Election Day

So today is Election Day-- AAHH! Who will win? 

My parents went out to the nearby church in plan to vote. When they arrived, they never had a chance to hear that they weren't allowed to talk, so of course they did, and the man went up to them and told them they couldn't. afterwards, they obeyed the rules and carried on their voting process without talking. Then, as they were about to put it in the ballot box, they were stopped by the man who explained that their vote would be taken into questioning based on what happened earlier. My parents found this very peculiar. Peculiar enough, in fact, that they went to a government building in downtown Linn County to report what happened. While they were there they met a woman who they explained the situation to. She burst into tears and told them that this was unfair, because she and her son were talking the whole time and nothing happened to them. This was when my parents definitely knew something was up. They told the govt official who said there was not much they could do so at this point the vote might be counted or not. As a family we were all upset and we knew exactly the reason why that man took my parents to vote. It was because of our background and he knew exactly who my parents were votig for. 

It's quite saddening knowing hardships like these still exist. When things like these happen, we are often snapped into the reality that America is far from a democracy when specific peoples' voting rights are not counted, all because of their background. 

Learning a new language

Learning new languages are extremely beneficial when it comes to travelling, your social life, your knowledge, and your future career. Languages open doors to new opportunities and experiences. These are one of the many reasons why we should all learn (and stick with) a new language.
Unfortunately, most of us are American, and with being an American teenager, you should know that the American education system is flawed in many ways, one of them being the lack of teaching languages at an early age.
The problem with teaching languages at the age they begin to teach us (AKA freshmen year in our district) is that our brains have become too developed to pick up a language easily, and it will take us many more years than it would have to learn the language and even become fluent in it. Four years of language in high school is simply not enough to become fluent in a language. It takes many, many years and quite a bit of dedication. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
Recently, I've become very interested in learning many languages, however a language I am most interested in is Arabic. I really wanted to take a class, but was unable to because the school I currently attend doesn't teach it. So I figured since I already have a lot of background knowledge in the language because of growing up with our mosque's sunday school, speaking a dialect of Arabic, and currently living with an exchange student who's native language is Arabic. I decided to take up the language myself. I've been doing this by using many websites that will teach you Arabic, asking parents and my exchange sister for help, conversing with native speakers via my mosque and the internet, and watching movies, listening to music, and reading in Arabic. I must definitely admit, learning a language is very tough but very rewarding. I feel as though I am learning new things everyday and I like to think about where I will end up in a year. Of course, learning a language on my own is certainly more difficult than taking an hour everyday class with an educated teacher for help, but learning on my own does have it's benefits.
I encourage all of you to take up a language. There are many great sites online to learn just about any language-- even wacky ones like Flemish, Belarusian, and Azeri. Who even knew those were languages? Even getting better at the language you are learning currently, such as Chinese, Spanish, German, or Russian, you can find good sources online to aid you in your quest to unlocking the world of a new language, just find them!
Almost the rest of the world outside America speak two or more languages, so why aren't we?

Paradise Now: Movie Review

Over the weekend, I was able to make the time to watch this movie, Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, which is currently on Youtube. Paradise Now is a movie about two Palestinian freedom fighters who will defend their country to the grave, which is exactly what they decide to do.

Within their group of men who specialize in acts of terror against Israelis, they both volunteer to be suicide bombers, without telling their family. 

Said, one of the two suicide bombers, tends to be a very serious man with a very loving family, a beautiful mysterious new girl in town that he takes an interest in, and a humiliating past that he feels he needs to make up for. He does this by volunteering to become a suicide bomber. His friend, Khaled is filled with more humor than Said, and tends to be very impulsive. But who wouldn't if they decided to become an actual suicide bomber? 

Anywho, when the time comes, their plan goes horribly wrong, and they are almost caught by the Israeli police. Khaled and Said run off, separating themselves from each other. Khaled finds the group he was previously with while Said strays off and loses them after they frantically decide they have to leave to find Said. And so it goes for almost the rest of the movie Said going from place to place trying to find his group while his group is trying to find him, all the while he has a bomb attached around his chest. 

Abu-Assad described the film along the lines of something like this: "The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue. The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing." I completely agreed with this description, because in reality, this issue it quite possibly a very messy one, and most of us have firm views on it, when in reality the opinions we hold on the conflict are much more complicated than we would assume, whether we believe in peace, or one country or the other needing to defend itself, and we must take into account the human stance on it rather than the political. 

I also really liked this movie because it was not necessarily on one side or the other, but it merely gave a fictional insight on the life of someone who had to go through this problem and want so desperately to fight for what they believed in. I would give this film a 4.5/5, because it was a good portrayal of the inside life, and the ending shocked me to where I was thinking about it for days afterwards. 

How to be self confident

"How is this blog post related to human rights?" you may ask. Good question. Well to be an activist you must speak out for things you are passionate about without the fear of letting others bring you down. But more importantly, being a teenager in a high school where you often feel like you don't belong, can often be detrimental to your well-being, so many will often try to change themselves for the hope that things will be better for themselves. This is wrong, but embracing who you are is definitely easier said than done.
First and foremost, fake it until you make it. Look in the mirror every morning and tell yourself; "Damn. I look good today" even if it may not be true.

The Tunisian Revolution and how it ignited the Arab Revolution

In 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi was selling fruits in the small town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. He was a breadwinner for his widowed mother and six siblings. The problem was, he didn’t have a permit to sell his goods. When the police asked him to stop what he was doing, he refused and was then beaten in public. As a result of this public humiliation he marched to the government building and set himself on fire. The Arab Spring began in Sidi Bouzid and spread all across the country of Tunisia. Civilians across Tunisia protested for the fall of President Zine Al Abidine and his regime, who ruled for 23 years. The Tunisian revolution ignited the protest of many other Middle Eastern nations who wanted a fair democracy and for the fall of their current governments regime.

Tunisia had been seen as the Arab world’s best educational system, largest middle class, and strongest organized labor movement, so it seemed unlikely that they would have to be dealing with these social and economic injustices. Primoz Manfreda states, “In an almost Orwellian way, he cultivated and manipulated the country's international image as a modern, technocratic regime and a tourist-friendly travel destination.” Their government was thought to be very limiting and restricting on free expression and political parties, which obviously angered Tunisian civilians. Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, president of Tunisia, shaped the world into believing Tunisia was a modern day, tourist friendly nation, however beyond the tourist destinations, lay bleak roads to miserable prospects. To further anger civilians, it was revealed from wikileaks that over half of Tunisia’s commercial elites were related to Ben Ali. After mass protests and uprisings, Ben Ali and his family fled the country. This ended the mass revolution and Ben Ali and his family are now in exile in Tunisia.

For now, the situation in Tunisia isn't necessarily over, but has only gotten better. Progress is being made, but the goal of the revolution has not been fulfilled yet. Nonetheless, the Tunisian Revolution was definitely one that made history and changed the country for the better.

The Execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari

Reyhaneh Jabbari spent 5 years on death row and was executed Saturday, October 25th after she was found guilty of killing a man in self defense who tried to rape her. Despite international campaigns and outcries to spare the life of her death, Iran ignored these pleas and went on with the execution. 

In 2007, Jabbari met a man named Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi, a 47 year old intelligence ministry worker. They met in a cafe to discuss a business deal for her to help redesign his office since she had been an interior designer. He convinced her to come to his apartment and while there, he had tried to rape her. To defend herself, she grabbed a pocket knife and stabbed him in the back. Sarbandi's family however, insisted it was premeditated murder since she bought the knife only 2 days ago.
Jabbari was arrested and put into solitary confinement where she was not allowed access to her lawyer or family and in 2009 it was decided she should be executed by the Tehran court. She claimed she had only stabbed him and someone else in the house killed him, however this was proven to be untrue later on.
Amnesty International, United Nations, European Union, and the Gatestone Institute contended for her life to be spared, and a global campaign postponed her original date of execution of April 14th 2014 to later on when it attracted 20,000 signatures. However on September 29th, it was announced that her execution was inevitable but would be halted for the time being. Campaigns were launched on social media and many humanitarian groups demanded that the victim's family take back their wish to execute her. Jabbari's family was never able to get a reprieve from Sarbandi's family so the plans for execution continued. Unfortunately, this past Saturday, Reyhaneh Jabbari was executed by hanging at dawn at the Gohardasht Prison, north of Karaj.
After her death, a recording she made for her mother before she died was revealed and it ensured she wanted to be an anonymous organ donor.

This event was an example of the flawed justice system in Iran. Instead of further investigating the case, she was put on death sentence from the request of the family of the victim.
Personally, I believe that it is not the best idea to put the decision in the victim's family, because when someone close has done such a thing, someone would rather not believe it and try to find an explanation in any possible way, therefore laying the blame on the other side. This side being Reyhaneh Jabbari killing for her self defense.

Arguing is tiring

Today, I was apart of three arguments. One took place this morning in pre-calc when the girl in front of me, was explaining to me that she supported Israel and Jews should have a right to their holy land, another was during SMART Lunch, when in AP Physics, a very conservative Christian was trying to explain to me that abortion is not okay under any circumstances, even when it risks the mother's life. And then yet another in German, when we were again-- arguing about abortion.
When I start talking about something I'm very opinionated on, I go off on a tangent, and my mouth becomes an engine going at it until it runs out of gas. However, a lot of the time, I become exhausted on arguing about the same things, and sometimes I just want take a long nap until my face isn't so red from the anger and my heartbeat has slowed down.
I think I will do that actually.