Greek Sub Culture

Sample details Pages: 32 Words: 9609 Downloads: 6 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Statistics Essay Did you like this example? An Ethno musicological Analysis of the Music of a Greek Sub-Culture Rembetika is the Greek urban song that emerged during the 20th century. The aim of this dissertation will be to approach, explore, evaluate, and compare rembetika as cultural art expression and as heritage art expression. It will explore the roots of rembetika, the historical and political forces that influenced its development, and the changes that have transformed it into what it has become today. It will seek to address the question of how this Greek musical tradition managed to develop and survive on Turkish grounds. In addition, it will study the role that rembetika has played in Greek society, and explore what made this form such an important vehicle of expression for the people who lived during the years in which it flourished the most (the period after the Asia Minor Catastrophe).Finally, it will discuss the ethnomusicological aspects of rembetika by comparing it with the music of similar subcultures, such as fado,tango, and flamenco. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Greek Sub Culture | Music Dissertations" essay for you Create order Literature Review Researching rembetika has presented special challenges, as its acceptance into society is relatively recent. In addition, its existence as a legitimate subject of academic investigation is relatively new. The work of Gail Holst (later Holst-War haft) was tremendously helpful in researching rembetika, as her work spans a number of years. Her earlier writings are enthusiastic and passionate, although unfortunately much of the information she presented was not quite accurate, as the sources she relied on did not have the correct information to begin with. She discusses this in the preface to third edition Road to rembetika Her later writings, particularly the essayRebetika The Double-descended Deep Songs of Greece, are written in a much more scholarly fashion, and are carefully researched and documented. In general, her work was an invaluable resource. Elias Petropoulos book, Songs of the Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition, was another helpful source. Petropoulos first-hand knowledge of the world of rembetika gives him an insiders perspective that is difficult to find in the literature that is available on this subject. As a source, however, it tends to be uneven, as the mythology of the rebates is intermingled with his notes on musical modes and lyrical style. In addition, some of the information is contradictory. For example, although Petropoulos asserts that the practitioners of rembetika were basically law-abiding people, he spends a great deal of time talking about their prison hierarchies. He does this without explaining why these law-abiding people would spend so much time behind bars. Of course, over the course of doing this research, one is able to devise theories to explain this contradiction. As a marginalized people and members of a subculture, practitioners of rembetika were often vulnerable to authorities. This would certainly explain the fact that they spent a great deal of time in prison, since they would be persecuted for this and for their rebellious attitudes as well. In addition, the excessive use of hashish, although not at the time illegal, may have been a factor that would contribute to this. At any rate, the lingo of prison figures prominently in many of the rembetika lyrics, and the lyrics are so closely associated with the actual lives of the rebates that the merging of myth and man seems inevitable. Petropoulos also points out that lack of availability of rembetika records makes a thorough ethnomusicological analysis of rembetika as a musical form very difficult. He asserts that in order for there to be an initial compilation and transcription of songs, more resources would have to be made available. Petropoulos also states that as of 2000,there were no moves in this direction, although he points out that he has deposited all of his rembetika archives in the Gennadys Library in Athens. Recent journal publications on the social and cultural aspects of rembetika, though not as plentiful as those available on more mainstream musical cultures, are generally well-researched and carefully documented. The work of Sand, Ste ingress, and Tunis were all very insightful. There is every indication that this is a growing field of study that merits further research. 1. Introduction The music of a society is said to be a reflection of that society, and this is true of sub-cultures of a society as well as it is of the mainstream of which they are a part. As this paper intends to demonstrate, rembetika reflects the subculture of the people who shaped and developed it. Although it has become part of the modern culture not just of Greece, but also of the diaspora and, as Tunis has suggested, the wider multicultural world traditional rembetika is not truly reflection of todays society. It reflects back on an early time. Thus, in a sociological cultural framework, though rembetika still exists, the rembetika we know today is a reflection of a marginalized group or subculture that no longer truly exists. Rembetika, as defined earlier, is the Greek urban song that emerged during the 20th century. It is closely identified with a Greek subculture that developed after the incident known as the Asia Minor Catastrophe an event that changed the course of Greek history and affected the lives of the millions of refugees and immigrants who were forced to leave their homeland. Section 2 of this paper, The History of Rembetika, discusses rembetika music by placing it in a historical framework This is accomplished by discussing the political and social atmosphere in which the musical form developed, as well as the events which shaped and directed its future. Also addressed are current theories of the derivation of the word rembetika. The section concludes with discussion of the language used to analyse rembetika. Section 3 analyses the components of rembetika music form itself: the lyrics, the music, and the dances. Although the three together comprise what is known as rembetika, by taking them apart for individual analysis, one is better able to understand the essence of the music form. The lyrics of all the songs, from the love songs to those that praise the freedom of escape through hashish, express a pervasive sense of loss. These are the authentic songs of rembetika these are not the lyrics that were written after rembetikas status had been elevated to respectable and eventually popular, levels. In terms of music, the melodies of rembetika conform to the modal types of Greek folk music as well as Turkish folk music, with strong ties to Byzantine church music. In addition, as Petropoulos points out, they have been influenced by a number of other sources which were brought to Greece by the gypsies. Therefore, the music also shows traces of influence from Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, southern Russia, the Caucasus, Syria, Egypt, and India (Petropoulos, 2000: 75). In Section 4, rembetika is analysed within a sociocultural framework. First is a discussion of the social acceptance of rembetika as it has waxed and waned over the years. Following this is a look at rembetika within an ethnomusicological framework in which it is compared to the music of similar subcultures, such as flamenco and fade. The ways in which rembetika music reflects Greek society are not simpleton determine, given the complex nature of its history. How, then, does one attempt to analyse rembetika music in order to understand it in a cultural sociological framework? Ste ingress offers a framework for doing this. He bases his theories on years of research on ethnic music styles associated with subcultures, including rembetika, as well as tango and flamenco styles. Using the data amassed from these studies, he offers a set of criteria by which each of these musical styles can be assessed. He also points out that traditional modes of study do not work for these non-traditional cultural forms, asserting that ethnocentric, nationalist or essentialist approaches to ethnic music-styles afford little insight into the social and cultural significance of postmodern popular art'(Ste ingress, 1998: 151). 2.. History of Rembetika This section discusses the history of rembetika music, placing it in ahistorical framework by discussing the political and social atmosphere in which the art form developed, as well as the events which shaped and directed its future. It also addresses current theories of the derivation of the word rembetika, and presents a discussion of the language used to analyse rembetika. 2.1.1 The Asia Minor Catastrophe Discussing the tragedy of the Greek-Turkey conflict, Holst-Warhaftwrites: so symbolic of tragedy is the defeat of the Greek forces in Asia Minor and the fire that destroyed Christian Smyrna in 1922, that it is simply referred to as The Catastrophe (Holst-War haft, 1972:114). Indeed, The Catastrophe was an event that forever altered the character of the newly independent country. In order to truly understand rembetika, one must understand the events that affected its development. The Catastrophe is one of them. According to the treaty of Sevres, Greece was accorded the right to occupy Smyrna. Despite the obvious difficulties this presented, the Greek army forged ahead and tried to do this in 1919 with the support of its allies. The apparent goal was to gain a foothold in Asia Minor; however, there was more involved than obtaining land to the Greeks. It was also a symbol, for most Greeks, of the cherished dream of recovering some part of their former Byzantine glory (Holst-Warshaft,1972: 114). Though initially things went well, the Greeks decided to march inland in an attempt to take Ankara. During this period, the French backed out, and eventually the Greeks were left to fend for themselves. The Greek army was forced to flee, joined by the Greek population of Smyrna Greeks who were unaccustomed to living in Greece. Thousands were killed in The Catastrophe, and the city of Smyrna was burned to the ground by the Turks (Barrett. Holst-War shaft, 1972). The outcome of the Turku-Greek war resulted in an international conference in which it was decided that a compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey should be put into place. This exchange was based solely on religion. Actual nationality was not considered at all. Hence, people who were Orthodox were considered Greek, and people who were Muslim were considered Turkish (Holst, 1983: 25). The effects of the Asia Minor Catastrophe were devastating and far-reaching. The refugees who had fled from Asia Minor were now penniless; in addition, they had left without a chance to take any belongings, so they were in a desperate state. Although they came from far more cultured, affluent land, when they relocated in Greece they were forced to live in poverty as inferior individuals. The huge and sudden increase in population led to the growth of huge shantytowns on the outskirts of Piraeus and Athens. It also created for the first time, as Holst-War shaft writes a sizable proletarian audience for songs that dealt with themes of poverty, nostalgia, hashish smoking, and low life. The expulsion of Asia Minor Christians also became enshrined in Greek popular culture as a metaphor for loss and grief'(Holst-War haft, 1998: 115). The refugees were literally living on the edge of Greek society. According to Holst, it was not surprising that many of them joined there btes or manges in their loosely organised sub-culture, or were attracted to the hashish-smoking takes, to which they were accustomed in Turkey (Holst, 1983: 27). This passage from Barrett explains the plight of the refugees with poignancy: Imagine yourself as a refugee. In Asia Minor you may have had business, a nice home, money, friends, family. But in the slums of Athens all you had was whatever you could carry with you out of Turkey, and your shattered dreams. You went from being in the middle class toeing underground in a foreign country that did not particularly want you. Rembetika was the music of these outcasts. The lyrics reflected their surroundings, poverty, pain, drug addiction, police oppression, prison, unrequited love, betrayal and hashish. It was the Greek urban blues. (Barrett, 2005: nap.) As stated above, the refugees hailed from a far more cosmopolitan environment. This, naturally, included the musicians, who brought with them a sophisticated level of skill. According to Holst-War haft, the influx of refugees had an impact on the music, and there was a revival of the oriental, or what would come to be called Smyrna-style music. According to Emery, the effect of these forced migrations was to shatter the previously existing social and economic structures of Greece. Classes and hierarchies that had existed in the diaspora communities were turned topsy-turvy in the bedlam of flight and the ensuing struggle for survival (2000: 19). Furthermore, the refuges were plagued by unemployment, since the sudden population explosion made employment opportunities scarce. Finally, the issue of racism created yet another set of pressures for the newly transfixed refugees(Emery, 2000: 19). So the violent break-up of traditional social structures was accompanied by another violence, in the ways in which social spaces and living conditions were organized for the newly arrived migrants, writes Emery (2000: 19). Formerly productive members of a more sophisticated society, the refugees were now living in squalid conditions, suddenly impoverished and traumatised. Considering these conditions, the only options open to them for survival were prostitution and crime. If they sought their escape through hashish, it seems harsh to condemn. The fact they also sought escape through their music is something later generations can be thankful for. 2.1.2 The Language of Rembetika Holst addresses the issue of spelling in her Preface to the third edition of Road to Rembetika, noting that she is frequently asked why her transliteration of the Greek word is rembetika, instead of the frequently-used rebetika that tends to be favoured by foreign scholars and researchers. Explaining that phonetically, the English bis at best a close approximation of the Greek , she asserts that there is a strong case for transliterating both rembetika andzembekiko with an m. That is the spelling that is used in this paper, except when quoting the material of others who use different variations. In those cases, the spelling of the original document prevails. In his introduction to Petropoulos book, Emery offers a number of possible derivations for the word term rembetika, which is alternately spelled rembetiko, rebetiko and rebetika. Like all subculture musics, rebetika poses difficulties of classification writes Emery, noting that individual rebetologists each have their own explanations (2000: 16). It is his estimation that the most likely derivation is from the old Turkish word rebut, which means of the gutter. Other possibilities offered by Emery include the term rebetasker, which is what the Turks used to refer to irregular troops, or people who defied authority. The Serbian word reebok, or rebel, is another possible source, as is the Hebrew rab, which is the root word for rabbi (2000: 16). Holst concurs that there is no certainty about the beginnings of the word. She explains that it is not known where it comes from, or when it was first used. What is no longer in doubt, she asserts, is that the type of song usually termed rembetik o derives from or has its origins in an oral tradition where improvisation played an important part in both the music and the lyrics of the songs'(Holst, 1983: 2). Other words that are part of the language of rembetika include rebates(plural rebates; also rebates with the plural rebates). This word refers to the original practitioners of rembetika the men who actually lived the life and formed part of the sub-culture in which rembetika developed. The word mangas (plural manges) is close in definition; it also refers to members of the sub-culture, but they may or may not have been directly involved with rembetika. In addition, manges were generally part of the underworld (Holst, 1983: 1314). 2.1.3. The Figure of the Rebates Petropoulos asserts that you cannot talk about the rebetiko song without first talking about the rebates (2000: 42). Though often associated with the underworld, this classification is not fair, and it is often untrue. Petropoulos makes clear the distinction that members of the underworld are usually considered as acting outside the law, while rebates, for the most part, existed with it. Here is his colourful description of the rebates: the rebates was careful to safeguard his personal freedom. The rebates detested bourgeois ways, consequently he did not marry. The rebates was a fighter. The rebates smoked hashish. The rebates knew how to use a knife. The rebates spoke in slang (2000:43). Petropoulos goes into great detail about the rebates. As for physical appearance, the rebates was usually slender with no sign of a belly. His hair was often greased with brilliantine, and he would probably sport a single curl that would fall over his eyes. He would usually have a moustache, which would also be waxed. Use of body paint was common, as were tattoos. There was usually a specific tattoo on the back of one of his hands. He would walk with a lop-sided, rolling gait, his left shoulder raised, and moving only his right hand. The look would be heavy and vaguely threatening, the voice hoarse from much smoking of hashish (Petropoulos, 2000: 49). As for clothing, the rebates seem to have been very particular. Perhaps this was a way in which these displaced individuals, torn from their homes without possessions, were able to re-invent their identities in this strange new land. It may also have been a secret form of communication within the closed group. For example, they would wear black republican hat with a wide black band on days of mourning and also on days when enemies were to be killed. The rest of their outfit included a black jacket with ivory buttons that were never buttoned up, as well as a peculiar type of trousers. According to Petropoulos, the trouser-bottoms were so narrow that the rebates used to say that they needed a shoe horn to get them on, and had to soap their heels to get them off, although he does not offer an explanation for this (2000:51). The trouser legs were also turned up at the cuff. This was done to reveal a patch of red velvet that was sewn on the inside, precisely in the style of the kapadaides of Istanbul (Petropoulos, 2000: 51). This, again, suggests a sense of sartorial solidarity. Petropoulos also states that the rebates had a fondness for a certain type of yellow shirt and would also wear a red tie known as achasapikes, which resembled a bow tie. However, at the start of the twentieth century, they stopped wearing ties, considering them too bourgeois. They continued to wear a sort of cummerbund, however. This was called a sonar Although it seems that this item of clothing would also have been rejected as bourgeois, Petropoulos explains that, on the contrary, it was usually arranged with great care, since it was both a way of transmitting messages as well as a convenient hiding place for weapons. For example, one end of the sonar would hang down, and to tread on the trailing end of a toughs sonar was equivalent to laying down a challenge (Petropoulos, 2000: 51). The sonar was also, according to Petropoulos, the last remaining vestige of oriental influence on the rebates clothing. According to Petropoulos, the rebates would carry a range of weapons, although they preferred the silence of double-edged knives and stilettos (2000: 53). They also had standard ways of both humiliating their enemies and killing them. To humiliate an enemy, they would chase him down and slash his buttocks. If the intention was to kill, they would use a double-bladed knife to stab the victim in the stomach. According to legend, the rebates would then pull the knife out and lick the dripping blood. Alternate legends indicate that the rebates would either bend over the dead mans body and do one of two things: either bite of an ear, or suck out an eye (Petropoulos, 2000: 53). Their other weapon of choice was the cudgel: the rebates would dangle their cudgels ostentatiously from the left arm. Transferring the cudgel to the right hand indicated the threat of a beating to come'(Petropoulos, 2000: 54). As might be expected, most of the fighting and killing took place in the evening hours. The format of the fight itself is described by Petropoulos as Homeric. The fight would inevitably begin with an outpouring of oaths, and it was considered unacceptable to kill someone without warning. In addition, the adversaries would wrap their jackets round their left arms, providing them with a kind of shield, somewhat like a medieval sword fight. . . No third party had the right to separate two feuding manges who ha drawn their knives'(Petropoulos, 2000: 54). Rebetes who were in prison had a very clear hierarchy. The leader was known as a tsirbashi: the tsirbashi who wanted to assert his authority would hold his knife high and force his fellow prisoners to pass beneath it. As a show of bravado, the mangas would use their knives to eat, shunning all forms of cutlery. In addition not unlike today anyone in prison who did not obey the tacit code might end up getting knifed himself. Although Petropoulos asserts that the rebates were basically law-abiding people, he spends a great deal of time talking about their prison hierarchies. He does this without explaining why these law-abiding people would spend so much time behind bars. Perhaps their existence as a marginalized people made them often vulnerable to authorities, and consequently, they spent a great deal of time imprison because of this persecution. Although this may be true, the excessive use of hashish, although not at the time illegal, may have been a factor that would contribute to this. At any rate, the lingo of prison figures prominently in many of the rembetika lyrics, and the lyrics are so closely associated with the actual lives of the rebates that the merging of myth and man seems inevitable. 3. The Essence of Rembetika This section analyses the components of rembetika: the lyrics, the music, and the dances. Although the three together comprise what is known as rembetika, by taking them apart for individual analysis, one is better able to understand the essence of the music form. 3.1.1 The Lyrics According to Petropoulos, some researchers labour to discover ideas in rembetiko song, and he is highly dismissive of this: the rebetes organized their life in their own particular way, and that is all there is to be said on the matter (Petropoulos, 2000: 68). He does present his own theories on the lyrics of rembetika music, however, and because he is so intimately familiar with the modes and style of rembetika, his insights may be considered rare and valuable. For starters, he breaks rembetika music lyrics down into a series of twenty categories, which are listed below: 1. Love songs 2. Songs of parting and separation 3. Melancholic and plaintive songs; songs of remonstrance 4. Songs of the underworld 5. Hashish-smokers songs 6. Prison songs 7. Songs about poverty 8. Songs about work and working-class life 9. Songs about TB and ill health 10. Songs about Charon and Hades 11. Songs about mothers 12. Songs about exile and foreign parts 13. Songs about dreams; orientalist songs; exotic songs 14. Tavern songs 15. Songs which sing of small sorrows 16. Satirical songs; songs which give advice about life; songs which threaten violence and retribution 17. Songs which are depictions drawn from life 18. Songs which sing the praises of various cities and their inhabitants 19. Songs of army life and war 20. Songs composed for specific individuals (Petropoulos, 2000: 69). Petropoulos also points out that many songs can easily fit under more than one of these categories, and sometimes several at a time. Of the categories above, Petropoulos states that approximately half of the recorded rembetika songs he knows of fall under two major categories. The first of these is love, including parting or separation. The other theme has to do with elements of the rebetic subculture, including the underworld, hashish, prison, tavern, and fights. The rebates never ventured to attack the established institutions of society, he asserts; the police remained the only real target for their aggression (Petropoulos, 2000: 70). As for the style, he explains that the songs were written in a simple style, with a fair smattering of argot (Petropoulos, 2000: 68). It is Petropoulos contention that since in Greece official folklore studies are considered the domain of academic professionals who lookdown on both rebetika and slang, it is highly unlikely that a thorough understanding of rebetika lyrics will not be available in an academic format. He also asserts that since many of the important rembetika practitioners have long since died, their memories and experiences are no longer available to be recorded (Petropoulos, 2000: 70). Because the rebates of this time lived in poverty and squalor, there are a large number of songs that deal with issues of poor health. Most of these, according to Petropoulos, focus on tuberculosis, which was responsible for taking many lives during this time. The high death rate among this subculture also led to quite a few songs about the afterlife, with images of Charon carrying off the dead and taking them down into the underworld, into Hades (Petropoulos, 2000: 71). There are also a considerable number of songs in praise of maternal figures, as well as an absence of songs about fathers. According to Petropoulos, the figure of the mother was very important to their betas, and if there was a hierarchy of women figures, the maternal figure would always be on top: where the mother appears simultaneously with the singers beloved, precedence always goes to the mother'(Petropoulos, 2000: 71). Here again, Petropoulos is dismissive of professional analysis of the lyrics: I shall avoid psychoanalytic clichs and say simply that we dont know the explanation for the rebates one-sided fixation on his mother (2000: 71). Underlying all the songs, from the love songs to those that praise the freedom of escape through hashish, is a pervasive sense of loss of this disenfranchised group. These are the authentic songs of rembetika these are not the lyrics that were written after rembetikas status had been elevated to respectable, and eventually popular, levels. According to Holst, As the lyrics of the rembetika songs and the descriptions of the rembetika musicians depict them, the manges were far from being the idealistic, daring young braves a number of modern Greek writers would have us believe. They were, however, an extremely interesting sub-culture, whose beliefs and habits remain in a rare state of preservation thanks to the words of the rembetika songs (1983: 45). 18. Lemonadhika Down in Lemonadhika, there was a fuss going on. Thomas was caught, together with Elias. Hey, Thomas, dont go making a fuss, because youll come off worst, with a load of bother. Down in Lemonadhika, there was a fuss going on. They caught two pickpockets, and they acted innocent. They stuck them in handcuffs and took them off to prison, and if they dont find the loot theyll get beaten up. Mr. Policeman, dont beat us, because you know that this is our work, so dont come looking for a kick-back. We steal purses, we knock off wallets, so the prison gates get to see us pretty regularly. Death doesnt scare us, only hunger does, thats why we steal wallets and lead the good life. [By V. Papazoglou] (in Petropoulos, 2000: 141) This song was selected because its lyrics strongly suggest the attitude of the rebates of this time. According to Holst, much of the anger and defiance exhibited by the manges was directed towards the police. She explains that they do not actually protest the way they are treated, although it seems they often had the right to. Petropoulos concurs here, asserting that when the lyrics of the rebates seem to be in the form of protest, the focus is vague and non-directed (Petropoulos,2000: 70). It was not so much that they protest their ill-treatment, asserts Holst, stating that in fact they obviously feel some pride in having eaten wood (been beaten up) and served their time in jail; it is rather a refusal to change their way of life or to be submissive before the police, or to lose their sense of humour (1983: 45). The sense of futility and helplessness in the second verse, in the advice to Thomas: dont go making a fuss/because youll come off worst/with a load of bother. This is clearly the attitude of a segment of society that knows better than to challenge authority. They are aware of their low status in the social hierarchy and know better than to assert themselves in any way, for the consequences will be a load of bother. The lyrics of the fourth and fifth verses clearly indicate familiarity with what appears to be a corrupt police force. They know the routine: first their compatriots will be restrained with handcuffs, and then they will be further restrained locked away in prison. Furthermore, they know that if the police do not get their percentage of the stolen goods, that the perpetrators will receive, in addition to everything else, a beating. The progression of thought from verses five through seven is also interesting to note. In verse five, the alleged pickpockets demonstrate perceptive knowledge of criminal life: they know a beating is to follow, and they try to prevent it. In verse six, they admit that they are used to this routine: the prison gates get to see us/pretty regularly. By the final verse, they seem resigned and tough: Death doesnt scare us/only hunger does/thats why we steal wallets/and lead the good life. The last line is feisty and full of bravado, the kind of bravado that seems to have been the rebates defining trait. The Little Hanoumakia At Panayas on the beach, there was a little tek, And I went there every morning to drive away my blues. Two pretty little hanoumakia, stoned the poor things, I found them there one morning, sitting on the sand. Come close my dervish and sit near me And Ill pour out the blues from my heart. Take your baklama and entertain us for a while, And light up a joint and smoke with us. First light up my narghil, so I can smoke and turn on, And later, hanoumakia, Ill take my baklama. If you want to get high on the narghil with fine Turkish hashish, Its Uncle Yannis tek, down in Pasalimani. These lyrics contain words that, as Petropoulos stated above, need tube explained if one is to grasp the gist of the song. Holst explains that the word hanuman, as well as its diminutive form hanoumaki (pluralhanoumakia) is a word with different meanings in Turkish and in Greek.Considering the mixed backgrounds of the rebates, this means that itwas probably used and interpreted in different ways by differentsingers and listeners. In Turkish, the word basically means female orlady. However, in Greek, the lady in question takes on verydefinite characteristics. The Greek usage usually refers to a girl whowas found of hashish, often sharing a pipe with one or more of themanges, or members of the subculture who were also frequently members of the underworld. She would have been familiar with, and perhaps aregular patron, of the hashish dens. In addition, she may have been aprostitute, though that was not always the case (Holst, 1983: 87). As for the term dervish, it referred to a member of the hashishsub-culture. The word tek (plural tekthes), as noted earlier meantden where hashish was commonly smoked, while a narghil was the hashishpipe. Baklama would most probably be an alternate spelling for baglama,an instrument that was frequently used in rembetika music. Revival Lyrics According to Holst, as rembetika became more popular as well ascommercially successful, good musicians were inspired to write lyricsin the rembetika style. Unfortunately, this also led to monotony, asthe lyrics became duller through lack of immediate contact with alively sub-culture (Holst, 1983: 3). Soon composers began looking fornew lyric writers. By the 1950s and 1960s, even the more sophisticatedcomposers such as Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis had begun towrite in the rembetika style. As Holst points out, the songs theywrote may have been vastly different from the rembetika of the Piraeusunderworld, but they were unthinkable without it (1983: 3). 31.2. The Music Holst explains that the roots of rembetika are closely tied into thefolk music of Turkey. During the early development of rembetika, theTurks still occupied large sections of the land, and many Greeks livedin land that is now a part of Turkey. Therefore, the music itself reflects a strong Turkish influence.Because of the animosity that continues to exist between the Greeks andthe Turks, however, Greeks are often resistant about acknowledging theTurkish influence, and play it down as much as possible. When Greeksare asked about the connection, Holst asserts that most will respondthat the Turks got their music from the Byzantines in the first place.Perhaps there is some truth in this, writes Holst, but theinterdependence of Eastern-Greek, Western-Turkish music is obviouslyhigh (1983: 64). Nonetheless, Holst asserts, the musical terminology used in rembetikamusic shows clear Turkish influence, but this may be because Turkishfolk music is allied to the ancient Arabic classical tradition and hasan established terminology for such things as modal types and tunings'(1983: 64). Since the folk music of Greece lacks any formalterminology, and since Greek and Turkish musicians often borrowed fromeach other, it is likely that Turkish terminology simply wasassimilated by the Greeks. There is also the impact of the migrationand the population exchange that occurred after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Since immediately after this, rembetika flourished as a musical form, the Turkish influence cannot be denied (Holst, 1983: 64). Holst also points out that the melodies of rembetika conform to themodal types of Greek folk music as well as Turkish folk music, withstrong ties to Byzantine church music. Petropoulos states that he wouldlike to believe that it was the great Ottoman music of the peoples ofAsia Minor that gave rebetika its highly individual rhythmic andmelodic colouring (2000: 75). He admits, however, that this colouringis influenced by a number of other sources which were brought to Greeceby the gypsies. Therefore, the music also shows traces of influencefrom Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, southern Russia, the Caucasus,Syria, Egypt, and India (2000: 75). Petropoulos also points out that availability of rembetika recordsmakes a thorough ethnomusicological analysis of rembetika as a musical form very difficult. For these two stages of work (the initialcompilation and transcription of songs, and a comparativeethnomuiscological study) to be undertaken, a specialist institute ofrebetiko song would need to be established in Greece (2000: 74).Although rembetikas improved status in society may one day make thispossible, at the time of Petropoulos writing, there were no moves in this direction, although he points out that he has deposited all of hisrembetika archives in the Gennadys Library in Athens. 31.3. Rembetika: The Dances Holst describes her first experience of solo dancing to rembetika as unlike any dancing she had ever seen before: The music would begin, the rhythm insistent, the voice harsh andmetallic, and the dancer would rise as if compelled to make hisstatement. Eyes half-closed, in trance-like absorption, cigarettehanging from his lips, arms outstretched as if to keep his balance, hewould begin to slowly circle. As the dance progressed, the movementswould become more complex; there would be sudden feats of agility,swoops to the ground, leaps and twists, but the dancer seemed always tube feeling his way, searching for something, unsteady on his feet. Thedance took place in public, people were watching it, and yet itappeared to be a private, introspective experience for the dancer(Holst, 1983: 12). Holsts description is of the zeimbekiko, which is the primary dance of rembetika. There are various theories about the origin of the word, butthe consensus seems to be that it is Greek in origin, rather thanTurkish. Herodotus (c. 484c.424 BC) refers to the word bekos as doesthe Byzantine dictionary, to mean artos (bread), and the word Zei is aderivative of Zeus, the Olympian deity (Savrami, 1992: 57). The zeimbekiko dance is believed to have originated in Thrace. Thracianwarriors brought it to Asia Minor, and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe, it found its way back home to Greece. It has been mostcommonly associated with rembetika music, and in fact became the mainform of expression of the rebetiko movement in the period between thetwo world wars (Savrami, 1992: 57). However, zeimbekiko is clearly known to be a mans dance This is why,according to Sand, there are displays of unrestrained physicality andsexuality, including gyrations of the pelvis, which play a role in bothfolk and rebetika dances (1998: 132). For this reason, the dance may beacceptable for Greek men to perform, but it is taboo for women. One of the most striking features of the zeimbekiko is that it is asolitary dance. Furthermore, it is a dance without structure: there are no set movements. It is a mans dance, ritualistic in nature, allowingthe dancer to express his inner self, alone and for himself, as if in atrance. His manliness and virility are projected through the dance'(Savrami, 1992: 59). As Holsts initial impression suggests, it is alsoa dance of inward flight: The zeimbekiko is a solo dance which takes the dancer away. Itinvolves a transposition of the kinetic material. The movements arebased on whirling, rotating, with arms out-stretched like wings. Thedancer moves as if about to fly. He behaves as if having wings on hisback and is floating in the air, suspended between time and space(Savrami, 1992: 59). Petropoulos describes zeimbekiko as the king of dances. He alsodiscusses the energy and passion of the dance, and remarks thatanybody daring to interrupt a rebates dancing the zeibekiko might findhimself dicing with death (2000: 78). The counterpart of the zeimbekiko is the tsifte-teli. Tsifte-teli is aTurkish word, and its definition is literally two strings or doublestrings. This refers to the manner of playing the instrument withwhich rembetika is most commonly associated, the bouzouki, although itmay also refer to the ud (Sand, 1998: 127). However, despite itsoverwhelming popularity, tsifte-teli is problematic for many Greeks,along lines of identity, gender and the body (Sand, 1998: 127). It isalso interesting to note that tsifte-teli is the only rembetika dancein which a woman smiles: it is a frivolous dance in contrast to theseriousness of male dance (Sand, 1998: 131). Modern Greece has struggled to develop a cultural identity as anindependent entity. According to Sand, Kazantzakis aptly captured theidentity crisis of modern Greeks with the phrase double-descended'(Sand, 1998: 129). While no doubt overly simplistic, this schemapoints to the highly dualistic nature of Greek identity, and the searchfor authentic Greek culture which marks Greeces modern history'(Sand, 1998: 129). 4. Rembetika and Greek Culture This section analyzes rembetika within a sociocultural framework,discussing first the social acceptance of rembetika as it has waxed andwaned over the years, then exploring it in an ethnomusicologicalframework in which it is compared to the music of similar subcultures,such as flamenco and fade. 4.1.1. The Social Acceptance of Rembetika The social acceptance of rembetika has varied throughout the tumultuousyears of Greek history. According to Giannaris, rembetika had beenconsidered immoral since the late nineteenth century: to respectablepeople bouzouki music was hashish-bearing, and to the Greek chauvinistsit was considered Turkish, Oriental, and hence, non-Greek (Giannaris,1972: 125). Rembetika was, in fact, banned in 1936 during the Metaxas dictatorship. Musicians associated with rembetika in any way weretargeted and sometimes arrested by Greek authorities, and tekkedes(hash dens) were regularly raided. According to Emery, citizens caughtsinging rebetika (or indeed playing the bouzouki) were likely to betaken for dissolute hash-smokers and shipped off to internal exile'(Emery, 2000: 26-7). Censorship was re-imposed, according to Emery, in 1947, although thelaw was never really reinforced (Emery, 2000: 28). This may have hadsomething to do with a speech given at the Art Theatre in Athens in1949, in which composers Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadzidakis cameout in support of it. According to Theodorakis biographer Giannaris,Mikis was particularly incensed by the scorn for the rebetic, orcity-song, an outgrowth of the hashish joints. Why this scorn for thenative music of Greece? Why had the Athens Conservatory never takennote of this music? (Giannaris, 1972: 80). Because of his strongfeelings about what he felt was a central part of Greek culture,Theodorakis became more and more outspoken on the subject, becomingmore and more controversial as time went on. At the Art Theatre event, both Theodorakis and Hadzidakis defendedrembetika, claiming it as an integral part of the Greek musicalheritage (Emery, 2000: 28). After the composers gave their speeches,there was a performance in which rebetika singers Sotiria Bellou and Markos Vamvakaris both sang. The presentation of rebetika to asophisticated Athenian audience by a man respected as a seriouscomposer marked the beginning of the cultivation of rebetika by asignificant group of Greek artists and intellectuals (Holst-Warhaft,1998: 123). Petropoulos points out that in Greece, the very word rebetiko wasforbidden: I found it impossible to get a publisher for Rebetika Songsprecisely because of its title. In the 1970s, it was inadmissible tospeak of rebates and rebetika. For me, the price of my decision to goahead and publish the book myself was a five-month prison sentence'(Petropoulos, 2000: 42). According to Emery, rembetika was rediscovered shortly after theCivil War ended: it came out of its low-life backwaters and into nightclubs where rich people went. And at this point the character of the music changed. The bouzouki went electric, everything went electric,and the players began to perform for the upper bourgeoisie. Rembetikabecame a fashion (Emery, 2000: 28). Thus, it appears that rembetikawas being transformed: once associated with social groups on the veryfringe of society, it was now filtering into the mainstream. Intellectuals began to defend the songs of rembetika, seeing them as aform of self-expression from the downtrodden proletariat. They embracedcauses such themes as the oppression of the working class, theprevalence of drug use and addiction, and the tragically high number oftuberculosis deaths. As Holst-War haft points out, if rebetika could besaid to have crystallized as a pan-Hellenic form of popular music in the 1930s, it is only in the post-war period that it was discovered byintellectuals and began to slowly make its way into popular culture'(Holst-War haft, 1998: 121). Rembetikas ascent into respectability was the cause of considerablecontroversy, however. There were members of society who would neveraccept this music that was tinged with so many of the negative elementsthat were associated with the subculture. The status of rembetikabecame an even more divisive issue after Theodorakis came out withEpitaphios. This was a group of poems that had been written by thepoet Yiannis Ritsos. Ritsos, though considered left-wing, was not of the working class and was therefore accorded a higher standing insociety. The cycle of poems known as Epitaphios were written about anunfortunate incident that had taken place in Thessaloniki in May of1936: the massacre of unarmed tobacco factory workers who had beenprotesting unfair wages. Theodorakis set the poems to music music thatwas performed by rembetika musicians, and in so doing he createdoutrage in the Greek community (Holst-War haft, 1998: 1245). No other composition in the history of Modern Greek music has arousedsuch controversy, asserts Holst-War haft. However, in her view, theoutrage was not over the content of the poems, or over Theodorakisspolitical associations. Rather, what caused the furor overEpitaphios was Theodorakiss decision to use a rebetika singer and abouzouki to perform songs that were settings of a high-brow poet, inother words, to combine the low-brow and disreputable rebetika with anintellectual if Marxist poet (Holst-War haft, 1998: 1245). According to Giannaris, however, the furor was due to a number offactors. First, there was the fact that the poet Ritsos was a leftist,and that the subject matter was an unpleasant memory. In addition, thechoice of singer was controversial, since Bithikotsis was a plumber byday and a bouzouki player by night. Finally, there was the choice ofinstrument: no serious composer should waste his talent with thebouzouki, or debase good poetry by wedding it to such music'(Giannaris, 1972: 118). Giannaris also points out that Theodorakissactions offended several segments of society: Mikis daring step tobreak down the demotic, fifteen-syllable meter of Ritsos poetry, andset it to the 7/8 or 4/8 of the rebetic rhythms, angered the literaryscholars and the musical aesthetes (118). The popularity of Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek has done much topopularize rembetika, and in so doing has encouraged the public to bemore accepting. Describing the passionate dance scene in Zorba the Greek, Holst-War haft writes: It may be a romantic and distorted visionof what the working-class rebates . . . offered the Greekintellectuals, but it may have something to do with why the rebetikasongs have been so enthusiastically revived since the 1960s. It mayalso be what attracted foreign scholars to the genre (Holst-Warhaft,1998: 111). 41.2 Rembetika: A Cultural Sociological Framework The music of a society is said to be a reflection of that society; thisis true of sub-cultures of a society as well as it is of the mainstreamof which they are a part. The ways in which rembetika music reflectsGreek society are not simple to determine, given the complex nature ofits history. How, then, does one attempt to analyse rembetika music inorder to understand it in a cultural sociological framework? Ste ingress offers a framework for doing this. He bases his theories on years of research on ethnic music styles associated with subcultures, including rembetika, as well as tango and flamenco styles. Using the data amassed from these studies, he offers a set of criteria by which each of these musical styles can be assessed. He also points out that traditional modes of study do not work for these non-traditional cultural forms, asserting that ethnocentric, nationalist or essentialist approaches to ethnic music-styles afford little insight into the social and cultural significance of postmodern popular art'(Ste ingress, 1998: 151). According to Ste ingress, trends in comparative cultural sociology havebegun to shift towards a new investigative approach when it comes tomusical styles like rembetika. Rather than isolating the subculture onwhich rembetika is based, this approach focuses on viewing thesubculture within a larger sociological framework. This perspective is based on the belief that cultural differences haveto be considered less a consequence of isolation than of mutualrelations of different social and ethnic groups, or culturesthemselves (Ste ingress, 1998: 151). However, he points out that a needremains for a comparative and/or cross-cultural study that mightexplain regional musical styles in a broader and more systematic way'(1998: 154). Ste ingress also asserts that ethnic musical styles are oftenromanticized and manipulated in the attempt to analyse or define themwithin an intercultural framework. (1998: 160). Holst-War haft alsonotes this in her discussion of the increasing popularity that comes asa result of the commercialization of rembetika music. She comparesrembetika, as Ste ingress does, to similar styles of popular,commercially successful music, including tango, fade, blues, andflamenco. Her conclusion closely echoes that of Ste ingress: Howevermuch they are, or once were, the expression of a marginalized group,they are listened to, exploited and analyzed by people who are not partof that group (Holst-War haft, 1998: 112). Furthermore, Holst-War haft asserts that although the initialidentification may have been of the disenfranchised, that this is nolonger true, as it is later it is packaged and sold to a broaderaudience (1998: 112). Both Holst-War haft and Ste ingress discuss thesemusical cultures as needing to cling to a sense of nostalgia. As Steingress asserts, this ambiguous affinity not only to modern urbanculture but also to nostalgic traditionalism that turned these musics into vehicles of identity construction in a supposed chaotic social environment (Ste ingress, 1998: 160). The criteria that Ste ingress puts forth include a set of common socialconditions and socio-cultural determinants within each of three musicalstyles, including flamenco, tango, and rembetika. These criteria willbe summarized with respect to rembetika below. First, Ste ingress asserts that in all three of the musical styles he has studied, there is clearly the existence of a marginalized socialgroup. These groups consist of outcasts and outsiders, or generally ofpeople who refuse to conform to the rules and regulations of theestablished social and political order. In the world of rembetika,these marginalized group members are referred to as tsiftes and rebates(Ste ingress, 1998: 161). All three groups are urban or suburban in origin. They all consist ofindividuals who are considered outsiders and/or immigrants. The members of the groups first appeared in city environments, either within thecity or on the outskirts, and generally had certain gather places wherethey would meet. In the case of rembetika, these places would includeprisons, brothels, taverns, cafes, and hashish-shops such as theCafAmn and tekkdes (Ste ingress, 1998: 161). Next, each of these groups had a mode of self-expression that wasunique to that group. This self-expression was generally a type ofmusic or dance that was marked by extreme passion. The themes expressedincluded a wide range of emotions. At one extreme, the emotionsincluded grieving, pain, sorrow, loneliness, and death. At the otherextreme, sensual and sexual pleasures would be included. There was adefinite level of eroticism in the dances of these groups. Inrembetika, this would be reflected in the tsifte-teli and zeibekikoRembetika also shares with flamenco a strong attraction to the image of the female Gypsy, who was viewed as both deeply erotic as well astauntingly sinful (Ste ingress, 1998: 161). Other characteristics shared by the three groups include pronouncedmale chauvinism, which Ste ingress describes a reflex of the generalcultural attitude of the social environment (1998: 161). There is alsoa strong use of slang in songs and in the vocabulary in general, orwhat is referred to as mangika in rembetika. In addition, each of thesemusical styles reflects a complex melding of social and ethnic factors.In rembetika, according to Ste ingress, it points to the conflictiverelation of Asia Minor Greeks and continental Greeks, as well as ofTurkish and Greek culture (1998: 162). By systematizing these social, cultural, and ethnic factors, Steingresshas developed what he refers to as an explanatory model that attemptsto assess the role of subcultural popular music with modern society. Heviews popular music styles as mass media supported artistic eventsthat transmit symbols and significance, values, habits and rules ofbehavior all of which figure into the production of social identities'(Ste ingress, 1998: 165). Tunis points out that for people outside the physical country,rembetika music takes on additional significance. Rebetika is onecultural form among many which continues to be re-created by migrantcommunities in their new homeland, he notes (Tunis, 1995: 99). Healso suggests that rembetika is no longer solely the domain of Greekculture, pointing out that due to the mobility of the community memberswho embrace it, rebetika is becoming a musical icon of passion forboth the Greek diaspora and wider multicultural community (Tsounis,1995: 99). Ultimately, Tunis concludes, the symbolic constructionsof passion and expression in rebetika are neither homogeneous normonolithic, but rather, are multi-layered and constantly undergoingnegotiation for articulation and dominance (1995: 99). Thus, in a sociological cultural framework, though rembetika stillexists, the rembetika we know today is a reflection of a marginalizedgroup or subculture that no longer truly exists. Alternatively, asHolst-Warhaft has suggested, the people who now listen to and exploitrembetika are not part of the group that the musical style is actuallya reflection of. The desire for a sense of nostalgia has been noted byHolst-Warhaft and Ste ingress, who discuss it as a need for order in achaotic society, as well as a longing for a connection to an idealizedpast. The music of a society is said to be a reflection of that society, and this is true of sub-cultures of a society as well as it is of the mainstream of which they are a part. As demonstrated here, rembetikareflects the subculture of the people who shaped and developed it.Although it has become part of the modern culture not just of Greece,but also of the diaspora and, as Tunis has suggested, the widermulticultural world traditional rembetika is not truly a reflection oftodays society. 5. Concluding Remarks In Road to Rembetika, Gail Holst offers her favorite definition of rembetika, which she takes from the composer Rovertakis: Rembetikasongs were written by rebates for rebatesThe rebates was a manwho had a sorrow and threw it out (Holst, 1983: 14). This is anappealing definition, both for its pithiness and its cleverphraseology. It also implies that rembetika insofar as it is the workof the rebates is the work of the past. The rebates are gone;rembetika remains, but in an altered form. In her discussion of the revival of rembetika that began towards theend of the dictatorship, Holst suggest there was something in theswaggering individuality and the pain of rembetika, the contemptuousreferences to the police and the secret language of hash smokers, whichappealed to a population living in a military-police state (1983: 16). Thus, the revival, or re-emergence, of rembetika at this time seems alogical reaction, given the political atmosphere of the time. At thebeginning of the revival, however, the new practitioners of rembetikawere merely imitators of the traditional style: at first they weredeterminedly puristic and musicians rather solemnly imitated thenuances of vocal and instrumental style they had heard on records'(Holst, 1983: 3). This gradually changed, as time passed and these new young musicians found their voice. As Holst explains, the programmes now reflect abroad mixture of rembetika, both the original, early Smyrna stylesongs, the orientales of Tsitsanis, and fresher, newer songs thatreflect a variety of international musical styles (Holst, 1983: 3). Holst asserts that that the most important thing we have learnt about the rembetika is that they are still alive in whatever form they arepresented and however much the purists may claim they are dead (1983:3). She is quick to point out, however, that the songs of today have strayed a long way from their musical and social origins. They havesuffered a comparable period to the blues of rejection on moral andsocial grounds. They have been similarly modified to suit the tastes ofa broader audience and later revived in an artificially puristic style.Now that they are being performed in a variety of free and strict formswe begin to appreciate the best songs of early, middle, late orrevival-style rembetika for what they are good songs by any standards'(Holst, 1983: 4). Holst is not the only researcher who has commented on the similarity of the evolution of rembetika to that of the blues. Barrett, too, assertsthat rembetika were urban blues of a quasi-criminal subculture,despised by the middle classes and suppressed by the authorities (2005n.p.). Discussing the passionate dance scene in Zorba the Greek, Holst-Warhaftnotes that it is impossible to study the evolution of rembetika withoutconsidering the impact of this popular film. Barrett concurs; he alsomentions the movie Rembetiko, by Kosta Ferris, which is based on thelives of Marika Ninou and Vassilis Tsitsanis. Barrett notes that thefilm documents the rise and fall (and rise again) of rembetika music(2005, nap.) Although Holst-War haft suggests that films such as these may be overlyromantic and may distort the concept of what the rebates actually werelike. However, she does admit that their popularity may have somethingto do with why the rebetika songs have been so enthusiastically revivedsince the 1960s. It may also be what attracted foreign scholars to thegenre (Holst-War haft, 1998: 111). As we have seen here, rembetika is frequently compared to the music ofother subcultures, including tango, fade, flamenco, and blues. Likethese other types of music, rembetika songs are commercially successfuland quite popular today. However, as we have seen, these songs are notthe traditional songs of rembetika. As Holst-War haft points out,however much they are, or once were, the expression of a marginalizedgroup, they are listened to, exploited and analyzed by people who arenot part of that group (1998: 112). Thus, in a sociological cultural framework, though rembetika stillexists, the rembetika we know today is a reflection of a marginalizedgroup or subculture that no longer truly exists. Alternatively, asHolst-Warhaft has suggested, the people who now listen to and exploitrembetika are not part of the group that the musical style is actuallya reflection of. The desire for a sense of nostalgia has been noted byHolst-Warhaft and Ste ingress, who discuss it as a need for order in achaotic society, as well as a longing for a connection to an idealizedpast. The music of a society is said to be a reflection of that society, and this is true of sub-cultures of a society as well as it is of the mainstream of which they are a part. As demonstrated here, rembetikareflects the subculture of the people who shaped and developed it.Although it has become part of the modern culture not just of Greece,but also of the diaspora and, as Tunis has suggested, the widermulticultural world traditional rembetika is not truly a reflection oftodays society. Bibliography Barrett, M. Rembetika and Greek Popular Music. https://greecetravel.com/music/rembetika/ Accessed September 6, 2005. Brief History of Rembetika https://theory.rockefeller.edu/~giannak/reb.html Accessed September 6, 2005. Emery, Ed. 2000. Introduction to Songs of the Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition. London: Saqi Books. Giannaris, G. 1972. Mikis Theodorakis: Music and Social Change. New York, NY: Praeger Publishers. Holst, G. 1983. Road to Rembetika: music of a Greek sub-culture songsof love, sorrow and hashish. 3rd ed. [1st ed. 1975] Athens: DeniseHarvey Company. Holst-War haft, G. 1998. Rebetika: The Double-descended Deep Songs of Greece. Pp. 111126 in Washabaugh, W., ed., The Passion of Music andDance. Oxford: Berg. Myrsiades, K. 1988. The Karagiozis Heroic Performance in Greek Shadow Theater. London: University Press of New England. Petropoulos, E 2000. Songs of the Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition. London: Saqi Books. Savrami, K. 1992. The Two Diverse Versions of the Dance Zeimbekiko.Pp. 57103 in Dance Studies St. Peter Jersey. v. 16 (1992). Sand, A. 1998. The Tsifte-teli Sermon: Identity, Theology, and Genderin Rebetika. Pp. 127132 in Washabaugh, W., ed., The Passion of Musicand Dance. Oxford: Berg. Ste ingress, G. 1998. Social Theory and the Comparative History ofFlamenco, Tango, and Rebetica. Pp. 151172 in Washabaugh, W., ed., ThePassion of Music and Dance. Oxford: Berg. Tunis, D. 1995. Kefi and Meraki in Rebetika Music of Adelaide:Cultural Constructions of Passion and Expression and their Link withthe Homeland. Pp. 90103 in Yearbook for Traditional Music, v. 27(1995). Washabaugh, W. 1998 Introduction: Music, Dance, and the Politics ofPassion. Pp. 1 26 in Washabaugh, W., ed., The Passion of Music andDance. Oxford: Berg.

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In orderRead MoreMedia And Society : Technology, Democracy And Capitalism1747 Words   |  7 PagesMedia in Society (2013) is a cutting-edge media studies textbook written by a group of media scholars: Richard Campbell, Miami University of Ohio; Joli Jenson, University of Tulsa; Douglass Gomery, University of Maryland; Bettina Fabos, University of Northern Iowa and Julie Frechette, Worcester State University. It serves as an analysis of the perpetual relationship between media and society through three key concepts: technology, democracy and capitalism. These themes are connected throughout the

Lifebuoy Soap Advertisement free essay sample

In 1944, propaganda of World War II in America was almost part of daily pop culture; ranging from product advertisements to comic strips, it was all the rage in most parts of the United States. Many times propaganda would sway two opposite directions: pro-war and anti-war. Multiple mediums were used during this time to be more persuasive. Also using models, iconic symbols, and appealing colors and structured texts would help the sway of the audience (War, Propaganda†¦). There were multiple magazines during this time which allowed plenty of audiences to be confronted with propaganda ideas. A lot of these magazines provided products supporting troops and the war effort. For instance, the Lifebuoy Soap Advertisement starring Nancy Lee to the right of the advertisement in black and white, soaking in a bath tub surrounded by soap suds. She’s beautiful, eye catching, and in big, bold, black letters referring to â€Å"sailors† and how Lifebuoy gets rid of â€Å"B. We will write a custom essay sample on Lifebuoy Soap Advertisement or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page O. †( 2012 Paperdoll Convention). It is not a straightforward ad for propaganda, but it did support the war effort through product investment within the military. This advertisement medium was used as a magazine article in probably multiple naval magazines such as: â€Å"Our Navy Magazine† and â€Å"Our Army Magazine†. These magazines were typically distributed to the public and to the soldiers as informative about the American armed forces (The Future of our Past). When you would open one of these brilliantly colored magazines, you would probably read about the war front and the service. You would also get information about products being used by soldiers and sailors. This is where a lot of the war support would come from; the products being sold to support and help the troops. There are plenty of argumentative appeals to the audience, being the general troops and men who would want to join the service looking at the Lifebuoy soap advertisements. For instance, it would appeal greatly to pathos because of the use of a comic to the left and a beautiful model on the right. Her mischievous smile leaves the eyes to want more, and the comic would leave a nostalgic sense of what home would be like for the young men overseas.

The English Patient free essay sample

This paper introduces and discusses the book The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje, focusing on national identity and the way in which it is addressed in this book. (more) The English Patient free essay sample Identity Crisis in Michael Ondaatjes The English Patient Lerzan GÃ'Ëœltekin Atillm University in Ankara, Turkey [emailprotected] edu. tr Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze identity crisis in Michael Ondaatjes The English Patient from a postcolonial perspective through the concept of nationalism and national identity, emphasizing cultural, psychological and physical displacement due to colonization, travelling, exploration and space / place (cartography), referring to the theories and views of Benedict Anderson, Homi Bhabba, Franz Fanon, Edward Said, and so on. The paper will mainly focus on the erasure of the national identities and selves of a group of European explorers, scientists and spies, including the colonized Kip, an Indian, serving as a bomb defuser in the British Army. Even though these scientists mission is to map the desert, they can hardly achieve it. The desert is uncontrollable and unreliable because of sand storms. Its surface changes rapidly and one can be lost forever. We will write a custom essay sample on The English Patient or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In other words, the desert is the metaphor of their unreliable national identities that are fragmented and varied because of their traumatic personal xperiences in this alien landscape and culture. The paper will emphasize the fragility of identities and selves even for those who represent European civilization and Imperial Rule as hegemonic powers together with the colonized Kip who is shaped by these powers as a hybrid identity. Key Words: hybridity, nationalism, national identity, postnationalism, space / place The English Patient is a novel that seeks to explore the problem of identity and displacement, experienced both by colonizer and colonized. As known, identity is a social construct and largely determined by the relationship between self and other. It is through our sense of identity that we identify ourselves as members of various ethnic groups or nations as well as social classes which provide us with a sense of belonging. Likewise, nations are communities which provide a sense of belonging through the individuals feeling of connectedness to his or her fellow men. In other words, individuals think that they are a part of one collective body, namely, a community known as nation, which is in fact an idea, defined by Benedict Anderson as an imagined political community (6). The survival of nations depend upon nvention and performance of traditions, histories, symbols which help people sustain their identity. However, it mostly depends on traditions and narration of history, which are central elements. Therefore, national history is important in the sense that it narrates the past as a common experience that belongs to a community. It creates one particular version of the past and identity to constitue a common past and a collective identity of any given community. In other words, nations are imaginary communities, to use Benedict Andersons phrase, and nationalism is based on the very concept of a unified imaginary community. Furthermore, nations shared territory which they believe they own and therefore have the right to separate from other peoples land by means of borders. As an idea, scholars usually agree that it is Western in origin, that it came into existence with the development of Western capitalism, industrialization and colonial expansion, which paved the way for imperialism. However, starting with the 90s, nationalism, nation and national identity began to lose their significance as the world was becoming increasingly international, particularly after the period of decolonization. The concept of nation / nationalism nd national identity as Western ideas stimulated colonized peoples to develop their own sense of nationalism and national identity against the colonial, national identity of the West. However, this anticolonial nationalism could not provide the colonised peoples with a sense of homogeneous national unity due to the diversity of ethnic groups within them, particularly because the elite nationalist rule neglected the subaltern masses and privileged the elite over the subaltern, which turned nationalism into a rule of elite dominations, as argued by Frantz Fanon in his The Wretched of the Earth. Hence, there emerged from Western capitalism and colonization the concepts of nation and nationalism as indispensible components of imperialist expansion, but failing to bring national liberation to the heterogeneous groups of people in the former colonies despite their opposition to imperialist domination as anticolonial nationalism. Be it colonial or anti-colonial, both are essentialist and racist in the sense that they supported the ruling elite while ignoring the less privileged ethnic groups. The English Patient (hereafter will be cited as EP) is a novel that questions he nation and nationalism that shape identities through colonial and anti-colonial nationalisms. The characters are all exiles from their homeland who have gathered together at the Villa San Girolamo at the end of World War II. Hana is a Canadian nurse, who volunteered for war service and who has to have an abortion because the father of her unborn child has been killed. Furthermore, she is on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of the news of her fathers death by burns and her continous dealing with the wounded and the dying. As the Canadian Infantry Division ontinues to advance in Italy, she stays behind at the villa to nurse a dying burnt man who is called the English patient. The third member of the villa other than these two is Kip, a Sikh, who is a sapper in the British army and finally, Caravaggio, the thief, an Italian-Canadian who was a friend of Hanas father. The novels central figure is the English patient whose identity is already erased as he is burnt beyond recognition. In fact, he is the Hungarian Court Ladislaus de Almasy, a desert explorer who helped the Germans navigate the deserts. Although his duty is to delineate, name and in a ense possess the unmapped desert, which is a vast territory, in the end his own identity, which is the map of his own features, has been erased and he is known only as the English patient. In fact, the inhabitants of the Villa are all diplaced because they are exiles who have found new identities in a place other than their homeland. In a sense, they formed a new community in the Villa, which is like Eden, isolated from the outside world of war and violence. Since the novel questions colonial and colonial hierarchies, particularly the imperial conception of space/place through the apping of the desert, which is an instrument of colonial domination, and the deserts elusiveness because of its vastness and uncontrollable sand storms. In fact, mapping a space means to name it and possess it as it becomes a place as seized territory, which will help invaders, explorers and traders to realize their plans and aspirations. Almasy is aware of the fact that mapping is a form of knowledge for power and domination: The ends of the earth are never the points on a map that colonists push against, enlarging their sphere of influence. On one side servants and slaves and tides of ower and correspondence with the Geographical Society.

6 outdated career tipsâ€and why they’ve changed

6 outdated career tips- and why they’ve changed You don’t use the phone, watch TV, or dress the same way your parents did when they were your age- so why would you use career advice that has been around just as long (or even longer)? Some pieces of advice in the career world will truly never change: hard work pays off, and you should never get drunk at a company holiday party. Otherwise, things are negotiable. Let’s look at some infamous career advice that might not be so valid anymore. Keep a low profile on your personal life.Advice: Keep your work life and your personal life totally separate, even on social media.What’s changed: Social media like Facebook has evolved over time to include more than your â€Å"friends† per se. Relatives, acquaintances, former dates†¦all show up in your news feed, so why not add coworkers into the mix? Why not even add your boss, if you get along and find her opera singing/supermarathon running/jewelry crafting hobbies interesting? Social media has blurred social li nes a bit and has helped make relationships a bit more informal. When used well, it’s a way to break the ice and build relationships with people you might otherwise only see at work.However, this one does come with a caveat: if you do friend colleagues and managers on social media, set filters or try to keep things clean. Anything you post that can be seen by coworkers becomes fair game. And definitely don’t complain about work if people from work can see it. If you wouldn’t want to see a screenshot of something you wrote land in your work email inbox, don’t write it.And it’s not just social media- socializing with coworkers and sharing (appropriate) details about your personal lives can help you bond and feel more connected to your workplace. Small talk about your weekend or cute pictures of your boss’s kid are not likely to derail your professional relationship or keep either of you from doing the work that needs to be done. And we all nee d allies at work- someone to talk with when things get stressful or with whom you can grab a non-work-related lunch. Chitchat about work-only things will only go so far. You’re much more likely to have good relationships with your coworkers if you can bond over other things you have in common.Keep a strict work-life division.Advice: Don’t even think about work after you leave. Don’t check email after hours. And when you’re at work, don’t do anything personal or non-work related.What’s changed: It’s true, email has helped create â€Å"work creep† that can lead to stress outside of work hours or leave you feeling cheated on your personal time. But like all balances, it’s important to keep negotiating your work-life balance to make sure it still works for you. If it makes your workday better to spend half an hour at night checking a few emails or lining up your to-do list for the next day, do it. If you need a quick break d uring the afternoon to talk to your partner, take it. Keeping a single mindset for eight straight hours is not only difficult, but it can increase your stress. The most important thing is that you’re not letting personal time at work upset your productive time, and that you’re not letting work squeeze out your personal decompression time and priorities.Never show weakness.Advice: If you’re struggling or you don’t fully understand what’s going on, don’t let anyone know. Fake it, or stall until you can straighten it out on your own. Asking for help is a sign of weakness and incompetence.What’s changed: You know what takes a lot of unnecessary time and energy? Faking it. If you don’t understand what needs to be done, ask your manager or someone involved with the task. You shouldn’t lead with, â€Å"Oh man, I have no clue what to do here†- but it’s perfectly all right to say, â€Å"Just so I’m clear her e, this is what I think the next steps are. Can you confirm?† Or â€Å"Can we walk through this again so I understand?† Your manager would rather have a good outcome on a project than a result where you clearly winged it and got things wrong.If you need help, ask for it. Otherwise you risk not being able to bluff your way through as well as you think you can, and wasting both your time and others’. Invest a little time and honesty up front and make it easier on everyone- not least of all yourself. Think of it as a learning opportunity, not a failure.Don’t challenge the boss.Advice: Never challenge your boss on anything. If you don’t agree, just let it go and wait your turn to be the one in charge. After all, she’s the boss for a reason. Do what you’re told, and publicly agree with the official point of view.What’s changed: The manager/employee dynamic hasn’t necessarily changed, but it’s more culturally acceptable now to disagree- albeit diplomatically and productively. This is not to say that you should openly scoff at a particularly ridiculous idea or laugh in your boss’s face when he asks you if you agree about something. Rather, frame it as a respectful difference in point of view. For example: â€Å"I see what you’re saying, but what if we look at it from this other perspective?† Set it as a dialogue instead of just publicly rejecting something your boss has said. Like you, your boss has an interest in making sure things get done in the best way possible, so if you have a difference of opinion that could improve an outcome, don’t be afraid to speak up in a respectful and constructive way.Standard politeness rules apply here as well. Loudly contradicting your boss in a meeting with other people is not likely to go over very well. Nobody likes to be shouted down. But presenting an alternative choice, and acknowledging the validity of what was already said, is a much more productive way to disagree without being rude or unprofessional.Never say â€Å"no.†Advice: Especially when you’re just starting out, always say â€Å"yes† when you’re asked to take on new things or responsibilities. If you say â€Å"no,† you’re not a team player.What’s changed: Saying â€Å"yes† to everything is a shortcut to burnout, and employers have become more conscious of cultivating employee morale. There’s only so much you can handle in the work hours you have available. The better way to handle this is through negotiating and prioritizing. Instead of saying â€Å"I just can’t do this right now,† figure out why you can’t, and ask for help prioritizing tasks if this potential new one is important for you to take on.The key to this one is making sure that your rationale for saying no is a legitimate one. If you just don’t feel like doing it, that’s not going to go over well. But if you genuinely don’t have time, or object for specific reasons, you can be honest about those. Lay out the reasons why, and open a dialogue about how this new ask can or should fit in with your existing workload. It’s always better to have a â€Å"here’s why† list of talking points ready to go, so that your boss doesn’t think you’re lazy, or can’t do the work.Don’t be a job hopper.Advice: Don’t jump from job to job. Settle in and build experience at one job for several years. Job hopping makes you look like an unreliable employee.What’s changed: The world, basically. The job scenario where you start right out of school and stay there for 40 years has become, essentially, a unicorn. The average person now will have eight jobs before they turn 30. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employees who are 25 to 34 years old typically stay with a job for three years.Job hopping can be a way t o build your skills and maximize your opportunities instead of staying in a role that may not fit your long-term goals. Job hopping can also mean moving to different jobs within the same company if you find other roles that fit better. While switching jobs every year for the next 15 years is not an ideal strategy (that might truly start to send up red flags for potential employers), you shouldn’t let â€Å"well, I just started this other job† discourage you from seriously considering a job opportunity that pays better, or is better aligned with your career goals.Not all advice is true forever. When it comes to your own career, it’s important to think about whether that advice will truly help you, or if it just doesn’t fit with the way the world works anymore.

Interpretive Journey Paper Essay Example

Interpretive Journey Paper Essay Example Interpretive Journey Paper Paper Interpretive Journey Paper Paper The government that we live under today was founded on principles that originated with serving God and not the pagan roots of the empirical Roman government. In many ways the difference between their town and our town are not too great. Christians are still called to live their lives differently from the way non-believers live. The moral and ethical requirements that come with living for God are the same as those of early Christians. Pewters message to live humbly before God, trusting in His power is still as relevant in the twenty-first Century as it was in the first. The meaning of this text can be summarized as, because God cares for me, I need to humbly endure the trials am going through without worrying about the outcome and when the time is right He will reward me for my willing service. Step 3 Cross the Principles Bridge What are the principles that the Author is giving. There are three principles in 1 Peter 5:6, 7: 1. We are to live humbly, despite the difficulties of this present life, acknowledging that God has the plan and the power to make it come to pass in our lives. 2. Because He cares for us, God will lift up those who suffer for Him when the time is right according to His plan and purpose. 3. Because God has a plan and the power to enforce that plan, we should through all our anxiety on Him. Living humbly is the recognition that am not capable of fixing the things that make the Christian life tough to live, only God has that ability.

Answer some questions to some short stories Essay

Answer some questions to some short stories - Essay Example 3. Yes, John is the villain in the story. She is against the empowerment and wellbeing of his wife. There other people falling in this category, but he emerges the epitome and fits the description of villain in the story. This is because, the narrator is his own wife and any reader would expect him to treat her in the right and humane manner contrary to what he does. 4. The color of the wallpaper is yellow. Yellow is next brightest and most visible color after white. On the paper are sub-patterns of desperate women. The patterns are clear to the narrator. The paper is a representation of medicine, family, as well as tradition which the narrator has found herself entangled in. The color shows that the oppressive practices of men are clear to the eyes of the victims, women. 5. (Q9). The roles of women in the story are facilitation and enhancement of themes such as love, death, and enabler. The author, O’Brien, uses the existing love between Lt. Jimmy Cross and Martha to show the trend between the separation created during the war and the soldiers. The relationship between the two was not that hopped for in the first place. Cross is obsessed with Martha and this leads to the death of Ted Lavender. Similarly soldier’s love and patriotism for their country makes them kill opponents. Kathleen, O’ Brien’s daughter acts as the enabler for untrue stories he writes. Linda acts as a symbol that the dead can be immortalized (O’Brien 18). 6. (Q11) War is a representation or metaphor of human life. People like Perish because of love. The soldiers fight and some of them die because of their love for their people. There are also loneliness and isolation in the story. O’Brien affirms that loneliness in Vietnam is destructive forces like any other type of ammunition. 7. (Q12) If the US instituted the law today, I will definitely go and serve my country in Vietnam. There are challenges as revealed in the book by Tim challenges

Counterculture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Counterculture - Essay Example The counter-culture is the cultural counterpart of of political opposition. This is a new sociological term coined by Theodore Roszak, an American social thinker, whose writings are frequently linked with the "alternative or " "new age" movements. It is Roszak who narrated and explained the European and North American counterculture of the 1960s in his book The Making of a Counter Culture (1969). However, mentions about the term also exist in earlier times, as Stein Rokkan in his models in political science, used the expression to depict the fight of the marginal against the authoritative mainstream central state-and nation-building and that kind of cultural homogenization in 1967 (Alford et al, 1974). Loosely speaking, countercultural trends are prsent in many societies, but what Roszak et al here means is a more important and noticeable trend, reaching a significant target for a certain span of time, a movement expressing the culture, hopes and dreams of a paricular group of people during an epoch - a social expression of zeitgeist, the typical spirit of a historical epoch in its entirety (Zeit contains the sense of "era"), the idea is derived from the belief that the time has a objective meaning and is instilled with content In this sense Countercultural ambiances in 19th century Europe took in the Romantic, Bohemian and the Dandy movements (Dictionary of the History, lib.virginia.edu ). Another movement in the 1950's, Beat generation/Beatniks also had traces of counter culture in it, followed in the 1960s by the hippies. The term 'counterculture' became important in the news media as it referred to the social revolution swaying North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia a nd New Zealand during the 1960s and early 1970s (Roszak, 1969). In modern history of the western world (and for that matter, the world in its entireity) countreculture is often placed synonymouly with the turbulent decades of the 1960os and 1970's that was, accoding to Roszak, a social and political response to the pretense of the mainstream worldly culture from which it rose. In the The Making of a Counter Culture he handles rather truthfully the tensions, problems and incongruities connected with the ascent of the counterculture and the inherent problems it had with it to ultimately heralding for the worldly normal culture. History, no doubt, shows that the philosophy of the 1960s was squashed by the crushing attack of the system and the political and social values of the counterculture finally joined into the realm of private philosophies of hippies as absorbed into the mainstream. Yet while earlier studies on the sixties focus mainly on the "hippie" era, or on the sex, the drugs, and the music, Roszak focuses mostly on the political and soci al issues of the time including everything from the Vietnam War to how the effect of counter culture on lifestyles of an average American family. He assesses thoroughly the bond between the late 1960's counterculture to avant-garde intellectual ideas of the same age, discussing those of Herbert Marcuse and Norman Brown, among others, in great detail to show clearly how their ideas affected the intellectual and political movements on college campuses in both America and Europe with a remarkable insight especially considering that he wrote The Making of a Counter Culture almost on the same time while the events were still expanding. The counter culture of the 1960's and the 1970's, Roszak shows us, was

Recycling Should Be Mandatory for Everyone Essay

Recycling Should Be Mandatory for Everyone - Essay Example Recycling is beneficial to the environment, is cost-effective and must be made mandatory in order to succeed. The environmental benefits of recycling are well-documented and beyond doubt. Recycling reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators, conserves natural resources such as timber, water, and minerals, prevents pollution by reducing the need to collect new raw materials, saves energy, reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change and helps create new well-paying jobs in the recycling and manufacturing industries in the United States (EPA). The common method of dealing with waste is landfilling. This method is an inefficient waste of resources: The EPA asserts that the largest single component of landfills is packaging material which is 100 percent recyclable. One out of every 100 pounds dumped in U.S. landfills consists of the highly recyclable junk mail. Landfills also contribute to global warming through the release of methane into the atmosphere and by the pollution of groundwater and waterways. Recycling is an efficient alternative to la ndfills. Contrary to popular perception, recycling is cost-effective. The major argument put forward by critics of recycling is that it is often comparatively more expensive than landfilling. This argument is highly misleading. As Edward Humes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author says, â€Å"You could similarly argue that paying to go to the dentist is always more expensive than not going. Or that we sure could have saved on the military if only we had surrendered after Pearl Harbor rather than declaring war.† Critics of recycling conveniently fail to take into consideration the long term financial costs of addressing the costs of pollution caused by landfilling.                 Ã‚  

International Students And Global Education Sociology Essay

International Students And Global Education Sociology Essay There is a widespread recognition and belief that our increasingly interconnected and interdependent global society mandates that students be educated to develop habits of the mind that embrace tolerance, a commitment to cooperation, an appreciation of our common humanity, and a sense of responsibility. The international students are the future leader of tomorrow. Understanding global issues is critical to the students across the global as they endeavor to promote democratic principles and social justice, improve our economic competitiveness, and provide leadership in the future. However, not enough is being done in public schools and classrooms to expose students to global issues. Research shows that most American students lag behind their peers in other countries in their knowledge of world geography, foreign languages, and cultures ( National Geographic-Roper, 2002). Our curriculum must undergo a paradigm shift recognizing that in order to be truly globally competitive; our teache rs must be globally competent. Educating young people to become global citizens will allow them to learn about the interdependence of the worlds systems, believe that solutions to global challenges are attainable, and feel morally compelled to confront global injustices and take responsible action to promote a just, peaceful and sustainable world. If we truly aspire to have a world-class education that connects and recognizes that what we do affects other humans in the world, we must engage with the world. The challenges that face the world today-from global poverty and climate change to financial systems and conflict-require globally-minded solutions (OMeara, 1997). Knowledge of these skills is necessary so that young people can invent a future that appropriately addresses global challenges. These young international students must gain global competence in addressing international issues as well as gaining the ability to work with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. Teaching for global connectedness should be grounded in the personal experiences of the student and her/his community. Teachers must be able to help students to connect global issues with daily life experiences. According to Ryan and Durning (1997) students ought to consider the impact of their daily consumption (and garbage) on the lives of other people and places in the world; the consumption of coffee, newspapers, t-shirts, shoes, car, computer, hamburger, french-fries and cola are traced from their origins through the inequities of the production process to the consequences of waste products. Teachers must approach global education from different perspectives, says Merry Merryfield, associate professor of social studies and global education at The Ohio State University. For example: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦some teachers have the rationale that, in order to compete in a global economy, students need a global perspectivebut others want to make the world a better place in terms of the environment and social justice. Still others want to promote cross-cultural understanding. Each of these is a valid approach, says Merryfield, as long as teachers emphasize multiple perspectives and global interdependence (Rasmussen, 1998, p.2). Teachers also need to have the competences they are trying to teach students. Our college preps do not prepare teachers to be globally competent. Understanding global issues makes teachers more apt to guiding students in the global challenges that face their countries of origin. Given the fragile state of the world and the level of continued destruction, more emphasis should be given to preparing students to become stewards of the earth and participants in democracy for global social justice. Authentic learning occurs when students from diverse cultures meet and work together, especially when they have equal status and collaborative goals that have meaning in their lives (Johnson Johnson, 1992). Global educators find ways to increase their students experiences with people different from themselves through work with international students from local universities, immigrant organizations in the community, service learning projects, exchanges through e-mail or videos, and taking studen ts overseas (Wilson, 1993). In a 10th grade world history, a unit on the Middle East, some teachers may motivate students by presenting exotic images-such as the harem, polygamy, belly dancing, Arab sheiks, and camel races-and may fail to challenge students comments that stereotype all Arabs as supporters of terrorism or all Arab women as having few rights. But Global educators, however, purposefully address stereotypes and challenge the exotic images and misperceptions that students bring with them into the classroom. They develop lessons to replace misinformation with knowledge of the complexity of cultures, cultural conflicts, and global issues. To begin a unit on the Middle East, for example, a global educator asks students to brainstorm what they know about Muslims, Arabs, and the Middle East and then immediately addresses common misperceptions. When students confuse the terms Arab and Muslim, the teacher helps students map where Arabs live and introduces primary sources for st udents to differentiate diverse Arab cultures and the Muslim world (Said, 1997). Said (1993) ideas on how Europeans constructed the Orient can help students recognize the exotic images of the Middle East in popular media, entertainment, and textbooks, and distinguish them from the materials that people of other countries have posted on the Internet and what local Egyptian, Lebanese, and Iranian students say about their lives back home. In developing an appreciation of the complexities within other cultures, students learn to challenge sweeping generalizations, misinformation, and stereotypes. Global Challenges Sustainable development and climate change People all over the world are struggling with problems of a magnitude no other generation has faced. Even in the most affluent nations, millions of people suffer from hunger, homelessness, and unattended health problems. Sach (1995) opines that wars, civil conflicts and invasions take the lives of millions more. Global changes in the climate are creating severe local weather conditions, destroying lives and property. Well intended projects continue to despoil the land, water and air ( Sach, 1995 p.7). Millions of tons of hazardous waste generated by industrialized countries are exported to non-industrialized areas of the world without regard to the health and environment consequences. Jacobson (1991) says that over three billion pounds of pesticides a year are used globally causing human poisonings, harm to fish and wildlife, livestock losses, groundwater contamination, destruction of natural vegetation, and more pests resistant to pesticides (Jacobson et al, 1991, p. 45). Deforestat ion, soil erosion, destruction of habitat, extinction of species, and depletion of aquifers are but a few of the many attacks on our planet. While natural resources are stripped from the earth, new species are genetically engineered by corporations for profitability and monopolized through complex international patent laws with few constraints for releasing them into the environment. According to Shiva (1997) ancient knowledge of plants and animals, and even human genetic material, are stolen from indigenous peoples and used to generate wealth for a few while the cultures which generated the knowledge are decimated. As these examples demonstrate, human rights and environmental issues are clearly intertwined. A country like Kenya is a prime example of not providing an economic infrastructure to meet the subsistence needs of the communities in the northern part of the country and creating man made famine. Countries with hungry people export grains or feed them to livestock for export. Millions of jobs are eliminated by technology or runaway factories as CEO salaries skyrocket. While the United Nations ratified a Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, more than 250 million children are forced into labor (Sanders, 1997). Enormous resources are wasted on the production of guns and weapons of mass destruction as social programs and education funds are drastically reduced. Projects to solve one problem have created other problems. McMichaels (1993) observes that dams, viewed for decades as creating clean energy and providing irrigation, are responsible for destroying the means of subsistence for millions of people who are forced to relocate their homes (McMichaels, 1993 page 36). Alteri ng the natural flow of rivers, these dams flood millions of hectares of arable land, create conditions for water born diseases and prevent fish from spawning. Aquaculture, heralded as the answer to declining fish and shrimp populations, is despoiling the habitat of other species. The primacy of profit maximization over all other values is the core of both social and environmental problems. Nations and nature are being restructured to meet this primary goal, not to meet the needs of ordinary people or to ensure a sustainable environment. The problems created are global, with consequences for many different countries and communities. For example, when U. S. companies move plants and jobs to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor, they leave economic devastation in local U.S. communities and undermine the existing economies in the new locations. At the same time, they take advantage of less stringent environmental policies in other countries that allow them to pollute more freely or to use chemicals banned in the United States. Sometimes, these chemicals return to consumers in the U.S. in the imported products. Global problems necessitate going beyond national borders to embracing the concept of global citizenship. By learning how global issues affec t individual and community lives, how and why decisions are made which affect the planet and life on it and, most importantly, means by which the future can be influenced, global education can prepare students to become socially responsible international citizens. The empowerment of women Empowerment of women has been one of the strongest drivers of social evolution over the past century, and many argue that it is the most efficient strategy for addressing the global challenges in this chapter. Only two countries allowed women to vote at the beginning of the twentieth century; today there is virtually universal suffrage, the average ratio of women legislators worldwide has reached 19.2%, and over 20 countries have women heads of state or government. Patriarchal structures are increasingly challenged, and the movement toward gender equality is irreversible. With an estimated control of over 70% of global consumer spending, women are strongly influencing market preferences. Analysis shows a direct interdependence between countries Gender Gap Index and their Competitiveness Index scores and that Fortune 500 companies with more gender-balanced boards could outperform the others by as much as 50%. Yet the Gender Equity Index 2010 shows that significant differences still remain in economic participation and political empowerment. Gender stereotyping continues to have negative impacts on women around the world, and although progress is being made on closing the gender gap in terms of establishing global and national policies, real improvement will only be achieved when conflicts between written laws and customary and religious laws and practices are eliminated. Environmental disasters, food and financial crises, armed conflicts, and forced displacement further increase vulnerabilities and generate new forms of disadvantages for women and children. Women account for over 40% of the worlds workforce, earn less than 25% of the wages, and represent about 70% of people living in poverty. An OECD survey found that women spend more time on unpaid work than men do worldwide, with the gap ranging from 1 hour per day in Denmark to 5 hours per day in India. FAO estimates that giving women the same access as men to agricultural resources could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17%, or 100-150 million people. Child malnutrition levels are estimated to be 60% above average where women lack the right to land ownership and 85% above average where they have no access to credit. Microcredit institutions reported that by 2010, nearly 82% (about 105 million) of their poorest clients were women. However, many of their businesses are too small to transform their economic status, points out FEMNET. Empowerment of women is highly accelerated by the closing gender gap in education. Most countries are reaching gender parity in primary education, and 50% of university students worldwide are women. Yet regional disparities are high, and UNESCO estimates that women represent about 66% of the 796 million adults who lack basic literacy skills. Although the health gender gap is closing, family planning and maternal health remain critical. Determining the size of the family should be recognized as a basic human right, and more attention should be given to womens health and social support for affordable child care worldwide, including industrial countries, which are facing demographic crises due to low fertility rates. Of the more than 500,000 maternal deaths per year, 99% happen in developing countries, with the highest prevalence in Africa and Asia due to high fertility rates and weak health care systems. Unless providing effective family planning to the 215 million women who lack it is seen as a key component of development, the UN goal to reduce maternal mortality to 120 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2015 will not be achieved. Regulations should be enacted and enforced to stop female genital mutilation, which traumatizes about 3 million girls in Africa each year, in addition to the 100-142 million women worldwide affected by it today. While the prevalence of this in Egypt, Guinea, and some parts of Uganda is at over 90%, communities in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and even in the EU are also affected. Violence against women is the largest war today, as measured by death and casualties per year. While the proportion of women exposed to physical violence in their lifetime ranges from 12% to 59%, a function of region and culture, sexual assaults remain one of the most underreported crimes worldwide, continuing to be perpetrated with impunity. According to UNODC, 66% of the victims of the $32 billion global industry of human trafficking are women and children. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, has 142 parties and 117 signatories thus far, but it has yet to be adopted and enforced by some key countries. Female vulnerability increases during conflict, when sexual violence is often used as a weapon. Recovery from conflict and disaster should be used as opportunities to rectify inequalities. Nevertheless, women make up only 8% of peace negotiators, and only 25 countries have developed National Action Plans supporting UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on womens protection in conflict and participation in peace processes. Reduce the gap between rich and poor? The world needs a long-term strategic plan for a global partnership between rich and poor. Such a plan should use the strength of free markets and rules based on global ethics to combat poverty. Conventional approaches to poverty reduction (technical assistance and credit) that work in low- and middle-income stable countries do not work in fragile countries, which need stability first. Ethical market economies and systems require improved fair trade, increased economic freedom, a level playing field guaranteed by an honest judicial system with adherence to the rule of law and by governments that provide political stability, a chance to participate in local development decisions, reduced corruption, insured property rights, business incentives to comply with social and environmental goals, a healthy investment climate, and access to land, capital, and information. Direction from central government with relatively free markets is competing with the decentralized, individualized private enterprise for lifting people out of poverty (Hersh and . Paterson, 1994 pages 93-94) An alternative to trying to beat the brain drain is to connect people overseas to the development process back home by a variety of Internet systems. According to UNDP, if the WTO eliminated agricultural export subsidies, developing countries would gain $72 billion per year, according to UNDP. Structural imbalances in world trade have to be corrected to assure fair competition, respect of human rights, and labor and environmental standards, as well as efficient management of the global commons and prevention of monopolies. Chinas monetary policy adjustments could help other countries economic development and access to world markets. International students must be exposed to these issues and offer possible solutions in a project oriented instruction. Also as a resource, the native students from these countries provide a rich understanding of how the issues affect their lives. Australia has set up a recruiting structure that gives international students scholarships with a pledge that these students will work in Australia for five years after graduation before returning to the mother country. Relationships are being developed to foster cooperation and understanding. The case study of such programs would enhance students understanding of international connectedness as international students. They can learn that the human experience is an increasingly globalized phenomenon in which people are constantly being influenced by transnational, cross-cultural, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic interactions. It is therefore important international students begin developing a deeper understanding of the worlds economic, social, a nd political issues.