Pray the Devil back to Hell

Yesterday I watched the documentary Pray the Devil back to Hell directed by Gini Reticker. The movie takes place in Liberia, a country in western Africa. The country itself was formed around 1825 by the ACS, American Colonization society, in a hope to return the freed slaves to Africa.  Much like what is going on in Israel, the tribes who already lived on the land have been fighting for years to reclaim what was taken from them. The movie describes how the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace came together to bring a peaceful end to the Second Liberian Civil War.

The Second Liberian Civil war initially started in 1999 when LURD, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, was formed by the Guinea government. Then in 2003 a second force formed. Together they attacked Liberia using child soldiers and slowly took over all the of the country until they reached the capitol where Charles Taylor and his government where. 

The movie speaks of the horror of war. They have multiple first person accounts of rapes and murders by the conquerors who were "helping the people". The whole movie is narrated by the women who headed Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. They explain that everyone wanted the natural resources in Liberia and didn't care about the people. In an attempt to escape the murderous rebels ran to the government, who were equally horrible to them but as Leymah Gbowee, the head of the group, explained the people would rather have a devil they knew than one they knew nothing about. 

In a hope to solve the problem she, and other women from her church started the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. They congregated in the capitol bringing together both Christian and Muslim women. Their idea: a sex strike. They were going to starve their men of sex until they stopped fighting, as well as having a food strike. In the end the government of Liberia began peace talks, which were eventually mediated by the UN and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace took over reconstruction from the UN and set up a democratic government.

The mood of the film was very interesting. It was very sad because the film makers used a lot of b roll from the actual war. There were many shots of people shot, bleeding out, kids without limbs, and other horrific shots which emphasized the emotion of the film. The director, using first person accounts and b roll, took away from the informational aspect of the movie, because there was so much rampant emotion he never got to explaining other elements of the war. For example, why didn't the government just break up the hunger strike. Or after the rebels blew up part of the US embassy why didn't the US attack like we did in Libya? Questions like these were ignored because of an over use of Pathos. Over all the footage was amazing but at points the emotion got in the way of the facts.

I very much liked how the director used a narrator for the whole movie. She had a very soothing voice and charismatic personality that the viewer had to like her. Plus she had orchestrated the whole strike, so she was incredible.

I would definitely recommend this movie. It is an absolutely amazing story of what people can do without war, without guns, without death. These women, armed only white t shirts, stopped a whole war between three warring factions. It is just incredible what they have done. It shows that everyone can do something to help no matter how bad it seems. Definitely go watch it.

The Gaza Stip

Whats going on in the Gaza Strip?

Israeli forces have killed 11 or more civilians in the past 5 days of bombing of the Gaza Strip. Of most recent, Israeli forces have bombed the Hamas prime minister's office. They have systematically began destroying Palestinian rocket launch cites and have killed the Hamas Military Chief. Over the past couple days the Palestinian's and Israeli's have repeatedly attacked each other in response to attacks from the other side...kind of ironic.Both sides have stated that the reasons for their attacks have stemmed from attacks of the opposition. So who really started it? According to Emily Hauser, and American Israeli writer, the attacks originally began with the Israeli, although the fight between the two sides has been going on for what seems to be forever Hauser has pin pointed a time during the past month where she believes the current war has started. On November 8th Israeli forces killed a young boy of either 12 or 13. Later that day, Palestinian forces destroyed an Israeli tunnel in response injuring a guard but killing no one. Two days later the conflict continued when Palestinian forces fired rockets at an Israeli patrol injuring two soldiers. That day the Israelis responded by firing into Gaza multiple times hurting and killing many civilians including a ten year old boy. They also used drones to fire missiles into Gaza. From there on it continues how we all know it. Israelis using their superior American Funded defense system to stop Palestinian Rockets while also attacking Gaza and the Hamas returning fire. So who started it? This time it was the Israelis and even if one made the argument that the death of one person in a war torn area like the middle east shouldn't induce an attack on this scale, the Israelis still up-ed the anty by firing multiple times into Gaza which led to Palestinian rocket fire. According to the New York Times Obama released his opinion on the crisis while on his trip in China. He said, "There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.” This is not the response that should be given. For once Obama must step in and ask that Israeli and Palestine come to a truce on the matter. Although Israeli is defending themselves they also did start the fight and Obama should not commend such violence. Although, as we have all heard countless times in the past election, Israeli is our greatest ally in the Middle East we must still accept what they are doing is wrong and we can not stand behind it.



Waiting For the World to Change - John Mayer

Just thought it was a cool song

This week has been a bit hectic on my part because of the impending end of the quarter, or at least that is the only reason I can think of. Anyways, I haven't really had much time to do anything or learn about anything that interested me, so I am going to write about something that I heard about a week or so ago and has now surfaced in media world.

European nations have cracked down on tax evaders recently in a new hope to earn a little bit of money and gain some wiggle room for the country. The US government as well as many other countries in Europe, including Germany, have demanded that the Swiss banks release a list of all the people who have bank accounts in their system. The banks, who were known for their secrecy, finally complied, and in 2010 Christine Lagarde released a list including 2059 Greeks. Many other countries have used these lists to root out the evaders. Greece has not.

For some reason, probably due to widespread corruption in the government, they have abstained from searching for people, the country itself didn't make to big of deal about it since the media also was kept on the down low. Finally after a couple months Kostas Vaxevanis, an editor for Hot Doc, a big investigative journal in Greece, discovered the list and released it in his magazine. The article has created a big scandal in the Greek atmosphere.

The publication of the list has raised questions as to why the government has moved to act on the list and bring in the evaders. Currently there is a search going on to discover who has seen the document and why nothing has been done. Maybe, by the end of this the government will pull out some of the corrupted government officials.

Anyway sorry that wasn't the best, like I said all I've had time for is school work and sports practice.

Spain goes to all costs to remain free of Greece's Sinking Ship

Spain goes to all costs to remain free of Greece's Sinking Ship

Spain's parliament has gone to long measures to keep the government and its investors from being forced to borrow money from the UN and the European Central bank to pay for the countries economic crisis. The European Central Bank, ECB has recently stated that they will buy an unlimited amount of any countries debt  as long as they agree to the Eurozone Bailout. The Spanish national government has begun a series of austerity measures and cuts in spend, much like Greece to decrease its debt, and therefore keep it from needing EU help, a measure that they do not want to take because they believe it will drag them down like it has to Greece. Greece, much like Spain, has a plagued economy when they first began borrowing money in an attempt to heal themselves it did nothing. The economy of Greece sucked up the first loan without any sign of health. The loans continued to stack up, paying for the previous one, causing the economy to snowball into catastrophe, pounding a sickly economy into a dying mess. Spain believes that agreeing to the Eurozone Bailout of 500 billion dollars will begin such a process in Spain.


A recent measure in Spain has wrought a much bigger uprising against it than many of its predecessors.  The Spanish Parliament recently authorized a 10 billion Euro cut in education funds, it also asked teachers to work longer hours and for schools to increase class sizes by 20%. The strikes have covered almost every university in the nation and have roped in between 20% (according to the government) and 80% (according to the unions) of teachers in Spain. They have also brought many students who believe that a cut to the school system is the wrong way to go. With unemployment among young people at over 50% what better way to spend their time that learning and preparing for a stronger generation. Many against these cuts have stated that although cuts on education may bring money now it will lead to weaker future generations who will not be able to keep the country above water. Spain must find other ways of collecting money that does not tax the welfare of the country.