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?