My name is Dylan. I am a student at BYU and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. These blog entries are posted weekly as a project in my Writing and Rhetoric course at school. They are posted with the hopes that the reader might be made more aware of these people and their unfortunate circumstances. If you wish to do your part to help, please visit this site: www.ldsphilanthropies.org
Don’t I look good? Thanks, I thought so too. This picture of me is showing what happens when a never-ending amount of colored corn starch powder is handed out to thousands and thousands of kids. But as chaotic as such an event may sound, there was method to the madness believe it or not. It was all part of the epic celebration of Holi – often referred to as the Festival of Colors.
The Festival of Colors is a celebration of spring – which I thought was a great reason to celebrate after making it through a cold Utah winter (I’m from Southern California). But the significance of the celebration of Holi goes deeper than just celebrating the arrival of spring. Holi is a Hindu festival celebrated originally in India, and the name “Holi” comes from Holika, a demoness from Hindu mythology. As the story goes, Holika had a cloak that protected her from fire, and with this power she would be protected as she walked into flames to kill children. Her brother, King Hiranyakashipu, forced his people to worship him as a god, but his 5 year old son refused and continued to worship the Hindu God Vishnu. This upset the vain king, and he ordered his demoness sister to take his son, Prahlad, into the fire to die. As Holika and Prahlad entered the fire, the God Vishnu sent a wind that blew her cloak off of her and onto the child – the demoness was burnt and the child was protected.
This story tells of the triumph of good over evil. It is depicted in the festival by burning a doll that is dressed to look like the demoness Holika. When the flames ignite, the moment everyone is waiting for finally happens – the throwing of the colors. This was amazing. So much powder was in the air that the sun was completely blocked out; it was like we were indoors all of a sudden and all we could see were colors. It was hard to breathe for these few minutes, and I almost threw up as my lungs tried to fight back against the powder flowing in. But it was all worth it. When the cloud settled, everyone was painted in bright pinks, purples, greens, and yellows. Crowd surfing was a great pastime. Music was filling the air. Spring was here.
The conflict between the Kurdish people and their Turkish government is an issue that has been going on for years with little progress made towards peace. Even as early as 1915, the Kurds in this region struggled to end the Ottoman Empire’s rule over them, and today they still struggle for their independence. The Turkish government has made serious efforts to suppress the Kurdish culture, which doesn’t help in anyway to ease the tension between the two groups of people. “Until 1991, the use of the Kurdish language – although widespread – was illegal…Additionally, education in Kurdish is now permitted though only in private institutions” (Wikipedia – History of the Kurdish People).
Whether or not the Kurds should be criticized for their violent efforts to fight back is unsure, but something to indeed be sure about is that the Turkish government is always quick to respond with harsh efforts of their own. The Kurdish Workers Party (P.K.K.) is an ethnic secessionist organization that uses both diplomacy and force to achieve a national identity for the Kurds living in Turkey. In a campaign against the efforts of this rebel group, the government of Turkey has responded terribly. Entire Kurdish villages have been completely demolished, victimizing the innocent civilians more than anyone.
In the photograph above, a Kurdish woman is gathering wood for heating as she tries to adapt to her new life. Like so many others, she was recently forced to flee her home because her village was razed by her own government. Sebastião Salgado’s commentary on this picture explains that “Today, more than 1,300 villages have been destroyed, scattering hundreds of thousands of Kurds throughout Turkey and across Europe, although most of the displaced people remain in Turkish Kurdistan” (Salgado).
Salgado, Sebastiao. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. Print.
Salgado, Sebastiao. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. 96.
“You wanted to see the real India? Well, here it is.”
These words seem to echo through my head even days after finishing the movie Slumdog Millionaire. There is a scene where the movie’s hero Jamal Malik is showing two American tourists around India, and they all return to the car only to find that it has been stripped of all of its parts. Naturally, the Indian chauffer assumes that Jamal, a mere slumdog, was involved in this crime and begins shamelessly kicking him on the ground right in front of the Americans. It is then when Jamal moans these words to the couple.
One thing this movie should be praised for is its ability to bring attention to the slums of India. I had always known that life for many in India was difficult because of both poverty and the nation’s incredible population size. India is the second-most populous country in the world with more than 1.2 billion people – that’s over 17% of the world’s entire population. When you consider statistics like these, it’s not very difficult to imagine issues such as poverty, crime, disease, and malnutrition becoming serious problems. A large part of Slumdog Millionaire takes place in the city of Mumbai, which is ideal for emphasizing the complications of Indian social life because it is both the largest and the richest city in India. According to Wikipedia’s article on slums, “55% of the population of Mumbai lives in slums, which cover only 6% of the city's land. Slum growth rate in Mumbai is greater than the general urban growth rate” (Wikipedia – Slum).
The movie follows the tale of Jamal Malik in a way that combines two ongoing plots. It opens with Jamal being tortured by the police as they try and discover how he had cheated (which they are assuming because of his social status) on the Indian version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The other part of the movie is made up of flashbacks as the boy explains how different experiences of his childhood had provided him with correct answers.
But this movie has a lot more substance to it than a straightforward educational look at India’s slums, and it goes a lot deeper than a simple story about a boy going on a game show. Slumdog Millionaire is a story about holding on to love despite difficult times, triumph over social limitations, the harsh corruptions in society, brotherhood, betrayal, destiny, and hope. The story is so real, making the movie a must-see for anyone (although its mature themes may be inappropriate for young children). But if you don’t take my word for it, the movie received 8 out of the 10 Academy Awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
From the powerful story, to the awesome music and beautiful visual aspects of the film, Slumdog Millionaire is, in my opinion, a truly incredible movie. Whether you want to understand more about the world around you and the slums in India, or if you want to watch a real “feel-good” type of movie, or if you just simply want to be entertained, I really recommend that you watch Slumdog Millionaire. You won’t be disappointed.
I recently watched a movie that was both very enlightening and very moving. The movie was titled Water. It takes place in the year 1938 in India during the British Raj – the time period during which India was under control of the British Empire. This was also before Mahatma Gandhi had revolutionized the Indian lifestyle. So the India we might recognize today is nowhere to be found amongst the ancient, and seemingly-peculiar, traditions depicted in this film. The film actually is focused around one of these specifically: As a part of Hindu tradition, very young girls would often find themselves married to older men. When the husband passed away, the young wife would be faced with only three options she would have to choose from – she could be burned alongside her husband’s body, she could marry a brother of the husband (if the family allowed it), or she could choose to live the life of a widow in what is called a widow’s ashram. This is where our main character, Chuyia, finds herself as the movie begins.
Chuyia is an eight year old girl who learns that her husband has just passed away. I won’t go into a whole lot of detail because I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone, but I would like to give you at least an idea of how unfortunate a circumstance Chuyia (and countless other young girls and women) finds herself in. Think of an eight year old girl you know. It could be a daughter, a sister, a niece, a neighbor, a grandchild, etc. It doesn’t really matter that the girl you’re thinking of isn’t married because Chuyia didn’t even remember she was ever married herself. Now imagine shaving this girl’s hair until she is nearly bald and giving her just a simple white sheet for clothing. This young girl must be taken to an ashram where you must abandon her forever. She will live out the rest of her life with only other widows of the ashram. Here a simple life will be lived – basic food, little entertainment, trips to the other side of the ashram walls only on occasion, and the list doesn’t get anymore exciting than that.
Clearly, those looking for a happy story should look elsewhere. So why even see this movie?I think that the wake-up call the movie served as for me was worth the sadness I felt. I had no idea that this was even going on in the world, and it troubled me to see so many lives simply marked as “insignificant” and “unfit” for really living. I felt sorrow for those widows in India who (even still today) have to face these circumstances that seem unreal to me, and I really began to appreciate my own life like never before. What a humbling experience Water proved to be.
Watching a movie like Water really only has one purpose – raising awareness. Hopefully the unthinkable burdens of the world can be made lighter, or even non-existent, as more and more people are made aware that these burdens even exist. This is why I think Water was such a great movie. Despite how troubling it may be, it is worth watching. You can find it online on websites such as Netflix or Amazon. I wouldn’t recommend it for young children because of the sexual themes, but anyone willing to look past the movie’s heavy concepts can really benefit from its powerful message.
There’s a sense of freedom you get when you climb a tree. Every branch lifts you higher and higher off the ground and pulls you up towards the sky. Once you’re up there, you can see everything below in a sort of separate and detached perspective. For a brief amount of time, you can escape the life you know. No doubt the boys in this picture are experiencing this sensation as they make their own climb -- but as free as they might feel, they have to climb down eventually. And once they do, they’ll find themselves just about as rooted to their troubles as the tree is rooted to the ground.
These boys were caught up in the mess of Sudan’s second civil war that began in 1983. While under colonial rule of Britain, Sudan was treated as two separate provinces with the north dominated by Arabic-speaking Muslims and the south by English-speaking Catholics. Differences such as these helped divide the nation, but Britain eventually gave in to the north’s pressures to integrate the two areas. This caused much turmoil for the south. As more and more conflict rose, the war became more and more of a reality.
To escape the pain of war, refugees began to give up the comfort of their homes to put these troubles behind them. To avoid forced recruit into the Sudanese Army, the boys in this picture entered the camp of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Front (S.P.L.F.). Though they thought they were finding refuge from the war, the S.P.L.F. rebel leaders in charge of the camp instead trained them to fight against those government forces. They never really had the chance for freedom.
In the end, a peace treaty was signed in 2005 and Southern Sudan won its independence. “Roughly 1.9 million civilians were killed in southern Sudan, and more than 4 million southerners have been forced to flee their homes at one time or another since the war began” (Wikipedia). If only those boys could have stayed up in their tree.
Works Cited
Salgado, Sebastião. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture. New York, 2000. 163.
Most of us would agree that to end a devastatingly-long and destructive conflict would be a blessing. This tends to be the case - but not 100% of the time. This photograph of Sebastião Salgado’s is documented proof of how the end of a conflict does not always bring about the end of the pain. In this picture are two Angolan women who have lost their legs as a result of the landmines left behind in Angola’s earth from its civil war. Injuries such as these are unfortunately very common today in Angola and throughout various parts of the world.
The Angolan Civil War first began in 1975 and ended a total of 27 years later in 2002. It would be ideal to say that the difficulties in Angola ended in 2002 after an estimated 500,000 people had been killed, but the war’s leftover landmines still prevent the difficulties from subsiding. An article featured in BBC News claims that, “Angola is among the worst land-mine affected countries in the world” (Mynott). This same article brought up statistics, and they were not pretty. The article stated that while no one really knows exactly how many landmines are buried in Angola, “Some experts say it may be somewhere between 500,000 and one million, others say there may be as many as six million” (Mynott). Hundreds of Angolan civilians may have been killed while 80,000 may have been injured.
In addition to all of the death and injuries caused directly by the landmines, development of the nation is also paused indefinitely for now. Refugees who fled their homes are too afraid to return. An article on the AmericanUniversity’s website states that, “Landmines are also causing difficulties for the Angolan government as it attempts to incorporate democracy and rebuild the shattered country with as little social discontent as possible.In short, there is total disruption to human life and the environment” (Morris).
It’s troubling to think about the situation Angola now faces. I doubt that those involved in the civil war over 30 years ago realized that planting landmines would cause the mess that haunts Angola’s soil today. I guess it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Home is where the heart is.” But what about those who don’t have a home? How can we consider passing along such cheerful words to those who are without these luxurious? I speak without experience, but my guess is that it probably isn’t an easy thing to do. We might tend to take the comfort and protection of homes for granted from time to time, but homelessness truly is a problem of serious concern. Recent studies showed that worldwide, there is an estimated 100 million who are homeless, and just in the U.S. alone there are 3.5 million people who experience homelessness at some point during the year (Homeless World Cup). This same source also explained that “the average life expectancy of a Homeless Person in the UK is42 years, compared to the national average of 74 for men and 79 for women” (Homeless World Cup). Homelessness also causes other long-term effects, especially in children. Dakota Woodlands is a group that works towards providing an opportunity for comfortable and reasonable living for those who might otherwise be denied these things. On its website Dakota Woodlands claimed that, “Homeless children are not simply at risk; most endure physical, psychological, and emotional damage due to the circumstances that accompany homelessness. Homeless children suffer from poor nutrition and a higher rate of infectious diseases, asthma and related conditions. They lack access to consistent health care, which increases the severity of the illnesses. Children’s academic performance is hindered both by poor cognitive development and constant mobility. Homelessness inhibits physical, emotional, cognitive, social and behavioral development in children” (Dakota Woodlands). This photograph of Salgado’s is one that captures the raw reality of what living on the streets (or in this case, the sewers) could be like. Because the population of Jakarta is so colossal, many are forced to live in places like this for an unknown amount of time without any source of real shelter.
