Parents as Educators Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Parents as Educators - Essay Example This paper investigates that anyone who plans a career in the field of young children’s education must have a clear understanding of the value of play because this is an important medium through which children learn about the world. Children are vulnerable to many dangers in childhood, and it is important for me to identify the needs of any child in my care and work in collaboration with others to ensure that each child has the best possible start in life. I feel that it is essential to work alongside parents and carers, supporting them in their own individual approaches to childcare. School and playgroup environments can provide some additional support, but there is nothing that can fully replace the family based bonding and relationships that help a child to become socialised in the world.This research stresses that  children grow up within a family and the family in turn is located within a whole social environment consisting of the wider family members, the neighbours, a nd various other known persons and strangers. Imaginative engagement by a caregiver is an important way of passing on cultural values and instructions on how the child should fit in with his or her local social environment.   One international study compared for example American Irish and Taiwanese families, and noted that there are some universal features, relating to developmental milestones for the child, and some variable features related to the culture of the family group in the way that caregivers initiate and support play with young children.... hool and playgroup environments can provide some additional support, but there is nothing that can fully replace the family based bonding and relationships that help a child to become socialised in the world. One aspect that I have reflected on is the need to be aware of different cultural contexts and to learn about varieties of play that may be preferred on different social and cultural groups. Some parents may be very achievement oriented, and they may be more or less child centred in their family environment, while others prefer passive storytelling activities, for example. II think it is part of my role to help families extend their repertoire so that parents and children both gain from productive kinds of play. Why family engagement supports early child development and learning Children grow up within a family and the family in turn is located within a whole social environment consisting of the wider family members, the neighbours, and various other known persons and strangers. Imaginative engagement by a caregiver is an important way of passing on cultural values and instructions on how the child should fit in with his or her local social environment. One international study compared for example American Irish and Taiwanese families, and noted that there are some universal features, relating to developmental milestones for the child, and some variable features related to the culture of the family group in the way that caregivers initiate and support play with young children (Haight et al., 1999). Similarly Farver and Howes (1993) found that there are differences between Mexican and American mothers’ strategies in guiding their children’s play, and this suggest that wider social norms are an important factor, as well as individual differences in each

The role of the media within the British political system Essay

The role of the media within the British political system - Essay Example There is a relationship between mass media and society as there is the view that the media are part of democracy since they are themselves a 'free' institution. The media assist the working of a democratic system through facilitating free speech and unrestricted public debate. However, some who believe that the media are anti-democratic argues this with their power to manipulate the way people think about politics. With these two notions in mind, I think that this demonstrates the overall power of the mass media, since they can either set people's minds against the political system or help to generate popular support for it. The mass media refers to all those forms of communication where large numbers of people are exposed to an identical message. The mass media provide the ideas and images, which help most people to understand the world they live in and their place in that world. (Coxall 2003, 1-22). Along with politicians, the public, parties and other organizations, the media play a crucial role in structuring and widening political debate in Britain so that issues such as environment, law and order, or the state of the public services receive attention and are addressed by the government. Television programmes have to compete with each other in order to gain more viewers and readers. They therefore have to make their programmes more attractive to the viewer so there is usually a tendency to make the news more attractive by treating it as entertainment rather than serious news. This may explain why some newspapers are bought more than others because the popular papers provide the public with what they want to read. In terms of a free market, these papers will thrive, while unpopular and unread papers will struggle, with perhaps valid information regarding... Television programs have to compete with each other in order to gain more viewers and readers. They, therefore, have to make their programs more attractive to the viewer so there is usually a tendency to make the news more attractive by treating it as entertainment rather than serious news. This may explain why some newspapers are bought more than others because the popular papers provide the public with what they want to read. In terms of a free market, these papers will thrive, while unpopular and unread papers will struggle, with perhaps valid information regarding communities going unread. Newspapers can be helpful, 'Children achieve more success in early reading skills if they have experience with books and other print media and were read to as preschoolers.' (Comstock, 1991). In England, we value the freedom of the press. The press is the one place where most people go to get educated on issues facing their community, city and most of all their country. Everyone knows that the media plays a major role in people's lives; however, their role of gatekeeper is not completely understood. The press decides which issues to report and how to report them. In order to improve the society and country we live in, I think that the media should present their unbiased findings to allow people to make up their own minds. However, this is not the case. The media often shows it bias. Their widespread exposure enables them to communicate their ideas to the public, regardless of the public's responsiveness.

19th Century Colonialism and Racism

19th Century Colonialism and Racism Colonialism and Racism in the 19th Century Throughout much of the 19th century, European powers used their financial wealth and technological advancements to colonize much of Asia and almost the entire continent of Africa. Oftentimes the motivations were national pride and the acquisition of natural resources, but there was another very potent impetus behind Western imperialism in the 19th century: racism. At a time when Charles Darwin had just recently revealed his theory of evolution, and much of the previously unchartered territory of the world was becoming known, the European powers felt themselves to be the superior race, because they believed they were the most civilized, or because they had the most advanced technology. This idea, known as social Darwinism, takes the natural theory of evolution and applies it to human races, positing that the societies and races that are â€Å"superior† than others are more â€Å"fit† to exist and survive, and therefore they make take advantage of and exploit the other, i nferior peoples who are not as â€Å"fit† to survive. With this idea in mind, many Western powers sent troops and resources around to globe to set up colonies and imperialize other nations, often with no regard for the indigenous people. Although this massive wave of colonialism in the 19th century was driven by desire for material wealth and national pride, racism also played a significant role. In George Orwells Burmese Days, he chronicles the daily life of a British gentlemans club in upcountry Burma, part of the British colony of India. His account gives a very telling indication of how the British citizens viewed the local citizens of Burma, and it reveals the racism that was at the heart of the imperial system. When the club is discussing the suggestion to allow a Burmese man to join, the Secretary of the club says, â€Å"Hes asking us to break all our rules and take a dear little nigger-boy into this Club†¦That would be a treat wouldnt it? Little pot-bellied niggers breathing garlic in your face over the bridge-table. Christ, to think of it!† (Reilly, 285). The use of a derogatory racial slur clearly demonstrates the way the British gentlemen thought of the locals, clearly as inferior people. The use of the term â€Å"nigger† has long been associated with people of African descent, but here the British Club secretary uses it to refer to the local Bu rmese citizens, an obvious indication of racial hate and insult. Their hatred and racism go so far that one member of the club, a local company manager, says â€Å"Ill die in a ditch before Ill see a nigger in here† (Reilly, 286). The continuous use of racial slurs and insulting remarks indicate that the British members of the club were all highly racist towards the local people, a factor which definitely influenced the British colonization of India, and the treatment of the indigenous peoples. In a similar portrayal of life inside an imperialized nation, Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness takes a close look at a steamboat journey deep into the heart of the Congo, the captain of which was a white man. The first signs of racism come out when he refers to the African people on his boat as â€Å"cannibals†, implying that they were savage and uncivilized, although there is no other evidence that these people were in fact cannibals. These basic false assumptions are often seen in stories of imperial racism; White colonists are always quick to judge the local people as brutal savages without actually taking the time to understand their culture. However, the ship captains racism goes far deeper than that, when he comments â€Å"the men were†¦No they were no inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you was just t he thought of their humanity—like yours† (Reilly, 296). His pain at realizing that he was connected to these people, through a common humanity, hurts him because they appear so wild and savage to him that he would prefer to believe they were not human, but rather animals or beasts. His European heritage makes him regard himself as superior than the local Africans, and in turn he sees them through racist eyes, another important factor in the Western colonization of Africa. Both these excerpts of colonial life in the 19th century demonstrate that the Westerners almost always considered themselves superior to the local citizens. The European powers had convinced themselves that because they had the power and resources to create global empires, they were somehow inherently better than the people they were conquering, and this all too often lead to the exploitation and degradation of indigenous peoples around the globe. Another example of the conflict between two cultures is shown in the case of Ida Pruitt, in the book Chinas American Daughter by Marjorie King. Growing up in an American family working as missionaries in a small town in China, Ida experiences both the local Chinese culture around her and the American ways of her Christian missionary mother, who resents many things about China. As her mother constantly tried to convert Chinese people into Christians, Ida witnessed the harmful effects of such colonial interactions. King writes that â€Å"As Ida became aware of the differences between the Chinese and the Christian missionary cultures, she resented Christianitys intrusion in the Chinese culture† (King, 17). Even as a young girl, Ida is able to understand that the Western forces (her mother) are attempting to insert their own ways of life, religion, and culture into the Chinese culture because she regards them as inferior. The religious component of this is especially powerful, as many forms of Christianity believe that it is their responsibility and duty to spread their religion and convert as many people as possible, regardless of changing their previous way of life and destroying the original culture. The focus for the Westerners in colonial China was on taking advantage of the local people in order to convert them and insert western culture as a replacement for their own. Ida recognizes this, and â€Å"Ida admired her fathers adaptation to Chinese ways in order to help build genuine friendships between the Chinese and Westerners† (King, 19). Her father acts as a model for a better, more mutual exchange of culture and ideas between the Chinese and the Westerners, which is an equal interaction between the two, not the domination of one over the other as Idas Christian mother attempts to instigate. Ida Pruitts experience as an American in colonial China greatly differ from those of the Westerners in both Heart of Darkness and Burmese Days, as she actually identifies more closely with Chinese culture than she does with her original ethnic culture. Instead of approaching the local citizens as being inherently inferior or below her, Ida embraces their traditions and culture, and in many ways finds the Chinese way of life better than the American one that her mother works so hard to encourage. Especially because she lived in China at such a young age, â€Å"Growing up in the halls and courtyards of the haunted house of Song Family Village, Ida felt herself to be part of Chinese life stretching back thousands of years† (King, 6). As opposed to the British club officer who uses racial slurs to insult the Burmese people, or the steamboat captain who observes the â€Å"wild† and â€Å"inhuman† people of the Congo, Ida grows up surrounded by the Chinese culture, an d she is able to compare and contrast it with the Western tradition promoted by her mother. The racist characters in the other accounts experienced life as a Westerner, and therefore never were able to appreciate or respect any other culture. This stubborn obsession with ones own culture resulted in their imperial racism towards the local peoples. With Ida, she was able to form her own cultural and racial identity while experiencing both Western and Chinese lifestyles, and this allowed her to really respect and understand both, and in doing so she was able to remain connected to both cultures without having to racially reject or degrade one or the other. Racism is unfortunately an inherent part of human society, and it can be especially devastating when it is used to guide political and military decisions, such as during the colonization of Africa and Asia in the 19th century. Many people were killed, exploited, or left in poverty solely because of the racial hate of others. The European imperialism of the world, although based on many motivations, was in part based on racism, as demonstrated in the excerpts from Joseph Conrad and George Orwell. However, not all interactions between cultures were negative, such as the case of Ida Pruitt in China. She was able to ignore her mothers blind bias and learn to value and appreciate Chinese culture, something that indicates the importance of being open minded and experiencing other cultures for oneself before judging. Perhaps if the British officers didnt think so lowly of the locals, they would have provided better things such as schools and libraries, which in turn would result in a bette r educated country and an improved society. If the steamboat captain hadnt viewed the Africans as savages, maybe he wouldnt have been so focused on the material wealth and financial gain that was possible in Africa, but in setting up stable governments and creating better infrastructure for all people. Although things didnt turn out this way, we can learn from this past and apply that knowledge to create a better future. Ida Pruitt is a great example for overcoming racism, by experiencing a different culture for oneself and criticizing your own heritage, rather than stubbornly purporting your way as the best and only way, and hating all other cultures and societies that are different. Always racism may never go away, we can make a difference by understanding the past and learning to appreciate the value of all human societies and races. King, Marjorie.Chinas American Daughter: Ida Pruitt (1888-1985). Hong Kong: Chinese UP, 2006. Reilly, Kevin.Worlds of History: a Comparative Reader. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007.

The Country of Pointed Firs Essay -- Literary Analysis

The Country of Pointed Firs transcends the boundaries of a traditional story in attempt to grasp the realism of the country landscape in a more generous form. The book contains little to no drama, but instead focuses on description of dialect, landscape, and gesture. The narrator meditates upon the unchanged time of Dunnet Landing to describe the quality of landscape and permanence in scenes of country life. Her trip serves as a revaluation of continuance—a fixed pattern of social order and existence within the village community. Furthermore, the narrator's outsider perspective justifies the practice of defining characters in external conditions. The Country of Pointed Firs is written in local color containing character portraits and genre scenes. Local color, in a sense, is a miniature form of literature in which the writer works with anecdote and caricature. Incidentally humor derives from occurrences of real life. The local color form is appropriate to the nature of the nar rator's experience of country life in Dunnet Landing. Jewett's art of perspective informs her pictorial style with a deeply refined sense of texture. The reader is made to feel the narrator's final judgments in the closing chapter of â€Å"The Backward View,† which states an end of the narrator's return to Dunnet Landing. The concluding scene is a moment of farewell between the narrator and Dunnet Landing as she stands at the crossing of two paths—the village life and the city to which she must return. The narrator sits upon a hill and oversees her surroundings, closely observing Mrs. Todd whose distant figure â€Å"looked mateless and appealing† (129). Mrs. Todd's attitude of sorrow and isolation reveals deeper insights into her character. Though Mrs. Todd earlier â€Å"... ...n Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end† (129). The closed and quiet summer of village life has come to a swift end. The narrator departs as the tide sets in, leaving Dunnet Landing in its air of isolated stillness. The narrator's precise observations allow the reader to find insight in small moments of village life. Jewett presents a world seemingly unchanged with a mixture of remoteness and a â€Å"childish certainty of being the center of civilization† (1). The narrator's nostalgic recount of village life has about it the mood of a dream, a life remembered and not put down until long afterwards. Jewett's pictorial conventions create a feeling of impermanence akin to nostalgia assembled into long, gracefully rambled sentences authenticating her own regional style.

The Forest – Creative Writing

Descriptive Writing – The forest. [pic] A crisp winter morning and there was a frosty chill in the air. A sweet surrendering scent of the moist morning dew that cascades all around the sublime forest. The mixed cool autumn leaves from the tall trees lay scattered on the forest floor; they were in the motion of turning a brittle brown. There was the sound of shattered glass that emphasised the leaves being crunched, as if you were to step on them, pushing their papery remains deep into the brilliant white snow, which lined the ground like a fresh white cotton sheet. The passive and daunting forest has the appeal of a forgotten land, which has been lost in time. The isolated forest remained in a capsule, untouched by the destructive essence of man. The dark shadows of the voluminous trees and puzzled bushes had become the structure of the forest. The trees stood proud and tall as protectors of the exigent grounds, as the impregnated bushes that had consumed the hard regions of the forest, concealed the land from beneath the vibrant portals of the open sky. The isolated forest has the appearance of winter romance which blossomed, alluring your mind deeper and deeper into the enchanted land. As the wintery sun rose in a timely hurry, as if trying to make up for setting so early the evening before, the sun bloomed into the sky with a warm mellow glow. Sending what was left of the dull moon packing until his next stint overlooking the night. The dusky sky, was a brilliantly bright baby blue, and perched picturesquely on the autumn branches of the trees in the forest below. As the morning developed the sounds of young birds began to fulfil the air with a delicious spritz. They chirped, tweeted and warbled incessantly. The lake had been hardened by the sharp cold blitz of an icy frost. The translucent water was bound as a smooth solid and the particles of the water reflected a sheer shine of gleam and glitz, that could only be disrupted by the sharp razor blades that ice skates posses. Whispers of the remaining snowflakes were on top of the tranquil ice; these blew in the breeze over into the depths of the forest. As the mellow winter sun rises over the hard reflective lake the water shows parts of itself melting into a liquid, which is so cold that it could freeze in an absolute instance. The sheen of reflection on the arctic water from the glowing sun sparkles in the tranquil air, with the light reflecting, unique combinations of blue hues and pearlescent purples. The land is isolate and derelict from the prospects of busy city life. Tranquillity and idealistic bliss are forth seen in the deep depths of the forest as well as the environments sublime intake of the wintry season. The tall trees posses a sweet serenity that keeps all safe in the forest from delinquent harm and stark human demoralisation. Sheets of thick white cloudy snow preserve the gritty grounds beneath as well as the silky sheets of ice that protect fresh organic water.

Right to Education Act 2009

Right to Education Act 2009: Major Issues and Challenges By:sudarshana Rana India remained a major center for education of the world in the ancient and medieval period, during the British Raj. India’s traditional system of knowledge system was by and large destroyed and no other alternate system was created to fill this vacuum. Presently India has emerged as a leading nation in the world. On the other side there are continuous challenges to India. According to UNESCO data ‘largest number of illiterate people of the world are in India’.In the post- independence era, numbers of steps were initiated in this direction. The preamble of Indian constitution emphasized the need for equal opportunities for the entire population of the country irrespective of caste, creed or religion. The Constitution of India in A- 21 (A), 24 and 39 of the directive principles of state policy pledges its commitment towards the cause for upliftment of children. According to A-21(a) the stat e shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of age of 6 to 14 years as stated by law.The Background of the Right to education In the early 1990’s India initiated major economic reforms and intensified the process of globalization. India’s political and social life was also pressing through a phase which posed the danger of long accepted value. To enable the people to benefit in the new environment would require new designs of human resource development. For this purpose there was no other alternative except for educating the entire nation. The national policy of Education (NPE) was adopted by parliament in may 1986.The new policy lays special emphasis on the removal of disparities and to equalize educational opportunity by attending to those who have been denied equality so far . The National education system plays a positive interventionist role in the empowerment of women. The most important initiative in this direction was the sarv – shiksh abhiyan by which education had to reach each and every Indian . These all initiative failed to deliver the desired results . It is being realized that right based development of children must be the center of planning.The UPA government gave a top priority to universalization of education . In the common minimum- programme in 2004 , it pledged to rise public spending in education to at least 6% of the GDP with at least half this amount being spent on primary and secondary education. A national cooked nutritious mid- day meal scheme funded mainly by the central government , was introduced in primary and secondary schools. Government also universalized the integrated child development services (ICDS) scheme to provide a functional anganwadi in every settlement and ensured full coverage for all children.State level variations in literacy : The states like Kerala have done a wonderful work in this direction and such experience can be valuable guide map for the states where the literacy level is quite low. If the existing rate of literacy is allowed to continue then it will be quite difficult to achieve the target of â€Å"universalization of education even by 2015, a deadline which has been set up by UNESCO â€Å". Major challenges and issues 1. Finance has been a major problem in front of the government.What- ever the finances provided by the central government for education is not properly utilized by the various state governments. It has been found that funds for this purpose are systematically diverse by various state governments. 2. Excessive infiltration and migration from the neighboring countries pose a serious problem . The total number of migratory population in India is more than 50 million which is more than the total population of the countries , therefore such migrated population makes quite difficult the implementation of right to education act throughout the country. 3.Excessive poverty: The majority of population is living under extreme poverty conditions and hence, people do not prefer schools and go in search of jobs or self- employment professions. Therefore without removing poverty, the act cannot be implemented in the full spirit. 4. Lack of involvement of panchayati raj institutions and other social organizations ; it is important that various institutions and grass root level organization must be involved since these institution are directly linked with the common masses and success of the literacy programme is possible only through their involvement.In nutshell, it can be concluded that the Right to Education Act is a major revolutionary step in the history of post independent era. Private sector has also come to play role in the education –the need of the hour is to have strong public private partnership for the implementation of this act. Moreover, there is a strong need for regular monitoring of this act on a regular basis so that failures can be checked timely.

How does the first two scenes support the quote that Romeo and Juliet are Star-crossd Lovers Essays

How does the first two scenes support the quote that Romeo and Juliet are Star-crossd Lovers Essays How does the first two scenes support the quote that Romeo and Juliet are Star-crossd Lovers Essay How does the first two scenes support the quote that Romeo and Juliet are Star-crossd Lovers Essay Throughout Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet fate plays a huge part, this usually involves Benvolio messing things up who ironically is the one trying to keep the peace. But it is the results of his efforts to cheer up Romeo which indirectly cause nearly every death in the play. Benvolios name derives from to Latin words, Bene which means to wish and volio which means well. Star crossd lovers refers to any lovers whose affection for each other is doomed to end in tragedy. It is a romantic but tragic phrase just like the play.The prologue confirms that they are Star-crossd lovers by setting the current situation and enlightens us about the family feud between the Capulets and the Montagues. The Two Households have had an ancient grudge which has lasted for generations. Do with their death bury their parents strife, the death of Romeo and Juliet is the only way for the two families to be in peace. The prologue is telling us that Romeo and Juliet are going to fall in love and cause even more trouble and hatred between the families, and that they are going to die which will end in the eventual peace between the two families. The love between them is going to end in death: Death-marked love. In my opinion it also appears that the only way Romeo and Juliet will find peace is in their death.The first scene starts with some male conflict between household servants from both families. The Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory are having a conversation in Verona and they express their hatred for the Montagues, including the Montague women by saying, A dog of that house shall move me to stand: I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montagues. Both sides seem to be more verbally than physically violent but, when a fight breaks out the Capulet servants turn out to be cowards.When Abraham questions Sampson about biting his thumb at him Samson denies it No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I do bite my thumb, sir. Benvolio, who is Romeos good friend and a nephew of Montague, appears and makes an attempt at keeping the peace which nearly works until ruthless Tybalt comes storming in and, seeing Benvolio with his sword drawn, automatically assumes the worse and a fight breaks out between them. Tybalts arrival causes the situation to escalate because he has such a strong hatred for the Montagues ..peace! I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: The fact that Tybalt arrived when he did highlights the Star-crossd theme of the story. Although Benvolio had tried to part the two sides Tybalts arrival had put a stop to this.I think the name Benvolio has come from the word Benevolent which means kind, helpful and charitable which is a perfect description of Benvolios character that would much rather that there was peace between the two families: I do but keep the peace. It is only when the prince intervenes that the civil brawl stops and Benvolio and Tybalt drop their weapons. This is followed by a long speech fr om the Prince who tells both sides that if a fight breaks out one more time their lives would be taken If ever you disturb our streets again, your lives shall pay the forfeit of peace.The tension between the families makes the situation all the worse for Romeo and Juliet: both sides are very passionate about the family conflict and neither is prepared to give in. Neither Romeo nor Juliet is yet introduced but we already realise that any relationship between two people of such opposed families is doomed.Away from all the conflict, when Romeo is introduced the mood of the story changes and becomes a lot calmer. The scene involves Romeo talking about Rosaline a girl whom he has never met, whom he is in love with but whom has sworn to live a life of chastity Shell not be hit with cupids arrow. Romeo speaks of her very passionately although he has never met her which really reflects his personality. Romeos passion and ability to fall in love so quickly plays a big part in the story and k eeps him and Juliet together until their bitter end.In scene two Lord Capulet is talking to Paris who is a Kinsman of the Prince, Capulet speaks about Paris marrying his daughter Juliet. Capulet promises Paris that in two years time when Juliet is sixteen he can have her as his bride She hath not seen the change of fourteen years, let two more summers wither in their pride, ere we may think her right to be a bride. Capulet would be happy to see her marry into such a rich and noble family although Juliet has had no say in this arrangement although this is not what Paris has been taught to believe.It is purely down to fate that Romeo ends up going to a feast hosted by the Capulets. Romeo is approached by a Capulet servant who is unable to read an invite to the feast God gi god-en. I pray, sir, can you read? Romeo agrees to read it for him and in return the servant invites him to the party I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry! Romeo decides to go when Benvolio persuades him that other beauties of Verona will be there and that when he sees them he will realise that Rosaline is not so beautiful. Although the only reason he really wants to go is so that he can stare at her.I think Shakespeare cleverly grasps the audiences attention in scenes one and two by showing the tension and hatred between the two families. We are slowly prepared for the anguish which will be destined if two people fall in love from the different families. Therefore love and hate play a big part in this story. However it is fate that they should meet and be together as Romeo should never have been at the party and Juliet was promised to marry Paris. All the conflict builds up and leads to the tragedy of the Star-crossd lovers.

Gasland Movie Essay

Gasland Movie Essay Gasland Movie Essay Introduction The documentary film Gasland made by Josh Fox narrates the story of environmental degradation in the USA and its reasons. In particular, the author conducted his own investigation across the country in order to find out whether the grim rumors concerning the hydraulic fracturing were true. The film provides experts opinions, witnesses recollections and calculations based on observations in order to show that the matter is serious and it must be confronted as soon as possible. It also employed emotional appeals (like love for Nature and desire to be healthy and happy) to peoples values and code of ethics in order to cause a resentment and disgust concerning the terrible things which some people deliberately make. The author uses the technique of vivid imagery to enhance his argument – each event, location or technological process which could be unknown to its audience and therefore – hinder to view the film without constant interruptions for respective inquiry – were explained. It has a lot of strong points and only a heartless or a mad person cannot be convinced by this film. As for me, several aspects of this film convinced me that â€Å"fracking† is a very dangerous practice and that it should be prohibited. First of all, the film is the result of a natural suspicion which everyone would experience if he or she suddenly received such a tempting proposal. Second of all, it is filled with testimonies of victims of â€Å"fracking† and evidences given by experts in the field of environmental protection, chemistry and so forth. Fox even managed to get the insider information from whistleblowers from institutions which were supposed to regulate the problem in q uestion. And finally, it is clear that Fox had no commercial interest in making this film and that purely ethical reasons forced him to make this research and present it to others. First body paragraph From the very beginning any viewer can get the feeling that it is full of mysteries or even conspiracies. It starts from short glimpses at the beauty of local nature to attract attention of its audience. Then those images are abruptly ended with some court hearing where apparently representatives of gas companies defend their new method of gas mining which is hydraulic fracturing. At first, Josh Fox (the author of the film) seems to be hesitating about what is the best place to start his narration. He decided to provide some official information and then check if all that stuff was true. Marcellus Shale was the Saudi Arabia of natural gas according to one of such official statements and it was presented as a life buoy for the country which is one of the biggest consumers of fuel (Fox, 2010). However, that remains to be seen whether it was the U.S. blessing or its biggest curse. What would it mean if the United States and the rest of the world adopted natural gas as the fuel of the fu ture? (Fox, 2010). That answer is what this film is trying to find. Second body paragraph Gas supplies in America are considered to be so rich that they are often compared to a virtual ocean of natural gas. That expression belongs to some experts which the mentioned representatives and consultants of gas companies keep referring to convince judges, government and the entire nation that their hands are clean, that they did not do anything bad and that their only aim was to make the country (as well as its people) independent of natural gas import and instead of buying fuel from other countries extract gas at home. Such argumentation is aimed at deceiving common people that it is not a bad idea and that everybody will only win from it fuel prices will fall or at least stabilize while average income in the USA will increase. What is there not to like? Such representatives provide results of some probably non-existent or forged researches which claim that fracking is beneficial not only to economy, but to environment as well. At the same time they easily refute any counter argument providing no evidence at all as if it was an indisputable fact. Third body paragraph It all started in 2009 when Josh received a letter with a lucrative offer to sell Foxs house for approximately 100,000 dollars or to rent part of his territory for rather generous reward. He describes that he was quite surprised to get such an offer and decided to find out what was going on in those neighborhoods where the same method of gas extracting (fracking) has been already used. Fox went to the closest area called Dimock in Pennsylvania where such wells were already drilled. It was a small place with no major highways. A place where you could easily forget the world, forget yourself, disappear completely. I was going there because Ive heard a lot of complaints and because Ive heard the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had said that everything was going fine (Fox, 2010). He found that water in such areas was no longer fresh since it was mixed with natural gas and in some cases the percentage of gas was so high that water could catch on fire if some source of fire was near. People suffered from stomach disorders, their pets and other animals were losing hair and in one case an entire well exploded. Fox also calculated that each well was used for several (around 4 to 5) times and that each of such wells required approximately of 1 billion gallons of water mixed with chemicals. Moreover, only half of that water was turning back which means that the rest remained under the surface literally poisoning the land (Fox, 2010). Representatives of respective companies denied the negative effect they had on environment, but at the same time none of them was brave enough to taste the water from local wells. Later on Fox discovered that gas companies decided to extract gas from peoples wells since it was too obvious that a lot of natural gas came out of them. Fox wanted to find out whether the Dimock case was a rule or an exception. It turned out to be a rule and that meant that 34 states were overshadowed by the incoming doom. Fourth body paragraph One can easily notice the atmosphere of the film. It is rather gloomy and kind of retrospective because the narration starts as an old legend which was documented on amateurish video. Perhaps that was made on purpose in order to emphasize the fact that this film was not ordered by some competitor, but was created to show the real state of affairs in the USA in terms of environmental pollution. It is true that Fox uses a lot of emotional appeals during the film to share not only the facts, but also his feelings too. At the beginning of the film he said: I am not a pessimist. Ive always had a great deal of faith in people. That we would not succumb to frenzy or rage or greed. That we will figure out the solution without destroying the things that we love (Fox, 2010). This particular phrase shows that he as most people are an optimist, but sad and even frightening reality made him review his former beliefs. Closer to the end of the film Josh Fox literally cried near some contaminated s pring: I had tried to keep anger and sorrow and pain, but the moment I knelt down at the wide creek looked upspring and noticed the band it reminded me of home and I broke apart (Fox, 2010). It is obvious though that he did not wanted to use that as a manipulative tool, he just wanted to stress how much he cared about the problem in question. Fifth body paragraph Fox uses emotional appeals like we should preserve the things that we love in order to enhance his point. I do not think that that is a manipulative move because this films aim is not to manipulate, but to make people review their lifestyles, behavior (like consumerism) and principles by looking closely at the consequent problems. One must understand that we all contribute to that problem. Besides, it must be said that manipulation is a hidden influence the aim of which is to make a person to do something which that person would never do at its own will. In case with this film however, audience perfectly knows the goal of it and it is not resentful to its viewers. Persuasion and manipulation are not the same things although they are often confused. Music often does not correspond to images shown in the film. The author must have used that trick in order not only show the woes which were happening to Nature, but to highlight the incompatibility of the idea of happy life with our prese nt lifestyle. If people continue to live their lives ignoring this problem then there would be no future for entire human race. Our civilization is already declining since people do nothing to stop that madness. Sixth body paragraph While watching this film one might wonder why all that happened in the first place or why those people (cowboys and farmers) sold or leased their land to such monsters. The answer however, is quite simple. An attentive viewer could easily notice the way those people were dressed, what cars or houses they had in order to deduce that all of them are not representatives of the middle class which America is so proud of. On the contrary, most if not all of them could be referred to as representatives of the lower middle class whose income is not that big to refuse from rather lucrative suggestions which Fox mentioned at the beginning of the film. And the same could be said about the workers who work at corporations like Halliburton to make money for their families even at the expense of their own health since chemical burns are only some of the health-related problems which people exposed to fracturing fluids experience. The latter ranges from headaches, dizziness and stomach problems to burnt lungs and brain tumors (Fox, 2010). People who lived close to such wells for too long had an irreversible brain damage and lost some of their senses. Such people do not have plans for the future, they only care about how to get through another day of such living (Fox, 2010). Conclusion The film ends featuring windmills which generate electricity hinting that there is a way out. It also means that energy-related problems can be solved if only alternative sources of energy are employed. However, the same could not be said about our nature. It will take hundreds of generations to heal our planet from the impact of hydraulic fracturing and the like practices, but what is even worse is that there is a possibility that such type of mining can spread around the world and that would mark the end of human civilization on Earth. I dont know what is going to happen about the rest of the United States. I guess a large part of that is gets up to you. One thing I found deep inside is a love for this whole country (Fox, 2010). I was definitely convinced by the author of this film that something had to be done immediately because sooner or later that same problem will hit the rest of the U.S. and the world as well.

Automobile Industry Is A Highly Diversifies Marketing Essay

Automobile Industry Is A Highly Diversifies Marketing Essay Industry background Automobile industry is a highly diversifies sector which represent industries linked with the production, retailing, wholesaling and maintenance of automobile vehicles (Anavrekov, 2004). The first automobile was introduced in 1885 by Karl Benz. Since that time automotive industry has came through a lot of changes and developments. Figure1 shows brief history of automotive industry. The industry main focus for many years was concentrated on baby boomers generation. Currently industry switched to generation X, which is baby boomers children and to the generation Y, age which allows buying cars ((Dicken, 2007). Source: A Brief History of the First 100 Years of the Automobile Industry http://www.theautochannel.com/mania/industry.orig/history/chap16.html Strategic Posture of Key players According to Black (2009) every country’s automobile industry is dominated by four leading corporations namely General Motors (GM), Toyota, Ford Motor Company (Ford), Volkswagen , and Daimler Chrysler (Figure2). Source: Toyota Motor Corporation Company profile http://www.toyota-industries.com/corporateinfo/corpdata/ ; Daimler corporate web site http://media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-921-614814-1-871937-1-0-0-0-0-0-11701-614318-0-1-0-0-0-0-0.html; Ford Motor Company http://www.ford.com/about-ford/company-information; General Motors http://www.gm.com/corporate/about/ Size of the Industry and Segmentation The automotive industry takes around 9.5% of world merchandise trade and 12.5% of world export of manufacturers (Hatani, 2009). However, the world production of vehicles was influenced by economic downturn in 2009 (Figure3) The leading countries that conduct foreign trade are (data from Business Monitor International Statistics, 2010): United States (37.2% of Market Share) Canada (28.67%) Japan (26.4%) Germany (14.81%) Mexico (10.21%) Korea (5.48%) Figure 3 Automotive Production 2007- 2009 Source: The global automotive market in 2009 http://www.platinum.matthey.c om/uploaded_files/Int_2009/the_global_automotive_market_in_2009.pdf Figure4 shows segmentation of the industry. Source: Automotive components and parts http://www.automotive-online.com/auto-industry.html Figure5 illustrates current trends of the industry. Source: Greenber, Karl. (2009) Automakers steering drivers into evolution. The New York Times. Catalan, J. (2010).  Strategic policy revisited. Business history. Porter’s Five Forces Figure 6 illustrates the framework of Porter’s forces. The potential profit of the industry will be influenced by the strength of all five forces together with required investments, prices and costs. Figure 6 Framework of Porter’s Five Forces Source: Industry Handbook: Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DuugiCtOEsFQlapxTbntZeMVx6PiG12vHPvHaAhYEEVtzaIQ8050lXPNEPI1aS_YTyzDriebGDl5x2WUp7uibBHur5hOEkfBEgseuqQ0EFr9z84PUfd2DzorU-2RdqWXxt_bj6hhyphenhyphenK8/s400/IndustryHandbook1x.gif Threats of new Entrants The automotive industry is very mature; in order for new entrant to compete they should achieve economies of scale and invest in technology and brand name in order to reach the same level (Paterson, 2007). Also threat comes from mergers and acquisitions, for example the merger of Daimler and Chrysler or Daimler and Mitsubishi. Further barriers explained in Figure7. Source: Porter, M.E. (2008)  Ã¢â‚¬ËœThe Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy’,  Harvard business Review, January 2008. Bargaining Power of Suppliers There is huge number of suppliers in the industry; therefore the power of suppliers is very low. Manufacturers can switch easily from one supplier to another (Special Report, 2005). However, big corporations like Mercedes prefer not to switch, but to keep good relations with their suppliers in order to keep scale of operations and the total expenses on suppliers (Taylor, 2003). Currently, a lot of manufacturers use just-in-time inventory system and this pushes suppliers create their factories near automobile producers, which prove the low power of suppliers (Pa vlinek & Janak, 2007).

Research about coca cola in the states Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

About coca cola in the states - Research Paper Example I also seek to works with a firm that has respect for its employees and that provides channels for career growth. In a modern world, sustainability is extremely crucial and all firms need to be not only sensitive to sustainability issues but also have a solid plan to manage sustainability. As I seek for a firm in which to work, I hope to work with a firm that has a well developed sustainability plan. To get the most credible information, the study will begin by surfing the company’s website with the intention of looking for the way the firm looks at the various issues that have been indicated above. The study will seek to look at the company’s website and thus look at the various pieces of information provided by the firm. This will be with regarded to the following issues; This will provide an insight of the way in which Coca Cola looks at its human resource and whether it provides for growth channels for its employees’ careers. This will enable me to understand whether the firm will give me the kind of career growth that I am looking for. Once this information is gotten from the website, it will then be reinforced or criticized with information from other professional websites to look at the validity and objectivity of this information. This will also provide valuable information about the firm with regard to how it looks at the issues at hand. Step three will be to look at how various scholars have regarded the firms, especially from a critical point of view. This will aid in getting a better picture of the firm’s operations and also from a historic point of view. Coca Cola is one of the most globalized firms in the world. Unlike most companies that claim to be globalized despite the fact that they have not yet reached every corner of the habited planet, Coca Cola operates in all parts of the globe, even the

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Globalisation - Poverty Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Globalisation - Poverty - Essay Example In this number 400 million people were in absolute poverty and about 173 million people in the People’s Republic of China. On a percentage basis on regional wise, the sub-Saharan Africa region takes 47 percent that is the world highest incidence rate of absolute poverty. This is a global challenge since even in developed countries there are there are cases of people living in abject poverty. According to report that was given by UNICEF estimatethat half of the worlds children about 1.1 billion live in poverty (Kerbo, 2006, pp 34-79). Before the industrial revolution, poverty was accepted as an inevitable where economies produced little wealth scarce, Poverty reduction is the responsibility of every person living on earths surface using the best formulate methods where food as the most basic necessity should be increased, advanced agricultural technologies such as the use of nitrogen fertilizers, new irrigation techniques, fast growing new seeds and formulation of new pesticides have helped to reduce food shortage in modern times we are living in hence boosting yields. However, even with these new products the people who are categorized as the poor need to access them, improved transport infrastructure and roads to the interior will open up most of these places. Giving example of African countries, it cost more to move fertilizer from an African port that is located only about sixty miles inland, as compared to ship it from United States to Africa mainly because of low quality roads which are sparse, leading to t he cost of the same fertilizer costing twice the world average cost. Countrys no not need to gain wealth to gain wealth, since every country, however, small has its strengths they need to strategize in maximization of those strengths to make more opportunities to convert them in the source of wealth that will benefit its citizens (Kerbo, 2006, pp 34-79). Connectively, of basic

Mount Everest 1996 Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Mount Everest 1996 - Case Study Example cted as guide to the expedition process were incompetent having only participated in climbing of other mountains that did not offer similar challenges to Mount Everest. Despite the fact that most guides to Mount Everest were local recruits, it is very clear that there was no formal corporate and association that offered guidance on how the expedition could be carried out. To add more to obstacles, the two leaders went ahead and hired professional climbers such as Frank Fischbeck, and Doug Hansen were not locals lacked proper authority to facilitate adequate form of assistance in case of any need for concern (Roberto, 2002). The above assessment embraces negligence on the part of management and leadership experience. For instance, at the beginning of the expedition, Hall unsuccessfully failed to engage Jon Krakauer, a journalist with prentice magazine to help him mutually advertise to popularize his firm. The above is an indication that Hall had insufficient value for the business because a good manager can go to any extent to make any expenditure with anticipatory of high returns in the future. Based on NBC report and other local dailies in Nepal, there were several managerial issues that led to the failure of Mount Everest expedition process. Firstly, after numerous attempts without success, Fischer, one of the mountain climbers recruited Pitman, a New York socialite through a process that was perceived plum by some of his colleagues because the process did not take place through adequate consultation and pitman lacked adequate skills of adding impact to the organization (Roberto, 2002). Secondly, ano ther team guided by Fischer consisted of misguided arrangements. For instance, Fischer incorporated his friend Dale, who had a persistent problem of high altitude sickness that was seen as a betrayal towards the success of the group. Besides, the above group also included a Scandinavian of female gender Gammelgaard, who attempted and reach the summit, but such

Intro to MacroEcon - College level - 13 questions total - some Essay

Intro to MacroEcon - College level - 13 questions total - some one-paragraph answers and some graphs - Essay Example Also the employment rate does not appear to have crossed the NAIRU level as the November CPI indicated an increase of only 0.1%. B) As employment increases there are more wage earners. An increase in the amount of people with money to buy goods and services increases aggregate demand and pushes up prices. The US is currently in recovery as the GDP is and has been positive while the economy is beginning to create jobs in sufficient quantity to begin decreasing the unemployment rate. C) 2) A) [(108,000-100,000)/100,000]*(160/168)=7.62% per year B) The CPI is more appropriate in this case because it is calculated using changes in the prices of products used by consumers. The GDP Deflator is calculated using the inflation rate for the entire economy. The CPI will therefore give a more accurate comparison of Jean’s purchasing power as a consumer. 3)A) The starting nominal return on the bonds can be calculated by adding the nominal market inflation expectation and the real yield req uired. The starting nominal rate is therefore 3%. If inflation expectations increase to 3.5% it causes bond demand to decrease and bond supply to increase. This lowers the price of bonds and therefore pushes interest rates up. The nominal rate would then be 4.5%. An increase in the expected real rate of return to 1.5% would lower demand for bonds and shift the demand curve. This shift increases interest rates to a nominal return of 5%. B) 4) A) Year Real GDP Growth rate of RGDP in % Unemployment Rate % Change in U rate in % CPI Indices Inflation rate in % 2004 12,263.8 - 5.5 - 188.9 - 2005 12,638.4 3.05% 5.1 -7.27% 195.3 3.39% 2006 12,976.2 2.67% 4.6 -9.80% 201.6 3.23% 2007 13,228.9 1.95% 4.6 0.00% 207.342 2.85% 2008 13,228.8 0.00% 5.8 26.09% 215.303 3.84% 2009 12,880.6 -2.63% 9.3 60.34% 214.537 -0.36% b) Historically as RGDP has been above 2% there has been growth in employment. When RGDP growth fell below 2% unemployment began to rise. As unemployment rose inflation decreased even reaching a short period of deflation. The leading indicator is RGDP followed by unemployment finally followed by the CPI. There has been growth in RGDP. This growth has lead to moderate decreases in the unemployment rate. The lagging nature of the CPI is confirmed by current data growing as RGDP and employment both increase. If RGDP continues to grow then the unemployment rate will continue to decrease and the CPI will continue to increase. If for some reason RGDP growth should slow or turn negative then unemployment will increase and CPI will decrease. 5) P1=$145 P2=$40 P3=$90 The higher the price of oil the more expensive inputs that require any type of energy become. Thus the higher the price of oil the less firms can supply at any given price level. This effect aggregates into the overall economy decreasing output while increasing price level. The decrease in the price of oil caused output to increase and the price level to fall. As oil prices increase again they will act as a headwind to the economic recovery, pushing output lower and price up for oil dependant resources. A decline in the price of oil may not have a positive effect upon equity markets because it will not have an effect upon the amount of products that consumers are demanding. Although inputs may fall, the demand curve is not shifted. 6) Infrastructure projects would have more simulative effect than tax rebates because of a larger

Research Paper on Programming Roles Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

On Programming Roles - Research Paper Example However in order to successfully achieve the roles of software, both the programming and the non programming skills are required to be balanced together. In such organizations, agile decisions work more suitably. The working environments being healthy, the software developers tend to perform and achieve better (Alberto, 2009). The present study focuses on the programming skills that are associated with the software development teams discussing about the different roles in such teams. Also, the study would reflect on some historical discussion on how software development teams and roles have changed over time and how programming roles might be expected to change over the next ten years. Software Development Team Roles: Software being flexible, often irrational, as well as incomplete, the need for agile software development teams has been considered, that is based on the basic changes required in the roles and teams. This enables development of teams that are agile and hence know how t o remain agile in order to understand and manage the changes (Wells, 2009). There are different elements that constitute such agile software development teams. These include practices, values, roles, techniques, and tools. The specifications of the roles vary depending on the different software development teams (Dubinsky & Hazzan, n.d.). Software development is conducted in different ways at different organizations, and in all home office all over the globe. The practice that an organization or an individual employ to build up software might work for their definite surroundings and state of affairs, however it may be unsuccessful in another set of conditions (Breaking Down Software Development Roles, 2006, p.1). The common roles that exist within software development teams and their respective responsibilities are hereby discussed. The different roles of a software development team are Subject Matter Experts (SME), Functional Analysts (FA), Solutions Architect (SA), Development Lea d (DL), Developer (Dev), Quality Assurance (QA), Deployment (Deploy), Trainer, Project Manager (PM), and Development Manager (DM) (Breaking Down Software Development Roles, 2006, pp.1-2). Critical Skills of the Different Roles in Software Development Teams: Role of SME: These people are responsible for providing all the necessary information that requires for building up. SMEs are primarily required for the articulation of the different organizational needs (Breaking Down Software Development Roles, 2006, pp.3-4). Thus the direct role or skill of programming cannot be associated with this function. Role of FA: The role of a functional analyst is to capture, combine and communicate information from the SMEs to the rest of the team of software development. Although they may not require the same skills as that of the development team, yet at times they are found to be more skilled with regard to basic processing of word, spreadsheet, and general office tools that support their jobs (Br eaking Down Software Development Roles, 2006, pp.5-6). Thus this function too does not associate the skill of programming directly even though certain knowledge may be applicable. Role of SA: The programming skills may be associated with this function since the role of solution architect involves conversion of the team requirements into an architecture and design that can be used as the outline for the

Intro to MacroEcon - College level - 13 questions total - some Essay

Intro to MacroEcon - College level - 13 questions total - some one-paragraph answers and some graphs - Essay Example Also the employment rate does not appear to have crossed the NAIRU level as the November CPI indicated an increase of only 0.1%. B) As employment increases there are more wage earners. An increase in the amount of people with money to buy goods and services increases aggregate demand and pushes up prices. The US is currently in recovery as the GDP is and has been positive while the economy is beginning to create jobs in sufficient quantity to begin decreasing the unemployment rate. C) 2) A) [(108,000-100,000)/100,000]*(160/168)=7.62% per year B) The CPI is more appropriate in this case because it is calculated using changes in the prices of products used by consumers. The GDP Deflator is calculated using the inflation rate for the entire economy. The CPI will therefore give a more accurate comparison of Jean’s purchasing power as a consumer. 3)A) The starting nominal return on the bonds can be calculated by adding the nominal market inflation expectation and the real yield req uired. The starting nominal rate is therefore 3%. If inflation expectations increase to 3.5% it causes bond demand to decrease and bond supply to increase. This lowers the price of bonds and therefore pushes interest rates up. The nominal rate would then be 4.5%. An increase in the expected real rate of return to 1.5% would lower demand for bonds and shift the demand curve. This shift increases interest rates to a nominal return of 5%. B) 4) A) Year Real GDP Growth rate of RGDP in % Unemployment Rate % Change in U rate in % CPI Indices Inflation rate in % 2004 12,263.8 - 5.5 - 188.9 - 2005 12,638.4 3.05% 5.1 -7.27% 195.3 3.39% 2006 12,976.2 2.67% 4.6 -9.80% 201.6 3.23% 2007 13,228.9 1.95% 4.6 0.00% 207.342 2.85% 2008 13,228.8 0.00% 5.8 26.09% 215.303 3.84% 2009 12,880.6 -2.63% 9.3 60.34% 214.537 -0.36% b) Historically as RGDP has been above 2% there has been growth in employment. When RGDP growth fell below 2% unemployment began to rise. As unemployment rose inflation decreased even reaching a short period of deflation. The leading indicator is RGDP followed by unemployment finally followed by the CPI. There has been growth in RGDP. This growth has lead to moderate decreases in the unemployment rate. The lagging nature of the CPI is confirmed by current data growing as RGDP and employment both increase. If RGDP continues to grow then the unemployment rate will continue to decrease and the CPI will continue to increase. If for some reason RGDP growth should slow or turn negative then unemployment will increase and CPI will decrease. 5) P1=$145 P2=$40 P3=$90 The higher the price of oil the more expensive inputs that require any type of energy become. Thus the higher the price of oil the less firms can supply at any given price level. This effect aggregates into the overall economy decreasing output while increasing price level. The decrease in the price of oil caused output to increase and the price level to fall. As oil prices increase again they will act as a headwind to the economic recovery, pushing output lower and price up for oil dependant resources. A decline in the price of oil may not have a positive effect upon equity markets because it will not have an effect upon the amount of products that consumers are demanding. Although inputs may fall, the demand curve is not shifted. 6) Infrastructure projects would have more simulative effect than tax rebates because of a larger

Role of Media on African Americans Essay Example for Free

Role of Media on African Americans Essay There has always been a lot of discussion about the perception of African Americans in the media and how it affects their self-identity. It is easy to find examples of bias in portraying African Americans in the media. So what exactly is it that the media does to bring out these stereotypes, biases, and images that tend to stick with a lot of African Americans? The goal of this paper is to explore the different perceptions African Americans have gone through, how it has given them a sense of double consciousness on life, where the media image of African Americans that has stuck with them for so long can, and will go from here. According to the United States Census Bureau (2001), 12. 3% of all people reporting as one race reported they were â€Å"Black or African American†. This ethnic identity is now the second biggest minority group in the United States. It also refers to a group of people that has been in the United States for as long as it has existed. However, through the persecution of slavery, the austerity of segregation, and the continuing underlying prejudice, African Americans are still searching for their true identity. Look more:  the issues concerning identity theft essay Just as children that were adopted tend to long for a true identity most of their lives, so are the circumstances of the African American. Stolen from their homeland and forced into slavery in a new country, African Americans were basically victims of identity theft. Although a lot of progress has been made in the way of an American identity for African Americans, a true identity has not yet been found. According to W. E. B DuBois (1903) â€Å"The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self† (p.68). Many African Americans feel the same as W. E. B. Du Bois when he says, â€Å"After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world – a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. † He also states, â€Å"One ever feels his twoness – an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled arrives; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. † A quick look at American history makes it easy to understand where this split identity stems from because Du Bois claims that African Americans were always forced to see things through â€Å"white† eyes only and not have a vision of their own. In an effort to rephrase Du Bois’ comment above, the terminology of â€Å"twoness† is really him trying to define double consciousness as a few different things: 1 the power that white stereotypes have on African American’s lives and also having that internal conflict between labeling themselves as African and American simultaneously. 2 it is a sense of awareness of one’s self along with the awareness of how others may perceive one. This in turn leads to conforming based on level of power, which is basically what occurred. PBS’ African American World Timeline (2004) says that there is a large history of not granting African Americans an identity. Before 1787, of course, African Americans were slaves and only thought of as property. In 1787 the U. S. Constitution was approved. It allowed for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years and claimed that a slave counted as three-fifths of a man for representation by the government. In 1865 some progress was gained when the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, outlawing slavery and creating a Freedmen’s Bureau to help out former slaves. Also in 1865 Union General, William Sherman issued a field order setting up 40-acre plots of land in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida for African Americans to settle. But, in 1866, some all-white legislatures in the former Confederate states passed what were known as, â€Å"Black Codes† harshly cutting the freedom of African Americans and practically re-enslaving them. Since that time there has been some progression and also some difficulty for African Americans. Based on the history of the United States’ treatment of African Americans, it is easy to understand how they could struggle for their true identity. James Jones (1991) might say it best when he states, â€Å"Black personality is in part an adaptation to the political contours of racism. The conflict between the freedoms and rights of United States citizens is connected to the denial of freedom and rights that is the history of the African American presence in this country. If we view personality as the resultant of coping pattern and socialization directives, then black personality is, in part, the cumulative representation of the effects of racism over four centuries. It reflects over time, the effects of the form and structure racism takes, and comes to signal the nature of race relations at any point in time (p. 305). † This would lead to accepting of the fact that African Americans do, of course, have an identity, but a lot of the time it is dependent on the identity of White race at that time. Alain Locke (1925) explains the upward moving and upbeat side of African American identity: â€Å"In the last decade something beyond the watch and guard of statistics has happened in the life of the American Negro and the three norms who have traditionally presided over the Negro problem have a changeling in their laps. The Sociologist, The Philanthropist, the Race-leader are not unaware of the New Negro but they are at a loss to account for him. He simply cannot be swathed in their formulae. For the younger generation is vibrant with a new psychology; the new spirit is awake in the masses, and under the very eyes of the professional observers is transforming what has been a perennial problem into the progressive phases of contemporary Negro life. Could such a metamorphosis have taken place as suddenly as it has appeared to? The answer is no, not because the New Negro is not here, but because the Old Negro had long become more of a myth than a man. The Old Negro, we must remember, was a creature of moral debate and historical controversy. His has been a stock figure perpetuated as a historical fiction partly in innocent sentimentalism, partly in deliberate reactions. The Negro himself has contributed his share to this through a sort of protective social mimicry forced upon him by the adverse circumstances of dependence. So for generations in the mind of America, the Negro has been more of a formula than a human being a something to be argued about, condemned or defended, to be kept down, or in his place, or helped up, to be worried with or worried over, harassed or patronized, a social bogey or a social burden. The thinking Negro even has been induced to share this same general attitude, to focus his attention on controversial issues, to see himself, in the distorted perspective of a social problem. His shadow, so to speak, has been more real to him than his personality. Through having had to appeal from the unjust stereotypes of his oppressors and Traducers to those of his liberators, friends and benefactors he has subscribed to the traditional positions from which his case has been viewed. Little true social or self-understanding has or could come from such a situation†¦ †¦Until recently, lacking self-understanding, we have been almost as much of a problem to ourselves as we still are to others. But the decade that found us with a problem has left us with only a task. The multitude perhaps feels as yet only a strange relief and a new vague urge, but the thinking few know that in the reaction the vital inner grip of prejudice has been broken. It does not follow that if the Negro were better known he would be better liked or better treated. But mutual understanding is basic for any subsequent cooperation and adjustment. The effort toward this will at least have the effect of remedying in large part what has been the most unsatisfactory feature of our present stage of race relationships in America, namely the fact that the more intelligent and representative elements of the two race groups have at so many points got quite out of vital touch with one another (p. 631). † Even in the premier times of African American identity there were still questions to be answered. Now those questions lead to progressive thinking like Locke’s, â€Å"middle of the road† thinking and â€Å"extremist† thinking. An example of the term â€Å"middle-of-the-road† thinking can be seen in a post by Malcolm Frierson (2004) to a discussion board using the topic of what label to give African Americans. He says: â€Å"It is the right of the individual to be self-defining. Black is a color, not a term for a race of people in this millennium. The word was made beautiful and strong in the 60s and beyond for obvious reasons. That effort was admirable and effective, but now fairly done. It is time to move forward. † The term African American linguistically puts the race on more comfortable ground. It doesn’t seem right or fair to look at four men and call one Italian, one Native American, one Chinese, and the other black. â€Å"Whites† dont seem to have this concern obviously because they sit at the top of this name issue. The whole system was constructed to glorify the â€Å"whites† (the imperialists) and belittle the â€Å"blacks (the subjects). † Also, many whites and blacks together, beg for an end to this issue because they claim, were all Americans. But if we are actually honest with each other, nobody while in contemporary American society, when asked for their race or ethnicity, will never be able to simply label them self as simply â€Å"American. † There will always have to be a distinguishing label put upon everyone. Why is it that blacks have to go through this labeling issue more than any other American subgroup? Asian Americans, Italian Americans, and Filipino Americans often become Asians, Italians, and simply Filipino without ridicule or persecution (Asians further become Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, and others). A possible answer to this would be that we all identify with our most dominant ancestral line or native country – German, Spanish, Portuguese, Jamaican, what have you. It should come before the understood American part. But again, we should respect an individuals rights to be self-defining. One black problem could be that a lot of people really havent been to Africa and are in a sense kind of ashamed about or tend to disregard that fact possibly feeling a sense of ignorance in that area. The term African should be proudly used along with the term American just as other foreign groups use their places of origin along with their American status. Unfortunately this viewpoint is just a common middle-ground between the two poles. The other pole is a belief best supported by the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. They say, â€Å"African People born and living in over 113 countries around the world are [one group of] people, with one identity, one history, one culture, one nation and one destiny. We have one common enemy. We suffer from disunity, disorganization and ideological confusion. And we have only one scientific and correct solution, Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism. They feel that African people that have been born or are living outside of Africa are intentionally kept from the knowledge of Africa and her achievements through European capitalism. They also feel that people inside of Africa are tricked into living in separate countries because of the â€Å"divide and rule† tactic used by Europeans which basically means it forces large concentrations of power (people) into smaller units of power to constrain them from gaining more power as the larger unit. It is this pole that receives the most voice in the media and also probably this pole which leads to the bias media outlets against African Americans. Perhaps the earliest example of media bias against African Americans, whether intentional or not, came from 19th Century naturalists that divided mankind into Caucasians, Mongolians, Malayans, Ethiopians and (native) American races. The Caucasians were defined as wise, the Mongolians crafty, and the Ethiopians/negro unintelligent. This bias is blunt and disrespectful, but possibly not hateful in intent back in the day. Today our media comes from less than ten gigantic media conglomerates in the United States. Salim Muwakkil (1999) mentions that, â€Å"Virtually all of our information, our cultural narratives, and our global images derive from institutions whose major goal is to pay handsome dividends to stockholders (p. 2). † Which in other words the media doesn’t really care what they say even if it sounds hateful. If it sells and gets publicity, it’s a hit. He also points out that black-owned media operations are becoming increasingly rare as much larger corporations continue to buy out more places and more property. Muwakkil’s fear is that the mainstream will continue to alter the image of African Americans without challenge to the point that their â€Å"anti-black† tendencies will be encouraged and sustained. Muwakkil makes a very strong point when he states the Kerner Commission’s findings: â€Å"The Kerner Commission (formally known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders), which was charged with finding the reasons for the long-hot-summer rebellions, had concluded that the United States was headed dangerously toward ‘two societies, one black, and one white, separate and unequal. ’ It blamed the urban unrest on persistent racial discrimination and a historical legacy of disadvantage, but it also singled out the nations news media for censure. The media treated African Americans as invisible, the commission concluded, and failed to communicate to white audiences a feeling for the difficulties and frustrations of being a Negro in the United States (p. 1). † In the book, The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America, Robert Entman and Andrew Rojecki (2000) point out some surprising statistics from studies done on American television. While Black actors are now more frequently appearing in films, its a debatable question as to how well theyre being represented. In the top movies of 1996 representation of African American Females and Caucasian females was drastically different where statistics from differences in using profanity, to physical violence were very often a difference of 70% or more between the 2 races with African Americans being in the higher percentage of the two for those certain areas. Television ads now show, hidden patterns of differentiation and distance pertaining to African Americans. Not surprisingly, for instance, Blacks do not touch Whites in the majority of television ads, but as opposed to Whites, they rarely even touch each other, expressing a slight message assuming that Black skin would be taboo. A ranking of racial preference is implanted within the casting of commercials. Network news also tends to place a â€Å"ghetto† label or more urban image on African Americans. Increasingly, African Americans appear mostly in crime, sports and entertainment stories. Rarely are Blacks shown making an important contribution to the serious business of the nation. The exception of blacks rarely being shown in a positive fashion contributing to the nation would be President Obama, which will hopefully turn the stage for this image stereotype. Unfortunately however, that negative image is not the only blunt indication of a media stereotype. It is noticed by a lot of different people that African American athletes tend to receive a bad representation by the media, pointing out that when they get into any level of trouble, it is reported significantly more and also perceived in a much different way than when White athletes behave in the same manner or worse. It also is sometimes apparent that sportscasters tend to point out solely the athletic abilities of African American athletes in contrast to their tendency to point out the intelligence and savvy of White athletes. It is a known stereotype for quarterbacks on football teams for example, people perceive this position to demand a much more mental capacity and take a much more conscious effort as opposed to other positions on the team. Therefore the stereotype has often been viewed as teams primarily consisting of white quarterbacks. This tends to lead people to believe that black athletes achieve greatness by some coincidence or by simply their natural physical makeup instead of just assuming they are talented and hard working. There are several more examples of media bias against African Americans and there are far too many to speak on individually. Ultimately the point that is trying to be made is that there is a high level of publicity and strong case for media bias against African Americans. Any actor or famous person for that matter will almost always tell you that no publicity means bad publicity. It is logical then, to see the media (whether its biased or not) as a great tool for providing a voice to the African American community. It is also logical to say that a more biased media representation gives African Americans more publicity as Americans simply love bad press because â€Å"dirt† on other people sells, and the media has never cared about ones feelings if it means for them to make money. Ultimately, where I see this issue going from here has everything to do with President Obama. With the world-wide publicity he received for his changing of history for our country, I really feel this will open up many doors into the media for African Americans to have their voice, and create and defend a sense of identity that is much more positive than any other that has been labeled upon them. Obama is the best thing that has happened to African American media and just them as humans because he is what America needs to not only fix the economic and other issues in this country but most importantly bring the people of different colors together even closer than ever before to becoming one country where everyone is separate in color, but equal in representation and voice. Works Cited Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg Co. ; [Cambridge]:University Press John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A., 1903; Bartleby. com,1999. P. 68. Entman, R. M. and Andrew R.. (2000). The Black Image in the White Mind: Media andRace in America. University of Chicago Press. Frierson, M. (2004) Black, black, or African American? Feedback Poynter OnlineRetrieved May 10, 2009 from http://www. poynter. org/article_feedback/article_feedback_list. asp? id=51320 Fudjud, D. (2003) Black, black, or African American? Feedback Poynter OnlineRetrieved May 11, 2009 fromhttp://www. poynter. org/article_feedback/article_feedback_list. asp? id=51320 Jones, J. (1991). The Politics of Personality: Being Black in America. In ReginaldJones (ed. ) Black Psychology 3rd Edition, 305-318. Locke, A. (1925) Enter the New Negro. A hypermedia edition of the March 1925 SurveyGraphic Harlem Number Retrieved May 12, 2009 fromhttp://etext. lib. virginia. edu/harlem/LocEnteF. html Muwakkil, S. (1999). Corporate Media, Alternative Press, and African Americans Media Alliance, Retrieved May 11, 2009 fromhttp://mediaalliance2. live. radicaldesigns. org/article. php? id=535 PBS. (2002) African American World Timeline. Retrieved May 11, 2009 fromhttp://www. pbs. org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/early_01. html U. S. Census Bureau (2001) Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin. Census 2000Website Retrieved May 11, 2009 from http://factfinder. census. gov/servlet/ThematicMapFramesetServlet? _bm=y-geo_id=01000US-tm_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_M00628-ds_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_-_MapEvent=displayBy-_dBy=040. Woods, K. M. (1995) An Essay on a Wickedly Powerful Word Poynter Online RetrievedMay 11, 2009 from http://www. poynter. org/content/content_view. asp? id=5603.

The Black Sea Region History Essay

The Black Sea Region History Essay On the south-western side of the hill surmounting Lake Ohrid, travelers will find oneof the architectural masterpieces of medieval Orthodox Christianity. The church, that was dedicated to St. John the Theologian, and also known as Kaneno, whose consecration dated back to no later than.1447, is usually known as a legacy of Medieval Slavic empire (whether one calls it as Bulgarian, or, Macedonian, depends on ones fancy). Taking into consideration, however, its unique style that reminds us a highly successful combination of Byzantine and Armenian architectural technologies, it seems more appropriate to calldt.as-a monument of the cultural integrity of the wider Black Sea rim. The Black Sea world, just like the church Kaneno, had been an artifact of cultural mixture, composed of various peoples of different faiths, vernaculars, customs and practices until the first decades of the twentieth century. They had been, moreover, living in a well-integrated and well-organized socio-economic entity that was tightly bound up by common water. Artisans of famous silver ornament in Trabzon would live on the Ukrainian wheat and Bulgarian wine, while the wealthy mercantile famnyin Odessa would enjoy their afternoon tea with dried figs from Anatolia. Life of the people around the Black Sea had been directly resting on the incidents at the opposite side of the water. They had kept watchful eyes on the course of event there. However, such a vivid image of the Black Sea region seems to be quite perplexing, if not alien, for us, people living in the twenty first century. Just like the record inscribing the name of the architect of the church Kaneno had been lost, our knowled ge on the Pontus world is too fragmented to envision a unified picture. The Pontus world also addresses us a perplexing question. Is it a mere accidental coincident that the three mercantile nations, Armenians, Greeks, and Jews, who had once been major lubricants for the organic mechanism in this world, suddenly disappeared from the Black littoral at the very moment when we lost the vivid image of this region? Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were all historical nations well-known by their conspicuous activities in commerce and financing. All of them had their residential centers around the Black Sea before the twentieth century. Armenians had been widely dwelling in the southern Caucasus and the eastern Anatolia, and displayed their strong presence in every commercial centre around the Sea. Greeks had densely populated in the Black Sea littoral as well, and often constituted plurality in major trade entrepots like Istanbul, Trabzon, Odessa, Varna, Constanta and Krasnodar. Until the last decades of the nineteenth century, majority of the world Jewry had lived in the Russian Black provinces and their hinterlands. However, it is an arduous work for us to trace out them on the contemporary ethnic map of the region. It seems as if they had taken away our memory of the region with them when they retreated to the backstage of history of the Black Sea. What kind of process of modern conceptualization prevents us from shaping integrated scenery of the Black Sea region in our mind? The easiest answer might be the one that seeks the root in the nationalization of history. By the word Cemomorski rajon, an ordinary Bulgarian will think of an area the word Karadeniz bolgesi. For both of them, cities like Kisinev, Akkerman, or Batumi are not the part of their Black Sea region, but some unknown foreign cities. The nation-state, as a model for historical thought, has obscured many elements. The area studies, self-styled inter-disciplinary science, seem to have overcome the narrowing views of the national history, as they claim to have adopted an approach that makes it possible to analyze more than one nation-state at the same time. However, they seem, to be suffering from the same type of shortcomings. As for the Black Sea studies, there are too many candidates for the possible frame work, Slavic Studies, Balkan Studies, Caucasus Studies, Russian (and Soviet) .Studies (or its new version Eurasian Studies), Turkish and Islamic Studies, or Mediterranean Studies, but none is enough to cover all aspects of the Black Sea region. In order to comprehend the Black Sea region, it might be necessary to mobilize several area studies, but at the same time, it would mean saturation of methodologies. Such inherent weakness of the area studies seems, partly; to come from their methodological ancestors. Disciplines like Slavic Studies or Russian and Eurasian Studies could not completel y cut off themselves with the tradition of Slavic philology. Both Turkish studies and Iranian Studies are, by and large, nd more than a dummy branch of the Orientalism (as its original meaning 6f the word). Area studies are still accompanying preconceptions that had been inherent to their methodological forefathers. Apart from methodological questions, it seems relevant to interrogate a primordial question: where, at all, is the destination of intellectual endeavors of the area studies, or more simply, for what purpose are they serving? Recent developments may suggest us a part of the answer. There took place a* drastic reshaping of the area studies after 1989. East European studies have already divided into Central European Studies and Balkan Studies. Former Soviet Studies have also transformed themselves into Eurasian Studies. As the change is apparently linked to the shift of geopolitical situation, the answer must be lying somewhere beyond the natural evolution of methodological thinking, or survival strategies of individual researchers. The recent change indeed bears marked similarities to the realignments of traditional disciplines and eventual crystallization into area studies after the World War II. Both of the cognitive processes went through strong impact of the hegemonic shifts that h ad reshaped geopolitical map of the globe. The shift inevitably brought the regions drastic changes. From economic point of view, each region had to modify its trade regulations, financial mechanism, monetary policy, and working practices to be fit into the new situation, thus, it precipitated changes in the structure, and even mode of production. Political systems were also required to accommodate themselves to the new relations. As these changes caused considerable stress to the society, social tissue had to undergo significant metamorphosis. The area studies analyze various aspects of these changes, and provide, as a whole, a systematic knowledge to cope with the new reality. Therefore, they are working, irrespective of the intension of individual researcher, for special concern of particular forces that have common interest in a certain form of regional division of labor. Indeed area studies seem to pay less attention to the phenomena that tend to slip out of the scope of their main concerns, especially those overlapping several areas. By reassessing historical narratives concerning three nations, this paper tries to demonstrate the significance of those phenomena that have been made invisible by the frame of cognizance which was formulated in the course of modernity. The Ottoman Conquest and the Black Sea regional economy The Black Sea and surrounding lands had been playing significant roles as a hinge that bound together the Mediterranean, Central Asian Steppe, and Indian-Middle East economies since antiquity. The economic wealth of the region was an important factor in the political and economic stability of the Macedonian, Roman, and. Byzantine Empires in the Classical and Medieval times. The Black Sea also formed one of the major arteries joining the Islamic world and north-eastern Europe, and served as an important commercial rout between the ninth to early thirteenth century. Within itself, the Black Sea region, together with the Aegean, had formed a closely knit economic entity, as the northern Black Sea region produced and exported grain, meat, fish, and other animal products, while the southern Black Sea and the Aegean exported wine, olive oil, dried fruit, and luxury goods in exchange [Kortepeter, 1966: 86; Peacock, 2007:66-67]. By the time the Byzantine control of the region collapsed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Black Sea trade had largely fallen into the hand of the Venetian and Genoese merchants. At first Venetians seemed to have taken upper-hand, but Genoa succeeded in gaining a t near monopoly over the Black Sea commerce after 1261. By the time, Genoa had been building up a network of its colonies covering all lands surrounding the Black Sea. The Genoese BlackSea Empire was, however, relatively short-lived, as there emerged a formidable power in the western corner of Anatolia at the end of the thirteenth century, and it was to bring the Italian hegemony in the Black Sea finally to an end in the course of fifteenth century. Starting as a small warriors state, the Ottomans followed a gradual, but steady course of territorial expansion during the first half of the fourteenth century. They were successful in intruding into the Balkans after crossing the Dardanelles in 1346. By the end of the century, the Ottoman sultans had established themselves firmly on the vast landmass lying at the both sides of the Straits. Although the Ottorrfans at first did not show much interest in controlling the Black Sea commerce, a clear Ottoman policy regarding the Black Sea began to emerge during the reign of the Mehmed II (1451-1481) [Kortepeter, 1966: 88]. Upon assuming the throne the throne, Sultan the Conqueror embarked on a series of campaign to destroy the Latin colonial empires in the eastern Mediterranean, as a part of his project to reassemble the former Byzantine territories. Especially after the takeover (ri AXrooTj) of the Byzantine capital in 1453, Mehmed II felt it necessary to establish a complete control over the resources of the Black Sea region for the reconstruction and development of his new capital. In 1459, the Ottomans first deprived the Genoese of Amasra, the most important port on the Anatolian Black Sea coast, as it formed, together with Caffa, the shortest route in the north-south communication in the sea. After the fall of Amasra, the Genoese colonies were confined to the north western corner of the Black Sea. The seizure of the main Genoese colony of Caffa took place in 1475. Caffa had long been the chief trade and manufacturing centre for the Genoese in the Black Sea. After the fall of Caffa, the Genoese gri p on the Black Sea considerably weakened and the Ottomans captured all of the Italian colonies in the Crimean and the Caucasus within a decade. The only remaining trade centers of significance were two Moldavian port cities, Kilia and Akkerman. Both of them fell to the Ottoman hand in 1484. In this way, by the beginning of the sixteenth century the Ottomans had turned the Black Sear into an Ottoman lake [Inalcik Quataert, 1994: 271-3; Kortepeter, 1966: 92-3]. i The Ottoman conquest brought about a new socio-economic system into the Black Sea region. Now, majority the coastal lands of the Sea were directly connected to the imperial capital, Istanbul, and a new regional division of labor was introduced in order to maintain this extraordinarily large city. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire employed a kind of command economy whose main purpose was to maintain its military predominance. Hence, the government put strong control over the transportation of manufactured goods and raw materials produced within its domain, imposing de facto ban on the export, while, on the other hand, it showed lavish attitude to the imported commodities that its lands could not yield. Under this regime, many parts of the empire constituted an autarkic economic entity. Hence, it was natural that the Black Sea region, along with other part of the Empire, constituted an integrated, but closed to outside, system. Non-Muslim Merchants as coordinating elements One of the most important changes that took place after the Ottoman conquest of the Black Sea region was the termination of the Italian predominance in favor of the native Ottoman subjects. Owing to the poor development of Muslim mercantile class at the beginning of the Ottoman-conquest in this region, it was the non-Muslims that took initiative in forming the: wider regional network. Already during the Italian rule of the Black Sea, the Greeks and other indigenous people, together with Jews and Armenians, played the role of middlemen and widely dwelled in the Genoese trade centers. Many of them were employed as apprentices in the Latin enterprises, and accumulated the knowledge of the business practices in the Levant trade. Even before the fall of Caffa, the Italians were losing their control of the oriental trade in the northern countries, and were being replaced by Ottoman subjects, mostly Armenian Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians and Jews. The Ottoman government found in them reliable traders and contractors as middlemen within the empire. Thus, non-Muslim merchants took advantage of the new opportunity of the closure of the Black Sea to the foreigners in the sixteenth century, and they made use of their privileged position to traverse the Ottoman domain, in order to organize trading networks across southern and western European cities [Kortepeter, 1966: 101; inalcik Quataert, 1994: 272, 209]. The first element that gained most from this new order seemed to be Greeks. The Greek merchants of this period widely operated in Ottoman inter-regional trade. They were in control of a significant portion of the commerce of the eastern half of the Balkan Peninsula. Greeks were particularly active in the Ottoman capital, as traders and sea captains, carrying grain from the Balkan coastal regions adjacent to the Black Sea. The Greek merchants, allegedly descendants of the Byzantine aristocracy, widely engaged in tax farming, large-scale trade and shipping both in international and domestic. However, after the execution of tfye great tycoon in the Greek community of Istanbul, Michael Cantakuzino  §aitanoglu in 1578, the predominant position of the Greek merchants in the imperial economy began to shake [Stoianovich, 1960: 241; Inalcik Quataert, 1994:517]. Instead of Greeks, Jewish bankers and tax-farmers surfaced as predominant elements in Ottoman finance and long-distance trade during the second half of the sixteenth century. The expulsion of the Marrano Jews from the Catholic countries especially contributed to the Jewish prosperity in the Ottoman economy. The Marrano Jews seemed to introduce into the Ottoman Empire the techniques of European capitalism, banking and the mercantilist concept of state economy, and played decisive role in the finances [inalcik Quataert, 1994: 212]. Jews also played a considerable role in the development of the Danube basin. As tax farmers, Jews were managing many Danubian ports and customhouses [Levi, 1982: 26-27]. But the Jewish domination of the Ottoman economy could not last long. Already in the 1650s, Jewish merchants had been less active in Ottoman territory than during the second half of the sixteenth century. The Jews were losing the functions that they had acquired in the sixteenth century, in cluding the farming of custom duties, minting, and the positions of money exchanger for the ottoman notables. Westward Jewish migration that occurred synchronously with the shift of the global economy to the trans-Atlantic trade was a part of reason. Another reason is the renewed expansion of activities of Greek merchants that forced many Jewish merchants out of Balkan trade [Panzac, 1992: 203; inalcik Quataert, 1994: 519]. The presence of the Armenian merchants in the Black Sea region had been strongly felt long before the Ottoman conquest. Armenians had settled in Crimea as early as the eleventh century [Panossian, 2006: 82]. They were important trade partners for the Nogays in the North Caucasus, and engaged widely in the transaction of slaves and large quantities of butter and furs [Kortepeter, 1966: 104]. They were predominant in the Moldavian [Lwow-Akkerman) route of trade during the fourteenth century, and obtained the trade privilege for all Ruthenia in 1402. The leader of the caravan on this route was always an Armenian throughout the fifteenth century. Until that time, Armenians had widely settled in the commercial centers in Crimea and Rumania. According to an Ottoman survey in 1520, there were 2,783 households in Caffa, out of which about 60% was Christian, mostly Armenian [inalcik Quataert, 1994: 280, 286]. The Ottoman conquest of the Black Sea region brought about more favorable conditions for the Armenian merchants. In the Ottoman Empire, Armenians, like Greeks, constituted a Christian community that was accorded with religious and judicial autonomies. Their religion also gave them easier access to the lands of Christian Europe. They had already firmly established themselves in southern Poland and Transylvania, and controlled local commerce. Making use of the Ottoman trade policy as the linchpin, the Armenian traders succeeded in building up their commercial network, extending as far as Venice and Central Europe. The Armenians could also make use of the rivalry between Ottomans and Russians in order to establish their new trade route. Several Armenian merchants played conspicuous role in the court of Ivan the Terrible, and further expanded their commercial activities as far as the northern end of the Grand Duchy of Moscow [Goffman, 2002: 15; Braudel, 1992: 155]. The Armenian merchants had another advantage, as they were going to expand their activities further in the east. The Armenian middlemen settled in Persia found in silk an eminently marketablecommodity. In the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Armenian merchants distinguished themselves by their association with an international trade network basing around New Julfa, a suburban city of Isfahan. Merchants from this city took an active role in the Iranian silk trade which spanned the globe from Narva, Sweden to Shanghais, China. In this way, the Armenian merchants had been successful in establishing their trading network stretching from China to Western Europe by the eighteenth century [McCabe, 2001]. In the course of their expansion, the commercial activities of three non-Muslim merchant communities widely transcended the Ottoman borders. It was, by no means, the loss of weight of the Ottoman commerce for them by the eighteenth century. The commerce on Ottoman territory continued to be crucial for the maintenance of these networks, as the goods they traded were often of Ottoman manufacture or had transited through the Ottoman state. The trade activities of Armenians, just like those of Greeks and Jews, remained intrinsic to the economic system of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman wealth was central to their prosperity [Inalcik Quataert, 1994: 517-8]. As we have, hitherto, surveyed the significance of the non-Muslims merchants in the Ottoman Black Sea trade, it is necessary to emphasize that we should not downplay the importance of the Muslim merchants. Although they were late comers in this region, already in the fifteenth century, Muslim merchants had outnumbered the others at least in the southern section of the south-north trade over the routes of pursa-Istanbul-Caffa or Akkerman by sea and overland by Edime-Kilia-Akkerman [Inalcik Quataert, 1994: 278]. It seems probable that the role of the Muslim merchants constantly gained importance in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and eventually took over the non-Muslims, especially in the intra-regional trade. The position of the Muslim merchants in the intra-Ottoman trade was much stronger than the non-Muslims during the eighteenth century. The minorities almost always held only a secondary position in the domestic maritime trade. According to an Ottoman document of 1782 or a list of cereal ships to Istanbul provide us an interesting data that out of the total 56 names of merchants, 55 were Turks or other Muslims, only one was Greek or Albanian, and even he was associated with a Turk. The document also shows us that out of 158 ships captains, 136 (86%) were Turks or other Muslims, and 22 (14%) were Greeks or Albanians. Therefore, the Muslim merchants had secured almost total control over the supply of wheat to Istanbul by the Black Sea route [Panzac, 1992: 195, 203]. Socio-economic features of the non-Muslim merchant communities From historical point of view, merchants, especially those who engaged in cross-cultural- trade, possessed, more often than not, ambivalent characters. As frequenters in two or more distinct societies, they had to master several important knowledge and skills that were usually unfamiliar to those who lived inside a particular culture. So, they brought with them, not only a variety of foreign goods and wares, but new technologies and information. These cultural goods often catalyzed a transformation of the host society. In the case of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants, they became major actors in a technological and cultural interplay between the Ottoman Empire and the rest of Europe. It wa,s their trading network that helped produce a uniform commercial method throughout ti?e Mediterranean and European worlds before the  ¦ nineteenth century [Goffman, 2002: 16]. On the other hand, every society that based principally on the production of use values would inherently harbor antagonism toward the merchant. Such hostilities were often boosted by the stresses that arouse in the course of cultural transformation. Therefore, the position of the cross-cultural merchants was constantly under the threat of eventual outburst of hatred against them. In order to avoid, or at least to alleviate, the tension with the host society, the merchant community had to be adaptive. In the case of the non-Muslim merchants in the Ottoman Empire, we can notice strong tendencies of compliance to the authority. Ottoman Jews and Greeks played major role in the finances during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and even later. They were the major players in the tax-farming, the most important means of capital formation at that time, and their accumulated wealth became indispensable for the state finances and the palace. In return for their service, the Ottoman government conferred them various privileges. Several Jews were appointed the court physicians and imperial treasurers. Greeks were employed as dragomans (official interpreter) and, later, rulers of Moldavia and Wallachia [Inalcik Quataert, 1994: 209], The Ottoman Armenians also played significant role in the palace. The upper strata of their community, often called as amiras, made their presence strongly felt in government as bankers or money lenders. In the tax farming, they provided the capital as sarrafs (bankers), and sold the commodities collected in kind as merchants. After the eighteenth century, they became instrumental in keeping the fragile Ottoman financial system functioning. It is symbolized by the fact that the prominent Dtizian family monopolized the position of superintendent of the state mint office from 1757 until 1880 [Panzac, 1992: 203; Panossian, 2006: 85]. Probably, the most important in this aspect was the role played by their religious authorities. The Ottoman government traditionally granted wide range of religious and judicial autonomies to its Christian and Jewish subjects, calling each of these congregations as millet. The Greek, Jewish, and Armenian mercantile class in Istanbul practically monopolized the posts of the highest priests of their millets, and did their utmost in preserving the imperial order, by securing the loyalty to the sultan among their coreligionists. Thanks to these endeavors, Jews and Armenians were often praised by the authority as millet sadakat, or loyal subjects. In the case of Greek Orthodox, they failed to win this title because of the several unruly elements like semi-nomadic mountaineers or provincial peasants with independent spirits, the upper strata of their community, however, generally earned high esteem among the Muslim authorities. In spite of such functions, non-Muslim merchants did not dare to go over a certain limit of the host societies, because over adaptation to the host society was suicidal to their existence. It would increase the tension with the other society where they made business at the same time. For example, the conversion to Islam might promise better position in the Ottoman society, but it would make very difficult, if not impossible, to earn by the international trade. Thus, probably the best strategy for the merchants was to blur the demarcation line with the host society by making their existence more and more vague and ambiguous. By doing so, they could expect more secure conditionsfor their survival. It was, therefore, no coincidence that the three non-Muslim merchant communities in the Ottoman Empire possessed marked characteristic of special multilingual!sm. As the other Jews in the Western Europe, Jews in the Ottoman Empire adopted the languages of the people among whom they lived. They could, usually quite fluently, communicate in Turkish and other majority languages, but they nevert fully assimilated linguistically to the host societies. The Romaniotes, who had long lived among the Greeks, adopted vernacular Greek as their communal language,.while the, Ashkenazi, East European Jews continued > to speak Yiddish in their home. The most influential element of the Ottoman Jews, the Sephardi, preserved medieval Spanish, where their ancestors had been living until the Catholic take-over. Moreover, all of these Jewish vernaculars contained significant portion of Hebraic expression. Thus, the dialect expresses the two contradictory tendencies: the integration to the surrounding soci ety and the isolation. The Ottoman Armenians shared the same characteristic. While they continued to use ancient Armenian as their spiritual symbol especially in their place of worship, almost all of them were either bilingual or, in some cases, monolingual speakers of Turkish. Turcophone among the Armenians was so strong that Vartan Pasa, an Armenian writer in the nineteenth century, in the preface to his History of Napoleon Bonaparte, justifies the fact that he had written this work in Turkish with the argument that the Armenians who knew ancient language (krapar) were very few and that the new literary language based on the vernacular was still not sufficiently developed thus, that the Turkish language was the best tool to the majority [Strauss, 2003:41, 55]. The case of Greeks was much more complicated, but it might show rather vividly the advantages of linguistic ambiguity for the prosperity of the mercantile community. During the Ottoman period, the word Greeks seldom denoted the linguistic community. Many Greeks in the Anatolian plateau spoke Turkish dialect, Karamanh, while the Greeks in Syria and Egypt used Arabic as their ordinary means of communication. The Greeks in the Balkans were more perplexing. There were many Greeks who spoke Bulgarian, Vlacho-Arouman, Albanian, and Turkish. The linguistic variety derived from the context that the communal identity of the Ottoman Greeks usually conflated with the Rum millet identity. Within the Ottoman Empire, the Greek Orthodox Christians, especially those who composed the urban strata, were collectively referred to Romans, members of the Rum millet, regardless of their ethnic origins. Such tendencies were strongly felt especially among the mercantile class. The notion of the Greek Orthodox Christian was indeed a social category. In many parts of the Balkans, contemporary denomination of nations, like Serbs and Bulgarians, denoted the peasants in particular locations. When Slavs moved into the urban space or became members of the middle class, they generally shifted their identity to Greek. The local Christian higher strata were Grecophone in Serbia. In the Bulgarian lands, the domination of cultural life by the ecumenical patriarchate led to the promotion of Grecophone culture in liturgy, archives, and correspondence [Roudometof, 1998:13-14]. The tendency became more conspicuous after 1750, when the prosperity of the Greek Orthodox merchants was reaching its peak. Owing to the predominance in trade, Greek became the primary language of commerce in the eastern Mediterranean, and Orthodox Christian merchants, regardless of their ethnic origins, generally spoke Greek and often assumed Greek names. The middle class Orthodox Christians were largely acculturated into the Greeks or under heavy Grecophone influences [Stoianovich, 1960: 291]. The ambiguity or ambivalency of the groups seems to have been felt stronger at such elements like new comers, lower members, and/or provincial elites, than at the centre of the community. For example, during the first half of the nineteenth century, the biiingualism, especially with the dialect spoken by the majority member of the surroundings, was more conspicuous among newly immigrated members from local villages than those who had lived in urban space for generations. It reflected in their identities that veteran urban dwellers were adamant in their Greek consciousness in contrast to the new comers with mixed identity with Bulgarian element [Markova, 1976: 43-54]. The same was true for the Greek ecclesiastic circle, where lower clergy tended to remain within the boundary of Metropolitan diocese, while the higher hierarchies rotated several dioceses of different Patriarchates. As a result, high dignities in the Church possessed deep-seated belief in the Hellenic nature of the Ortho doxy; ion the other hand, parish priests widely shared non-Hellenic culture with their parishioners. To summarize our discussion hitherto, the non-Muslim merchants in the Black Sea region bore the following attributes as groups. They were religious congregation as well as occupational category. As for the latter, they were, more often than not, engaged in external trade, or in other words, were agencies tonnecting different cultural, socio-economic entities. The members of these groups were usually quite proficient in special occupational expertise. They knew well specific business and social practices of various places, and they were multilingual for the most of part. They were generally more adaptive to the host society, and, at least on the surface, very compliant to the existing authority. The demarcation line between them and the other groups was vague, and often intentionally blurred. Their ambiguity or ambivalency was more intense, more strongly felt at peripheral or lower strata than at the core. Perhaps, this was the most important attribute that made possible the non-Musli m merchants to maintain their social and economic function, while preserving their identities, without provoking serious conflict with the host societies. The above mentioned characteristics of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants might seem to fit well into a wider category of Diaspora merchants. But, at the same time, there arises an uncomfortable feeling to call those merchants who dwelled in their homeland as Diaspora, because, except for the Jews, many Greek Orthodox and Armenian merchants lived in the territory of their former Kingdoms or Empire. Moreover, there were many non-Mercantile members within the Greek Orthodox and Armenian communities in the Ottoman Empire (the Jews were exception in this case as well). It does not seem reasonable to separate the merchant groups from the peasant mass when we discuss them as ethno-religious communities. Taking into these inconveniences into consideration, it seems more pertinent to apply the old notion of people-class,1 proposed by Abram Leon, for the case study of the Ottoman non-Muslim merchants. In his work that examined the historical development of the Jewish communities in Europe, Leon 1 turned