses to the idea of wild dogs, it was an ambitious attempt.
ReplyDeleteAfter learning a lot about the genocide in Rwanda during high school, I thought the chapter pertaining to this subject in “Collapse” would be the same old discussion that I’ve had before. I had learned about the different ties to agriculture or pastoralism that each ethnicity had, but it was only used to further the argument that Hutus and Tutsis were two distinct races. Looking at the difference being one brought about overpopulation and food deprivation makes the whole situation harder for me and the rest of the Western world to swallow. When we pin the killings solely on differences of ethnicity, we can justify our lack of preparedness in preventing such an outbreak. But we cannot say there weren’t any clues to warn us of a possible genocide if the causes stem more from population and food. We don’t want to take responsibility for the killings in any way, so we need to pin the killings on some unforeseen and random occurrence. With part of the problem coming from overpopulation and not having enough food, there must have been clues that would have warned us that such a catastrophe could come. In fact there were, as Diamond points out. Overpopulation has plagued Rwanda and Burundi, and a lack of food for much of the population was present in decades leading up to the genocide. As outsiders, we should have been able to look at these numbers and realize that bad things could happen, but inaction is easier than action. Instead of providing aid in supplying food or finding out ways to reduce population growth, the West looked the other way, up to and including when the genocide broke out. The lack of effort to prevent such a disaster is horrifying, yet it happens all the time.
ReplyDeleteAnother example is that of environmental degradation. Billions of dollars are spent trying to fix all of the damage that has been caused, when it would have been cheaper for the previous generation to act but again inaction was the path they followed. We burden future generations with our mistakes, and it seems one of the most expensive problems will be climate change. Instead of changing our habits of burning fossil fuels and spending a little extra money to find greener technology, we wait until the problem is so bad we are forced to change, and then must spend billions upon billions of dollars to undo the negative effects of the previous generations actions.
In observing James D. Griffioen's artwork, I experienced a lot of mixed emotions. I was feeling intrigued, influenced, happy, and confused all at the same time. I think it's great that Griffioen bases the majority of his artwork in detroit, given the fact that it is not the most "green" place in the world. I thought this juxtaposition was fantastic. Looking at the rest of his work was very interesting and influential. He creates these massive designs of trees and bushes and anything green for that matter around areas that seem to truly lack the affect of nature. Also, the fact that his work is mostly in Detroit makes it so much more interesting because, in Detroit there are a lot of factories and buildings and nothing green what so ever. His artwork show people what this particular place is lacking and reminds us of how thing should be.
ReplyDeleteGriffioen's work reminds me of the artist posted here on last week's Weekly Statement blog, Joel Sternfeld, in that they both portray the beautiful and sad juxtaposition of nature and manmade creations. I'm not sure if I like the aesthetics of Griffioen's photographs; maybe the green is overpowering. But then again, maybe that's the point! The viewer definitely gets the sense that nature has dominated the manmade structure in each photograph. Over one weekend earlier this year, my roommate and I took a drive to a town an hour out of Ann Arbor. On the way, we came across a completely dilapidated farm overgrown with plants and weeds in the middle of a vast field. We pulled over to take pictures, and it was a completely humbling experience. The wood had rotted, and it almost looked like these pieces of fragmented wood were growing out of the field, rather than the plants growing through the pieces of wood. The process of decomposition and nature's reclaiming of its resources and space was amazing to see in progress. It seems like Detroit's been getting a lot of attention these days, attracting artists that are interested in capturing the city's almost ghost town-like qualities. In that sense, it's interesting to see Griffioen's work because it captures and emphasizes the power of nature more than it does the destruction of industrial structures.
ReplyDeleteReading about the Rwandan genocide was extremely sad. What is even more upsetting was the fact that hatred between the Hutus and the Tutsis formed because of the European favoring the Tutsis for their appearance. Not only did they form a sense of class in the society that was content previously, they create an even bigger gap between the two with the use of identification cards. This feeling of jealousy builds up and eventually ends up with the Rwandan genocide. From an outsider looking into what had happened, I see the root began with jealousy, jealousy that the Tutsis receive better treatment than the Hutus. This then became hatred, which eventually led to genocide.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I took out from this story was that emotions will blur reason. In the reading it talked about how Americans did not get involved but called it “tribal conflict.” Had this happened in the US, the court will play a large role putting people in their place, reason, laws, and documents will be put in use to understand what has happened and why. This was not the case in Africa, jealousy lead to hate, hate led to killing, and killing caused an outrage from the opponent, and the circle repeats again.
Propaganda was also discussed on the readings, saying that not all Hutus wanted to kill the Tutsis, but often these officials will disappear, replaced, or killed. I felt like what had happened is that the “barbaric” side of mankind comes out when it comes to blood. To ensure that no doubt was planted in the minds of these outraged Hutus, the extremists ensures that all the government officials are in the same “boat.” Coming off from the lecture last week about art and propaganda, the government seems more and more suspicious when controversial issue arise.
In December of 1991, my grandfather was asked by the WHO to travel to Yugoslavia and look at health conditions on the ground. The country was breaking apart. Already Slovenia to the north had managed to win its freedom in a limited Ten Day War in June 1991. The WHO was concerned that the human cost to civilians would extraordinarily high, should more conflicts break out. My Grandfather was both a retired US Army Colonel, an MD, professor at the USUHS, and a specialist in planning for disaster medicine. He flew directly from Europe to our house for Christmas that year. His assessment of the situation was that conflict was almost inevitable and that it was going to be very bad. His fear was that the worst place would be a small place known as Kosovo. Kosovo was comprised of a Serbian minority and an ethnic Albanian majority. These groups had hated each other for the better part of a century. It was going to be a bloodbath.
ReplyDeleteIt did of course come to war and to that bloodbath in the spring of 1999.
NATO began bombings in March on strategic Serbian targets. The Serbs then spread out and suddenly 800,000 Albanians were fleeing. There were mass graves. When those were televised, the Serbs dug up the remains and burned their bodies. By May 20, 1999, one-third of the Albanian population had been expelled from Kosovo. The refugees fled to Macedonia and Albania.
I bring this up of course to draw parallels to Rwanda. We read about the various factors leading up to the genocide. How the economic, political and historical precedence led to the mass slaughter. So I felt that it required that another example of such factors at work. We can see the hidden gears turning again given the fact that the nearby chaos of the collapsing Albania set fire to the cultural mismatching of religion and cultures due to the leaking of former military arms into the regions. These genocides cannot simply be explained away under one pretense such as race.
Although what I have read thus far of Griffioen’s work has been very interesting and thought provoking, I still manage to find myself questioning his overall set of guidelines. It seems to me that something as major as the rise and collapse of societies would be very complicated and I have a hard time agreeing that the criteria simply fit into his set of rules. I recognized that his criteria are fairly broad and that they do encompass many of the factors that people blame the collapse of societies on but I still cannot manage to grasp the idea that these are simply the reasons for societal changes. We as humans try to find the reasoning and blame for everything in existence and in this case I feel that we cannot come to terms with what exactly could end us. In this case, we may use these guidelines to help us avoid a collapse but we must also realize that certain factors are beyond control and explanation. In addition to questioning the ability to categorize the reasons behind a society’s collapse, I also question his right as a single person to make such a huge generalization. It is clear that he has done extensive research and that his conclusions are not just arbitrarily made but I still question his authority. I believe that if society turns to believe the opinions/conclusions made by a single person without questioning their process, this is where we will find problems.
ReplyDeleteThe recent readings lead me to become more conscious about my own personal consumption of goods, which are not exactly necessary, and about my responsibility to provoke change for the environment and for the future. I really experienced the concepts preached in this course first hand as I worked at Kohl’s this past weekend. I took a job at Kohl’s as a bagger for the holiday season, and quickly realized how many plastic bags I had personally used just on black Friday as I bagged for one register. I was required to be at work at 2:30AM, which I found completely insane. Consumers were lined up outside and rushed the doors as soon as they were opened. With the large number of consumers that were coming through the lines, I found that I went through more than 2 large boxes full of shopping bags. The readings made me think about the fact that most, if not all, of those bags that I was distributing would end up in the trash later that day. The fact that plastic takes an extremely long time to decompose made me think about the fact that would be tons of bags just sitting at the dump waiting to decompose, which would take years. Aside from just the store that I was working at, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many bags would be used that day just in southeast Michigan alone. One thing that I viewed while working which did give me some sort of hope was the fact that there were a decent amount of customers that brought their own reusable bags shopping, so that they did not have to waste a plastic bag.
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