Author Archives: tmullen

Both India and Pakistan have quite different ideals than most of the western world. They may seem archaic and oppressive at first, but it is worth noting they do not have as many of the problems that plague the western world. Whether one disagrees with their methods and ways is a personal liberty, but to outright call Indian and Pakistani beliefs outdated or simple would be reductive and frankly a bit racist.

Marriage

The biggest point of confusion between India and the west is their frequency of arranged marriages. An Indian arranged marriage is decided by the elders of the family on the basis of caste, class, education, economic status, and astrology. When a couple is married, the bride almost always moves into the husband’s house. It should be noted that marriage is almost universal in India, divorce is exceedingly rare, and the overwhelming majority of marriages produce children.

Pakistan has an arguably more controversial style of marriage for westerners. The ideal subject of marriage for a young man is his father’s brother’s daughter, or in other words, his first cousin. Endogamy is an important aspect of marriage, as it is meant to strengthen connections of powerful groups with noble ancestors or political power.

Social Heirarchy

On a filial level, the two territories are essentially identical. The eldest male is recognized as the family head, and his wife dictates all tasks presented to the women of the family. In Pakistan, the eldest male is responsible for all decisions, while the women are relegated to housework and their duties as a good housewife. 

The system of hierarchy in India is well known all over the world. The caste system is a set hierarchy where different castes are responsible for different roles.

The Pakistani hierarchy is somewhat vague. Class is determined by what is referred to as “brotherhood,” a very important construct in Pakistani society.

Sports

Sports have existed for thousands of years in India, and historians attribute the creation of chess to ancient india, albeit a very different game at the time. A mix of traditional and modern games exist, such as Kabaddi and Kho-Kho, as well as cricket and soccer, brought over by the british. Many of the sports common today in india are only thought of as english Bourgeois activities, because that is exactly what they are. Those who came from England to stay in india were often quite affluent. One of the sports they brought over, and the most popular one, cricket. Cricket is to India what football is to America, if not bigger. India also plays field hockey, a sport many only associate India with.

Because of their history and proximity, Pakistan shows many overlaps in recreational interest with india. Most of their sporting intrigue comes with their rivalries with india. India vs. Pakistan cricket is commonly one of the world’s most watched sporting events, with the most recent matchup attracting over 170 million live viewers. These matches sometimes take place in Jakarta national stadium, which seats over 82 thousand people.

As with most aspects of the British Raj, their views of the Indian population were just as harsh as their treatment. For the previous two hundred years since 1947, citizens of the indian subcontinent were all treated as simply Indians, that meaning lower than the british. When it came time to grant independence after world war two due to British financial troubles as well as the Brits making India no longer profitable, the same amount of care was taken to divide power as every other major decision regarding Indian governance: absolutely none. 

India is home to perhaps one of the most diverse landscapes in beliefs and cultures, but the two major groups that the British were concerned with were the Hindus and Muslims. The british instituted a system of government where citizens could only vote for representatives of their respective religions, creating divides in communities that had previously coexisted. 

Mahatma Gandhi and his hindu counterpart Jawaharlal Nehru argued a united India could exist, but Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah believed the cracks from colonialism were far too deep to maintain a peaceful and religiously coexisting India. Jinnah argued for the partition of India, with a muslim region in the northwest called Pakistan, and a region in the northeast called east Pakistan. 

Following riots in 1946 and 1947, the British sped up their retreat from India, and announced they would be dividing India into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. The British used incorrect, outdated maps, minimal knowledge of the lands and their traditions, and far from accurate census numbers to draw practically arbitrary lines over a measly period of five weeks. 

People began mass migrations to areas that they believed would be part of the majority. Those whose family’s had resided in villages for hundreds of years were forced to move in order to maintain religious freedom. In the midst of the power vacuum left behind, violent militia groups committed horrific atrocities to immigrants of different religions. Punjab bore the majority of the violence, with countless atrocities committed towards women. In total, around 100,000 women were kidnapped and forced to marry.

In 1971, East pakistan seceded and became known as bangladesh. The area in North Pakistan known as Kashmir decided to secede and join India. A referendum was supposed to be signed, but Pakistan refused. The area is still being fought over to this day. It is debated how many have died in the fight for Kashmir, but the estimate is from 40,000-70,000.

Kashmir is home to the highest rates of sexual violence in the world Violence in Kashmir is mainly coming from various muslim extremist militia groups. Indi and Pakistan are not officially at war, but it does seem like it based on the views of the people. Dozens of Bollywood actors, directors, and producers, have refused to work with Pakistani performers over the last thirty years.

In the year 1700, India’s share in the world economy was at 25 percent. The British occupation and hostaging of the South Asian subcontinent over the following two hundred years would bring India to its knees, and it has yet to fully recover. The British saw India as an endless goldmine, that with proper strategy, could be milked for all of its resources. Unlike other invading warlords, the British sought to stay indefinitely. They knew the demand for quality Indian goods, and they were not going to let it go to waste.

The occupation of India by the British initially started with the aggressive demand for goods as started by the British East India Company. The British East India Company, or EIC, was founded in 1600 and was responsible for the colonization of many profitable places in Southeast Asia such as Hong Kong. India was a major exporter to Britain, with around 15 percent of British imports coming from the region. Although referred to as a company because its main goal was profit, the EIC controlled and operated its own army with forces totalling over 260,000 soldiers at its peak, double the size of the British army back in the west. It should be noted that many of these soldiers were Indians themselves. 

By 1857, with the help of their massive army, the EIC began an invasion of East India, launched at the EIC’s base in Bengal. A rebellion against the EIC put a temporary halt on imperial affairs, which resulted in the deaths of 6,000 Europeans and over 800,000 indians.

In response, the British Parliament passed the “government of India act,” in 1858, essentially ending the EIC and transferring all power to the British government. This period, which lasted until the mid twentieth century, would be known as the British Raj.

The British were horrible to the Indian citizens during this period. The British parliament instituted a law that India could no longer trade with anyone except the British. Severing world trade was a knockout blow for India. Not allowing foreign exchange meant the British parliament had a monopoly over a world economy superpower, essentially allowing them to institute whatever policy made them the most money. One of their first acts was to hike tax rates through the roof. This monetary policy meant that Indians had less money, meaning they could not produce as much. When this was the case, and they obviously could not pay their taxes, the British would seize their property on the grounds of tax evasion. Many who refused to only sell to the British, or decided to under the table, were found out and killed. Skilled craftsmen were tortured and killed when they could not pay the exorbitant tax rates. Only 0.7 percent of the Indian population worked in the industrial field. The mass export of goods, especially food, meant crops were not ending up on Indian’s plates. Horrific famines occurred, which resulted in the estimated deaths of around twenty million people in the two hundred year occupation.

Ghana has undergone many rounds of colonization. Their record starts with Portugal in the 15th century, then over the next three hundred years it would be colonized by Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Prussia, Germany, and finally was colonized by the British in the late 19th century. It was given the name “Gold Coast” due to its high gold reserves. Ghana also had large reserves of other valuable resources, such as ivory. The consolidation of so many valuable natural resources meant European countries often fought over control of the Gold Coast.

Due to hundreds of years of christian colonization, it is no surprise that over 70% of Ghana’s population is christian. Listed on their official website are holidays like Good Friday, Easter Monday, Christmas, and the British tradition of boxing day. 

Ghanaian independence day, March 6th, celebrates freedom from the United Kingdom gained in 1957. After World War II, the United Kingdom had significantly less funds to be able to govern foreign areas. This problem was coincidentally at the same time many Ghanaian citizens were calling for independence. In 1952, former Gold Coast Council member Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah won the majority vote in the legislative election. Five years later, in 1957, Ghana declared independence from the United Kingdom. The name “Ghana” means “strong warrior” or “chief” and was given to many great leaders in surrounding countries. Ghana was given this name after declaring independence in 1957.

In 1960, Ghana switched from a parliamentary system to a presidential republic in an effort to get away from British influence, enacted in their 1960 constitution.

Due to the mass European colonization of Africa, genocides were quite common, either by the colonists directly or the race dynamics they created post-departure. In the case of Namibia, the Germans were directly responsible for the mass murder of thousands of Herero men, women, and children.

In the early winter of 1904, the Herero population attacked a German settlement in retaliation for the oppressive policies the Germans had implemented. Around 123 settlers were killed in the attack. This attack, although successful, would prove deadly for the Herero over the next few years.

The Germans slowly overtook the Herero with their superior technology, denying negotiations for surrender in search of retribution. In the battle of Waterberg, between 3,000-5,000 Herero soldiers were killed. However, most Hereros were able to escape to the nearby Omaheke desert.

As thousands of Herero soldiers along with women and children crossed the desert, the German Schutztruppe relentlessly pursued, taking pot shots and poisoning wells along the way. In October 1904, German Commander Lothar von Trotha ordered the murder of every male Herero within German borders.

By the next month, the German government had gotten word of Trotha’s inhumane policy, instead ordering the incarceration of Hereros in internment camps. However, by this point, thousands of Herero had already been slaughtered.

In these incarceration camps, such as shark island, the mortality rate was somewhere between 47-74%. Prisoners were subjected to horrendous hygienic conditions and brutal medical experiments. 

In 1905, the Nama organized an uprising against the Germans that also saw them executed or incarcerated over the next two years. In total, around 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were killed by the Germans in Namibia.

The Germans kept the Herero Nama genocide under wraps for years until the British government posted their findings of the account in 1918. Recently the German government has moved to make reparations and deliver a formal apology to the descendants of the victims and possible monetary compensation for the region.

Endangered cultures are cultures that are in the process of being displaced, whether that be from expansion of modern areas, loss of natural resources and land, or simply the culture being lost to time. The aspect of culture that Wade Davis attributes to the loss of it is language. Davis says that rare languages often do not get taught to children, essentially erasing their everyday use and leaving it to be survived solely by those who study it. An example of this phenomena, although not an indigenous group, would be the language of Irish Gaelic. Most residents of Ireland do not speak Irish, so therefore it is not taught in schools. 

Cameroonian indigenous are often divided into two distinct categories. The first are the hunter-gatherer “pygmies.” This group consists of the Bakola, with around 20,000 people, the Baka, with around 40,000, and the Bedzan, with less than 1,500. The second group, the Mbororo, make up approximately 12% of the country’s population of over 20 million. These peoples reside along the border in the mountainous regions of cameroon. 

A significant issue that these groups face is a sort of gentrification of their tribe. As people come in and try to aid in keeping records and educating the youth, many of the tribes’ traditional cultural values end up being replaced, creating a strange cultural confusion among younger members.

Loss of biodiversity is a severe issue in cameroon. The large indigenous population relies on many of its natural resources due to the practice of natural medicine, which means a decline in biodiversity would disproportionately affect the rural population. Cameroon has one of the highest rates of species endangerment, currently sitting at 61%.

Sources

https://www.iwgia.org/en/cameroon/743-indigenous-peoples-in-cameroon

https://www.ifad.org/en/web/knowledge/-/country-technical-note-on-indigenous-peoples-issues-in-the-republic-of-cameroon#:~:text=The%20Republic%20of%20Cameroon%20has,give%20up%20their%20traditional%20livelihoods.

https://dicf.unepgrid.ch/cameroon/biodiversity#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20key%20findings,in%20the%20semi%2Darid%20area.

Despite being an economic powerhouse in Africa, recently Ghana has experienced a complete economic downward spiral due to several government- caused factors.

Economic Growth 

In 2017 with the election of Nana Akufo-Addo, the future of the country looked promising. Inflation rates dropped from 15.4 percent to 7.9 in just under three years mainly due to a booming oil export sector.

Economic Struggles

Although the oil sector seemingly promised long-term success, neglect for other areas such as agriculture inevitably led to economic downturn. As the country grew in GDP, the agricultural sector, which accounts for over 90 percent of Ghana’s food consumption, stayed stagnant. What resulted was a scarcity in certain goods that skyrocketed the aggregate price level of the country. Ghana went from a steady, single digit inflation rate before 2020 to now having an over 50 percent inflation rate. To further add to the dilemma, Ghana had recently enacted multiple public wellbeing projects such as free school lunches and eradicating many sales and property taxes, essentially making the government quite poor. Furthemrore, the government of Ghana is responsible for paying over half of its income to government workers. 

Hope for the Future

The Ghanaian government is hopeful for the future. The general consensus among economists is that the government needs to be downsized, increase revenue, and find a solution to corruption.