Cultural Exchange

Last Thursday my classmates and I met 12 students from Melbourne, Australia whose came to San Luis to work in a project called “Realidades y Ficciones de la Argentina”. They are going to stay here in San Luis for eight days and they will learn about our culture. Then, they will visit Buenos Aires and  learn about their culture too. This is a project that our language teacher is working since 8 months with the Australians´ teachers. At the beginning of this year, our teacher informed us about this project and we knew that we needed to prepare and present some cultural aspects from San Luis such as history, literature and legends. That is why my classmates and I decided to include as much information as we could just to let them know a little bit of our province and the customs attached to it. My team and I were in charge of San Luis literature. We decided to talk about a local writer called Antonio Esteban Aguero whose poems are recognized nationally.  The poems my classmates and I decided to work with are “Digo la Tonada” and “Digo la Mazamorra” in which the author portrays different cultural aspects from San Luis. It is important to mention that as we collected the information not only did we remember many things we had forgotten about San Luis but also we learn things we did not know. I strongly believe that this kind of experience is quite positive for us because we enrich our knowledge as regards our province and at the same time we become more cultural aware. In this case, we learned many things we did not know about Australia. When the students started explaining some things, I felt that I knew very little about them. For instance when they talked about their abbreviations…OMG they were almost impossible to understand!!!  Now, I know why I cannot understand a test with a listening activity coming from Australians LOL.  Despite the fact that we exchange many cultural aspects, we also had time to talk about other kind of things in order to break the ice. All in all, I could say that it was a really beautiful experience and I really hope I can continue having this kind of experiences, they are great! Don´t they?

Don´t pray only for France...

This weekend, social media spread the bad news that France was victim of terrorist attacks in different spots of the city.  Maybe you are acquainted with this because you have shared a photo on Facebook or twitter with the message: “Pray for France”. If not, I could inform you what is going on France but first you should know that I am not into politic affairs so feel free to disagree with me if necessary.

On Friday, at about 7:30 pm, France suffered a series of coordinated attacks in seven different locations in Paris. Among them a stadium, a restaurant and a concert hall where at least 153 people died.  According to testimonies, the worst attack came at the Bataclan concert hall where a rock band was playing there. Consequently, after those attacks, France shut borders to prevent more attacks.  Government announced the closure of all public places such as schools, museums, libraries, gyms, and markets on Saturday because they want to prevent being attacked again. At the same time, the president François Holland announced that terrorist want them to be afraid and that is why he insists on keeping their confidence in security forces to stop this deed. 

It is estimated that the terrorists co-ordinated the time of the attacks in order to spread confusions. It seems that attackers wanted to ensure media attention to raise a sense of helplessness among community. Even though the world is devastated by this news, inhabitants’ reaction was that they were expecting terrorist attacks. It seems that they had received many warnings beforehand.

Now you are wondering: Who is in charge of such atrocities? Maybe you guessed it because of the continuous terrorist attacks that are happening in the world. More precisely, in Middle East countries. Islamic State was in charge of threatening to strike Paris because not only France is involved in the conflict in Syria, but also intervened in Libya. According to The Economist, an online newspaper, France has been an ally for America in bombing attacks against Islamic State over Syria and Iraq. This alliance would be one of the reason why Islamic terrorists go against France. They insist that they would continue with attacks till France stops supporting America.

Now look at the following video in which Islamic terrorists gave a hatred speech:

https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=!AExotaRptCbksQs&cid=C3D9FAB31063ABBE&group=0&id=C3D9FAB31063ABBE!108&parId=root&o=OneUp

Did you pay attention to the men´s words? When I saw the video for the first time, I could not believe what I was listening to. They insist on the fact that Islamic people living in France should go against this country to defend their Islamic culture. According to one of those men, “the Mujahidin around the world will not hesitate to cut their ( French) heads”. Unscrupulous, right? And the part in which the same person persuades Islamic families living in France to make “Hijra” because it is the right thing to do.  After watching the video I had to look up “Mujahidin and Hijra” since I did not have idea of the meaning. I will explain what I found. The term Hijra, originally, meant migrate to other lands where Muslims did not suffer persecution. Nowadays, the term has been distorted and it means that each Muslim should act according to faith and give support to others muslims surrounding them. Mujahidin means that a Muslim should die for Allah (their God). In other words, it is a warrior who would keep Islamic faith. Summing up, what Islam people are trying to do is persuade other Muslims to join together and go against French people and government.

I do not support this kind of things, I consider that powerful people are inhumane and they do not care about civil rights. I do not understand why atrocities are committed in the name of religion as if god demanded them killing others just to prove faith.

It is a pity how innocent people are being murdered by political issues external to them. Apart from political affairs we should not forget that innocent people are in the middle of this conflict. Do not forget about Syria, they also suffer the consequences of the conflicts. If you stop for a moment and think, you would realize that in Syria the amount of deaths is even higher than the ones in France. The fact is that this kind of conflicts affect the ones who cannot defend by themselves. Innocent people are amid powerful people who struggle to achieve their goals and kill people to show dominion over other countries.

I am not against being by France side. On the contrary, I consider that it was heart- breaking. But do not forget about Syrians. To conclude, I will propose you something. Why do not you change your profile picture about “I pray for France” and add a new one in which you pray for every community that is being ravaged by armed conflicts around the world?

Information retrieved from: 


http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21678508-least-forty-are-dead-others-are-held-hostage-french-security-services-had-warned-attack-might-be