3 interests of the St. Louis community

3 issues in the St. Louis area that most interest me... are there organizations that tend to these issues?

1. Poor Public Education around the city; Family Resource Center, Lemay Child and Family Center
2. Drug abuse and production in Saint Louis; Turning Point and National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse - St. Louis Area, Inc.
3. Violence and crime in the St. Louis Area; Violence Prevention Center of Southwestern Illinois, Women's Safehouse, Turning Point

Nov. 19 and Nov. 29 International Human Rights Project Assignments

I'm interested in looking into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the united states' connection to it. A lot of things pertaining to this conflict like Hamas, The Gaza War of 2009 and the West Bank, and the surrounding countries' relations with the nation of Israel. In order to keep a balanced review, I'd like to explore any human rights violations committed by both Palestinian and Israeli groups.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/ngos-gaza-civilians-continue-suffer-2010-11-30

http://www.mideastweb.org/nutshell.htm

http://www.historyguy.com/gaza_war.htm

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/luxury-palestinian-mall-signals-transformation-of-terror-capital-1.278478

Research Questions: Why do the two conflicting parties in this conflict resort to violence? What things need to change in order for a peace agreement to be made? And what is the main oversight to keep the governments involved in this conflict in line? What factors have lead to corruption in governments?

Two book sources:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/20007691?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DIsrael%2BPalestine%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3DIsrael%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don

http://www.jstor.org/pss/3791564?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DIsrael%2BPalestine%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3DIsrael%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don

Perilous Power: The Middle East and United States Foreign Policy by Noam Chomsky

Enemies of the People Video Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viWHssKpjlY

DRC Events and Response

http://www.tnr.com/blog/foreign-policy/78180/its-time-hold-rwanda-accountable-war-crimes

This article from The New Republic focuses on the Rwandan Genocide, that occurred in a neighboring country to the Congo, and how it has had a great impact on the Congo. The Rwandan Genocide involved an ethnic group known as the Hutus killing another ethnic group know has the Tuties. Since then, Rwandan Tuti government militants have killed Congolese Hutus, as some are the kin of the Hutus that lead the genocide back in 1994. This article gave me insight onto how many African countries are stuck in a cycle of violence, reform, and rebellion, and how African countries can so greatly impact one another. The article calls for the U.N. to address Rwanda's international war crimes in order for the Congo to attain peace.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Family+fears+safety+Canadian+woman+jailed+Congo/3629192/story.html

This article reports how a Congolese native woman, who moved to Canada and was visiting the Congo again, was taken into custody by the Congolese government. According to Congo Law, she can only be detained for 48 hours. But this woman was born in the Congo and received her degree from The University of Kinshasa in the capital city. Her being taken into custody for "investigative reasons" is striking to me, and shows a Congolese distrust for the western world.

Discussion Conclusions

1. I'd like to discuss whether or not Leopold's violence was truly the most efficient way of exploiting the resources of the Congo.

2. I think our discussion was super-mega-awesome. The questions were a little difficult to sift through, and finding the best ones were tricky, so I think there could have been more "open-endedness" per se. I don't think that our discussion was really in any great need of improvement.

King Leopold 1-32 response

My response essentially consists of shock that the atrocities of Leopold's Congo matched those of the Holocaust, as stated on page 4. What I also found appalling was how the Belgians and local political leaders of Congo worked together to systematically root out and exploit subjects for slave labor. Whats more is that often these leaders were tricked into accepting useless commodities such as 'cloth, tools, and other knickknacks' in exchange for human collateral from Tribal Leaders. Then there was this idea that it would suffice for Europeans to conquer other cultures, but when uncivilized races started conquering each other, it was considered shocking (page 28).

How important was it that the Congolese had no written language?

 What made Humans ideal for trading?

Today I learned how Old Imperialism differed from its modern version that we see today. I'm interesting in how this ended at the start of World War I, because it seems as if the Old Imperialism may have caused the entangling alliances that we were all conventionally told lead to WWI. I'd also like to know why political control became more invaluable in new colonialism.