The duty of remembering

This is the complete documentary we watched in class at the end of the school year. It's sad that so few people came to class to watch it. The documentary was broadcasted in three parts in a program called Línea 900 on La 2 in 2000. Only two of the survivors who appear in the documentary are still alive, but as long as we can, we have to spread their experience and make people aware of what people can do to their fellow human beings:

 

Mauthausen, the duty of remembering

As Enrique didn´t write the journal, I´m going to include some information about what we saw in class yesterday. The documentary is called El deber de recordar (The duty of remembering) and it was produced by a La 2 TV program called Línea 900 in 2000. It tells the story of 8 Spanish fighters against Franco and Hitler, who were confined in Mauthausen concentration camp during World War 2. The survivors who appeared in the documentary were Francesc Comellas, Antoni Roig, Joan de Diego, Francisco Batiste, Josep Egea, Mariano Constante, Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milà. Only Manuel Alfonso and Ramón Milà are still alive. The documentary explains about the hard conditions the prisoners had to put up with, the countless ways of killing the Nazis used and how the survivors managed to remain alive until the camp release on the 5th May 1945. It´s a story of horror and humiliation, but also tells about resistance and solidarity, values no one should forget. 

Here you have the complete documentary:

This is a map of all the forced labour and extermination camps the Nazis created in Germany and the territories they occupied: 

Source: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/media_nm.php?ModuleId=10005196&MediaId=354

And these are some links to learn more about Mauthausen: 

- Information about the structure of the camp and pictures on Remember.org: 

http://www.remember.org/camps/mauthausen/index.html

- Information about Mauthausen in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: 

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/article.php?ModuleId=10005196

- Brief story of Mauthausen on the Holocaust Research Project: 

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/mauthausen.html

- Photographs of the life and death at Mauthausen: 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mauthpictoc.html

- Mauthausen Concentration Camp official website: 

http://en.mauthausen-memorial.at/

- Report about three of the last Spanish Mauthausen survivors, appeared on El País some weeks ago: 

http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/05/24/actualidad/1337863342_182744.html

Some more information about outsourcing

Checking the labels of our clothes, we´ve discovered today that many of the textiles sold in Spain have been produced in other countries. Many companies have outsourced their factories to places such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, China, Turkey, Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan or Mexico. Here you have some cartoons that show the reality of globalization in industry: 

The first cartoon shows how the theory of capitalism can affect to the same people who are its main supporters: 

This cartoon plays with a very know quote in the USA: it used to be "What´s good for General Motors (the car company) is good for America".

This one shows the dilemma of many Mexican workers: 

The executive of this cartoon justifies outsourcing as a good thing for American citizens: 

This one shows the reality of many companies of the developed countries: their workers live in other countries. 

And the last one is focused on consumers. 

Source of all the images: http://www.davar.net/IT/CARTOONS.HTM

The truth is that the high consumption levels of the most developed countries are only possible because many of the goods we enjoy come from countries where the working conditions and the rights of workers are not respected. If you´re interested in this topic, you can watch the following video about working conditions on the sweatshops in Bangladesh: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bhodyt4fmU&feature=related

And if you want to take action, this is the link to the Playfair 2012 Campaign. This is an international campaign  whose purpose is to put pressure on the sport companies that produce sportwear in outsourced factories in Asia. You can send an e-mail to the major companies and ask them to respect the rights of their workers: 

http://www.playfair2012.org.uk/

You can also play the game "Unfair factory" and learn how´s a workday in the sweatshops: 

http://www.playfair2012.org.uk/game/

Planned obsolescence

Comprar, tirar, comprar

Have you ever heard your parents or grandparents say that things lasted more in the past? They might be right. This is a very interesting documentary broadcasted on La 2 a few weeks ago. It explains one of the pillars of  industrialized societies: planned obsolescence. This is a strategy many companies develop to oblige consumers to buy new products, by limiting their duration. Many products have been designed to have a short useful life, so that consumers have to buy new models. It is cheaper to buy a new product than trying to get it fixed. Some experts try to justify planned obsolescence, like a way of preserving employments: if products lasted for ages, less workers would be needed and unemployment rates would be higher. However, other experts explain that this strategy has led to consumerism, the exhaustion of many resources and high pollution and waste levels. The documentary is in Spanish, but many of the people who appear in it speak in different languages.


More about planned obsolescence: 


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/planned_obsolescence.asp