Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Journal 8/4/13

Today, it has been the first class after the Easter holidays. Paloma has proposed to do the make-up exam the 24th and it will be on this date.

First, Paqui has remembered us the colonialism, its causes, the justification to imperialism and the attitudes towards colonialism, which were the last things we saw before holidays.
Paqui has talked us about a secret society in the USA university of Yale called “Skulls and Bones”: This society was created in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft, the society conscript new members from the students who are in the previous year of his graduation. The skulls caught to the team captain of football and rowing.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bones_logo.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bonesmen_clock.jpg
After this, we have copied from the blackboard a scheme about the conquest organization and exploitation of colonies.
  • Conquest: It was due to the technological and military superiority of the Europeans. The indigenous tried to resist, but they couldn’t stop the occupation. The Europeans used tribal rivalries to divide the indigenous or hired some tribes to fight against other peoples. 

  • Exploitation and organization:
o   Main purpose: Exploiting the resources of the colonies on their own benefit, no matter the consequences.
o   Types of colonies:  

§  Colonies of exploitation: they totally depended on the metropolis. The Europeans owned the lands, mines and export companies and their main interest was exploiting the colonies and extracting their economic resources. Most of the African colonies belonged to this type.
§  Colonies of settlement: colonies with an important number of Europeans. They had an autonomous government, but their foreign policy was controlled by the metropolis. Examples: Australia, New Zealand, Canada.
§  Protectorates: in theory they were independent because they had an indigenous government, but they didn’t have an independent foreign policy. Examples: Morocco (controlled by France and Spain between 1907 and 1956) and Egypt (controlled by the UK).

New vocabulary:
  • Skull- Calavera                 
  • Speech- Discurso
  • Rivalry- Rivalidad
  • The Zulus- Los zulúes
  • Loom- Telar
  • Tariff- Aranceles 
  • Colonies of settlement- colonias de poblamiento

7 comments:

Salva Fuentes said...

Hi Gonzalo,

Your journal is a little short. You can do it longer. I have found some mistakes:
-we have seen -> we saw.
-colonias de poblaciento -> colonias de poblamiento.

You should include that Paqui has said that experts in colonialism say: "as more time a country (metropole) stayed in a colony, a poorer is a country (colony) nowadays" (I don't remember the exact phrase). Paqui has explained that the northwest coast of India and present Bangladesh was a territory as richer as the European countries. It had a lot of industries and a developed textile industry. This territory was also rich in cotton. When the British arrived there, they destroyed its prosperous industry (a lot of looms) because the Hindus industry could be a competence for the British industry, they used this territory in their own benefit and they exploited the plantations of cotton. The British stayed there since the middle of the 18th century until 1947 (around 200 years). Now, this territory is very poor, for example, the city of Calcuta. This reflect that the "civilizing mission" was a lie and an excuse to exploit the resources of other territories and to eliminate the competition. It's a good example.

Nowadays, it seems that colonialism is a thing of the past. There are less wars (most of them only concern to the underdeveloped countries) and most of the countries cooperate. But, with the excuse of free market economy and globalization, the developed countries build industries in less developed countries (Indonesia, Vietnam, Tailandia, China, etc.) to exploit the resources of these countries, to make a lot of products paying a very low salary to the workers and to make money without respecting the environment. I think that it is similar to colonialism.

China is growing a lot and maybe we will try our own medicine in some years.

Bye bye!

Unknown said...

Hello Gonzalo!
As Salva has said, your journal is a little short but is good. I think that Salva has said all the mistakes. And there is a part in the post that the words are very little. Correct it and see you tomorrow!

maria said...

Hi gonzalo !!

As my classmates has said, your journal can be a little longer, but it isn't bad. You can include the. things that Salva has told you.
Anyway, you have done a good work.

See you tomorrow:))

maria said...

Hi gonzalo !!

As my classmates has said, your journal can be a little longer, but it isn't bad. You can include the. things that Salva has told you.
Anyway, you have done a good work.

See you tomorrow:))

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello,

I agree with all the students: the journal is short. We talked about many other things, but, as always, when someone asks a question, most of you disconnect and don't pay attention to what your classmates say. There were several interesting questions. Maybe other students can help and add this information.

You've forgotten that I read two speeches which reflected opinions pro and against colonialism. These speeches are on the blog. You could search them and include them on your post.

As for Salva's comment, it was related to what we talked about the real purpose of colonialism and the the lie of the supposed "civilizing mission". The exact sentence was: "The longer the colonial occupation in a region was, the poorer it is" and, as Salva has explained very well, I explained the case of the Gulf of Bengal before and after the colonization. We'll study the consequences of colonialism more deeply in the following lessons, but if you think about the countries we consider considered to be "developing" or "underdeveloped", they have one feature in common: they were all colonies in the past. In fact, colonialism hasn't disappeared. It exists under a new name: neocolonialism. The big powers don't need to dominate physically a country (to occupy it), but they control the economy or politics using different instruments or institutions (sometimes disguised as humanitarian or economic help). Many of the former colonies continue to be submitted to their former metropolises (or the biggest one) and the attempts to reach political or economic independence are considered to be defiances to authority many times. There are many examples in South America (Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Ollanta Humala, Hugo Chávez ...), Asia (Iran,Iraq in the past)and Africa.

I think China's case is different. They were an empire for many centuries, very advanced in many fields and they did'nt have the necessity of expanding outside or imposing their model in other parts of the world. Maybe the future will be different for us, but the responsible of the asianization of the world (because we'll adopt many of the features of their present culture: submission to authority, long working hours, worsening of the living conditions)won't be the Chinese, but the ones who want us to be that way (remember what Juan Roig, the president of Mercadona, said about what the Spanish workers had to do). In fact, things are changing in China (slow, but very important changes). There is a very interesting book called La actualidad de China, written by Rafael Poch de Feliu, La Vanguardia´s former correspondent in Beijing, which explains China's recent evolution and the changes their society is experiencing. I know, I'm always recommending books, but I think they are the best way to understand the world.

See you!

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Sorry, responsible for.

Paqui Pérez Fons said...

Hello again,

These are my additional corrections:

- The justification the Europeans gave to colonialism

- I talked about the Skull and Bones Society, because we saw a caricature of Jules Ferry over a pile of skulls. You should explain that and you could also look for this caricature.

- The Skulls and Bones Society recruits ...in the previous year to their graduation

- I don’t understand the sentence “The skulls caught to the team captain of football and rowing.”. You should erase it, because it has nothing to do with the lesson.

- Word order: we have copied from the blackboard a scheme about the conquest organization and exploitation of colonies from the blackboard

I think you should add the information Salva told you. We didn't spend the whole lesson copying a scheme. Some people asked questions and I explained more things.

That's all. See you!