Democracy and elections.

This the title of the social assignment. I found it was very suitable and meaningful for the blog so I revised and edited the ariticle partly and decided to post it in my blog. The article is about the briery and other distractive nonsense during some elections may hinder the democratic process in human's society.

Elections are recognized as a symbol of the democracy (electoral democracy), but current situations of elections especially in the Asia are hindering progress in democracies somehow.

Firstly, in electoral process, citizens vote for their ideal representatives in governments or parliaments. It is really displaying the spirit of democracy (like the author said, every voters think of their own best candicates who can represent their command in politics and serve for their requirement), the representatives control the group of people’s political power reflected on various conferences they participate in. But there is a problem in reality which makes the democratic system not as good and effective as we expected. Because the representatives may have self desire, probably they may abuse the political power which belongs to his people in fact and disobey their pledge and promises in elections. It is easy and convenient for them to satisfy their own requirement such as money, lands and many others. If so, the electoral process and its result, representative system may hinder the progress of democracy.

Secondly, bribery is a poison in the electoral process and may cause serious corruption of the whole political system including democracies. Some particular political parties tend to offer financial benefits and other entertainment to attract voters’ attention and induce them to vote for themselves (like in the article, ‘the pasar malam creates a happy place for families to enjoy themselves, selling from VCDs to clothes and snacks’ a party official said). Therefore, the result of the elections become the consideration of citizens own benefits in the elections and actually irrelevant to the politics itself as well as democracy (since the citizens are not considering rationally on the political power). In the other word, the result of the elections is not representing citizens’ willingness on politics, and those eventual winners had better to go to some entertaining TV programs because they are really good at that. Party is used to describe the election time in Indonesia and many other places ( reference from the article).

Moreover, these particular political parties’ behavior is disrespecting the politics, democracy and citizens’ power which should be very solemn. Instead the serious atmosphere, the whole elections more tend to be a happy party ,‘it can’t be completed without rock bands, gyrating daugdut singers ’and so on, they avoid serious talk and the view is that will bore the visitors, but that’s the interests and focus in the political elections. It will cheat the citizens’ awareness and making them insensitive to the politics. After winning with these illegal and illegitimate means, they do whatever they want for their self satisfactions and decay the nation, corrupt the political system and influence the citizens’ life consequently.

So, we can see the electoral progress can hinder the democracy in many aspects. It doesn’t mean the electoral system is not available in human society. It just refers to our problem when committing the elections and democracy.

Youths' physological problem

Nowadays, the cases of youths’ suicide have become more and more serious. When we look at the numbers of these young lives, we must be shocked and get , the situation is warning us severely now and we need take actions immediately and the whole society including parents, schools and others to co-operate to prevent those potential cases and calm down the burning situation.

Youths’ decline psychological condition is a very important cause of their tragedies. The problem from studies, friendships and relationship with parents gives too much pressure on their young and innocent hearts. Once the pressure becomes out of the acceptable range, they minds will collapse easily and result in those tragedies like suicides.

To solve this problem we need to find out solutions in different ways and perspectives.

As parents who are the most important people to the children, their behaviors influence their children very much. For example, if the child doesn’t do well for an examination and parents scold them very badly, it may induce the youths to be disappointed with their parents and families. Family should offer warmth and protection to its members and is the best place for people to rest and restore. Children meet the failure, may be scolded by teachers already, when they require a place to rest and restore, the place they believe in—home-doesn’t welcome them at all, it must be a huge cut on their hearts. So parents should encourage children, motivate them to work hard, educate them mildly and gently, treat them as friends and communicate sincerely with believes in each other. It can help produce a harmonic family—a wonderful and ideal place for people to restore, so if youths meet any problems that cannot solve, they can get help easily and own a healthy psychological condition. This will prevents some extreme cases like suicides from happening.

Another important part of youths’ life is school. In school, they get used to the co-operation and group work; get to know friends, classmates and teachers. Those play an important role in their life as well. Actually, the youths’ most problems come from the school because of the study and friendship which are the most core elements in their students’ career and golden ages. Especially the study is the thorniest problem. The competitions among schools, classes and individuals are very fierce. Failures are very normal but some students have a fragile psychological condition and are not able to accept the result easily. In these cases, the school ought to take responsibility to take care of them when parents are not around, detect the problems in time and solve it. A talk, an encouragement and ‘hello’ may help them a lot. Teachers and classmates may have awareness of taking care others, avoid conflict as much as possible to reduce the may-be hurt in case that the pupil is very depressed.

All in all, youths’ problem is very serious and we had better prevent it immediately otherwise there will be more and more tragedies.

Iraq War

I have read the particular section on Iraq war in Straits Time for a long period. All of the articles were about the loss of lives and properties, suffering people in Mid-east. And everything is due to the bloody war which the U.S.A. took on Iraq in 2003 and the terrible situation tends to be worse and worse.
I think the first influence towards the whole world is the oil export. During the war, the oil-production declined seriously and caused the rise in the price of oil in world-wide. It somehow increased people’s worry about energy crisis. Up to now, the influence is still there although has been reduced a little by the end of Iraq war and the establishment of the new government which is trying to revive the nation.
Some of reports in the newspaper are focus on the American troops’ abuses. They abused the prisoners as cruelly as they could for their own desire. “In the era of Saddam Hussein, Abu Ghraib, twenty miles west of Baghdad, was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women—no accurate count is possible—were jammed into Abu Ghraib at one time, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells that were little more than human holding pits.” The material above is extracted from THE NEW YORKER. And moreover there are lots of incredible “punishments” which disturb the law. People all around are demonstrating against the U.S. government’s policy in Iraq and Mid-east. The assumption of U.S. government before the war that Iraq might have nuclear weapons is proved to be a fault after many investigations, but it still pushes orward it policy and the result becomes clearer and clearer as time passed.
When we lie on the sofa watching TV leisurely, can we think of Iraqis’ plight and struggle with survival. Everyday a number of precious lives leave the world and countless properties vanish forever. I saw a report on a website just now, “Iraq war costs could top $2 trillion which is far above the US administration's prewar projections, takes into account the long term healthcare costs for the 16,000 US soldiers injured in Iraq so far. Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how large they are," the study said, referring to total war costs. We can state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a trillion dollars.”
The new Iraq government is reviving the situation under the help from the whole world.If everyone takes an effort to assist the re-establishment of Iraq society so that the process will be faster and more stably.


Reference: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/040510fa_fact?040510fa_fact
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/dailyUpdate.html

Global warming

Global warming
One month ago, I saw a report on the global warming in Straits Time and It said the temperature of the last year , 2006, had increased rapidly and achieved a new peak.
Once I read an article on the internet talked about the serious influence of the global warming which was becoming worse and worse , esp. in Asian. “South-east Asia as rising global temperatures bring violent cyclones and more flooding and droughts to the region.” Moreover the impact to people’s lives is a more enormous disaster: “flooding tens of thousands of hectares of farmland and impacting on tens of millions of people.” And “the destruction of crops and to cover insurance claims measuring billions of dollars.”. The global warming causes the decline of quality of people’s lives esp. the environment and hometown they have depended on for thousands of years. Someone doesn’t believe how bad the situation is but the truth from scientists’ research is that everything can’t be reversed if we watch the destruction developing without taking any action .“Bangladeshi Monirul Qadar Mirza, a water- resources expert based at Toronto University said South-east Asia was expected to suffer from higher than average temperature rises and increasingly moody weather swings. Dr Mirza said storm surges would flood inland farms with salty sea water ruining the soil, while rising sea levels would flood delta areas permanently.Sea levels are predicted to rise by between 9 cm and 88 cm by 2100.The migration of millions of people to the urban areas of Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam is expected in future due to the permanent inundation of coastal areas,' he warned.
Any conclusion about the pale future of human beings can be drawn easily from the materials above.Facing to such a challenge, the whole human beings shall and must take actions to prevent the tragic result from happening. “Dr Mirza said Asean should start preparing for the effects of climate change, building it into development plans and even breeding new salt- and heat-resistant crops.”Furthermore, some significant precautions or effort can be taken in the area of Carbon dioxide which is the criminal of the global warming. The vent of Carbon dioxide from industries ought to be reduced. The percentage of plants on the land will increase while turning the gas into useful and harmless oxygen. In fact many governments have realized the situation and started to put in effort, for example Kyoto protocol has achieved an international co-operation against the global warming but it is quite a pity that the U.S.A who produce the largest amount of Carbon dioxide refused to sign up. So it is still a hard work to overcome the problem and conquer the challenge. It needs a lot of efforts and convictions. But I think that if we can recognize the serious problem properly, the prospect of human beings’ future will be splendid and significant.

Reference :website “http://ecologyasia.com”