“From a spiritual point of view, it cannot be true that the work of the CEOs of some companies is worth a thousand times that of some other of their employees, just as it cannot be true that because you can get people to work full time for minimum wage they are justly compensated.”

(Gregory F.A. Pierce, co-founder, Business Executives for Social Justice 2001).

Recent events, particularly in Europe and the US, have shocked ordinary citizens out of their illusion that unrestrained wealth and unregulated markets function to their ultimate benefit, and to the general benefit of mankind. It appears that the near-collapse of Wall Street, though not unprecedented, has resulted in a new way of looking at economies, a new desire for equity in the marketplace, the ongoing development of a new template for an ethical economic system in which values other than simple greed rule. But this disillusionment is not new. There have been many long centuries of discontent between the haves and have-nots, and many illustrious philosophers and thinkers have considered the problem and have generated solutions. It is only now, it seems, when every global economy is interconnected and one fault trembles them all, that a genuine and true awakening seems imminent. This paper will discuss these historical notes, trace economic thought as it is today, and generate a plausible argument for sustainable ethical business practice.

In “The Quackery of Equality,” Lawrence Reed takes issue with those who would advocate for a policy in which economic equality is a base: “People obsessed with economic equality, or “egalitarianism,” do strange things. They become envious of others. They divide society into two piles: villains and victims. They spend far more time dragging someone else down than they do pulling themselves up. They’re not fun to be around. And if they make it to public office, they can do real harm. Then they not only call the cops, they are the cops.” (2000). The article further suggests that people must necessarily give up their freedom if they wish to be equal, economically speaking. This is a faulty argument of the first rank, yet arguments like this have been a justification for decades for manipulating financial markets, public policy which encourages unrestrained wealth, legislation which favors the rich and penalizes the poor, and for a public attitude in which progress is seen as a widening divide in which the middle class disappears. And it likely would have continued to be a driving force in world economic thought and legislative mandate had the speculative bubble not burst. We are now seeing the results of Reed’s argument.

There have been historical cautions, but few heeded such. Wealth is a powerful aphrodisiac, and to some an addiction. Recent American history is full of such reminders: Milken, the junk-bond king; Madoff, the ponzi schemer who cost tens of thousands of people their savings and their futures; the auto executives who flew in private jets to a Washington hearing in which their very greed was being questioned; the Merrill-Lynch executive who ordered a 1.2 million dollar restoration to his office at a time when the financial giant was collapsing; political figures like John McCain, who insisted in the billowing dust of ruin that there was nothing wrong with the economy, and Sarah Palin, who chidingly called Barack Obama a “wealth-spreader” when he had the temerity and foresight to suggest that continuing inequality was no longer an option. Robert Mugabe has brought his country to the brink of disaster, financially and politically, by concentrating that country’s wealth into the hands of a few, and destroying the prospects of any who would oppose him. The world is littered with such stories.

Aristotle, Plato, Plutarch, Lucretius, Francis Bacon, Erasmus, de Tocqueville–the list goes on and on[1]–have each expressed the dangers of inequality in economic thought and practice. Mahatma Gandhi spoke of the dangers of economic inequality: “The contrast between the rich and the poor today is a painful sight. The poor villagers are exploited by…their own countrymen-the city-dwellers. They produce the food and go hungry. They produce milk and their children have to go without it. It is disgraceful. Everyone must have a balanced diet, a decent house to live in, and facilities for the education of one’s children and adequate medical relief…(Gandhi,  31-3-1946, p. 63). Or Gabriel Thompson, as quoted in The Nation: “On the East Side of Manhattan,” Thompson writes, “two very distinct classes of New Yorkers cross paths every day: the working poor (undocumented immigrants and citizens alike), who cook, deliver, secure and protect–for little money and no benefits–and the titans of finance, hedge-fund executives and heads of private-equity firms, who stare at numbers on screens while moving other people’s money in and out of stocks and commodities or buying and selling companies, and whose wealth is expanding so quickly they have difficulty figuring out what to do with it.” (2008). All of it sounds familiar, and rings too true in the economic milieu which has been laid bare by a deep recession unlike anything since the Great Depression of the thirties.

Buddhist ethics (Ornatowski 1996), Christian ethics (Harkness 1957), Marxian economic theory (Marx 1849), economists such as Smith (1776) and Keynes (1936), all speak of economic equality[2], in varying terms in their varying social situations, but all reach the same conclusion: there is no true freedom where there is no equality. This is the fatal error in Reed’s quotation above, and it is the fatal error in modern-day economic thinking, a thinking that has nearly brought ruin to the economies of the world.

Now we know. Now we are learning the harsh truth thatinequality in any human endeavor hurts us all, in ways that are deep and have lasting effects. There are ancient hurts still not healed in the Middle East, in Ireland, in Native America, in India and Pakistan, South Africa, South America–hurt runs deep and is not easily assuaged. In every case, there is an economic quality to the hurt. American jobs are outsourced to Asian countries where wages are so minimal that one must work an inordinate number of hours to simply survive. Sixteen-hour workdays are common in developing countries; street beggars are rampant in places like Istanbul and Cairo and Mumbai. Palestinians fight for their survival every day of their lives, losing precious ground as Israeli settlements encroach. Venezuelan hillsides just outside the capital city of Caracas are littered with cardboard homes and shanty dwellings as Hugo Chavez counts his oil monies and dictates his poisoned brand of economics to the rest of South America. Now we know, and as we are poised on the abyss of selfish and greedy economic policies that favor a few and disregard the rest, we see the truth of what has occurred while we waved the bankers and finance moguls through in a twisted American dream that left us with a global nightmare.

It is a time for change. The old ways, embraced by a conservative ideology that is out of touch and left too many to suffer the consequences, have had their day. It is time for change. Grassroots organizations by the hundreds offer solutions. The “good-old-boy” networks are as bankrupt as the rest of us. There has to be a return to the sense of morality there once was in business practice. “Whatever its source — religion, conscience, custom or code — it meant that there are certain things you don’t do because they are not done. You don’t reward yourself when customers, clients or shareholders or employees are suffering losses. You don’t pay yourself out of all proportion to what you pay others. You don’t take advantage of your position just because you can. You are guided, even if no one is watching, by a sense of what is responsible and right. Without that internalized code of honor and trust, no institution can be sustained in the long run.” (Sacks 2009). There has to be, in business in general, a sense of fairness in the marketplace and in the business itself. No one can regulate this; for all of them there has to be a commitment to an ethical mindset that is at the heart of the business plan.

There are companies emerging who understand this responsibility and act on it. It is a kind of conscious capitalism that takes the values of the community in which the business is located into account. For example, Wainwright Bank of Boston has changed its way of doing business and is discovering success it never had before: “Wainwright’s DNA is so deeply encoded with the commitment to social justice, you almost forget it’s a bank, with more than $760 million in assets, that offers commercial loans, home mortgages, lines of credit and private banking. It might also slip your mind that Wainwright makes money, a lot of money and at an impressive rate: Net income in 2004 hit $6.4 million, up from $4.7 million in 2003. Earnings per share rose from 55 cents in 2001 to 94 cents in 2004….And guess what? Community investing is the best-performing sector of Wainwright’s lending portfolio. The default rate? About zero percent.”(Aburdene 2006). There are other stories, other instances of a return to spiritual practice in business that are equally impressive. Daryl and Estraletta Green, who present workshops across the country for spiritual growth in employees, write about the growing need for employee fulfillment in the workplace. They offer four suggestions for employees who need and expect to have a deeper and more fulfilling purpose-driven life in the workplace.

Vision. Develop an overall purpose for your life.

Priority. Identify your top five priorities.

Purposeful Living. Find a worthy cause.

Ideal Job. Discover your ideal job, consisting of your interest, talents/s.

Green goes on to conclude: “With the impending retirement of the baby boomer generation drawing near, organizations that neglect the needs of their employees will find themselves in an unfavorable position for future hiring.”(2006).

In 2006, the Spiritual Capital Research Program based at the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science called for research proposals which would address spiritual capital, which is how “trust, behavioral norms and religion can profoundly shape economic, political and social developments.” (Sargeant 2006). There were more than 560 applicants for grants of $150,000 each, from which 43 were chosen. The list was then narrowed to 10 who would develop research projects which were peer reviewed, to be published in academic journals. The ten finalists awarded grants were:

¨Peter Berger, Boston University: “Spiritual Capital in Developing Societies”

¨Wendy Cadge, Bowdoin College: “Comparing Spiritual and Other Forms of Social Capital: Lessons from the Immigrant Experience”

¨Robert Dowd, University of Notre Dame: “Religiosity and Political Culture: Christians, Muslims and Spiritual Capital in Sub-Saharan Africa”

¨Daniel Hungerman, University of Notre Dame: “Religious Capital and Public Policy in the 20th Century”

¨Sriya Iyer, University of Cambridge: “Innovation and the Resilience of Religion”

¨Michael Kremer, Harvard University: “The Impact of the Hajj”

¨John Levi Martin, University of Wisconsin-Madison: “Structures of Social and Spiritual Capital in Religious and Nonreligious Groups”

¨Gary Richardson, University of California, Irvine: “A Pious and Profitable Mystery: Guilds, Purgatory, Reformation, the Multiplication of Religious Denominations, and the Evolution of Industrial Society in Late-Medieval and Early Modern England”

¨David Sikkink, University of Notre Dame: “The Dynamics of Spiritual Capital in US Congregations”

¨Fenggang Yang, Purdue University: “Faith and Trust in the Emerging Market Economy in China” (ibid.).

This is astonishing. Historically, religion and economics were regarded as mutually exclusive fields of study, each bearing little resemblance to the other. Now we have studies, serious academic studies which purposefully equate one with the other. And it makes perfect sense: human beings, who drive capital markets and generate the economies, are also spiritual beings who have a stake in global and domestic economies and the successes these derive. For the first time, there is a focus on such things as religious capital and public policy, social and spiritual capital in religious and nonreligious groups, innovation and religion, spiritual and social capital in emerging societies. The old republican norms of low taxes and a strong military are obsolete. The democratic norms of high taxes and funding for social programs, though more deeply reflecting a spiritual ideal, are being reconfigured. Worldwide, there is indignation with tyrannies which support the status quo.

The publication of such volumes as Emotional Intelligence and Working With Emotional Intelligence, both by Daniel Goleman, has opened the field to the discovery and rediscovery of personal attributes which used to be commonly considered but have fallen away as corporate workplaces became larger and more impersonal. Goleman identifies and describes personal categories which people use to develop workplace competencies such as self-confidence, achievement, service, persuasiveness and initiative.[3] According to Bissonnette, “Goleman found that 67% of the abilities needed for effective performance were EI competencies, and that IQ accounts for only about 25% of job success. Hallmarks of emotionally savvy managers are things like being able to accurately assess one’s strengths and weaknesses, develop trust and get buy-in from others on projects, think before taking action, and other characteristics commonly associated with seasoned and effective leaders.” (2006). No emphasis on financial skill, degree preparation, who one knows in the business hierarchy, no mention of perks and other rewards, financial compensation–it is all irrelevant. What matters most in the workplace is an ability to get along well with others, sensitivity to the needs of others, a willingness to engage in the ‘people’ parts of work. Bissonnette continues: “It’s easy to relegate emotional intelligence to the “nice to have” or “someday” pile since early steps up the corporate ladder are often predicated on hard skills, like technical acumen and track record. However, the inherent difficulty of not seeing ourselves as others do can become a real career liability. Fully 40% of new executives fail within their first 18 months on the job, and “insensitivity to others” is ranked the number one reason for executive derailment. A poor relationship with a supervisor is consistently sited as the top reason that people leave their jobs.” (ibid.).

There is a sense in which all of this seems remarkable. For the past several generations, barring the occasional economic hiccup, Europeans and Americans in particular have seemed content to live their dreams under the false security of a ‘promised’ endless economic progress. That the progress ‘promised’ was devoid of any semblance of humanity, or of any spiritual consequence, just didn’t matter. We shoved our homeless away so we wouldn’t see them; we bought the homes we couldn’t afford, drove the cars that were killing the natural world, which is our spiritual responsibility, winked and nodded when our freedoms were being curtailed, listened to the lunacies of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and James Dobson and Oral Roberts, who equated spirituality with republican economic blindness and greed. We quite happily forgot the lessons that Gandhi taught us, forgot the warnings we heard from Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes, ignored the truth that we are spiritual beings with a deep and significant spiritual heritage who have a need to decide ethically what is best, and not have it decided for us. We forgot and ignored to our peril, both individually and collectively. Until our economies nearly collapsed around us, we did not see.

Going forward, we know what must change. We must be allowed–encouraged–to exercise our spiritual needs in the world’s marketplaces. We must ourselves encourage and support businesses which liberate and feed the poor, which employ reasonable people and train them to think in entrepreneurial ways. We must expect and demand a return to common human values like honesty, fairness and communication. We must use common sense and  common decency in all of our business dealings. We must never forget that we are all people and that we all really want the same things: a place to live, enough money to raise a family, and a job in which we take pride and pleasure.

We have reached the crossroad and have decisions to make. Shall we return to the inequitable past, with all of the burned-out carcasses in its wake? Shall we simply wait and see what happens next, and hope that the business leaders and bankers and brokers and politicians were only kidding? Or shall the ground of humanity swell with indignation and demand accountability from those who for too long wielded power to our diminishment as spiritual and decent persons? It is time, at the speed of business, to reclaim what is rightfully ours–a world that works, that recognizes our humanity and embraces it, that genuinely cares about the people who drive its economies. There is a historical precedent for it, and a new millenium in which to nurture it and make it grow.

Appendix A

Ornatowski, G. K. (1996). “Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism:
Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China and Japan. “The economic ethics of Theravaada Buddhism, especially attitudes toward wealth, poverty, charity, and labor cannot be understood without understanding something about Buddhist soteriologies (i.e., theories of how a person achieves enlightenment). The earliest Buddhist soteriology was summarized in the Four Noble Truths: (1) suffering exists; (2) the cause of suffering is craving (attachment); (3) there is a way out of this suffering; and (4) this way is the Eightfold Path. This Eightfold Path consisted of three types of activity: (1) moral conduct; (2) mental discipline; and (3) wisdom. Moral conduct in turn included three of the eight components of the Path: (a) right conduct; (b) right speech; and (c) right livelihood, each of which involved various prescriptions for behavior, attitudes, and mental dispositions.”

Harkness, G. (1957). “Christian Ethics.” Yet it is not this exercise of power by individuals that is the most serious aspect of current society. Widespread though it is, where it can be isolated, challenged, and changed, there is the possibility of a creative use of economic power. It is corporate social sin, by great groups of persons against great groups of persons, that causes the most serious evil consequences and is hardest to reckon with. Persons are involved, as both sinners and victims, or it would not be sin. Unemployment, for example, is more than an inevitable, tragic fate; it is caused by circumstances for which human beings are morally responsible. When a worldwide depression occurs, as in the early 1930′s, many millions of persons are made to suffer acutely, and economists can give some reasons for its occurrence. But this is not to say that guilt can be precisely allocated. In less widespread but deeply disrupting conflicts, as in a clash between a giant corporation and a giant labor union, the fault is seldom all on one side; and while some persons are more responsible than others, it is seldom possible with justice to pin the responsibility wholly upon particular individuals.”

Marx, Karl. (1849). “Wage, Labor and Capital.” A house may be large or small; as long as the neighboring houses are likewise small, it satisfies all social requirement for a residence. But let there arise next to the little house a palace, and the little house shrinks to a hut. The little house now makes it clear that its inmate has no social position at all to maintain, or but a very insignificant one; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilization, if the neighboring palace rises in equal or even in greater measure, the occupant of the relatively little house will always find himself more uncomfortable, more dissatisfied, more cramped within his four walls.”

Plutarch: “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

Plato (427-347 B.C.): The Republic.  “Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.”

Keynes, John Maynard  (1936): “The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.”

Bacon,  Francis. (1561-1626): “Money is like muck, not good except that it be spread.”

Erasmus (Dutch scholar, 1465-1536): “The prince should try to prevent too great an inequality of wealth.”

De Tocqueville, Alexis (1831): Democracy in America.  “Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions.”

Smith, Adam. (1776). Wealth of Nations. “All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.”

Reference List

Aburdene, P. (2006). “From Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism.” in

<http://www.workplacespirituality.info/articles.html>

Bissonnette, B. (2006). “Self Awareness Can Be More Important than IQ or Experience in Business Success.” <http://www.workplacespirituality.info/Self-Awareness.html>

De Tocqueville, Alexis (1831): Democracy in America. New York: Bantam Classics. 2000.

Gandhi, Harijan 11 (August 17, 1947). <http://www.mkgandhi-sarvodaya.org/momgandhi/chap55.htm>

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Press.

Green, D. and Green, E. (2006). “America’s Employees Cry Out For Spirituality after 9/11.” <http://www.workplacespirituality.info/article1026.html>

Harkness, G. (1957). “Christian Ethics: Chapter 8: The Ethics of Economic Life.”  <http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=802&C=1083>

Keynes, J.M. (1936). The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Hamburg, Germany: Management Laboratory Press. 2009.

Marx, K. (1849). “Wage, Labor and Capital.”

Ornatowski, G.K. (1996).  “Continuity and Change in the Economic Ethics of Buddhism:
Evidence From the History of Buddhism in India, China and Japan. <http://www.appropriate-economics.org/materials/ethicsofbuddhism.html>

Pierce, G.F.A (2001). Business Executives for Social Justice. <http://www.demos.org/inequality/quotes.cfm>

Pizzigati, Lardner and Kinney. “Quotes.”  <http://www.demos.org/inequality/quotes.cfm>

Plato (427-347 B.C.): The Republic. Jowett, B, trans. <http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html>

Reed, L.W. (2000). “The Quackery of Equality.” Mackinac Center for Public Policy. <http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=3138>

Sacks, J.  (2009). “Economics Needs Ethics.”  <http://www.aish.com/societyWork/work/Economics_Needs_Ethics.asp>

Sargeant, K. (2006). Quoted in “Research on Spiritual Capital.” PRNewswire story. <http://www.workplacespirituality.info/article1026.html>

Smith, A. (1776). Wealth of Nations. Modern Library Classics. 2000.

Thompson, G. (June 11, 2008). “Meet the Wealth Gap.” The Nation. <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/thompson/print>

^[2] See Appendix A for individual quotes.

^[3] Bissonnette, B. (2006). “Self Awareness Can Be More Important than IQ or Experience in Business Success.” <http://www.workplacespirituality.info/Self-Awareness.html>

The history of Europe is actually a story about a diverse range of cultures and people. A few people lagged behind, whilst others went very far ahead in the progress of social, intellectual, and political institutions and ideas. Numerous wars and treaties have changed Europe’s political boundaries throughout its history (How stuff works?). The table given below gives the significant dates of the European History and its evolution.

Source: http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/history-of-europe.htm

The initiation of the European colonization of the Americas can be typically dated back to the 1492. The first identified Europeans to arrive at the America land were the Vikings. This happened during the 11th century.  The Vikings established quite a lot of colonies in Greenland and one brief resolution at L’Anse aux Meadows in the area which is now famous as Newfoundland. This continued for many years.  Many immigrants from both Europe and also England, as the years passed slowly moved into the continent of North America.  They found it very difficult to adjust to their new location as the appearance, lifestyle and beliefs were totally different from the people of North America.  Initially their interactions with the people of North America started with cooperation and smooth communication. But however, as the time passed, the same ended up in conflicts over the next two centuries of their relocation to North America.  The immigrants were in need of a piece of land that belongs to them and in order to obtain this piece of own land they tend to adopts ways like treaty, sale or forceful obtainment.

Between the period 1790 and 1830, many immigrant tribes which were located towards the Eastern part of the Mississippi river including the Cherokee tribes signed up many treaties with the government of the United States of America.   Even the US government struggled very hard to obtain a balance between obligations of the new nation in order to keep up the commitments made as part of the treaty to provide land to the new immigrants.

This discovery of new land by the European people in a nation that does not belong to them created numerous problems for American Indians because of their homelands being forcefully taken away by the invaders.   The invasion also resulted in alterations of the culture and also in the spread of many diseases.  Many epidemic diseases brought in by the Europeans spread across the villages which caused decimation of the native people already residing there (The Trail of Tears Association n.d.).

As the time passed, the number of people emigrating from the English Land to Native America increased.  The new arrivals started influencing the native culture and made them adopt foreign ways thereby leading to deterioration of the Native American Culture.   ”During the colonial period Indian tribes often became embroiled in European colonial wars. If they were on the losing side, they frequently had to give up parts of their homelands (The Trail of Tears Association n.d.).”   During the colonial period itself, a precedent was set for dealing with the Indians.  The greedy desire of the people who migrated for the Indian people’s lands led to the formulation of a general policy that aimed at removing unwanted inhabitants (The Trail of Tears Association n.d.).

Since the year 1791, a number of treaties were signed up between the Cherokee tribes and the government of the United States of America.  This resulted in the Cherokees gaining recognition as a separate nation that had their own beliefs, culture and governing laws.  “Nevertheless, treaties and agreements gradually whittled away at this land base, and in the late 1700s some Cherokees sought refuge from white interference by moving to north-western Arkansas between the White and Arkansas rivers. As more and more land cess was forced on the Cherokees during the first two decades of the 1800s, the number moving west of the Mississippi River (The Trail of Tears Association n.d.).”

The Cherokees’ had a sizeable amount of land in the state of Georgia since many generations.  The Cherokee tribes got extremely worried that they might end up losing their lands and hence they forced the issue of land by adopting a written charter.  This charter adopted by the Cherokee tribes gave the Cherokees complete rights and jurisdiction over the native territory of land.  However, by then, the Indian Removal Act that was passed by the then President of the United States of America, Andrew Jackson, became intertwined with the Georgina territory and this forced the Cherokees to approach the court in order to get justice with regard to their lands.

These kind of similar incidents took place between the other “civilized” and similar tribes and the white people.  For example, in the same way as the Cherokees had problems with the state of Georgia, the Seminole tribes had land disputes in Florida and the Creek tribes had problems in the state of Florida and Georgia in order to put an end to the disputes and ensure peaceful environment, the government of United States evicted all similar kind of tribes to a piece of land given to them in Oklahoma.  This resulted in all the so called ‘Civilized’ tribes to leave their ancestral soil that belonged to them since many generations and move out to some other land given to them by the government.

The term ‘Trail of Tears’ was actually given to the above mentioned period of ten years of journey by the Cherokee tribes form Georgia to Oklahoma State.  The reason behind such a term being used is that because many migrants in the process of moving out from Georgia to Oklahoma lost their lives.  During this ten years, as already stated, more than 70,000 Indians were forced to give away their homes in their native soil and move out to a new piece of land given to them in the state of Oklahoma.  This actually happened because of the European immigrants and also the immigrants from England developing colonies in a nation which actually does not belong to them.

Finally, it can be concluded by stating the above discussed incident is pretty significant in the history of both the Europeans and the Americans.  The term ‘Trail of Tears’ best suited their situation because in their journey of moving from one place to another, many Indians died because of famine, diseases and various other similar reasons.  There were instances when some people died due to the insensitive living conditions.  Their journey of moving from place to place required them to walk for long distances all day along and as a result the amount of rest they got was very minimal.  All these pains were taken by the civilized tribes in order to ensure more free land for the white settlers to occupy at the cost of losing their own land and homes in their native soil.

Works Cited

How stuff works? History of Europe. 2009. 21 May 2009 <http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/history-of-europe.htm>.

Mahalo. Trail of Tears. 2007. 24 February 2009 <http://www.mahalo.com/Trail_of_Tears>.

TCP. Determining the Facts . 24 February 2009 <http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/118trail/118facts3.htm>.

The Trail of Tears Association . The story. 24 February 2009 <http://www.nationaltota.org/the-story/>.

Introduction

A constitution is a collection of written or unwritten rules and regulation that governs a country or a nation. A constitution describes the organization and procedure of governance. It as well defines the rights of people in a specific jurisdiction. It is a supreme law in a nation that gives the framework in which a nation operates on. The formation of a constitution is often times a complex task that inevitably leads to the establishment of controversial clauses. In the course of time some new changes in the constitution are made in so as to meet the requirements of a specific nation. This aspect of making modifying the constitution is referred to as constitutional change (Parker 131).

Constitutional changes are often inevitable since the process of constitution making can at times be imperfect due to the problems that occur. In frequent cases constitutions are formulated in a period of crisis by individuals who are not consistent in the constitution alteration. Constitution makers in such occasions fail to use appropriate methods to constitutionally address the arising problems. In most cases constitutional makers are immersed in current problems as they make the constitution such that they do not think of the future as they formulate the constitution. Due to this reasons the changing the constitution is necessary.

The process of altering the constitutional  can either be formal or informal. The formal method of changing a constitution involves submitting a bill that suggests change to the legislative house. When the bill is consented by the majority in the legislative house it facilitates constitutional change in the particular clause. The informal method of changing the constitution involves change in the constitution rather it changes the way the constitution is analyzed. In Canada there have been various efforts to necessitate constitutional change. Some of this attempts failed unceremoniously while others were somewhat implemented. Examples of amendment accord include, the Meech Lake Accord, the Charlottetown accord and the 1995 referendum act (Makarenko par. 2).

The Meech Lake Accord

The Meech Lake Accord was introduced in 1987 in Canada by Brian Mulroney, the Canadian prime minister and other premiers based in the provinces. The accord sought to rectify the Canadian Constitution. The negotiations of the accord were held at Meech Lake in a remote place in the Gatineau Hills and as a result it was named the Meech Lake Accord. The accord proposed five alterations in the Constitution of Canada that would alter the methods of amending the constitution. The theme of the proposed amendments was decentralizing the powers of the federal government through the provincial governments. The accord was supported and opposed at the same time. Opinion polls at first showed that majority supported the accord but later on the popularity of the accord declined. Most of the criticism was directed towards the manner in which the accord was reached since it lacked the sanction of the general public. Consequently when the ratification deadline reached in the year 1990, the Meech Lake accord did not manage to bring change in the Canadian constitution (Milne 201).

The Charlottetown Accord

The Charlottetown Accord was introduced in the year 1992 in Canada by both the federal and provincial government. The accord sought to bring reforms in the “devolution of power between the federal and provincial governments” (Touhoy 12). The accord as well spelt out a social agreement to support living standards related to health, education and employment. Most importantly the accord proposed changes in institution that were bound to change the scenario of politics in Canada. For instance the composition and the election process of the Supreme Court in Canada according to the proposal were to be entrenched constitutionally. Changes were as well proposed in the House of Commons that would lead to the increase and equalization of seats in each province irregardless of the population in the province. The ratification procedures of the Charlottetown Accord managed to navigate through a national referendum. The referendum campaigns fetched support and opposition to the accord. The accord failed in the referendum stage as a majority of the Canadian population voted against it.

Referendum Act in 1995

The failed attempts to give Canada a new constitution through the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords brought despair to the Canadian population. The failed attempts as well fortified the opposition party Bloc Quebecois since it contributed to the fall of the two accords. The 1995 Canadian referendum mainly sought  a constitutional support for the sovereignty of the Quebec province. A series of consultation in the public were held in preparation for the referendum that was to determine the fate of Quebec. During the referendum process, the Yes Vote that sought to side with the veto of Quebec lost despite being in the lead at first (Monahan 116).

Conclusion

The Constitution plays a vital role in the governance of a nation. However the constitution creation process can be dominated with imperfections due to the lack of taking into account the future prospects. Consequently constitution change is inevitable in the course of time. The constructional change is equally complex since it requires the approval of majority and can lead to failed attempts like in the Canadian context. However there is still hope that controversial clauses in the constitution can be modified (McWhinney 18).

Works Cited

Parker, James. Constitutional Law. New York: Debower-Chapline, 1910.

Milne, David. The Canadian Constitution. New York: Lorimer, 1989.

Monahan, Patrick. Meech Lake Accord. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1991.

McWhinney, Edward. Constitution-Making.California: University of California, 2008.

Makarenko, J. “Charlottetown Accord: History and Overview.” Mapleleafweb. 2009. 21 May   2009 <http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/charlottetown-accord-history-and-        overview>

The Holocaust is the worst genocide in the history of mankind. The term drives its name from the Greek holokaustos. Its two Greek words explain its meaning: holos, meaning “whole,” and caustos, which means “burned.” Literally, holokaustos or holocaust means something which is entirely consumed by fire (Heitmeyer and Hagan 139). It was an era of terror and evil for the Jews in Europe as they faced an organized society aimed at eliminating their race from the earth. This paper will look into this historical event and see its effect to the  world of the 20th century.

A Way of Life

Europe before the Nazis was already saturated with discrimination against the Jewish people. Because of their strange ways practiced within their communities, Europeans found them unlikeable. But the Jews, prior to the rise of Nazism, were very influential people. It is frequently alleged that the Jews predominate in certain trades and professions, dominate central politics, the press and finance (Pulzer 3). At the turn of the 19th century, anti-Semitism increased among the communities where the Jews resided. For one reason or another, it seemed unacceptable for certain European groups that the Jews, being foreigners in the land, would dominate the economic and political scene. For most historians, anti-Semitism began among strong Catholic and Protestant communities in Europe. Since the sermons and writings of the early church fathers, the Jews were portrayed as destroyers of Christianity. In France, anti-Semite groups saw Jewish influence behind the dismantling of Christian social and family values during the Third Republic. In 1884, for instance, Alfred Naquer, a Jew, proposed a law governing divorce. This gave rise to more anti-Jewish sentiments. In 1907, the future Prime Minister Léon Blum, a Jew himself, published a book entitled Du Mariage wherein he seemingly espoused premarital sex. Commenting on Blum, rabid anti-Semite Louis Massoutié claimed that the book advocated that younger females should seek older and experienced male lovers for premarital sexual exposure to ensure a better marriage (qtd. in Brustein 61). Moreover, the French Catholic Church declined in its influence over educational matters in the country during the second half of the 19th century. With the introduction of the Ferry Laws, the legislation strove to remove church control over public education. In the eyes of the French Roman Catholics, the Jewish Paul Grunebaum-Ballin, member of the French council and spokesperson for the church-state separation law, was most influential in the process (Brustein). In Germany, the Christian community was not immune from the anti-Semitic ideology. Brustein wrote that there were popular imageries of Jews as “deniers of Christ, pariahs and a demonic people, perpetrators of ritual murder, and agents of the Anti-Christ.” The Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, turned against the Jews by preaching that in thei opposition to the gospel they accumulated an irredeemable corruption (63). The German Catholic Church was an additional source of anti-Semitic uprising. Four ministers sat in the German legislative assembly as anti-Semites: Burckhardt, Iskraut, Mumm, and Krösell. Another, Schall, was a member of the Prussian Diet. Their influence created anti-Semitism in German politics (Pulzer 220). Hence, by the time the Nazis took power in 1929, the stage was set for the worst form of racial discrimination in history to unfold.  Most believed that the German Jews were the cause for the German defeat in World War 1. During the post-war events, Jews radicals were highly visible in revolutions in Bolshevik Russia, Budapest, Munich and Berlin. Anti-Semites quickly stressed to the German public that Jews were Bolsheviks and anti-nationalists, whose influence would lead to the destruction of Germany’s superiority in Europe (Mosse 68). When the Nazi Party came to power, Hitler promised to finally resolve this “Jewish problem.” Hitler was critical of the earlier Anti-Semitic ideals in Europe, especially the Christian Social movement, for not properly understanding the “Jewish danger” as racial rather than religious. This, for Hitler, was a “sham” because it provided the Jews an escape. So in his Mein Kampf, he explained that race is the most important principle in human life. He argued that from the beginning, history was a story of conflict between the Aryans and the Jews. Since civilizations rise and fall depending on how they preserve their dominant race, Hitler’s “resurrected” Germany depends on the clearest knowledge of their racial problem and, of course, the Jewish problem. Hitler argued that the “Aryan” race, were by nature “chosen to rule the world.” The Germans, as well as the Austrians, were part of this pure race which needs to be safeguarded for the sake of human civilization as a whole. Hence, they have “the task, not only of assembling and preserving the most valuable stock s of basic racial elements, but slowly and surely raising them to a dominant position” (qtd. in Altshuler and Dawidowicz 16). The only hindrance to his plan was the Jew. Hitler regarded them as the exact opposite of the Aryan race. If the Aryans were pure, the Jews were evil. He espoused that the Jews were contaminating the Aryan race and destroying Germany’s economic life. Hitler saw himself as the Messiah who would save all people from the Jews and the Devil. Hence, with his supremacist racial ideology, Hitler has one final solution to Germany’s problems: eliminate the Jews.

When he finally came to power, with the unanimous support of anti-Semitic groups, Hitler began his plans against the Jewish race. Following Hitler’s lead, top Nazi officials like Himmler and Heydrich, publicly declared the Jews as “enemies of the state.” On January 20, 1942, high-ranking Nazi officials met in the Wannsee Conference and laid down the plan to achieve the “final solution” against the Jews. This culminated in the formation of the Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing units whose assignment is to kill all Jews residing in territories that have just been conquered. And the genocide began. Millions of innocent Jews, men, women and children, were forced to concentration camps where they were treated in unimaginable tortures. The first in line were the 3 million Polish Jews. Code named “Operation Reinhard” the gassing of Jews was conducted at three camps from March through July 1942: 750,000 to 950, 000 at Treblinka, 500,000 to 600,000 at Belzec, and about 200,000 at Sobibor (Totten et al 321). The term “genocide” fitted this event. The German Nazis systematically murdered innocent Jews in the effort to eradicate the Jewish race from the face of the earth.

When the Whole Town Cried

Following the order of Heydich to eliminate the Jews in Europe, Nazi-appointed council of elders were made responsible for forcing their people into the ghettos. Although Nazi propaganda attempted to portray to the outside world that the imposed ghettos and Jewish councils were a return to the former Jewish autonomy during the Middle Ages, the Nazi ghettos had a different agenda. From small towns and villages, Jews were sent by train into designated areas. The Jews were separated from the non-Jewish population first by barbed wire and walls impregnated with shards of glass. Families in ghettos were packed in small living rooms. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to live in an area of few blocks. They were basically cut off from all sources of livelihood; their food depended on food rations given by the Germans (Trunk et al 9-10). The Jewish Ghettos were a dangerous place to live. During the first years, the most prevalent threat to life was starvation. One report quoted:

Men fought over raw potatoes, and mothers traded away all their possessions in vain attempts to feed their children. Nazi allowances left each man, woman, and child with a monthly diet of 2 pounds of bread, 9 ounces of sugar, 3.5 ounces of jam, and 1.75 ounces of fat. Meat and cheese were extremely rare, and extremely valuable. (Jewish Ghettos)

Inside these ghettos the Jews were treated as a lesser human species. It was so degrading for their community. Survivors of the Holocaust would not even dare to talk of their experiences. Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld, a former ghetto prisoner recalled:

The streets are so over-populated, it is difficult to push one’s way through…There          are always countless children inside the ghetto… Not all the German guards are         murderers and executioners, but unfortunately, many of them do not hesitate to take up their guns and fire at the children. Every day-it is almost unbelievable-children are taken to hospital with gunshot wounds. (Jewish Ghettos)

Polish historian, Emanuel Ringelblum, kept a diary of his observations in a Warsaw ghetto. On February 28, 1941, he wrote:

Almost daily people are falling dead or unconscious in the middle of the street. It no longer makes so direct an impression. [The streets] are forever full of newly arrived refugees. [There was a] terrible case of a three-year-old refugee child. [On their way to Warsaw] the guard threw the child into the snow. Its mother jumped off the wagon and tried to save the child. The guard threatened her with a revolver. The mother insisted that life was worthless for her without her child. Then the guard threatened to shoot all the Jews in the wagon. The mother arrived in Warsaw, and here went out of her mind. (Jewish Ghettos)

Countless other stories of survival were documented and published by Jewish survivors. All had one similarity: ghettos were hell on earth.

Living a Life of Fear

The Jews lived through the whole world war in a state of fear. Those who were not sent to the ghettos spent most of their time hiding. Because of anti-Semitic sentiments prevailing in Europe, it was difficult to trust anyone; for fear that their hiding place would be reported to the authorities. During the Holocaust, Jewish parents would send their children into other countries or into hiding hoping that they would have a chance at life. Those who were not able to leave the country were disguised as non-Jews. Esther Kustanowitz wrote that blue-eyed children were able to “pass” as Aryans. Those disguised as Catholic orphans were routinely quizzed by their rescuers on Christian observance and prayers. Somehow, it was hard difficult for Jewish boys to conceal their identity since, unlike non-Jewish males, they were circumcised. Often, people who hid them were too frightened even to provide them food, because if they we found out they too would go to the ghettos. While the Polish Jews were being put to death in concentration camps, the Nazi program of deporting Jews from other parts of Europe was put in motion. Roundups were conducted and millions of the remaining Jews in ghettos around Europe were sent by train to the killing centers in Poland. Under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann, this was the ultimate step in completing the “final solution” to the Jewish problem. Hitler authorized doctors to participate in murdering their incurable patients. The operation, called T-4 program, Nazis gassed its victims with different gases in rooms camouflaged as shower chambers (Fischel 50-68). Other forms of torture were utilized against the Jews. Despite protest from other European countries, the Nazi genocide almost eliminated the Jewish race from Europe.

Liberation

When the Axis powers were steadily defeated by the Allies, free countries in Europe conducted rescue operations to evacuate the Jews from concentration camps. Under British, French and American leadership, approximately 250,000 Jewish survivors made their way to evacuation camps operated by the Allies in Germany, Austria, and Italy. By 1945, German soldiers were outnumbered. Early that year, the devastated German military ended up recruiting 15 year school boys and old men to fight in the war against the Allies. On April 30 the Russians occupied Berlin; Adolf Hitler committed suicide in an underground bunker in the city. On May 7, the Germans surrendered to the Allied forces. The following day, millions of people in Allied countries celebrated the Victory in Europe Day (Schomp 63). While the victory in Europe was only half of the war, for the Jews it was a liberating moment. At last, the organized society programmed to eliminate them was destroyed.

Aftermath

After the war, where to locate the surviving Jews was an international concern. With their European communities destroyed, they ended up without property and country. So under pressure from Jewish refugees and public opinion, the United Nations underwent meetings to resolve the Jewish-Arab conflicts in Palestine. And in May 1948, the Jewish State was established. Other Jews who decided to stay in Europe or in the United States strove to rebuild their broken lives; survivors married one another, and new Jewish families spawned across the world. The urge to live was strongly asserted among the young population; new marriages were reported to be held every day. Slowly, the Holocaust years were left behind and survivors moved forward again with fervor (Hass 119-120). The Holocaust event contributed to the force of anti-racism around the world. Solomos and Back wrote:

…the experience of Nazism and the holocaust provided an important point of reference for the articulation of anti-racist perspectives in the period after the Second World War… in the context of Germany… the renewed activities of extreme nationalist and racist movements have given rise to an ongoing debate about the dangers of a resurgence of racism and fascism in German society. (Solomos and Back 105)

After the war, properties seized by the Germans were returned to the surviving Jews or to their heirs. The funds were able to help the Jews back on their feet, although it was not sufficient to repay to evils done by the Nazis to the Jewish race.

From the Holocaust, human society learned how a simple ideology of racial supremacy can lead to the worst evils possible. While human society should move forward, we should not forget the Holocaust nor alter its records. It should serve as a constant reminder that racial discrimination should have no place in society. It is an eternal reminder that we human beings are all equal sharers of life on earth.

Works Cited

Altshuler, David A. and Lucy S. Dawidowicz. Hitler’s war against the Jews. NJ: Behrman         House Publishers,1978

Brustein, William I. Roots of Hate: Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust. NY:            Cambridge University Press, 2003

Fischel, Jack. The Holocaust. CA: Greenwood Press, 1998

Hass, Aaron. The Aftermath: Living with the Holocaust. UK: Cambridge University Press,        1996

Heitmeyer, Wilhelm and John Hagan. International handbook of violence research. USA:          Springer, 2003

“Jewish Ghettos.” N.d. April 29. 2009 <http://library.thinkquest.org/12307/ghettos.html>

Kustanowitz, Esther. The Hidden Children of the Holocaust: Teens Who Hid from the Nazis.   NY: The Rosen Publishing Group, 1999

Mosse, George L. German Jews Beyond Judaism. OH: Hebrew Union College Press, 1997

Pulzer, Peter G.J. The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria, Revised Edition. MA: Harvard University Press, 1988

Rossel, Seymour and David A. Altshuler. The Holocaust: The World and the Jews, 1933- 1945. NJ: Behrman House Publishers, 1992

Schomp, Virginia. World War 2. NY: Benchmark Books, 2003

Solomos,John and Les Back. Racism and Society. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996

Totten, Samuel, Paul Robert Bartrop, and Steven L. Jacobs. Dictionary of Genocide. CA:          Greenwood Press, 2008

Trunk, Isaiah, Robert Moses Shapiro, and Israel Gutman. Lodz Ghetto: A History. IN:   Indiana University Press, 2006

Science and religion can never be one, but it does not mean that one could not have any similarity with the other.  The premise that science is a disciplined study of man, nature, objects, and the environment, evidence analysis is based on hypotheses derived from a series of scientific methods and procedures; while religion explains everything based on divinity and men’s faith.  This paper aims not to identify which between Buddhism and Physics, or science in general, was the first to establish or develop a certain theory, belief or discipline; but rather to establish that although Buddhism is a religion, its methods are scientific, widely applicable, recognized, and accepted just like science; that Buddhism and physics or science are intellectually bound.

Buddhism and physics are similar mainly because both use inductive reasoning, and not deductive reasoning; explaining phenomena based on man’s experiences with the objects around and the environment in different conditions.  However, some researchers and thinkers argue that Buddhism can be no more than a series of codes and guideline on how a person should live one’s life.  Unlike science which a discipline, the Eight-fold path and the Four “Noble Truths” are only “paths to follow and practice (“Buddhism and Physics n.d.) But then again, although Buddhism is more regarded as a religion than a science, many of Buddhism’s beliefs follow a scientific explanation.

Buddhism began in the 6th century b.c., named after its founder Gautama Buddha, a son of a rich rajah in Nepal. Though living in a palace, Buddha was unhappy about the poverty and ignorance of the masses.  This led the prince to leave home at 29 to wander as a poor beggar in search for truth.  While meditating under a Bo tree, Buddha achieved truth and salvation; thus becoming the enlightened one and began teaching for 45 years.  Like Confucius, Buddha did not claim to have found a new religion.  Buddha’s teachings were intended to be a system of human philosophy, to guide men in their search for true happiness.  The aim was to reform Hinduism, with its cruel division into castes.

Buddhism taught the four “Noble Truths,” that men’s life is caused by suffering, that suffering is caused by men’s selfish desires, that men can end one’s sufferings by conquering one’s selfish desires, and after ridding oneself of suffering, man attains the state of perfect happiness, known as Nirvana.  Along with the four “Noble Truths” is the eight-fold path consisting of right to belief, right to aspiration, right to speech, right to conduct, right to livelihood, right to effort, right to remembrance, and right to meditation.  This eight-fold path implies a certain kind of life of purely ethical conduct.  There is implied in all of this a deep dissatisfaction of the ordinary worldly life, a deep sense of impermanence and endless change, a desire for peace and serenity of mind, a belief in something permanent beyond the circle of rebirth, and a feeling that this goal may be reached by moral and ethical means.

Physics in an inductive science, that is, its structure is built up by drawing inferences from observations rather than by deducting everything from a few accepted premises, like in the instance of Euclidean geometry.  Like other sciences, physics is based upon the belief of constancy of nature: that the same cause operating under the same conditions, will always result in the same effects.  To ascertain the causal relations of physical occurrences, or phenomena, observations are made of what conditions seems to affect the phenomena under study, and experiments are performed with these conditions under the control of the observer, so that the conditions may be varied separately, to determine which conditions are essential and which are accidental.

The exact measurements are made to determine the quantitative relation between the essential conditions and the resulting effect. This quantitative relation, rigidly established by exhaustive experiments, with its limitations clearly specified, is known as physical law, it is in this light the Buddhism and physics are intertwined. According to Anagarika Dharmapala, D. T. Suzuki, Paul Carus and the Vendantist Vivekananda, Buddhism is highly scientific due to the nature of its investigation, which is skeptical and detached from experientially testable phenomena-no faith, no dogma, no revelation-where experiments are done and confirmed by the individuals themselves without regard to time or place.  This so-called “intersubjective testability” is one of science’s many hallmarks of scientific method. (“Buddhism and Science” n.d.)

A study of many similar or related phenomena suggests a generalization or hypothesis as the explanation of them all-a process of inductive reasoning. This hypothesis, tested, modified, and perfected by extensive study and experimentation along lines suggested by it and extending to all know phenomena to which it may have any relation, and strengthened by its use in suggesting and predicting new phenomena, becomes a physical theory and may later attain the dignity of a general physical law.  The hypothesis once suitably modified, will be found to be in agreement to the phenomena it was called upon to explain and is still supported by other phenomena.  The premise of inductive reasoning is well illustrated in Buddhism’s four “Noble Truths.”

Early Buddhism did not develop a system of philosophy.  However, the attitude of Buddhism towards the world was pluralistic and realistic, and it did insist that things as constantly changing.  This constancy of change has long been established and accepted by science.  Later, the thought that things are impermanent and changing developed into the Buddhism doctrine that things are momentary, and this led to atomic ideas of space and time.  This was accompanied by speculation about the nature of cause and effect, the nature of the inner process of perception-the whole problem as to how man obtain knowledge of things-and the way in which karma works.  How can things that are merely momentary be linked together by cause and effect? – a question that usually starts many scientific investigations.

then finally to religious and metaphysical beliefs (Wallace, p.2).

Although it may seem to make sense when Walpola Rahula concluded that “It is fruitless, meaningless to seek support from science to prove religious truth. It is incongruous and preposterous to depend on changing scientific concepts to prove and support perennial religious truths.” Because it is not clearly possible as science do not posses faith and the phenomena of divine intervention that exists in religion.  However, Buddhism and science is bound by intellectual pursuits; a theory articulated by Sir Edwin Arnold in his bestseller On the topic of “Buddhism and Science.” B. Allan Wallace presented that dogma, defined as a coherent worldview which is applied universally comprised of a collection of attitudes and beliefs that calls for the emotional and intellectual allegiance of a person (p.1), which is deductive in nature was even found to be unacceptable by Galileo himself because of the type of hierarchy of beliefs that dogma follows which is: from Theological belief based on authority growing down to philosophical, rational inference, then finally down to man’s perceptual experience through man’s five senses. When it comes to understanding the physical world, Galileo appears to be consistent with the thought of Buddhism and Buddhism with Galileo, that the hierarchy should be the other way around. Thus, it should begin with observation and experimentation, which is obviously done by man, going to the next level which is theoretical and mathematical analysis,Light of Asia (1879) stating that “between Buddhism and modern science there exists a close intellectual bond” (“Buddhism and Science n.d.).

In the world of science, the universe is revealed to have become epistemological models that serve as inquiry for other disciplines of study.  As such, science is able to give man real knowledge of the universe’s physical structure due to scientific laws and theories that bear semblance to the actual universe that is being described; meaning, an ontological reference to physical reality (Ingram, p. 1).  However, as cited by Ingram, John Cobb states man cannot live by science alone because science has no ability to tell man how to live his life with others and in the community that man is a part of (Ingram, p.1).  It is for this reason that scientific investigations and experiments always carry with it ethical issues and implications for human action.

Buddha’s analysis of the external world of things and the internal world of mind led to the conclusion that both consisted of 5 groups of things -matter, feelings, perception, mental activities, and cognition.  But this element of cognition is not one, permanent, personal identity that abides as a unity back of all of man’s perceptions.  It is a group of cognitions which arise in the individual with perceptions and feelings, just as these arise through contact with material objects.  From the Buddhist point of view cognitions are just as momentary and changing as are perceptions and feelings.  All of these five groups are constantly changing, impermanent, are not independent.  All are always linked together.  In them, there can be noting that is changeless and eternal.

Analysis of later Buddhists on perception reached the conclusion that direct perception was only an indeterminate perception of a thing without individual attributes.  Such indeterminate perception is authoritative and is based on real external objects.  Determinate perception of a thing as possessing individual attributes is not direct.  The indeterminate perceptions are worked over by the mind into ideas of definite content.  Because of this fashioning, as it is called, such determinate perception is not directly authoritative, for it is not directly based on sensation.  There is, however, perception of real objects.

The next was the problematic realism.  Men perceive objects as external.  The object by contact with the sense organs impresses itself on man’s cognition.  But what man perceives directly is, after all not the external object but momentary ideas of objects.  Man infers things from ideas.  There is an external world, but man is conscious of it only indirectly.  Man cannot now things as they really are; their real nature is problematic.

Another is the illusory of the external world but insisted that it must have some support.  There must be thought to experience the illusion.  The illusory world is a mental construction, a projection of ideas.  The internal world of momentary ideas is not absolutely real either.  The momentary ideas cannot know themselves or exist independently.

From this point of view arises the conception of the “anatta” (not-soul).  However, this word does not imply a positive denial of soul as an absolute, transcendental reality, nor, on the other hand is there a positive description of such a transcendental soul.  If there is anything permanent it must be outside these five elements, and therefore, not subject to change and to the working of the law of cause and effect.  Although the word “anatta” is negative in is linguistic formation, I is positive in its connotation and meaning.

Buddhism insists that there is a permanent reality, nirvana. “The Blessed One would never say that on the dissolution of the body, the saint who lost all depravity is annihilated, perished, and does not exist after death” (Lier, p.674); the state reached by the saint cannot be reached or described by human knowledge and words, which can deal only with this knowable world.  It is beyond the domain of the groups of elements that make up human existence and with which alone human arguments and disputes can deal.  It is useless to argue about the state reached by the saint after death.  Nirvana is different from all things in the knowable world, which are the only things can be reached and understood by purely human experience and knowledge.  It is a state different from any state of existence that we know or can know intellectually, or described in human words.  It must be experienced.  Nirvana is the permanent something, being as opposed to becoming, the religious goal. The chief emphasis of Buddhism was on the conduct of man’s life.

The individual is merely a number of interconnected things, which is bound together by karma.  It is continually changing its form, but still there is an apparent identity in this changing aggregate.  It is compared to a chariot, which is nothing but a name for an aggregate of many parts.  It is compared to the flowing current of a river.  The water is constantly changing, but still there is in the stream a sort of identity so that one can give the river a particular name.  There is some sort of interdependence that exists between the parts creating balance and tolerance (Guha p.164).

Although Buddhism is somehow intellectually bound with science, Buddhism has not been able to produce any methodologies considered to be advanced with regards the study of physical world (Rowinski, n.p.). One reason is attributed to the fact the studies pertaining to the physical world are not included in the rubric of traditional learning and mastery because the domains of learning is divided in Buddhism as secular and religious.  Inner sciences consist of study and contemplation, while logic, grammar, medicine, arts and crafts belong to the outer sciences; both the inner and outer sciences are considered to be major sciences.  Minor sciences include drama, lexicography, metrics, poetics, and astrology; of all these learning domains, the “supramundane” inner science is the Buddhism proper, while the rest of the 9 sciences are labeled as mundane outer sciences.  Based on the perspective of Buddhism, this division of learning these inner sciences provides for clear directions towards liberation from a world filled with suffering and conditioned existence (Rowinski, n.p.).  While outer sciences provide positive “spiritual merits that lead to continued rebirth in the higher realms (Rowinski, n.p.).

Constantly recurring in Buddhist teachings are references to whether the word is eternal or not, whether the world is finite or not, whether man exists in any way after death or not, speculations concerning the range of Buddha’s knowledge, the power of the saint in meditation, the working or karma, the ultimate nature of the world – in other words all finalities in metaphysical problems.  Such questions are often refused answers from Buddha himself (Lier, p. 674 ) by stating that such does not tend to edification, as not having to do with fundamentals of religious life.

The method of Buddha was similar to the dialectic method of Socrates.  If an inquirer was adherent to some point of view about the world, soul, and God, Buddha began pointing out the objections and, by showing the plausibility of other views, the futility of discussion.

Mahayanna means “Great Vehicle” and is one of the principal divisions of Buddhism. Central to its theme is the interrelation and unity of all phenomena (Lien, p. 647 ).  In Mahayana emancipation does not mean inhuman detachment from the concerns and affections of daily life, nor is nirvana a state of incomprehensible nothingness. For the Mahayana Buddhist, theory of interpenetration cannot be understood merely by the use of one’s intellectual capacity, but it needs to be experienced by a person with an enlightened mind enabling the transcendence of dualism in logic (p.18).

Cosmology, the study of the nature of the physical universe, has always been persistent in the intellectual interest of men, even before the times of Buddhism, until the present.  The methods employed have reflected the variety of forma that cosmology has assumed as it has developed.  Is primitive expression is mythology, which is very evident and numerous in the teachings of Buddhism, because it consists of accounts of the universe.  Cosmologic myths, frequently associated with primitive religions with ritual and serving in part to rationalize the latter, where thus of a creational or of an evolutionary type.  Cosmology later became a branch of metaphysics in traditional philosophy.  By the 20th century, cosmology became a scientific discipline employing all the resources of modern observational astronomy and mathematical physics.

Buddhism and science, be it physics or cosmology both seek to explain the origin of the universe; both seek to explain why things are and hopefully find antidotes to all of men’s ills and sufferings.  Even science is said to be a heartless discipline, due to the purity of though and lack of compassion or any emotional attachment, it still cannot be better than religion, like Buddhism.  In the same manner that Buddhism or religion does have all the answers to all scientific inquiries.  In other words, although both are different, both are bound by its intellectual pursuits and should be left at that, as there is still no such thing as an “all-in-one” discipline of thought that could provide satisfactory answers to all of man’s inquiries.  Additionally, leaving both as they are-different and contradicting-gives man more reason to work harder and discover what the truth is – the true essence of living.

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Volume 4. Corporation: New York; 1959.

Sublime is one of the brightest names in the history of punk rock and the band comprises three members namely, Bradley Nowell in guitar and vocal, Eric Wilson in bass and Bud Gaugh in drums. Since its foundation in the 1988 the band has overwhelmed a wide range of audience with its punk shock till the year 1996, when the band finally broke off. One of the main reasons was Bradley Nowell’s death due to drug overdose. Though the first two albums of the band were quite appreciated among the lovers of punk rock but fame of the band reached its pinnacle with their third album, the self titled Sublime. All over the globe the band sold more than 17 million copies of their album, whereas the main chunk of their audience was mainly from U.S. During their career span (1988-1996) more than 10 million copies of their albums were sold in United States alone. (Bush, Sublime Biography)

Punk rock has a great legacy since the very inception of the rock n’ roll music. Several artists as well as bands contributed to a great extent in the cult of punk rock. The tradition, which started from the experimental attempts of Sid Vicious, (Sabin, 1) became a matter of great appreciation due to the success of world famous band Nirvana and later on the modern bands like, Sex Pistols, Green Day, Nickleback and Puddle of Mudd contributed to a great extent in the ongoing journey of punk rock. Like the other member bands of the rock n’ roll cult basic philosophy of punk rock is the same, yet it has created a special niche of its won due to its lyrical ingeniousness or punk shock. There is no such hard core definition of the punk rock music but Jon Savage’s description of punk rock can be regarded as one the most significant attempt, which has described punk rock from a very accurate perspective, “Many of the people whose lives were touched by punk talk of being in a state of shock ever since, (Savage; quoted in Sabin, 1) The main inspiration of punk is derived from the socio-cultural and political aspects of the society and the rockers attempts to criticize such vices through music and with an overtone of irony that is involved with the lyrics. In this context we can refer to some of the songs that have successfully executed such purpose through the lyrics. Songs composed by Nirvana definitely claim a special position in the history of punk rock. Songs like, “Smells like Teen Spirit” (Nevermind), “Heart Shaped Box,” “Pennyroyal Tea”, “Rape Me” (In Utero) are excellent examples. Green Day’s debut album American Idiot is also replete with such examples. In this context Sublime’s songs also contain a great deal of such materials accompanied by proper use of vocal techniques, use of guitar distortion, bass tapping and use of drums. Since the very inception of the band it was performing in the local pubs and clubs of California. It is since the time onwards the band claimed a great deal of public attention but finally in the year 1992, with the release of their first album 40 Oz. to Freedom the band immediately claimed a great deal of audience attention at the national level. Two years aftermath, their second album, Robbin’ the Hood, was released and it provided a greater dimension of public attention to the band. Due to consecutive success of both these albums, the band stated to work over their masterpiece self titled album Sublime. Philosophical outlook of the band was reflected to a great extent through the album and its tracks and the “traditional Sublime suggests ideals such as “transcendence”, … a hopelessly totalizing and monolithic concept, something like a cheap, pine-scented air freshener….” (Tobin, Triplett, 60) Looking at the contemporary U.S. culture, social and moral aspects it is not very tough for a music lover to understand that why these elements were so prevalent in the music of the Sublime. Drug addiction, highly utilitarian approach of the government to the society and its inhabitants, racial discrimination and moreover the derogating factor of people’s fellow feeling for one another are some of the factors that tormented the band members. These are certain vices that has pained the artists of rock music in all the ages and they have adopted different ways of expressing their angst though respective manners. The members of the Sublime were also not an exception and they chose the method of punk shock to protest against the inhuman system. These vices are one of the main reasons that gnawed the guitarist and vocalist of the band Bradley Nowell from inside. He, thus, like million other U.S youths tried to find his mental solace through drug addiction and finally expired just two months before the release of the album Sublime. Jeremy Simmonds has described Bradley Nowell as “hyperactive character” who “embraced punk rock, reggae and ska” since his teenage. (Simmonds, 352) His sudden death created such a void in the composition of the band that in the same year that of the release of the Sublime, the band was split.

Analysis of some of the major songs composed by the band would help us to understand the kind of outlook the members had to the society, to the people and moreover to the system. “What I Got” is one of the most famous tracks from the album Sublime. The song, since its very opening line portrays the existentialist angst that a modern U.S. youth faces: “Early in the morning risin’ to the street/Light me up that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet/ Got to find a reason a reason things went wrong” (What I Got, Sublime) These lines give the impression as if a youth is so fed up with futility of his existence that he is on his feet to find out the answers to his questions in a desperate manner. Capitalism is such a device that on one hand makes a particular class of the society rich and on the other hand, it does not give any single chance to the poor so that he can live peacefully. That is why he not only has to find out the reasons for his futile existence but at the same time he must know why his “money’s all gone.” Imageries like, guitar playing, riot, “battle with no bulletproof vest”, charity, rage against social oppression through the representatives of the patriarchal figures of which mother has become an important part, have been oriented in the song rhapsodically. Apparently the situation is quite ironic but at the same time the undercurrent of pathos and anxiety is unmistakable. It is the rage that develops in him like a tempest and which can drive him insane. The youth finally realizes: “Livin’ with Louie dog’s the only way to stay sane/Let the lovin come back to me”. Such bestial existence can be interpreted in two ways. A) that the youth wants to accept the norms of the system and live according to its terms and B) that the dog becomes a symbol of ultimate wild approach, savage power, clinging to which he wishes to break the system and finally wishes to secure a safe corner for him.

Such social void and sense of nihilistic existence have also been reflected through the approach of the youths towards love and such approach has been reflected in a very crude manner through the song “Seed” of the same album. The song reflects a youth is engaged in the process of making love with his girl friend and at the same time he continues to philosophize over his condition. This philosophizing finally reveals a great deal of reflections about the society and the kind of confused existence that the youth is belonging into. It seems, as if, he is finding an escape through the process of love making but such love making is completely devoid of any kind of tenderness. Thus, it becomes simply a process of sex.

“janie always said i was a mess

i’m sorry bout that mess

i made her bleed

i’m planting my seed” (Seed, Sublime)

He simply feels sorry that he is messing up with the life of his beloved but at the same time he is drawing a kind of sadomasochistic pleasure due to which is keeps on making her bleed in the process of physical intercourse. There is a kind of hostility that is reflected from his physical passion and he is obsessed with the idea of making his beloved bleed and planning his seed in her embryo. The image of acid in the brain of the youth is actually indicating the kind of mental irritation that he is suffering due to his confused existence. It also indicates that he tried to find solace in his girl but at the same time he has found her to be infidel and that’s why he observes that the girl is quite obsessed about being physically satisfied: “yeah she wants that lovin you see.” He understands that so much of physical sensuality cannot be love and thus he is treating his relationship accordingly. At the same time we also feel that the boy, on his part, was truly in love with the girl. Thus, he is so desperate to give her the sign that would immortalize his love for her. However, through this song also it becomes clear that to which extent the society has become gnawed and corrupted from inside. All the good and bright aspects of life have gradually faded away and the essence of the nihilistic existence is reflected through the socking imageries of Sublime in their compositions.

Works Cited:

1.  Bush, John, Sublime Biography, available at: http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jvfuxq8gldse~T1, retrieved on: 27^th April, 2009

2.  “Seed,” Sublime, available at: http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Seed-lyrics-Sublime/F7DACEB35512AB07482568AF001EC7AF, retrieved on: 27^th April, 2009

3.  Simmonds, Jeremy, The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches, Chicago Review Press, 2008

4.  Sabin, Roger, Punk rock: so what? : the cultural legacy of punk, Routledge, 1999

5.  Triplett, Pimone, Tobin, Daniel, Poet’s Work, Poet’s Play: Essays on the Practice and the Art, University of Michigan Press, 2008

6.  “What I Got”, Sublime, available at: http://www.lyrics007.com/Sublime%20Lyrics/What%20I%20Got%20Lyrics.html, retrieved on: 27^th April, 2009

After a long history of imperialism by Europe the election of the National Party in 1948 ushered in a new historic dispensation in the South African political, social and economic landscapes. The party officialised and intensified the thrust of racial segregation put in place under the Dutch and the British colonial rule. Ayittey George (1996) notes that the Union which constituted the national party and other subsequent South African governments systematized separatist regulation which resulted in the effective classification of people according to races. The system orchestrated such that the White minority subjected the black majority to its control in a devious system known collectively apartheid. The dispensation put the white minority on a favorable pedestal than the black majority. The dominant white minority being at the helm of the South Africa society was in charge of the political reins as well socio-economic affairs. Ayittey George (1996) states that whites put themselves in a position where they fully enjoyed the fruits of the country’s 1950s, 60s and 70s industrialization while the black majority wallowed in poverty and alienation in the margins of a devious and racist regime.

The economic effects of apartheid

Esler Anthony (1996) notes that the white minority enjoyed a high standard of life comparable to that of first world countries whilst the black majority remained in the realms of poverty, mediocre education and poor standards of living in all the aspects of life which culminated in the low life expectancy of the blacks. The country became a republic following the implications of a Whites-only referendum. The country subsequently fell out of the Commonwealth group of British colonies and former colonies. Apartheid was a detested political ideology which was roundly condemned the world over, Esler Anthony (1996) notes that apartheid was instituted at a time when the world has already experienced the impact of racism and imperialism culminating from the wily system of slavery in America and the scramble for Africa. The system of apartheid led to divestment and the isolation of South Africa from mainstream global activity in economic, political and social realms.

The racist and separatist apartheid laws kept the black on the margins of mainstream economic activity as the enacted coterie of pass laws made it impossible for blacks to access lucrative job or income generating opportunities in ‘White’ zones. Hayward Jean (1989) states that the apartheid regime made it difficult and nearly impossible for blacks to take part in any economic activity. “Most women who attempted venturing into commercial beer brewing were often raided by the police and labeled as deviants”. (Op.cit)Testimony to the economic restraint imposed on women by the apartheid regime was the reality that the presence of women in urban areas was illegal in the regulatory premise of pass laws. Black men were also prevented from earning a living in the coveted ‘White Zones’ which enlisted urban areas and the great part of productive rural areas.

A significant proportion of blacks worked in White owned farms where wages were phenomenally low. Access to urban areas where there could have been lucrative job or income earning opportunities was closely guarded by the racist regime through stringent pass laws. The pass laws came with an ‘endorsement in’ and ‘endorsement out’ clause. The clause was set for use by employers would make use of the clause to recommend or condemn pass holders. On the other end the stage managed economic dispensation restricted the blacks to poor rural areas known then as Bantustans. Many of these reserves were held in deliberate poverty by means of prohibition of private property as part of the pervasive stratagem tailored to gag the economic prosperity of black South Africans.

The pass law conditions created for the black South African were part of a holistic stratagem to leverage the capitalist system on cheap labor. Pass laws enabled the regime to confine most of the black South Africans to places were their labor was needed most like in the farms. The conditions came with massive law pass related arrests in towns where ‘criminals’ were transported to white farms to serve as the prison laborers. Verwoerd outlined that emigration controls must be tightened to prevent manpower leaving the white farming areas to become loafers in the city. (Hayward, Jean 1989)

One illuminant social impact of apartheid in South Africa was its significant impact on women. Women suffered the double brunt of racial and gender segregation. Lowis Peter (1996) notes that oppression of black women was different from that directed at men. “Women under apartheid had no rights” (Lowis Peter, 1996). The scholar underscore that Under the heavy hand of apartheid women had no access to education, no legal rights and also had no rights to own property. Many black women find their only economic solace in mean jobs in the farms and as domestic workers for meager wages. Most women had to face the grim reality of abject poverty which escalated the mortality rate of children who suffered heavily from malnutrition.

The social effects of Apartheid

On the social front, one major hallmark of the devious system of apartheid was the classification and stratification of people according to race. The Population Registration Act of 1950 was enacted to facilitate the classification of all South African citizens according their race. Classifications established were White; Black as well colored (The people of mixed descent). From another front the Reservation of Separate Amenities Act of 1953 created separate public facilities’ to be used by Whites and blacks. This was the thrust of the apartheid ideology which upheld the racial differences as the basis for separatist social, economic and political policies. Mallaby Sebastian (1992) underscores that the implementation of the system of apartheid meant that South Africa was the first country in the world to legalize racism.

Mallaby Sebastian (1992) cites that apartheid was an extremely oppressive system that was aimed among other things at controlling the economic lives of all black people as well their geographical location. The writer notes anyone found without an approved job would be relocated off the urban or ‘white zones’. This resulted in a scenario where blacks working in urban areas lived as annual immigrants. The black were forced to live a life of two worlds were they could only live with their families in distant rural areas once in along while and then relocate into urban areas for 11 months of the year to fend for their families in urban areas, farms or in the mines.

On the international social pedestal the system of apartheid in South Africa resulted in the isolation of South Africa in international sport in the mid 1950s. It must be underscored that apartheid prohibited multiracial sport which implied that South Africa could not engage international teams as these were composed of multiple races. Pressure from organizations such as the Non-Racial South African Sport Association applied pressure on South Africa. The organization managed to lobby the International Committee to pressure the South African government to affect a redress to its racial sports establishments and policies. The racialist antics of the apartheid were perpetuated and international as well local pressure groups pressed for more effective isolation of South Africa.

The apartheid stratagem constituted a coterie of integrated economic and political policies complemented by social policies tailored to confine the black majority to fringes of the South Africa society. The pass laws resulted in a systematic destruction of the family unit and entire cultural and social fabric of the black majority. The prevalence of crime in the slums is closely associated with unfavorable conditions in which children are brought by largely struggling single mothers in the slums where the regulative father element is consistently missing. Mermelstein David (1987) states one dimension in which the social fabric of the black majority was dealt a heavy blow was on the aspect of education. The blacks were fed with a doctored Bantu education curriculum which only prepared the black to minister to the capitalist needs of their white masters.

The actual shape of education programs crafted in spurious means to keep blacks at the service of their white masters meant that education was not enforced as compulsory as was the case for white children. The subject policies in critical subjects such as science and math and languages were such that the blacks remained with limited career opportunities where they would not be in a position to compete with their white counterparts. The education crisis was aggravated by University segregation which was implemented in 1959 to yield disastrous results for the blacks. Mermelstein David (1987) notes that the impact of education policies is far grim that the scenario painted by South Africa’s school attendance and literacy figures. The scholar asserts that most of the South Africans allegedly literate are in fact functionally illiterate from an industrial functionality perspective while many of those listed as attending school make minimal progress  over the years owing to low attendance and pass rates.

The Apartheid regime confined blacks in the strata of oppression by enacting laws to forbid the protest of blacks against the evils of the status quo. The national labor law for instance was promulgated to restrict blacks and the people of color from protesting the enactment of the native labor Act of 1953. Under the premise of the Act Suckling, John et al (1988) notes that the regime’s officials were given the power to declare states of emergency and increase the penalties that the government were to enforce. One such remarkable state of emergency occurred at Sharpeville where about 69 blacks lost their lives in a violent clash between the state forces and the black protestors. Blacks had taken to the streets in numbers without the dompas as a protest gesture against the oppressive pass laws which required blacks to be in possession of the dompas while also facilitated the exploitation of the blacks by the capitalist as cheap labor.

The apartheid regime had so many grips on the social lives of the blacks. Suckling John et al (1988) notes that the laws which specifically dealt with personal rights required that couples seek state permission before they could live together. State authorities would either grant or withhold the rights of the black couples for flimsy reasons often based on what the state would normally consider to be ‘surplus blacks’. The previously cited scholar states that under the personal laws families which were considered as surplus were forced out of the Bantustans and condemned to live in places distant from the protected white zones. The social lives of South African were also subjected to the inhuman Immorality Act of 1950 which held marriage between different races as illegal. Further more the amendment of the Immorality Act in 1957 enlisted that even the show of intentions to form relations with someone of a race different than yours was illegal.

The political effects of apartheid

Under apartheid rule blacks were gagged from all political activity. The blacks’ democratic rights were usurped from them together with all their civil rights which were forfeited under several laws passed by the national government. Any political formations especially those formed with the intent of articulating opposition politics was outlawed through the enactment and implementation of the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950. This act provided the premise for crackdown on any kind of political activity regardless of whether it was communist or otherwise. The separate Representation of Voters Act usurped the suffrage from the hands of the blacks and prohibited them from participating in national elections. Sunter Clem (1987) notes that the laws passed to regulate political activity were strict to an extent that any black who sought to violate them risked imprisonment and death.

Sunter Clem (1987) details that by 1963 the security police had killed more than 100 blacks in political confrontations. “Dozens of thousands were confined to prison many without any trial nor legal representation” (Op.cit) The writer also details that owing to the oppressive and volatile political dispensation many blacks died in political protests and confrontations as police and the military gunned down black activists. By extension The South African Statute Laws gave premise to the South African premise to incarcerate any citizens to distant regions or states. The incarceration cluauses entailed that blacks were not allowed by the state to travel, write, or speak publicly. To make matters worse for the blacks those incarcerated had no power to appeal against the imposed sanctions.

Independence and Reconstruction

The doctored apartheid educational policy not only damaged the black social fabric but also weakened the apartheid economy and created inhibiting environs which were not in tandem with creation of a vibrant democratic economy. Mermelstein David (1987) notes that Apartheid education policies resulted in setting back human capital creation beyond a single generation which resultantly created the most critical of all economic constraints on the future and prospects of the growth and development of the country economy and democratic  society at large. Albert Luthuli was the first president of black liberation movement the African National Congress from 1925 to 1960. The black movement icon received a Nobel Peace award for the role that he played in fighting racial violence in the 1960s. The struggle was fought from various angles featuring various heroes at different cadences of the struggle which culminated in the election of the ANC into power in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa.

Political changes

The South African Black consciousness movement studded with multiple heroes of the struggle such as Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela and many others set the ball rolling for the delivery of emancipation for the oppressed South Africans entangled in the fetters of apartheid. The dawn of democracy has seen the development of the country’s political landscape into a multi-party democracy. General elections held in April 22 2009 saw the participation of over 40 political parties of all races. South Africa has bicameral parliament which is made up of the National Council of Provinces (known as the upper house) which comprises 90 members and the national Assembly (the lower house) which is made up of 400 members. Members of the National Assembly are elected into office on a population basis of proportional representation. Mermelstein, David (2005) specifies that half of the members are chosen from national lists while the other half are chosen from provincial lists. The political framework entails the election of ten members to represent each province at the level of the national Council of Provinces irrespective of the population of the province. Elections for the national Assembly and the national Council of Provinces are held every five years. The government is established in the lower house and the head of the majority party in the National Assembly becomes the country’s president.

Mermelstein David (2005) states that South African Law is largely derived and premised in Roman-Dutch mercantile law and personal Law with English Common law. The influence came through the Dutch and British settlements in colonial South Africa. Dating back from 1910 South Africa ahs adapted and applied its laws derived from those passed for specific member colonies. Contemporary South Africa political landscape is dominated by the National African Congress (ANC) which managed to get close to  a two thirds majority in the recent 2009 April 22 elections. The movement has managed to maintain its two thirds majority in the past elections since its historic victory in 1994.The main opposition movement has been Democratic Alliance led by Helen Zille while a break away party from ANC , Congress of the People (COPE) has brought with it new dynamics in the country’s political terrain.

Economic changes

The United Nations categorise South Africa as a middle income nation with a formidable supply of resources. United Nations also recognize SA as a country with well developed financial, legal, communication and transport sectors among other pillars of one of Africa’s economic and political powerhouses. The South African stock exchange, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) is ranked among the top twenty in the world. Ayittey, George  (2006) notes that the post-apartheid black regime inherited a generally well laid economic infrastructure from the apartheid regime. The writer notes that the economy leverages much on modern infrastructure which supports an efficient distribution of goods to major centers throughout the Southern African region. As of 2007 South Africa was ranked as 25th in the world in the measure of Gross Domestic product (PPP) in 2007.

Development in modern South Africa is still largely marginal with significant strides notable in mainly four areas Johannesburg/Pretoria, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and Durban. The previously cited scholar cites that across the country beyond the mentioned areas development is still minimal despite multi-concerted government efforts to turn around the fortunes of the country and achieve the chief goal of a better life for all. The majority of South Africans therefore still live in poverty although principal marginal areas have experienced comparatively more rapid development. Areas such as Mossel bay, Plettenberg Bay, Rustenburg area, Bloemfontein, Cape West Coast, etc. Esler Anthony (2006) states that South Africa has had the seventh highest per Capita income in Africa. The writer nonetheless underscores that South Africa still suffers from grim income gaps in its social structure and hierarchy. The country has remained a dual economy which has led to its classification as developing country despite its classification in contemporary socio-economic researches as an emerging economy.

Esler Anthony (2006) states that South Africa has one of the highest proportions of income inequality in the world. International Monetary Fund has detailed that in the past years South Africa has sustained record levels of economic growth which have contributed significantly to the reduction of unemployment although challenging economic and social ills still exist. Esler Anthony (2006) details that the mean South African household income went down from significantly between 1995 and 2000. In a racial picture the writer presents that for racial inequality in 1995 Statistics South Africa (SSA) reported that the average white household earned as much as four times what the was earned by an average black household. The 2002 statistics had an even grim picture depicting that the white average household was earning six times more than the average black household.

The South African government policy has come up with various black empowerment policies aimed at addressing the grim economic in equalities as indicated by the wide income gaps. Policies have not precipitated much anticipated economic emancipation for the majority of blacks although it is evident that a black middle class is emerging thanks to the broad based black empowerment policies. The government under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki worked to promote economic growth as well as foreign investment by easing stringent labor laws and fueling the privatization pace. The policies were coupled with integrated government policies aimed at cutting unnecessary government spending. The policies have raised protracted tensions from the leftist formation such as labor associations such the Confederation of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU).

IMF details that the South African rand is the most traded currency among emerging economies in the world. Ayittey George (2007) details that the Country’s Currency has joined the elite club of fifteen currencies, the Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) where foreign exchange transaction are settled immediately. This lowers risks which come with executing transactions cross time zones. The Bloomberg recorded that the Rand was the best performing currency against the USD in the global economic landscape in period of 2002 to 2005.

The country’s currency has remained volatile which has negatively impacted on the country’s economic activity. The rand dropped sharply during 2001 to the record 13.85 ZAR to the USD triggering fears of inflation. The sharp fall prompted the Country’s Reserve Bank to increase interest rates. Since then the rand has recovered trading above 7.13 ZAR to the greenback since January 2008. The rand has nonetheless suffered protracted pressure from the global economic recession which has kept the rand in the 8- 10 ZAR range against the greenback.

On the international economic play field key trade partners for South Africa beyond the African continent are Germany, USA, China, Japan, UK and Spain. The country economy’s taps from the exports sectors of corn, diamonds, gold, metals, minerals and sugar. Ayittey George (2003) notes that Machinery and transportation equipment make up more than one third of the value of the country’s imports. The country also imports chemicals, finished good and petroleum.

Social changes

Ayittey George (2003) notes that although the African National Congress has steered the nation in the pursuit of goals of Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP), millions of South Africans mostly black still in live in poverty. Christine Dodson (2008) cites the disparities can be largely attributed to the difficulty in quickly compensating for generations of educational and social marginalization. The other trend notable is that poverty among the whites which was unheard of in the past has been increasing steadily since the dawn of a new era. Reason for such scenarios has been attributed the legacy of the pervading system of apartheid although partly of the blame is placed on the current government which has failed to address pertinent social issues of the African society in their entirety.

On another scale, South Africa outperforms many countries in the Southern African region and across the continent on the economic and political fronts.. This has made South Africa a common destination for millions of economic and political refugees from around the continent and the globe. Christine Dodson (2008) states that the country also boasts of favorable investment climate which attracts business players from various quarters of the world. The scenario has resulted in the prevalence of xenophobia which has culminated in violent protests at some points.  South African locals decry the presence of foreigners arguing that these have taken away the scarce job opportunities from them. The dynamics around the foregoing is that many employers have shown preference foreign labor as means to avoid legal obligations of paying stipulated minimum wages applicable to South African natives. Christine Dodson (2008) states industries which include the booming construction industry, tourism and agriculture as well as domestic services are flooded with foreign cheap labor. The previously cited scholar cites that the majority of foreigners live in poor conditions in South Africa and the influx of foreigner has triggered the stiffening of immigration laws since 1994.

South Africa is ethnically diverse as evident through the language policy which holds 11 languages as official languages. The diverse music, food and dance from a plethora of cultures have been one of the main tourist attractions. The society is nonetheless dogged by the grim crime levels which remain as a haunting dent to the Southern African powerhouse loaded with numerous potentials.

The crime dimension has been attributed to various factors chief among is the reality of huge income gaps in the country’ social structures where millions are without jobs. The other dimension is the HIV/AIDS factor. South Africa is one of the countries heavily affected by the AIDS pandemic in the world. The false conception held by many that sleeping with a virgin would cure AIDS has been one of the reasons why there has been an escalation of grievous crimes such as rape and murder in South Africa. In a 1998-2000 survey report released by United Nations South Africa was rated as second for murder and first for assaults and rapes per capita. According to the details of the report total crime per capita is 10th out of 60 countries in the research data set. The significant impact of crime in South Africa has seen the shift of many middle class South Africans to gated residences fleeing the central business areas. The crime factor has also been cited as one of the major reasons behind the emigration of South Africans into other countries especially in Europe.

The position of South Africa in the region

The country has remained an economic powerhouse in the region and across the continent. The current global economic crisis nonetheless threatens to stall the progress that the country has made in the past years. IMF has recommended SA for a sustained period of economic growth in the past decade which yielded macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability. IMF has detailed that the global economic crises is hitting hard on African exports which trade with mostly USA and European counties which have been hard hit by the global financial crunch.

The report also states that the deterioration of the world economy is also hitting hard on the remittances from African emigrants. Christine Dodson (2008) cites that the Report by IMF forecasts that exporters like South Africa, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and other emerging markets will continue to be on the receiving end of the ripples of the global crisis. The report highlights that Africa as a whole will experience economic decline from 5.25 percent recorder in 2008 to a meager 2 percent this year and South Africa is not an exception.

References

Ayittey, George B.N. Africa Betrayed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Bradley, Catherine. Causes and consequences of the end of apartheid. Massachusetts: Raintree Steck

Vaughn, 1996.

Esler, Anthony. The Human Venture: A World History. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996

Hayward, Jean. South Africa since 1948. New York: Bookwright Press, 1989.

Lowis, Peter. South Africa: free at last. Massachusetts: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1996.

Mallaby, Sebastian. After Apartheid: The Future of South Africa. London: Kirkus Associates,

1992.

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom. New York: Little Brown, 1994.

Mermelstein, David. The Anti-Apartheid Reader. New York: Grove Press, 1987.

Suckling, John and White, Landeg. After Apartheid: Renewal of the South Africa Economy.

London: Villers Publications, 1988.

Sunter, Clem. The World and South Africa in the 1990′s. Cape Town: Human and Rousseau, 1987.

Christine Dodson (1979-10-22). “South Atlantic Nuclear Event (National Security Council, Memorandum)” (PDF). George Washington University under Freedom of Information Act Request. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB190/01.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-06-23.

Thesis: According to statistics gathered in the year 2003, there have been an estimated   fifteen thousand prostitutes in Moscow. There are criminal groups involved in prostitution; however the involvement of these groups in Russia is not as big as in the west. There two division of prostitution. The first is forced prostitution whereas the other is voluntary prostitution. The following paper discusses the scale of the problem, how this has become mainstream and cause   for concern, and the organisations that supports the negative. Furthermore  this  paper relates to the movie “Taken” which closely relates to the current situation of human trafficking in the prostitution industry. Finally there is a discussion of the organization that stands for the prevention of human  trafficking and prostitution within Russia which assists in carrying out preventing measures to stop young girls falling prey to sex traffickers as opposed to legalizing prostitution.

Many stories have been told as to how young Russian girls are misled and tricked in to being sold as prostitutes in the west who are initially forced in to prostitution and later continue work as prostitutes in western regions. The article by Johanna Granville indicates “In 1997 alone, 175,000 young women from Russia, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern and Central Europe were actually tricked and sold as commodities in the sex markets of the developed countries in Europe and the Americas. Every year, at least 1 million women and children are taken from their homes and sold in to slavery. The United Nations International Organization for Migration has estimated that as many as 4 million people worldwide are smuggled across borders each year, resulting in illicit profits amounting to 7 billion US Dollars annually” (148). Looking at the bigger picture there is definitely a lot of money earned illicitly from this business of prostitute trafficking.  This is also a reason which badly prevents prostitution and human trafficking being brought under control in Russia. The staggering amount of money which lies within this industry itself leads to corruption and little or no action been taken by those who are responsible for bringing the situation is under control.

Internally, in Russia and to be more specific in Moscow, alone fifteen thousand organized prostitutes are said to be in the market.  From these prostitutes the elite are known to operate in about ten high class hotels in Moscow. Johnson’s Russia List goes on to state that “The market is controlled by around thirty groups. Street prostitution in the city center is controlled by Chechen and Daghestani groups”. From a sample study of thirty-two women who were involved in prostitution, two said that they had responded to ads in the Russian Comunist party newspaper. A majority said that they were provided with details before they left their home towns. Another two said that they were duped into thinking that they were coming to Moscow to work in a Café.   Prostitution within Russia can be segregated into a few basic areas depending on where prostitution takes place and the clientele. Elite prostitution takes place with wealthy regular clients. Prostitution is also found in relaxation and massage salons. Nightclubs are another venue where prostitution takes place. Prostitution on call hotels and clients homes, prostitution at a particular hotel, street prostitution, prostitution in service of long-distance drivers and prostitution at rail road stations are the categories in to which this industry is mainly devided.

Russia supposedly has one of the worst trafficking problems in the world. Donna M Hughes points out that “Each year, thousands, and possibly tens of thousands, of Russian women and girls are recruited to go abroad in search of work and other opportunities only to be deceived and coerced into slavery and prostitution. Russia is also a receiving country for trafficked women; there are en estimated 150,000 women from the former Soviet republics on the streets and highways around Moscow. To make matters worse, Russia does not have a law against trafficking”.   With what is dubbed as the “commercialization of the individual”, the globalization of the economy and an increase in labour migration the issue of prostitution and trafficking has reached unprecedented heights. Other contributing factors which has led to the growth of prostitution and trafficking has been the rise of unemployment among women in Russia and the movement of human capital through the internet. Via the internet activities, movement of human capital remain widely unmonitored and uncontrollable. The above factors have led to the beginning of growth of prostitution in Russia. It is common knowledge that prostitute remains as one of the worlds oldest profession, however recent growth of this industry and it’s associated ill affects have widely and largely been made possible by the modern economic trends such as the growth of the service economy as well as the growing migration of workers from poorer countries to the richer nations in search of greener pastures and opportunity for a better life.

Current research further indicates that prostitution and trafficking has become an industry where money in millions can be made. The pro-prostitution mafia’s plan according to Donna M Hughes is said to have been formulated around August, 2000. The prostitution mafia plan of a solution to trafficking women in the independent states and Central and Eastern Europe was to decriminalize prostitution and re name it as “sex work”. Sex worker is term used in labour. Based on this definition for a prostitute, recommendations were also made to accommodate translational travel for these so called “sex workers” as they were simply responding to a demand of their labour. Prostitution in foreign countries was said to be defined as potentially empowering for women as it allowed them to migrate to countries where standards of living were significantly better than to their home countries whereby it allowed them to achieve “greater economic independency and autonomy from men”.

It is evident that this industry has the support of organized crime groups, corrupt politicians, and strip club owners. Shockingly there are also said to be additional barriers acting against the prevention of prostitution and related trafficking. These have been identified in the form of the US State Department, US and Dutch funded non governmental organizations and a Russian Political party which has formed into what is termed as the pro-prostitution mafia.

In this context the movie “Taken” as described by Brenda Yun, relates to the present crisis of prostitution of trafficking in Europe and Russia. The film is based around an Albanian mafia group in Paris which solicits information from female tourists, kidnaps them, gets them hooked on drugs, and subsequently uses them in shady sex trade deals. However although the story appears to be rather ridiculous, the ease in which the mafia identifies and eventually captures innocent girls is rather easy to imagine. The film revolves around an incident where a man who asks to share a cab with girls later ends up inviting them for a party in the evening, where they are suddenly taken. In this instance the girl they happen to kidnap also happens to be the daughter of former spy. This agent single handedly rescues his daughter from the clutches of the dangerous mafiosos. While in the process of rescuing his daughter the agent seeks help from a French Spy who reveals that the mafia actually pays the government to keep its illegal operation running. This can very easily be related to the current scenarios which may be happening across Russia. However needless to say that not all girls are as lucky as the girl in the movies who is rescued and saved by her father. The following paragraph which describes how girls are kidnapped for prostitution will draw a close relationship to the movie “Taken” and reality.

Organizations that are fighting the negatives of prostitution and trafficking in Russia are not without their presence in this region. The MiraMed and Angel Coalition are some of these organizations. Dr Juliette Engel, an American physician by profession who went to Russia discovered the epidemic of trafficking when she worked at orphanages. Her discovery was made when girls began to disappear from these orphanages rather mysteriously. She observed vans that arrived to take girls on field trips. The girls had packed their lunches and other requirements such as overnight bags for the trip and boarded the vans and were never seen again.

With initial funding from the United Nations and the US Government Dr Engel founded the MiraMed, which commenced trafficking awareness programs in Russian schools. As Dr Engel described the trafficking method of operation across schools in Russia, mothers and teachers have begun crying as they had realised that their daughters and pupils who had gone abroad and subsequently went missing may have suffered the fate of ending up being smuggled out as prostitutes or ending up as prostitutes in a foreign land. According to a survey carried out by the MiraMed organisation finding indicated that in certain regions in Russia a percentile close 30 had a close friend or family member who had been trafficked. Needless to say this indicates the scale of the problem in Russia. With the need of a nationwide awareness campaign becoming apparent Dr Engel, formed the Angel Coalition which was made up of 43 grassroots organizations in Russia and other former Soviet republics. Together these organizations agreed dedicated themselves to fight and prevent sex trafficking in Russia. During the summer of 2003, a trafficking victim assistance center was established in Moscow along with five regional safe house projects began Russia ‘s first rescue and rehabilitation programme for trafficking victims returning to the Russian Federation

The barriers are many which the Angel Coalition has to encounter when standing in the way and fighting back against the Russian mafia and prostitution trafficking. The pro-prostitution mafia was influential and successful to the extent that it had the grant proposals submitted by MiraMed to the US Government being declined. This in turn has led to any grants which were given previously by the US government being cut off.

To make matters worse in the summer of 2002 Elena Mizulina from the party of Rightist Forces made an announcement to the effect that legislation was being introduced to legalize prostitution in Russia.

The Angel Coalition is fighting back in an attempt to prevent legalization of prostitution in Russia as they claim that legalization of prostitution can lead the country further in to peril. In September 2002, a broad international coalition of human-rights and women’s – rights policy organization and churches and other different faith based groups had written to the then President of Russia Putin urging him to stand against the legalization of prostitution.

To take the fight against prostitution and trafficking in Russia forward, the Angel Coalition offers a variety of programmes. These programmes are conducted with two objectives in mind. One is to prevent trafficking through lobbying, education, outreach, training, exchanges and advocacy. Secondly, providing trafficking victim assistance through programs of rescue, reintegration and rehabilitation. The Angel Coalition website states that in 2003 the Angel Coalition had received a micro-grant from the City of Moscow to sponsor the pilot performance of a live, inter-active theatre production created for 15-16-aged schoolgirls using life-sized puppets to enact the techniques used by traffickers and underscore the dangers of trafficking. Within the framework of this project orphaned girl students filled out a pre-performance questionnaire about their views of working abroad and a post-performance questionnaire to measure the efficacy of the theatre piece as a learning tool.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, it is evident that the answer to the problem may not lie in legalizing prostitution but instead coming up with a robust mechanism to monitor and control this dastardly act. Legalisation of prostitution may not be ideal solution since there is a lot of money involved in the trade and individuals at high positions too may benefit from this activity. Obviously those who benefit will not be willing to part with their sources of income or money making. Therefore, it is by supporting organizations such as the Angel Coalition that we may be able to seem some outcome, reduction of human trafficking and all in all a better life for the girls in Russia.

Works Cited

1.      Granville, Johanna. From Russia without Love; the “Fourth Wave” of Global Human Trafficking. Demokratizatsiya (2004): 148

2.      Johnson’s Russia List. The Criminal Economy: The Structure of Prostitution. Feb 2003. 25 April 2009. <http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7069-6.cfm>.

3.      The Angel Coalition. About The Angel Coalition: History of the Organization and Main Activities. 25 Apr 2009.

<http://www.angelcoalition.org/epjs/e_history.html>.

4.      Yun, Brenda. “Taken” (the movie) and travel safety. April 2009. 23 Apr 2009. <http://www.gadling.com/2009/04/23/taken-and-travel-safety/>.

1.In the study entitled “Morality, Self-Control, and Crime,” the researchers aim to establish that the Self-Control Theory in association with morality is an effective predictor of criminal probability.  Previous studies in the past have established that self-control is a deterrence to deviant behavior.  Self-control is defined as the person’s capacity to avoid certain acts whose long-term implication could prove a disadvantage.  In some people, self-control is strong while others have weaker tendencies to avoid acts that go against the norms of society (Gottfredson, 2007).  The researchers want to affirm the universality of this assertion by applying the theory from a sample data from Lviv, Ukraine, a place in Europe that was previously under the rule of communist Soviet.  The researchers have chosen this place because of its economically evolving society.

Aside from studying the effect of self-control on people’s probable misconduct, the researchers have inserted another factor in the equation and to test whether this second factor has a stronger impact on crime compared to self-control.  They want to determine whether the morality of a person has any relation to his self-control as well as the indicators of crime.

Self-control theorists have placed it as the strongest factor keeping people from crime.  In recent years, moralists start to assert that morality is central to deterring crime. The researchers would want to know if there is an interrelation between these two factors.  They assume that people who lack moral principles have also low self control and are likely to commit criminal behavior, while those with strong moral convictions have also strong self control and are the least likely to commit deviant behavior.

2. The independent variables in this study are self-control and morality.  Self-control is an inherent attribute in some people while others have to consciously practice in order to acquire this characteristic.  In this study, self-control is an independent variable since it is one of the factors measured among the respondents that does not change (Cool-Science-Projects.com, n.d.).  Instead, the person’s responses to different situations vary depending on his self-control.  Morality is also an independent variable because like self-control, it will not change a person’s tendency to commit or not to commit crime or misconduct.  Both of these factors are used from a cognitive perspective.

The dependent variable in this study is crime because the performance of a deviant behavior will depend on the person’s morality and self-control (Cool-Science-Projects.com, n.d.).  Since crime covers a wide spectrum, the researchers limited this to seven force and fraud offenses and the participants’ likely performance of these identified crimes.  The changes in these variables are measured and correlated with the respondents’ morality and self-control.  In order to get a more meaningful result, the researchers have introduced five control variables.  These are gender, age, intactness of the family of origin during childhood, perceived family economic status during childhood, and childhood religiosity.  These control variable are necessary to avoid getting results from respondents coming from a widely varied personal background.

3.In order to obtain the data for analyzing the correlation among crime, self-control and morality, the researchers used a face-to-face interview method with 500 pre-qualified adults.  The adults in this study are chosen randomly using a specially designed selection process.  The design of this research calls for this kind of method in order to obtain the most accurate and relevant information (Trochim, 2006).  The selection of the respondents as well as the actual data collection were made by a professional survey organization that is based in Ukraine.

To find the eligible respondents for this survey, each must qualify in a two-stage sampling procedure.  The first requirement is for the person to live in first street routes in one of the six districts randomly chosen for the study.  Then, from among the households located on those identified districts, 70 percent from the number is used to draw 150 of the samples.  The rest of the 500 samples are chosen as random replacements.

After the face-to-face interview, each respondent is to answer a list of questions that are considered sensitive in nature, such as, past misconducts and moral feelings.

Although the respondents were not forced to join the study, they were given a monetary compensation for their participation.

4. The researchers’ review of prior literature is divided into two sub-sections.  The first one focuses on previous studies showing how self-control figures in people’s performance of crime. Reviewing literature related to self-control and crime at the start of the study is appropriate in order to establish how trends in recent years have made social scientists began to look for other factors in determining why people commit crime.  While it is generally accepted that crime is somehow caused by low self-control, this study’s review of literature has only drawn on some self-control studies and generalized their conclusions about its impact on criminality.  The researchers only mentioned those that are conducted in more recent years in order to make the data applicable to the present time.

The section discussing self-control studies is comparatively shorter compared to the section on morality.  The researchers have explained early on that one of the important goals of this study is to establish the role of morality in crime.  Since self-control has been widely studied, the researchers chose to focus more on morality.  In trying to probe how morality could impact the person’s actions, the researchers attempted to validate Wikstrom’s 2006 study that concludes morality is the basic factor in acts of crime.  Most of this section expounds on the different arguments that Wikstrom has presented to support his claim particularly on the validity of the Situational Action Theory, which makes weak morality, in opposition to self-control, as the most important factor in crimes.

Overall, the literature review is somewhat limited but nonetheless, they are adequate to provide a significant background why the present study is important.

5.Based on research findings, the researchers believed that there is greater evidence supporting weak morality as a determinant of criminality compared to self-control.  The research also confirmed that self-control is a factor that contributes to people committing deviant behavior.  However, the researchers also did not find a strong correlation between self-control and morality.  Each factor is independent of one another.  Because of this weak correlation, a contention now exists on what factor is stronger in pushing an individual towards an action that is considered wrong by society.

Self-control theorists have proven many times in the past that this factor is the underlying reason why criminality is rampant in the world.  For many years, this belief has been widely accepted until such time that new studies show the possibility of another factor being more powerful than self-control.  With the creation of the Situational Action Theory, social scientists would have to conduct further studies to determine which of the two could claim to be at the root of the problem.

6.This research cannot be generalized for several reasons.  Weak morality as the root of crime is a new concept that needs to be further validated by additional studies across all cultures in different parts of the world.  The researchers have explained that their focus is the city of Lviv because of the changing dynamics of a culture that has recently emerged from socialism to embrace capitalist ideas and ideals.  Being the case, it should be noted that the Lviv case is unique and does not represent many cultures around the world.  It could be applicable to other countries experiencing the same changes, like many countries in Eastern Europe.  But for other countries with a more stable environment, like those in the West, the results could changed significantly.  The same dynamics are not true for the more stable capitalist states whose populace’s morality and self-control are governed by other factors.  Thinking of generalizations at this point would be too premature.  Human nature is highly complex and could change depending on many external and internal factors surrounding him.

It will take more time, possibly years, and several studies of observing society before the implications of this research could solidify.  It may be true that morality has a stronger effect on individuals compared to self-control but it is also likely that both play equal roles in other cultures.  There are too many possibilities arising from this research that it is not probable at present to create generalizations that would speak for the entire world.  What other researchers should do is to expand the sample population to include other societies and other races.  The control variables should also be changed to see a more diverse result.

7.A research design should be created in such a manner that the most relevant information are obtained without prejudice.  The sampling method is rather restrictive considering that the participants are all above 18 years old.  It has to be remembered that many offenses in society today are perpetrated by minors.  It would have been more useful if the age range has been changed to include minors.

Adults are more likely to have an established set of moral views and higher self-control, except in cases when the person has psychological issues.  Adults generally can handle themselves better making the results inapplicable to a larger population.  Youth respondents in any culture are more interesting since they have the capacity to vary greatly in terms of thinking and perspectives.

The researchers, though, have not claimed that their intention for conducting the research is to make their hypotheses applicable to a bigger context.  They have stated that their expectations are only limited to a certain group of people.  Using a quantitative method to obtain a correlation is also appropriate (Hopkins, 2000).  In this regard, the research design is appropriate.  Others in the field are left with many possibilities for further exploration.

8.The data presentation and discussion are done in a manner that makes it easy for the ready to understand what the researchers have found out.  Discussion goes directly to the point, wherein results show that a stronger correlation exists between morality and crime.  The discussion avoids using technicalities that would confuse the non-expert.

The results are important since they provide a new perspective concerning factors that push people to commit crime.  It highlights important aspects concerning morality and its role in society.  This will make society realize and evaluate the current state morality among the people.  However, the researchers have pointed out several limitations in the study particularly on the sample population that could make the results less applicable to a bigger population.  With the existence of this significant limitations, the results’ substance is affected.

9.This study opens a lot of possibilities for further studies as a result of various questions arising from the present hypotheses.  These questions or hypotheses include:

is this applicable to all changing economies

is this applicable to the youths of those economies

is this applicable to capitalist states

are morality and self-control really independent of each other when Christian doctrine suggests that self-control is a product of morality (Knight, 2009)

Naturally, the next wave of researches would focus on the validity of finding morality as a stronger factor over self-control by using respondents from other cultures, age group, and by increasing the number of respondent.

10.Some of the potential drawbacks of this research are: making society put pressure on people to adopt stricter moral principles; the Churches using this study to preach about morality; and the undermining of self-control as a deterrence factor in controlling crime.  Previous teachings about self-control should not be disregarded while everyone focuses on morality.  From a Christian perspective, this study could create confusion and divert people from what is essential.  Efforts at stopping crime should not change just because morality is emerging as a factor.  Instead, experts should design their programs to include both self-control and morality.

References

Gottfredson, M.R.  (2007).  Self-control theory.  Blackwell Reference Online. Retrieved April   23, 2009, from http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=     g9781405124331_chunk_g978140512433125_ss1-70

Hopkins, W.G.  (2000).  Quantitative research design.  Sportscience, 4.  Retrieved April 23,        2009, from http://www.sportsci.org/jour/0001/wghdesign.html

Independent and dependent variables. Cool-Science-Projects.com. Retrieved April 23, 2009,   from http://www.cool-science-projects.com/independent-and-dependent-variables.html

Knight, K.  (2009).  Morality.  Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 23, 2009, from             http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10559a.htm

Trochim, W.M.K.  (2006, October 20).  Design.  Research Methods: Knowledge Base.    Retrieved April 23, 2009, from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/design.php

Introduction

In the late 1950s and early 1960s the general mood in America was the concern over the unpredictability of the economic situation especially in relation to the stock market. Marland (Pg 191) points out that the 1950s is commonly remembered as the age of conformity where the American society was slowly settling and every individual striving hard to get involved in nation building[1]. This was happening against the back drop of the cold war which apparently to most Americans was happening too far away to be an issue of concern. Most historians have argued that the world escaped a Nucleur war by a whisker, but the ignorance displayed in the American society inspired the creation of one of the most artistic pieces in the 1960s. A movie that evoked a lot of critic most probably because of the way it reflected, most specifically the American government rather than how it was directed and how the themes were conveyed.  Anybody who frequently visits movie theatres will instantly detect humor just by seeing a name such as Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying about the Bomb. This film is one of the most brilliant productions in Hollywood of the 1960s that addressed one of the most sensitive issues in America. The film runs through a period of 100 minutes with many instances of humor. The film is based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George which has little if no humor. The movie depicts an American government that had started to get more and more concerned about the existence of Nucleur weapons and the apparent aggression from the Soviet Union and America over issues ranging from occupation of territories to economic ideologies and inclinations.

Background of Cold War

The cold war was a very intricate and mostly hidden issue and most importantly to the citizens of the concerned nations. The cold war supremacies were displaying their apparent insecurities by using their relative Nucleur capability to display their power and authority concerning global issues.  But one thing that all historians agree upon is that it was a war based upon the battle of supremacy in political ideologies, this emanated to some sort of a domino effect with competition in many other areas including space exploration and military armament. The Soviet Union was expanding and her ambitions had led her to look further than just Eastern Europe and the United States was getting nervous. During this period the United States was slowly establishing herself in the international arena through various developments, and the only apparent hurdle was the Soviet Union with its communist ideologies. Military confrontations were the most apparent and obvious aspect of cold war, but interestingly enough it was never directly fought between these two nations. Other aspects of the war included formation of military allies, development in the area of arsenal, competition in fields like economy and technological development. Some countries like Korea were forcefully divided into two where one part was occupied by the Soviet Union while the other was occupied by the United States. Korea was divided into North Korea, occupied by Soviet Union and South Korea occupied by the United States. The United States and Soviet Union fought this cold war in these areas which in some cases emanated to actual military confrontations. The most of the obvious military confrontation was the Vietnam War and the Korean War. The invention of the Nucleur weapon and the subsequent armament of the two nations was the single most outright factor that could have prevented the two nations from confronting each other directly because both nations feared that the destruction that would follow would be so immense and neither of the two wanted to take risk.[2] The film Dr. Strangelove explains the extent of the hostility by actually showing B52 bombers airborne and narrates that the American Strategic air command maintained a large force B52 bombers airborne 24 hours a day with the capacity to cause destruction than the whole World War II bombs combined; the director Kubrick puts it at 50 mega tones, it is however difficult to establish the authenticity of this information although he could have used it to explain the extent to which the United States had armed itself with Nucleur weapons . The film explains that the bombers were strategically placed from the Persian Gulf to the Arctic Ocean, twenty minutes away from the Soviet Union. This kind of information is difficult to establish whether it is true or false but again it can provide a rough idea of the degree of hostility and the reality of the cold war. Another related film is Fail safe directed in 1964 and was also coincidentally based on a novel is also based on the tension that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although based on fiction to some degree it addresses an important aspect of the cold war; Nucleur weapons.

A greater and in depth understanding of the cold war provides insight as to the reasons why the cold war just came to sudden end, was it because of the invention of the Nucleur weapon whose consequences was greatly feared especially after the United States attacked Japan in 1945. The destruction caused left the united states with a great deal of guilt which was still fresh in its mind. The Soviet Union could not risk the war mostly probably because of the fear that the United States might be having greater Nucleur arsenal. However doing away with these speculations and looking on the various propositions provided by historians can provide an answer to this question. As Rollins, P.  puts it, the Nucleur issue did not as expected draw much attention from writers or curiosity from sociologist who as would have been expected would have come up with theories to explain why two nations could have so much animosity against each other, drawing other nations into the animosity[3]. However the few sociologists who have dared to cover this area and came up with conclusions that issues such as the industrialization of the military characterized by nations striving hard to increase their military muscle by investing on this industry, could have been the most probable cause. The apparent threats existing between the two opposing super powers may also have been a reason proposed by other sociologists where none of the two nations wished to engage in diplomacy where there was the possibility of compromise. Sociologists like Kramer and Marullo (Pg [4] were able to come up with propositions for various areas of research that opened ways for other people to study this are in detail. The propositions included: the social and historical reasons that created the environment that promoted the arms race and the subsequent hostility between the superpowers, the economic reasons that could have led various nations to promote the large scale industrial manufacture of weapons to promote the lucrative business, the apparent social and psychological results of the war which would provide an area for sociologists to research on and find out whether it was the reason why the war suddenly subsided, also an area that could be researched was the psychological effects of building Nucleur weapons and the effects they would have on the nations that built them and the apparent situation it would place this nations in. For instance, in case the technology spread to smaller nations that were still unstable, the results would be catastrophic.  The theoretical understanding of the war in terms of how it was managed, how various conflicts were solved and what led to the need of diplomacy instead of war and finally considering the existence, the continual manufacture and the threat of the use Nucleur weapons from a sociological view point provided a lot of insight. These areas made it easy for sociologists to argue the issues presenting themselves during the cold war from a more familiar perspective. Beckman’s approach is interesting in the sense that he uses research from different sources and even uses future speculations in trying to analyze the Nucleur related issues. He divides his findings into two areas, the Nucleur era which normally is known to have lasted for 45 years, where he interestingly uses the present tense and argues that according to him he is not sure whether it is over yet. Beckman’s analysis even looks at the most possible questions that may arise in the future like the social and political implication of Nucleur weapons on a state like Israel which has continued to deny that it posses these weapons. A question that may arise is what are the social or political reasons for this outright denial in a place where people are very much familiar with what it means to experience a holocaust?

In his study Beckman exclaims that it lucky for the world to have survived for so long without any Nucleur confrontations. In a study that looks into the level of ignorance of the public of issues related to Nucleur weapons and gives an example of an analysis that found that a significant number of people in the United States have never thought of Nucleur war as a potential threat and never included it even when looking for safe places to stay. Although the fear is limited or almost non existent for the common person, looking at the American military policies further reveals how much the United States was concerned about Nucleur war. Use of this weapon could have led to a situation of Mutual Assured Destruction, commonly abbreviated as MAD. To any sociologist this would appear to be a situation of complete destruction of humanity that should not even be considered. However in a unique way the fear conceived out of the apparent armament led the two nations to reconsider this path and therefore resulted into the observed situation of peace.  It is obvious that anything conceived out of fear can be broken at any moment without an alarm. The situation that led the nations to declare peace and even form alliances such as NATO and The Warsaw pact was as a result of fear. It is very wrong for a civilization like this to base important things like the peace of the entire world on issues such as fear. But before judging this decision beforehand it is important one considers the subsequent results of a Nucleur war, the tremendous health complications that it would create for the present and the future. The fear instilled by such a weapon capable of producing a vast amount of energy on the globe created awareness and consciousness towards the use of Nucleur energy as a weapon; this is the psychosocial aspect of the cold war

Analysis of ‘Dr. Strangelove’ as a film and its relation to Cold War and Nuclear Strategy.

Dr. Strangelove is one of the most humorous war related films ever to hit the silver screen. Humor ranges from the cigar smoking rubber faced General Ripper, the telephone conversation between the United States President and the drunken Russian Prime minister to the actions of Dr. Strangelove. The plot revolves around two Nucleur super powers caught between struggles for Nucleur supremacy. The film is conveniently presented in black and white use of military terminologies and attire and the director Kubrick succeeds in creating a military mood.  The films depicts the mediocrity with which these two nations handled their issues which in the end emanates into a full blown Nucleur war when in one of these two countries  Nucleur weapon is launched by a mad and delusional General and the other country retaliates by unleashing its doomsday weapon. The only evidence available for the effect of Nucleur war were the twin atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, nobody actually knew the results of a Nucleur war because it had never occurred. Therefore films were used as a way of educating the masses on some of the cruel and inhuman effects of the war. All these were later compressed into books first before they were acted out as films. The author of the book Red Alert from which the film is based upon, happened to be an ex-RAF solder therefore the book as expected possessed a significant amount of reality. The film on the other hand uses satire to display some of the realities of the war including the aspect of war mongering brought out by the leaders of the two nations. The movie further tries to present a section of the American military perception of the war displayed on the scene of the conversation between Mandrake and the mad General ripper. Most importantly the words spoken by the General when he says that: “the war is too important to be left to the politicians” these were his personal thoughts but they could have as well have been reflected in the minds of many other military officials.

The film however talks about the apparent dangers that the world faced in case one thing went wrong. The films provides the dangers in two dimension, from the side of the Soviet Union and from the side of the United States, to give the audiences from both sides the apparent danger that the possession of Nucleur weapons pose in case they fall on the wrong hands or if there is a case of miscommunication. The film depicts an American Air Force general called Jack Ripper who seems to be tired of the constant drills done by his country done to prepare for a possible war with Soviet Union and decides to play out the drills by using the actual Nucleur weapons. The mad General frustrated tells Mandrake that: “we are tired of communism filtration, communism doctrination, communism subversion and the international communism conspiracy”. In reality and in line with the extent to which the United States went to prevent the spread of communism, the film represented the general American feeling concerning the Soviet Union and communism. In the Film, this was mostly a move by the United States to ensure that the country was always prepared. The Soviet Union on the other hand has built a weapon with the potential to destroy all life, but is otherwise not planning to actually use it. The main purpose was to have a more superior position in the arms race and to use mostly to scare of the United States. However, the Soviet Union premier did not announce the existence of such a weapon as planned and had rather been late attending his party’s meeting. The events that play out in the minds of the audience is inconceivable because a situation like this has never occurred and it has actually been exaggerated to some point by using  the concept of a weapon that could destroy the whole world.

As a result this film received mixed reactions with some critics declaring that it was a complete joke because such a situation would never occur in real life. However this could have been a case of denial considering the questions drawn by Beckman considering states like Israel that possessed Nucleur weapons but continued to deny it most likely for social and political purpose of keeping its enemies always in the dark of their full potential. Other critics have agreed that some of these situations were very much likely to occur in real life and even started taking sides with some saying that the film was anti-American and the director was even accused of producing a film that had some strong aspects of propaganda against the United States of America. However the director went on and even included the actual use of the Doomsday machine. Kubrick manages to capture mind blowing moments maximally for instance just before Russia releases the doomsday machine, the U.S president suddenly changes his mind and opts for peace and the movie momentarily gives the audience a sigh of relief, until the mad general with his war mongering instincts decides to release the Nucleur weapon. The other film about Nucleur war by Kubrick, Fail safe, was however not able to capture these moments as brilliantly as Dr. Strangelove. In all this seriousness, Kubrick provides moments of humor through Irony for instance when Mandrake cannot get enough coins to call back the attack planes and moments like these provide momentarily relief from the more serious aspects of the war.

Analyzing this movie and taking a look at the novel with the facts of the cold war at hand shows how movies can be used to spread propaganda and at the same time educate the audience of the possible dangers of an important thing such as a Nucleur war. The idea of any nation making a weapon that could destroy all life or at least a significant proportion of this civilization also became a great deal of debate concerning the movie. The Director uses satire in the film to show some of the issues of the war were exaggerated by the United States. It is mostly seen during conversations for instance when the wild general Jack D. Ripper played by Sterling Hayden says that: “Mr. President I am not saying we will not get our hair mused, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed tops”. This depicts the kind of arrogance that was common with military generals who had no respect at all for human life and were therefore ready to start a war by sacrificing people just to establish supremacy. Satire is also depicted generally when one follows the movie; the fanatical generally in his bid to protect the “precious bodily fluids” orders a Nucleur attack on the Soviet Union while the President is unsuccessful in convincing the Soviet Prime minister that the attack was all a mistake. The Soviet responds by releasing the doomsday machine. The way these events follow each other including the President’s conversation with the Soviet Prime minister who is drunk reveal how the issues of cold war were handled carelessly.

However if this nations manufactured this weapons the probability of what was depicted in this movie and the novel have very high chances of occurring and the kind of answers the movie and the novel give to Beckman’s questions is rather scary and is the truth that any person who has read the book or watched movie might not want to accept because of the apparent consequences, especially Beckman’s notion that the cold war did not actually end. In another sense the doomsday could have been symbolic in the film. By 1960s the United States and the Soviet Union had built enough armor in terms of Nucleur weapons that in the case of a war and in the situation where both nations fired all their weapons at each other, the amount of destruction would be close to what could have been caused by the doomsday machine. The director most probably created this situation to try to divert the concentration of the audience from the machine and to the fact that with or without the machine which was at that time considered non existent by many critics, the possibility of just a Nucleur war could still lead to worldwide destruction. In my opinion Dr. Strangelove is not trying to instill fear to the audience by using such extreme and scary prospects but trying to wipe out the ignorance more common with many of us concerning Nucleur weapons and the prospects of a Nucleur war.

This movie brings out some of the most important aspects of the cold war that could not have even been possible for sociologists in their analysis to provide. The degree of speculation and the creativity in trying to foresee what would happen in future provides a greater in sight in analyzing such an important issue as a Nucleur war. The movie covers many areas that were played out in the cold war from the aspects like espionage, massive armament and even gives some of the sociopolitical reasons that could have led to such a situation. The movie further attempts to answer some of the questions the were put across by Beckman and in the event show how most Americans were enjoying the comfort zone not knowing or not interested in knowing what the consequences of such an occurrence would be considering that the United States was on the direct line of attack. This film in many ways addresses the instances downplayed by the two super powers and the director fearlessly treads some dangerous territories by depicting the role played by major decision makers of the two nations. It even addresses the issue of deterrence as explained by Beckman (Pg 14)[5]. The two nations under the guise of protecting themselves form Nucleur attack armed themselves with weapons and even as the film depicts went to the point of making the doomsday machine.

Analysis of ‘Fail- Safe’ and its relation to cold war and Nucleur Strategy

Looking at another movie closely related to Dr. Strangelove by virtue of the time it hit the silver screen and by the fact that it is also about the tension that existed between the Soviet Union and United States during the cold war and how each country handled the situation more importantly in relation to Nucleur strategy. The two movies are strikingly similar in the sense that in fail safe the director also addresses the issue of American Strategic air command of maintaining military bombers armed with Nucleur weapons at strategic places around the Soviet Union, the movie derives it name from these points which are called Fail- Safe points. The director gives the audience an interesting view inside a military control center where there is a big screen showing the points from a polar view, in Dr. Strangelove the Director decides to show the audience the planes instead. However Fail Safe categorically lacks the constant satire except in a few instances. In the tow movies it is the United States that strikes first, and in all the cases it is as a result of careless mistakes. However in Dr. Strangelove, through General Ripper the director actually reveals to us some of the reasons why America is dislikes the Soviet Union. It is this for this reasons that the General orders Nucleur Bombing of the Soviet. In Fail Safe in a telephone conversation the Defense Secretary saying: “It was not part of the plan to provoke war”. This reveals a lot of things about the cold war and the Nucleur strategies of America. The Nucleur armament was a defense strategy aimed to scare off the Soviet Union rather than engage in war. In Dr. Strangelove this fact is only implied especially when the President of the U.S tries to convince the Soviet Premier that the attack was a mistake. In Fail- Safe the secretary laments that: “we are now in a technical state of war”. This shows how much America did not want to go to war. From the available historical facts outlined earlier it is clear that the cold war was just meant to “cold” and that is all. Mutual suspicion and fear led the two super powers to go to extremes by threatening each other with the worst weapon of the century; the Nucleur weapon. Fail safe further scrutinizes the American government and depicts it in a negative way especially its readiness to first sacrifice its own Ambassador to the Soviet Union and secondly to sacrifice the lives of many Americans to prevent a Nucleur war that they had been preparing themselves so much for. Fail safe ends with the sad destruction of New York City.

Comparison of the films to American Society and effects of Nuclear Strategy and the Cold War.

The films depict an American society that is insecure and is investing so much money in a war that it is not sure it can handle. It also shows a society whose pervert leaders are willing to send a man on a mission to bomb the city New York whose population is huge and includes the man’s family. Although the movie informs us a lot of information about the cold war and Nucleur strategies, they overemphasize on the negatives of the American government rather than the apparent risk presented to it by the Nucleur capacity of the Soviet Union. However in real life the American government addressed the cold war carefully and that is the reason why it did not built to an actual Nucleur war.

Conclusion

The two films provide insight to the various developments that took place during the cold war and most specifically in relation to Nucleur strategies. However the directors’ critic and the depiction of the American government is unfair considering both the Soviet and America were to blame. The essence of the cold war was the confrontation and battle of supremacy mainly between two philosophies with each of them displaying high caliber weapons and even Nucleur technology just to prove a point. Zubok M, (Pg 13) a Russian author explains that the differences between the two nations in issues such as commerce created the environment that led to the cold war. In the film Dr. Strangelove, the United States mistakenly drops a Nucleur weapon on the Soviet Union, which in turn releases the doomsday weapon aimed at destroying the whole mankind civilization. Although at that time there was no such weapon, with reference to the information available to the public the possibility of it instilled fear[6].

References

Beckman, R. 1992. Sociology and Nuclear Weapons: A view from Outside. Springer. Retrieved from www.jstor.org

Boyer, S. 1998. By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, Ohio University Press. Retrieved on 26^th April, 2009 from www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_12/Strangelove

Carnes, C. 1995. Past Imperfect, History According to the Movies, Agincourt Press.

Eldelheit, H. A. 1991. World in Turmoil: An Integrated Chronology of the Holocaust and World War II, Greenwood press.

Rollins, P. 1983. Hollywood as Historian. University Press of Kentucky.

Renaker, J. 2000. Dr.Strangelove and the Hideous Epoch.

Zubok, M. 1996. Pleshakov, K. Inside the Kremlin’s cold war: From Stalin to Khrushchev, 2^nd Edition, Harvard University Press.

[2] Eldelheit, H. A World in Turmoil: An Integrated Chronology of the Holocaust and World War II, Greenwood press, 1991.

[3] Rollins, P. 1983. Hollywood as Historian. University Press of Kentucky.

[4] Beckman, R. Sociology and Nuclear Weapons: A view from Outside. 1992

[5] Beckman, R. Sociology and Nuclear Weapons: A view from Outside. 1992

[6] Zubok, M. 1996. Pleshakov, K. Inside the Kremlin’s cold war: From Stalin to Khrushchev, 2^nd Edition, Harvard University Press.