Green Light

I have read the posts on the death penalty discussion by some of the other people in our class, and a common thought is that the death penalty should be acceptable as long as the ways the people are put to death are not cruel or unusual. However, there is something seriously disturbing that I find about this thought. The Constitution clearly states in the Bill of Rights that prisoners should not have cruel or unusual punishments placed upon them, not cruel or unusual deaths. Could it not be argued then, that death is a cruel or unsusual punishment? This all relates back to our unit on evil. While it may  be argued that a person deserves death for something that they did which was so “evil” it could not be forgiven, it could also be argued that this person is only being put to death as a way of getting rid of something we are scared of and do not want to face. By eliminating our fears we are not getting a point across, if anything we are giving more power to this “evil” that lurks within the condemned person. Now, I am not saying I am against the death penalty, but I am saying that we should consider these actions more carefully before we impose punishments which reflect those actions of the very people who we are punishing.

For our assignment to watch a movie of a Shakespeare play, I watched She’s the Man, which is a modern day adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.  Although set in present day America instead of Italy and around the Medditeranean as the original one was, this movie did an excellent job of sticking to the original plot while making it enjoyable for modern audiences.  One thing that made this an obvious adaptation is that the four main characters from the play kept their same name in the movie.  Also, while names like Malvolio could not be used for modern day, the writers kept the names similar, such as changing Malvolio to Malcom.  The setting is at a school named Illyria, which is also, not so coincidentally, the name of the island on which the original play takes place.  The plot is also very similar to the original one.  Viola, in the movie, must pretend to be her brother in order to go to his school and try out for the boy’s soccer team, because the girls’ team at her school got cut.  While at the school, she falls in love with her roommate Duke Orsino.  However, Duke likes Olivia who does not want him.  Then, Olivia falls for Viola (in disguise), making things really complicated.  Viola’s brother Sebastian then comes home and things get even more complicated.  In the play, Viola and Sebastian’s ship gets into a wreck and both of them think that the other drowned.  Viola then takes on the appearance of her brother so that she can be hired on the island.  She is hired by the Duke, Orsino.  Orsino is love sick for Lady Olivia, who controls the other side of the island.  Lady Olivia falls in love with the disguised Viola and tries to get his (her) hand in marriage.  Then, when the real Sebastian comes looking for Viola, he accidentally marries Olivia.  The two plots are very complicated, yet very similar at the same time.  I really enjoyed She’s the Man and thought it was a very good adaptation of Twelfth Night.

As we discussed, in class, there are many different ways that we can deal with Iraq now that we have gotten Sudam Hussein out of power.  Of these choices, three are commonly brought up as main points.  These are decreasing or increasing the presence of troops in Iraq or partitioning the country into three parts.  However, the best idea is just to remain a strong military presence in Iraq and help to try to settle the peace there.  We are to deep into the problem to remove troops and if we partitioned the country into three, there would be mass chaos and fighting.  As Basel said:

…”the country of Iraq, which was already weak to begin with, is now divided into three different countries, only making each country weaker and easier to take over.” (Basel’s Iraq Post)

This quote fits perfectly with the problem, because each separate nation would have its own religion and ideas, even furthering the religious and economic problems within the “unified” nation.  It is also important that we hold a strong military presence because we have to help stop the Shi’ite’s war of terror against the Sunnis.  While Sudam was in power, the Sunnis were the ones in control, and now that role has been completely switched.  The idea of a new democracy is not to gain revenge on the Sunnis, but instead to provide equality for all citizens within the nation.  It is important that we do not ignore these inevitable problems in Iraq.

After reading A Problem from Hell, I am much more knowledgable in the topic of genocides that occured during the twentieth century.  Although many history books may be boring and not interesting, this one is definitely not.  Samantha Power is an amazing author and I was fascinated while reading her book.  I now see the relation of evil and genocide much better.  It is inexplicable that after many countries vowed that genocide would never occur again, it did many times after.  The evil that occurs when millions of people are murdered is very great.  I cannot imagine the type of person who could order such a thing to happen.  Genocide is indeed evil. 

In the second part of A Problem from Hell, genocides in Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda were examined.  In Iraq, during the war with Iran, Suddam Hussein had many Kurds killed or sent to buildings where he could keep track of them.  This was meant to keep all Kurds under control while the war was going on.  With death as a punishment, most Kurds obeyed.  In Bosnia, the government began to detain Muslims and Croats (people from Croatia).  The detained these people in order to stop them from becoming independant from the country.  The Croats had already declared independance, and the Muslims already relied solely on international connections, so the government began to become concerned.  In order to keep these groups from becoming independant, they were put into camps where thousands of people died.  In Rwanda, with the civil war going on between the Hutu government and the Tutsi rebels.  After Rwanda’s president was killed, the other Hutu leaders took extreme control.  Under their rule, thousands of Rwandans were brutally killed. 

All of these genocides occured because the government was trying to keep control during times of warfare and chaos.  However, it should never be acceptable to throw away the lives of people just for the benefit of the government.  It is truly evil that millions of people were slain just for this reason.

The first third of the book A Problem From Hell looks specifically into three genocides that happened in the twentieth century.  The first genocide took place in Turkey.  In Turkey, thousands of Armenians were slain by order of Turkish leaders after refusal to convert religions from Christianity to Islam.  Barely anyone did anything to contest the killings of the Armenians, and nothing was initially done to stop it.  After World War I ended in 1918, the killings stopped.  However, America’s lack of response was taken into account by many people.  The next chapter talks of the view of a man by the name of Raphael Lemkin, a young Jewish man who had many ideas on the genocide in Turkey and genocides in general.  A famous qoute from his ideas says, “If it happened once, it would happen again.”  (19).  Lemkin was completely right in this sense, because a short number of years later, as Hitler rose to power, another genocide was started.  The Holocaust is the most widedly known genocide in the history of mankind.  Over twelve million people were killed, six million of which were jews.  The jews became the scapegoat for Germany’s loss in Worl War I and the depression in the country after the war.  This then led to World War II and Germany was defeated.  The third genocide in this part of the book was in Cambodia.  After a very bloody civil war, the communist rebels, known as the Khmer Rouge, came into power.  Under the Khmer Rouge, millions of Cambodians were slaughtered and tortured solely as a method of obedience and control.  The genocide was put to rest in 1975 after the Americans became involved.

There are many similarities between these three genocides.  The Armenian genocide and the Holocaust both had to do with the religion of those being killed and how the government leaders were against these religions.  Both of these governments had no restraints in the killings and that is why they were so terrible.  A similarity between the Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide is that in both cases, killing of innocent civilians was used as a method of control for people.  If anyone stepped out of line, then they would be killed too.