In my opinion, it is the greatest and most unjust violation of human rights to take a man’s life. Pro death sentence activists can quote hundreds of ‘reasonable’ social and economic reasons for why there are some, few cases that the death sentence is the most just way to deal with those who have committed crimes, but none of these can support their viewpoint morally.
We have recently been shocked by the brutal death sentence by stoning of the Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, accused of committing adultery. We were even more stunned when we heard of the circumstances of this accusation: that her husband died and that much later she was accused of committing adultery against him and later still, of plotting to murder him, although the two perpetrators had already been convicted. The world was appalled that an aggrieved woman, such as she, could be subjected to this form of mental and emotional torment.
We accused the Iranian government of encouraging a shameful human rights atrocity and taking the world a step backwards in our oh-so-honourable march towards a world where all men and women are equal – enjoying equal human rights on a global scale. Meanwhile, statistics released by Amnesty International reveal the following regarding capital punishment:
21% of nations maintain the death penalty in both law and practice.
49% of nations have abolished it.
4% of nations retain it for crimes committed in exceptional circumstances (such as in time of war).
25% of nations permit its use for ordinary crimes, but have not used it for at least 10 years and are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions, or it is under a moratorium.
“When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold” – and as long as the most ‘liberal’, western nations retain the death sentence for whatever reasons, in whatever refined form, it remains unreasonable for us to expect that every other nation will abolish it first.
In 1944, the government of the United States of America allowed a 14-year-old, African American boy, in a South Carolina prison to be walked, Bible tucked under arm to the electric chair. His weight: 95 pounds. His height: 5′ 1″. The electrodes didn’t fit. Until 1964, robbery was punishable by death in the U.S. Today, although 137 states have abolished capital punishment, those of us who live in the west spend too much time attacking the human rights atrocities which occur in developing countries and not enough time ensuring that the nations where we live are leading by example.
Christiana Onyebujoh
La Châtaigneraie Alumnus Sara Meleika (Graduated 2007) is in Cairo and has posted photos of what she has seen over the past days — http://is.gd/saracairo
You can now follow the EtCetera team through Tumblr, a website where ideas can be shared! Have an account? Why not follow us?
Recently, as many of you will undoubtedly find out soon enough, Facebook decided to phase in yet another update to the appearance of the website, which they called, as they always do, “the New Profile”. Underneath the blog post (http://is.gd/kvOXB) by some Facebook technical person, it is easy to find comments like ‘bring back the old profile’, usually followed by an unnecessary amount of exclamation marks. And below those comments, it is not hard to find people agreeing with the original post, saying how they ‘hate’ the new profile and that Facebook ‘never learns’. It is in reading such comments that I have the immense misfortune to come across the dregs of human society and I don’t say that because their grammar is appalling. Every single time Facebook changes its layout, users from every figurative ‘corner’ of the globe get riled up — now isn’t that paradoxical?
People are now so desperate to cling on to the Facebook layout that they were so quick to damn when it was released for the first time. It would almost seem that people are hating the profile merely for the sake of hating it, not because they have anything remotely constructive to add as to how one might improve the new layout. Instead they think it better to cling to the old and refuse to accept that change must inevitably take place. Would you prefer the original layout from way back in 2004, with its clunky layout designed for an era when ADSL was still a luxury? I think not. Websites need to improve their layout every so often to improve the user experience; if they didn’t, the internet would stagnate, that much is obvious. It’s odd to think that so-called “Change Generation” is actually just as conservative as its predecessors. Why do we fear change, I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we are afraid of the new and the unknown. Don’t be! Your short time on this rock shouldn’t be spent whinging about something as mundane as Facebook’s new profile. It would be better spent contributing to your local community, by for example, writing for this newspaper. Embrace and love change, because it is inevitable. Agree/Disagree with me? I look forward to reading your comments below.
HIV. AIDS. Seven letters. Seven words. Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Thirty-three million people live with the disease defined by these words, every day, every hour , every minute — of these, two and half million children. In one year an estimated two point one million people succumbed to this killer. Of these victims, three hundred and thirty thousand were children. To the family and friends of the dead, the passing is a tragedy. To the world at large, these deaths remain a statistic; something that we can easily forget.
It has been over twenty-eight years since AIDS was first identified by the American Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in Atlanta. Initially, the disease was not properly defined as it is not AIDS that kills you — it is the diseases that take advantage of your weakened immune system that do. It was therefore not immediately apparent what disease was causing the first deaths, predominantly in gay communities of the United States. However the CDC soon realised that the disease was not exclusive to homosexuals. Finally, in 1982, HIV&AIDS was properly identified and defined. Ever since, scientists the world over try to find a vaccine, or even a cure. Their task is hindered by the constantly mutating virus, that remains in many aspects a mystery. We know next to nothing of its origins, only that it probably originated inour Primate cousins in the jungles of Africa. Who first got the disease is anyone’s guess. We think that disease travelled from Africa to Haiti and from there to the United States. The rest, is a tragic history. Since 1981, over twenty-two million people have died from HIV&AIDS. Even though efforts to find a cure have yet to bear fruit, in the past two years, the research efforts of thousands around the world has come closer than ever before to finding the vaccine.
In these twenty-eight years, it stands to reason that the understanding of HIV&AIDS would have improved. Not so. In some countries, it is thought that having sexual relations with virgins is a cure for AIDS. In others, to have HIV&AIDS automatically makes you gay. Some people still believe that just being in the same room as an HIV-positive person will lead to infection. These are just a small number of fallacies that are believed by people on every continent, in every country. It is now the fight that every person must engage in, no matter where they live, to inform people and to raise awareness about this most dangerous of killers. Will you help fight this global problem? Indeed, AIDS has a global status. There is not one country in the world in which AIDS is not present or has not been present. In Switzerland alone, there are an estimated 25‘000 people living with HIV&AIDS. With so many people around the world living with AIDS, why are the sufferers stigmatised and shunned from society? Why can society not be more accepting?
The simple answer to these questions is this: we are afraid. We are afraid of what Rabelais called the “grand perhaps”. We are afraid of this disease that makes us vulnerable to everything from TB to the simple common cold. We are afraid of this disease that spreads through that which allows our species to continue and through the blood that can save our lives. We are afraid of a disease that will leave our children parentless and our elders helpless. This fear begs the classic question: Do you save a person in a burning museum knowing full well that they suffer from HIV/AIDS? Or do you save the priceless artwork, that has lasted centuries? You can only save one — who do you save? for This is your decision to make. For most of you, it is unlikely that you shall ever face such a situation. You will probably live your life and the dead shall continue to be just numbers. In the time it took you to read this article, twenty-five people succumbed to HIV&AIDS.
This article was published in the December 1st, 2009 edition
The EtCetera blog has a new home!
After discovering that the WordPress terms of service stated (in essence) that the work of the students would become the property of WordPress’ owners, we decided that this was entirely unacceptable and made the transition from our old home (based on the WordPress servers) to our new one, here on the school servers.
We hope to make greater use of this new and exciting medium in the coming months!
The EtCetera Team
Hello everyone,
This is just a quick reminder to you would-be contributors that the deadline for submitting articles for the next edition of EtCetera is Thursday, 16 September at midnight.
The team looks forward to reading your contributions!
The EtCetera Team
La Châtaigneraie student Derron van Helvoort (13.4) has been crowned champion of 400 metres at the Schweizer Meisterschaften in the men’s under-18s category with a time of 50.57 seconds, 7.39 seconds behind the World Record (43.18 seconds) set by the American Michael Johnson in 1999.
Congratulations to Derron for this fantastic result. Well done!
As I walk along St. Leonard’s Terrace in London, I glance into the houses and I can see the Andy Warhol piece Mao. And I think to myself, ‘So, What?’. I will agree that Pop Art is one of the most dynamic and exciting styles of art. If I had to pick between a Warhol or a Damien Hirst, I would go for the Warhol any day. I simply cannot stand the idea of having a severed cow in my sitting room. Pop Art has panache and class. Art of the 21st century is simply revolting.
That being said, we mustn’t forget that Pop Art with all its vibrancy and excitement has become commonplace – anyone can head to Tate Modern or the MoMA in New York and buy a poster of a Warhol or a Liechtenstein for less than 9.99! Pop Art made in the 21st century (and in the late 20th) is no longer exciting. Works by the person the Financial Times calls Andy Warhol’s artistic descendant — British artist Stella Vine — are to put it simply: unexciting. Her works offer no originality, none of the flare that was seen in the works of her so-called ancestor.
When looking at a Warhol I used to feel pleasure. Now when I look my mind goes “been there, done that, seen it gone”. Why have such masterful and energetic works of art become so — there is no better word — banal? It is like an iPhone or an iPod Touch. It is like any politician’s speech. It is like a weak tea. Pop Art has become so common that the would-be Pop Artists cannot be original. All we are now left with are the dregs (Damien Hirst anyone?)
Now Pop Art may be ‘popular’ (that is, “of the people”) but does that mean that a factory in China should produce 10’000 t-shirts a day with Marilyn Monroe à la Warhol on them? I don’t think so. Does it mean that any Tom, Dick or Harry should have a poster copy of Flag in his lounge? Certainly not.
But let us not forget the purpose of Pop Art. To quote the Oxford American Dictionary, Pop Art is “art based on modern popular culture and the mass media” – is it therefore not by definition meant to be banal; to be kitschy? I think not.
Because Pop Art defies this definition. Yes, it does base itself on the world that surrounds us and yes, it does take elements of kitsch culture to then implement those elements into the art. It is that that ensures that it is anything but kitschy. Unlike other art forms which simply show angels, severed sheep and/or apples, Pop Art is meant to be amusing and meant to incite thought. But it is meant to incite thought through its originality and spunk. And not its banality and drabness. Pop Art’s originality was buried along with Warhol and Liechtenstein. It is no more.
La Chat – Secondary Library