Think Global: Sub Saharan Africa

  Mali has a population of over 19 million people, including 13 national languages and dozens of different ethnic groups (The World Factbook, 2018). It is easy to assume that there is a large variety of interests and characteristics within this country, which may cause problems. Mali has been experiencing instability and conflict and the government has struggled to keep the civilians under control.   “A coup in 2012, ensuing military intervention in the north, and regular uprisings by rebel and extremist groups throughout the country have left the nation of about 19 million people vulnerable” (Reid, Kathryn, 2020). Conflict in Mali continues as violence between armed groups and state forces are rampant. After 8 years from the initial rebellion, attacks and ethnic killings are routine, with large swaths of the country still outside of government control (Al Jazeera, 2020). Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was recently forced to resign due to mass protests, alleged cor...

  In Half the Sky , Kristoff starts off by telling a story about a young girl named Rath. Rath went to Thailand with four of her other friends to work at a restaurant to help her parents pay the bills. However, the trip quickly took a turn for the worst. The job agent sold Rath and her friends to gangsters. These men treated the young girls as property, explaining that he had paid money for them and they are obligated to repay him with their services. Their job was to obey the men and serve the “customers” so that the gangsters could earn their money back. When the girls disobeyed the men or resisted the customers, the gangsters beat them and threatened to kill them until they eventually gave in. Basically, the girls were slaves to the gangsters. Slavery is described as “the state and condition of being a slave, who is someone forbidden to quit their service for another person and is treated like property. Slavery relies heavily on the enslaved person being intimidated either by th...

       For this week’s class we had to watch the TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story , by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie introduces her talk by telling the audience that she is going to tell a few personal stories. She wants the audience to view her as a storyteller so that they can prepare themselves to be able to better visualize the details and information she is about to give in a story-format. Most of her pieces of writing were made from her imagination, they didn’t necessarily mimic her real life experiences, so this method allowed her audience to also use their imagination. She started the TED talk by explaining her background and where she is from, which is Nigeria. She then goes more into detail about how her writing was made from her imagination, which were about white kids with blue eyes playing in the snow, eating apples, and talking about weather changes. Since she was from Nigeria, she never actually experienced cold weather o...

       In the two readings assigned in class, two humanitarians were discussed, Florence Nightingale and Henry Dunant. Although they sometimes worked together, they had a difference of opinion when it came to the issue of humanitarian aid and what should be done for it. Henry Dunant believed that it is a person’s responsibility to help no matter what the circumstances are. He believes it is the right thing to do and that we should give back. Dunant has stood by the phrase “Tutti Fratelli” which means “we are all brothers”, this shows his mindset in believing it is our duty to help. He has stood by this motto throughout his entire humanitarian aid campaign and it was a daily reminder of why he was doing what he was doing, and it kept him going. However, Florence Nightingale believed that if aid fails in its purpose, the warring parties will use that aid to their advantage (Polman). Dunant eventually formed the Red Cross with the help of others. He was inspired by sold...

       Nationalism is described as a ‘patriotic feeling’. It is expressive pride in one’s nation, identification with one’s nation, and support for the nation’s interests. Nationalism, however, can result in the exclusion of minorities because it gives more importance to unity by way of a cultural background (slide 10). For nationalism to exist, common interests and characteristics must also exist. Mali has a population of over 19 million people, including 13 national languages and dozens of different ethnic groups (The World Factbook, 2018). It is easy to assume that there is a large variety of interests and characteristics within this country, which may cause problems. Zakaria mentions in The Post American World , that unifying divergent ideas and interests are a difficult task. He wrote that “the world is moving from anger to indifference” and “it raises the political conundrum of how to achieve international objectives in a world of many actors, state and nonstat...