Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

People praised Mikhail's youth, and he became the youngest Soviet leader at age 54. In choosing Mikhail people supported the mild reform of the Soviet Union. Mikhail also made up new ideas of his own instead of following other leaders like Stalin. Past leaders had encouraged totalitarianism, and rewarded silence and opposed people from acting on their own. Although, Mikhail did not want this. So he announced a policy called Glasnost, which was an openness that allowed citizens to discuss ways to improve their country and society. He also introduced perestroika, which was economic restructuring. Both these policies made a path to the collapse of communism,because it gave the citizens a voice.

The Collapse of Communism

Communism is a social structure and political ideology in which property is commonly controlled. The causes of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe were that it had no popular support, political downfall, and economic problems.The fact that the USSR had gained all of its money from the Eastern European states after world war 2, Stalin's paranoia of the West forced him to put all that money into defensive arms and therefore none of that money was being processed into the country. People teared down the Berlin Wall because they wanted to unify Germany because Germany had fell apart Joseph Stalin's poor decision making, led the USSR to collapse. The Soviet Union collapsed due to the fact that there was no money. Socialism and many competitions also led the Soviet Union to collapse. The Collapse of Communism did change the world because numerous countries changed in to Capitalists quickly.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid is a racial segregation policy of the government of South Africa from 1948 to 1994. Under the apartheid system, nonwhites-classified as Bantu, colored (mixed), or Indian-did not share full rights of citizenship with the white minority. For example, black people could not vote in parliamentary[a legislative assembly in certain countries] elections, and until 1990 many public facilities and institutions were restricted to the use of one race only. Nelson Mandela is such a hero because he fought for Unity and Liberation today, Africa Is Healing the Wounds of Racism and Apartheid, he fought for the independence of South Africa. Mandela was in the ANC's [African National Congress] fight to promote non-violence methods to gain freedom and justice. He also tried to stop the Apartheid. Nelson Mandela was in jail for 26 years but when he got out he wrote a book called "Long Walk To Freedom". The book was about his struggle to overcome segregation and have freedom. People admired him because he still continued to fight for his country.

African Independence

After World War II, the European countries were ready to transfer government to the Africans but they didn't know how, the Africans wanted to be elected not nominated and represtatives. The Africans wanted "freedom now." The leader of the nonviolent protests was Kwame Nkrumah, he was a teacher and he spent serval years studing in the U.S. In the 1940's he worked on liberating the Gold Coast from the British, Kwame Nkrumah made boycotts and organized strikes. but he was imprisoned by the British often, but his efforts were a success. In 1957 the Gold Coast recived it's independence and was renamed Ghana. Nkrumah became the first prime minister and later president for life of Ghana. British settlers took over farmland of the northern highlands of Kenya, they resisted independence of Kenya, they were forced to accept black self government. One strong leader of Kenyan nationalist was Jomo Kenyatta, he was a "Kikuyu" educated in London. He was imprisoned by the British also but then in 1963 Kenya won it's independence, a negative part of this was the more then 10,000 black Kenyans were killed and 100 Kenyans were killed. Kenyatta became president of Kenya, he worked hard to unite the different ethincs and languages in the country. Kenyatta died in 1978.  In 1955 Africa was mainly colonies there were 5 independent countries, by 1975 Most of Africa was full of independent countries, except 3. 

Film Lesson "The Right Stuff"

The US and USSR were competing in the film "The Right Stuff"in a technical race, for example going to space first. The USSR [Russians] were in the lead because they sent a person to the moon. The US sent a monkey but when it reached the atmosphere the monkey fell, but they had a parachute. So the US failed to attempt going higher then the Russians, even though  the US put a satellite first called "Sputnita". The scene in the film that will help me remember the Cold War is when the US broke the sound barrier for the first time but they didn't want any press around for the Russians to find out. 

NATO

NATO was an organization made by countries that include Europe and North America. NATO stands North Atlantic Treaty. The major reason for the formation of NATO was that the countries involved would get a mutual defense alliance so that if one of  them were attacked all of  the other countries in NATO would come to help, as part of the alliance. The countries involved were USA, Canada, France, Britain, Benelux, Denmark, Iceland, Italy,Portugal and Greece, NATO consist of 28 independent countries. The Warsaw Pact was a organization made in (1955-91) by the 8 communist states in Eastern Europe. The countries were the Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czecholovakia, Eastern Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. The Warsaw Pact was to threat the NATO countries, it became weaker at the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Film Lesson: "Schindler's List"

Schindler's List demonstrates the Holocaust by showing how families were affected by the Holocaust. All the scenes were powerful to me because they were all disturbing and depressing. Certain images were taken from the real Holocaust, but not as much as "Night and Fog". The most powerful scenes were the children and Auschwitz because in the scene of the children was sad, they didn't even know where they were going but yet they were happy and the jew parents were yelling for the Germans not to take them away. The Auschwitz scene was powerful because the women were taken there by mistake, they were already being prepared to be killed, Auschwitz was a death camp. The image that will stay with me is the little girl in the movie who was the only one with a red coat she was so innocent and towards the end she was being carried with the other dead bodies to be burned. To my opinion "Schindler's List" wasn't as strong as "Night and Fog" because the images weren't as realistic.

Film Lesson: "Night and Fog"

Night and Fog was a somewhat descriptive documentary about what happened during the Holocaust. My reaction to "Night and Fog" was deeply dissapointing because I hated what I saw in the film about what the Jews being tortured, the film was very powerful because the images were disturbing. This film compares to what I saw in "Schindler's List" because the scenes in "Schindler's List" were not as strong as the documentary. "Night and Fog" showed the Holocaust more effectively because it showed realistic images and footage from the Holocaust.

The Treaty of Versailles(ended WWI)

The treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on June 28th 1919 by the League of Nations, it was directed to punish the German's for the poor outcome of World War I durning WWI Germany was blamed for all the deaths.Russia disagreed to separate peace from Germany so Russia was excecuted and Geremany gained a large part of Russia's land and resources. The treaty featured 440 Articles, it ended the state of war between Germany and Allied Powers. As a punishment to the German's they had to pay alot of money [billions] to the effected countries durning WWI but the Germans reacted to the punishment by printing more money but the countries that were being paid lowered the value of the German dollar,close to nothing which destroyed the German economy. Another punishment was that Germany had to give up some of there land, citizens began to abandon Germany because Germany practicly had nothing anymore. The Treaty of Versailles punished Germany so much that the German people were desprate for someone to lead them out of there misfortune. Hitler stepped in and promised Germany that he would regain what was taken away from them, the Germans followed him and then began WW2. The Treaty of Versailles "was so bad that it started WW2 20 years later."

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and the Modernization of Turkey

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in the year 1881, in Salonica, then an Ottoman city, now Greece. He was president of Turkey for 15 years and was the first to turn Turkey into a secular country, Secular means to reject religion and religious considerations. Turkey was a Muslim country. Before WWI Turkey was part of the Ottman empire, it then broke up after WWI and Turkey became an independent country. Mustafa had 6 principals that he wanted to base Turkey on which were Republicanism, Populism, Secularism, Reformism, Nationalism, and Statism to help him modernize Turkey. He wanted the turkish to dress like the Europeans and Americans instead of the religious clothing for example, he baned the Fez, which is the hat Muslim men wore and strongly requested the men to wear brimmed hats like the Westerners. Mustafa also insisted that the Turkish men also wear pants, and a tie instead of the traditional muslism clothing. He also got rid of the islamic law and brought a more secular law for Turkey, women got the right to vote. Mustafa was a great hero of Turkey he made Turkey a modern/secular nation.

Film Lesson - "Gandhi"

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi also known as Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869. He helped his nation India to get independence. He helped by boycotting and using non-violence, he boycotted buying British clothing because it wasn't fair that the Indian made clothing and then the British sold it to them again, so Gandhi told the Indian to make their own clothing and if the British had a problem they shouldn't use violence to get what they want. Gandhi also boycotted buying British salt. Gandhi made a march called the "Salt March" in which he walked 240 miles to the ocean to make his own salt and sell it. The Indians followed Ganhdi and respected him, he was a civil rights activist. In the film it showed how serious he was about using non violence like for example when the Indians were using violence by setting fire where the police were Gandhi was upset and stopped eating to demonstrate that he was serious about non violence.
Gandhi was respected and he didn't even have much power he was poor, it just goes to show that anyone can make a difference. Gandhi had to go to London and meet with the high people so he could make India independent and not be ruled by the British anymore and live under the threat of being beaten or told what to do. He was murdered in the year of 1948, but he is now a legend.

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