Cultural Imperialism : A curse or a blessing? (7th entry)

African cardinals denounce "cultural imperialism"
(AP) – Oct 14, 2009

VATICAN CITY — African cardinals denounced the "cultural imperialism" of wealthy countries in their aid, trade and health care policies for Africa, saying Wednesday that the West's promotion of abortion rights and condoms is destroying the continent's moral fabric.

African prelates attending the three-week meeting on the role of the Catholic Church in Africa said their countries needed economic development partnerships that are based on trust and fairness, not ones that exploit Africa's natural resources and put conditions on aid.

"We want to be helped, but helped in the name of truth, with respect of what we are and what we want for ourselves," Cardinal Theodore-Adrien Sarr of Dakar, Senegal, told a news conference.

He and Cardinal Wilfred Fox Napier of Durban, South Africa, denounced "hidden" agendas of international aid groups and countries that promote abortion rights and condoms to fight HIV, saying the West was trying to impose its views on Africa.

Their arguments have been echoed during the synod, with repeated criticisms of institutions that promote "reproductive health care" for women. The Vatican has warned that such programs — often supported by the United Nations — are really just a cover for promoting access to abortions and birth control.

The Vatican opposes abortion and artificial contraception. It has come under heavy criticism for its opposition to condoms as a way of fighting HIV, particularly in hard-hit Africa.

"There are certain cultural norms that are inherent in Africa," Napier said. "One of them is that sexual activity is for bringing babies into the world. It's not so much for enjoyment."

But he said the "cultural imperialism" imported from the West "is saying 'no, it's for enjoyment, and pregnancy is almost a disease.'"

Napier also cited the practice by some aid groups of conditioning their aid with terms that are unacceptable to the Catholic Church, such as requiring a part of funding for anti-HIV programs to be set aside for condom purchases.

"Western populations think that their life is the model for everybody, but it's not the case," Sarr said. "If they have some ideas, they can put forward these ideas, but these shouldn't be imposed on all the populations in the world."

(article taken from : http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jpI1bL-AIzW8aIF-W_AKrb7pop6wD9BB0J3O0 )

The most basic definition of cultural imperialism is the imposition of a foreign viewpoint or civilization on a people. When we think of cutural imperialism, it generally carries a negative connotation and most people would assume it to be a bad thing.

In this case, it is evident that the African cardinals are not open to the ideas that the West are trying to impose on them and obviously are very against cultural imperialism because they feel that the practices that the West are trying to impose on them are in direct conflict with the values and beliefs of their own communities.

The issue which the cardinals are unhappy about is the fact that the West seems to be providing "conditional" aid to the country. In other words, "Do what we say or we are not helping you." In this instance, the cardinals have every right to be upset. When the richer and more powerful countries offer to help Africa because of their dire situation, there should not be any hidden agendas or conditions attached to the aid. That would be considered exploiting their position of power just because they are in a better position as opposed to Africa.

However, I do not agree with all the complaints that the cardinals have against the West. They are unhappy with "international aid groups and countries that promote abortion rights and condoms to fight HIV." While this might be in direct conflict with the countries own beliefs and practices, one also has to consider the how serious the battle against HIV is against Africa. It is obvious that not enough care and precaution is being taken in order to try to stop the spread of HIV.

In cases like these, I do feel that sometimes, cultural imperialism might be considered a good thing. Taking a page out of the West's books will do Africa no harm, only good, at least in this context. If no other effective alternative methods are offered in ordered to combat HIV, I think that hte cardinals should be open to accepting and adopting at least some of the methods which the West uses. For instance, abortion might be too much in conflict with the church's stand. However, when it comes to issues such as the use of condoms, although promoting it goes against the teachings of the church, if it is potentially going to save a countless number of lives, I think that maybe it might be time for them to re-evauate their stand.

While there are definitely many instances when cultural imperialism is a bad thing, I think it is important to realise that sometimes, adopting practices from a different culture or community could prove to be vital in order to advance one's own community or country. Maintaining one's own culture is important, but sometimes, holding on to it too tightly even though there is little reason to hold on those practices in today's society might prove to be rather impractical.

Sexism (6th entry)

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6849600.ece#


The above URL is a link to an article titled "It's time to challenge casual sexism". This article really caught my attention because I do believe that casual sexism is one of those problems in today's society which is not being addressed. Women have to deal with this on a daily basis, be it in the form of television commercials, magazines and even the kind of treatment they receive at the office.

In the past, women had to put up with sexism because they did not have much power or say in the kind of treatment they received. Essentially, women were living in a man's world, and they had to adhere to the framework that meb built for them to live by. What is incomprehensible is how sexism still exists in today's day and age. The modern working woman is supposed to represent power, authority, independence and inner strength. Why then, do we allow ourselves to be subjugated to casual sexism.

"Does casual sexism matter any more? Aren’t we all too cool and liberated to care? It is always crass and reductive to draw up cause and effect. But there are certain things that make you wonder. When Britain, with just 19.7 per cent women MPs, is 51st among democratic nations for female representation — not just below the groovy progressive Scandinavians but Bulgaria, Latvia, Eritrea and, for goodness’ sake, Pakistan — you have to ask if the stench of misogyny deters good women from standing, or insinuates to those who might select them that really they have no place being there." (paragraph taken from the article)

I think the author raises a very important and valid point in the article. "Are we too cool to care?" Could it possibly be because of the this environment and culture that we grew up in. Many women do not want to be labelled feminists. To majority of our society, the term 'feminists' does not carry very positive connotation. Many women are afraid to point out casual sexists acts because they are afraid of being labelled feminists. Why this fear? It is once again because of this culture that we have created for ourselves. Essentially, as much as many of us hate to admit it, the world today is still pretty much a man's world. Cultures are our "templates for living" and by adhering to this particular template women are not doing themselves any favours.

"There is no point making an official protest about a sexist advertisement: a friend who complained to ASA that a huge, soft-porn hoarding advertising a lap dancing club opposite a sixth form college degraded women was outraged by the judgment that “in the context of an ad for a table-dancing club, the image was unlikely to be seen as unduly explicit or overly provocative.” So that’s OK, then!

Somewhere in the free-market driven moral relativism of the past decade, we have lost the ability to say, without fear of being called uptight or fun-sucking, that selling sex on the high street, raunchy outfits for toddlers or scabrous attacks on female public figures based upon their looks just ain’t right."

Do we really want our own children to be exposed to this kind of culture growing up? I highly doubt so. In comms class, we learnt that culture represents our understanding of what is true and that it involves the programming of the mind. Once certain patterns of thinking and mindsets have been established within a person's mind, he or she must unlearn these before being able to learn something different. I think the only way to tackle this problem is to teach the general community to have a little more respect for women and correct the views and perceptions that they currently hold.

Groupthink. A good thing or a bad thing? (5th entry)

Groupthink.
The cartoon illustration above gives you an idea as to what group think refers to. Irving Jarvis defines groupthink as "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action"

http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjllYjUxNjdmNTI2NjVjOThhZTM1ZDBhMWJhMTE1ZGM=#

The URL above is a link to an article which lists the 8 symptoms of groupthink.
They are basically:
1) Illusion of invulnerability
2) Believe in group's own morality
3) Shared stereotypes
4) Collective rationalisation
5) Self censorship
6) Illusion of unanimity
7) Pressure on dissenters
8) Mind-guards

There are loads of examples and situations where groupthink exists.

http://www.squidoo.com/group_think

The link above provides a few examples of groupthink. I think the thing that is most interesting about this particular write up is that the author seemed to equate groupthink to intellectual laziness. While I do not think that groupthink can ALWAYS be equated to intellectualy laziness, it definitely does hold some truth when one is talking about groupthink in terms of everyday life in the social context. The write-up talks about a mini experiment carried out to prove the existence of groupthink.

"The experiment is very simple. A group of 10 college students were recruited to perform a taste test on a new yogurt. They were asked to determine the new flavor of this yogurt. However, unknown to the test subject, 9 of the 10 students are part of the experiment. They were told to repeat a predetermined response when asked about the taste. Only the one test subject was the actual unknown. When given the yogurt to taste, each was asked to give their impressions. The test subject was to go last.
The yogurt given was strawberry flavored (but not made known to the test subject).

After hearing the responses of the other 9 subjects claiming to taste vanilla instead of Strawberry, the test subject in 8 out of 10 cases went with the majority and said he tasted vanilla instead of saying it is strawberry. When repeated with many subjects, only about 20% of the subjects stuck to their guns."

In these sort of scenarios, groupthink does show a sense of intellectual laziness, but the effects of adhering to group think is generally harmless. However, there are instances when groupthink can prove to be very harmful and dangerous. One of these instances would be when religious extremists adhere to the groupthink phenomenon. Take Islamic terrorists as an example. The illusion of invulnerability makes them fearless and the belief in the group's own morallity, their shared stereotypes and their collective rationalisation not only makes them feel more bonded, but it also somewhat validates their views and the actions that they feel are necessary in order to support their cause. In other words, it only servers to encourage the use of violence to get their message across.

Groupthink does not always have to necessarily have to be considered a bad thing. However, the members of the group have to be open to alternative decisions and raviews and they should always be aware of the spymptoms of groupthink, and there should always be a devil's advocate in order to provide alternatives perspectives for the group.

Teen Dating Abuse (4th Entry)

Teen Dating Abuse. I think this is something that severely needs way more attention than it receives. We think that abusive relationships are one of those things that does not affect us directly. A survey conducted at the end of last year showed that more than half of young Singaporeans aged 16 to 30 had not heard of the concept of dating violence.The horrifying thing is that this problem hits much closer to home than one would think. Even if you have personally not experienced any form of abuse, chances are than many of your peers around you have suffered from it at one point of time or another. Experts say that abuse in relationships in Singapore usually goes unreported, and that many victims remain trapped in a violent relationship because they lack the courage to walk away or worse still, are unaware that they are victims of dating violence.

http://news.sc/2009/09/29/facts-about-teen-dating-abuse/
(article dated Sept 29 2009)

The article above basically talks about abuse in teenage relationships, what it stems from, and the different types of abuse that exist. What struck me most about this article was the fact that it highlighted the fact that abuse does not merely adress physical abuse, but emotional and phychological abuse as well. I think that when people talk about abuse, most of the time, they assume that it has to be physical abuse, and that if it is not, then it probably should not even be considered abuse. Assumptions like those are wrong, as well as very dangerous. Many victims who being abused emotionally and psychologically do not even realise the situation they are stuck in until it is too late.

According to ACADV, Teen dating violence often is hidden because teenagers typically:

- are inexperienced with dating relationships.
- are pressured by peers to act violently.
- want independence from parents.
- have "romantic" views of love.

They also state that teen dating abuse is mostly the result of how teenagers view themselves and the people around them.

Young men may believe that:
- they have the right to "control" their female partners in any way necessary.
- "masculinity" is physical aggressiveness
- they "possess" their partner.
- they should demand intimacy.
- they may lose respect if they are attentive and supportive toward their
girlfriends.

Young women may believe that:
- they are responsible for solving problems in their relationships
- their boyfriend's jealousy, possessiveness and even physical abuse, is "romantic."
- abuse is "normal" because their friends are also being abused.
- there is no one to ask for help.

I am not saying that ALL boys carry these ridiculous notions, but it is relatively safe to say that most male abusers abuse their girlfriends/wives in order to establish a sense of control.

While I am very thankful that none of my friends or people close to me have been caught in physically abusive relationships, I do have a number of friends that have been caught in emotionally or phychologically abusive ones(myself included). Emnotional blackmail, the need to make someone feel small and insignificant in order to make oneself feel better and issuing threats of inflicting self-harm if the if the other party fails to comply with his/her demands all constititute forms of abuse. Alot of the time, it is easy for us to forget that the phychological and emotional scars we carry can be just as damaging, or if not more damaging, that the physical ones.

I think the only way to help girls stuck in abusive relationships to get out of it is to ensure that they have a proper support group or a circle of people they can trust in order to give them the courage and strength to leave. However, we all know that prevention is always better a cure. Instead of waiting for girls to get into unhealthy relationships before trying to get them out of it, we should aim to make sure that they do not get into these unhealthy relationships in the first place. It is also the duty of society and schools to educate children from a young age on what constititues abuse and how to deal with it, and more importantly, teach them the importance of establishing healthy relationships in the first place.

So what are your views on teen dating abuse? Do you know anyone who has suffered from it?

Non-verbal Communication (3rd Entry)

Finally, I get to blog about one of my favourite topics:

Non-verbal communication.

Why do I think non-verbal communication is such an interesting topic?

I think it's one of those things that are so crucial to our everyday lives but at the same time it's one of those things which we so use so frequently everyday that we begin to take it for granted. Most of us fail to see how essential this form of communication is to our everyday lives. Mostly of the time, we are probably unaware of the instances where we decide to communicate non-verbally.


Take the Baby Blues cartoon strip from this Saturday's Life section as an example.
The slamming of the door, kicking his shoes off (and creating a big ruckus in the process) and burping, were all Hammie's ways of communicating (non-verbally) with everyone else in the house to let them know that he had come home. Non-verbal ques such as Hammie's burp are examples of paralinguistics while body language such as the slamming of doors are examples of kinesics. These are all very simple actions, ones that we too probabably use everyday, and yet it serves to convey the desired message to the receiver, who then attaches a meaning to these non-verbal cues.

I think that the most amazing thing about non-verbal cues is how sometimes, the right ques are able to effectively convey not only messages, but strong emotions as well.


(i know this short film is almost 6mins long but DO watch it if you have the time I ASSURE you that you will not regret it!)

"Signs", one of the 2009 Cannes Lions winners, is a very simple and short film about communication. It is a silent film, so it essentially has to rely on mostly non-verbal actions and cues to connect with the audience. The director Patrick Hughes does a brilliant job in capturing emotions on film, making this simple short film so powerful. He makes use of almost all the types of non-verbal communication we covered in class last week. He makes use of kinesics, oculesics, paralinguistics, proxemics as well as physical appearances. We feel his loneliness at the beginning of the film, we feel his growing excitement as he begins to communicate more with the girl in the next building and when they begin the establish a connection, we feel his disappointment and sadness when he thinks he's lost her, and we feel his relief when he realises that that he has not lost her after all. At the end of the film, I think everyone goes "AWW..." and walks away feeling like the world is a better place with love in it. now THAT'S what you call effective communication.



"orange adultery"
(HAHAHA this one is one of my personal favorites)

The image above shows a series of photos which, when put together, tell a story.
(it might take you guys some time to make sense of the pics but I HOPE YOU EVENTUALLY DO HAHA)
I think this is a very good example (as well as a creative and non-conventional one) of non-verbal communication.
The inanimate objects (the fruits) take on specific roles as people. And the photographer gives them faces. It is through the time sequence that the series of photographs creates (chronemics) as well as the use of facial expressions and the use of space and distance (proxemics) that create a story out of the six pictures.


p.s. Feel free to share your views on the short film/comic strip/photo collage.
Do you think non-verbal communication is important in today's context?

Verbal Communication (2nd Entry)

(Article taken from the The Straits Times on Saturday, 19 Sept 2009)


The above article "Language won't be barrier at YOG" talks about how technological advancement is going to play a major role in breaking down language barriers in next year's Youth Olympic Games. Singtel has given us a glimpse of a unique multimedia service which is going to help althletes who speak different languages to communicate with each other. Aside from that, SingTel also plans to have a one-stop online portal where content from social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, Flickr and YouTube will be intergrated.

In COM 101 class this week, we took a look at verbal communication and the importance of verbal communication in today's context. Language is an essential part of verbal communication as it is a vessel for meaning and a primary tool for direct communication. Verbal communication allows us an avenue to convey our ideas, opinions, emotions and feelings.

However, we live in a world which promotes a huge array of languages. While speaking our own native languages in our own countries will not hamper our interaction with the people around us, it obviously acts as a huge barrier when communicating with people who do not speak the same language.

Competitions such as the YOG act as an international platform for young athletes all over the world to come together because of their love and passion for sports. It would be a real shame if these people, who had so much in common, were unable to communicate with each other and share their own personal experience because of the language barrier.

This particular article caught my attention because it serves to remind us how the advancement in technology has truly gone a long way in expanding our horizons and opening new doors and worlds to us. In the past, our knowledge of cultures and societies outside our own were very limited. Now, with the growth of technology and new media, we have everything at the tip of our fingers. The language barrier no longer poses a major obstacle for communicating with people who live on the opposite ends of the world.

HI EVERYONE (:

Hi everyone!

This is going to be my communications blog for the rest of the sem.
PLEASE feel free to comment/rebutt any topic/issues raised here.
Your constructive criticism will be very much appreciated!


Love,
Alicia

Are our expectations of our beauty queens too high or are our standards really slipping? (1ST ENTRY)

http://blogtv.channelnewsasia.com/missed/id_MDC090911-0000020.aspx
This is a link to a blog tv episode where the issue of whether singaporeans expect too much out of their beauty queens
(I would post the video here but there seems to be something wrong with the embedding code)



I think most of us would have heard about the so-called "controversy" surrounding this year's Miss Singapore World winner Ris Low. She has been slammed constantly and mocked mercilessly by the local media for her poor command of English. I think the reason for the harsh criticism she has been receiving from the general public is due to the fact that the general public is very particular about hte kind of image Singapore projects of itself as a nation. And these people are also very aware of the fact that the winner of the pageant, who will go on to compete in the Miss World competition, will be representing us as a nation on an international level.

Despite the treatment that she has been receiving from the general public and the local media, a significant number of people have stepped forward to defend Ris as well. They were quick to highlight the fact that she joined a beauty pageant, and that she did not deserve to be scrutinized by the public at this level.

While that may be true, the fact still remains that she will be representing Singapore at an international level. It is especially important for a nation like ours to be very selective in the candidate we choose to enter into competitions such as these. There are a very large number of people all over the world who generally unaware of the fact that Singapore exists. And to add insult to injury there are some who still carry the misconception that Singapore is part of China.

This makes it even more crucial for us to make sure that whoever we send out to represent us is someone that represents us as a whole. It is true that yes, she did enter a beauty competition, and therefore, she should only be judged based on her looks. However, in this case, looks, poise, speech and personality all come into play as well. Personally, I do not think that Singaporeans are being overly critical of this year's winner. If you look at this whole situation objectively, the whole reason that beauty pageants have the segment where the contestants have to answer impromtu questions is to ensure that the winner is not only beautiful, but relatively intelligent as well.

So what does all of this have to do with what we have been doing in COM 101 class over the past week? And what does this have to do with the Blog Tv link that I provided at the beginning of my entry?

Perceptions.

In the Blog Tv video, we get to see the perspectives of three different people addressing the same issue. All of them come from different backgrounds, and have been through different experiences, which has ultimately shaped their perception of what a beauty queen should be and what qualities and traits she should possess.

I do feel sorry for the poor girl who is getting trashed by the media now. But as we all know by now, the media is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. While it has proven to be a very useful tool to most of us, we are all very aware of the fact that the media can be vicious and ruthless towards specefic individuals when the opportunity arises.