Nabhan is an Arab American who is looking for a sense of place and peace. His writing gives me a sense of longing for understanding and embracing of his roots. He goes on to say how his ancestors and their surrounding cultures were robbed and basically torn from their native lands. Nabhad has a piece of dolomite as a reminder of his ancestors. This is the only thing that he has as a reminder. To others this may not seem significant or important. This piece of history takes him back to a time of better sweet memories. It's amazing that something so small has such a powerful significance. Some of these memories were good and some where not good at all. In his writing he also describes how hatred and greed can consume people and how there was an ill regard for the welfare and safety of others.
Nabhan used the word Xenophobia which means the fear of the other. After reading this article I can attribute a lot of the hate and violence that was described in his passage. Only fear can cause someone to consume so much hate that would cause them to kill and raid the village and homeland of innocent people. Only fear can cause someone not to care how others will survive from taking away their only means of survival. The consequences of these actions have lead many cultures to fear the thought of actually trusting one another.
Nabhan speaks of poetry written by Mahmoud Darwish and Laila Allush. These poets spoke about their ordeals through words of poetry. They both described how it felt for them and their ancestors to be torn from their native lands. However, they may have been torn but they never forgot the beauty, struggles, and the significance of their homelands. Nabhan and these fellow poets seem to look for the positives to get through all the hatred that they have faced in their lives. They speak of love and peace despite the hatred they have endured.
1. How can one find peace in a world filled with hate and mistrust?
2. Do you think that it's right to tarnish the next man's historical roots?
3. Do you think that oral storytelling and public literature about different cultures can help eliminate cultural stereotyping?
What we call an environmental crisis stems from the problem of pollution, species extinction, loss of wilderness and farmland.
Oversimplification was been the cause of our brutal relationship to nature; which publicity has a major role in. People are consumers who have over the years increased its demand of the corporate world to provide more of its services. Some think this is merely political problems; but in all actuality it is us as individuals can solve in "environmental crisis." This is the consensus we have silently taking toward an economy that is destroying nature.
This moral and economic belief exists on the "free market", which buy low sell high. The ones who are upper class have all the power while the middle and lower class have almost none. They just have to keep the consumer dependent on purchased supplies. Forcing country people to move to the city and labor replacing technology are key to keeping labor wages low. Overproduction is encouraged by low prices which only the larger corporations can take advantage of. The global market, foreign and domestic economics and modern colonialized nations, is an unjustified theory of economics.
It is believed that the corporate companies will force each other toward manufacturing efficiencies which leads to higher bids on raw materials and labor but will lower consumer's prices, in theory. The law of competition is that the stronger competitor over takes the weaker cheapest place of origin to the highest place of sales, using least expensive transportation. The government doesn't seem eager to become national or local-sufficiency to protect the people and land.
The world trade organization was established for the "free Market," it can overrule national and regional laws that would interfere with the "free market." Corporations are regarded as a "person" but it does not think about the future effects on the economy, it is merely a group of people who let their money do the work while they reap the benefits.
The idea of a local economy represents two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. The principle of neighborhood provides for one another while principles of subsistence cherish and protects neighbors?
1. Do you think "free market" is consider corporation businesses or privately owned businesses?
2. What is your perception of "law of competition?
3. Would you consider providing and protecting your neighbors if needed?