GEC 103 Contemporary World 0418-0694

BSA II-A Gesmundo, Rachel P.

October 15, 2019 Prof. Delia Bandoy

1. Should the world follow Bhutan’s development model.

Our planet is dominated by capital and "profit maximizers" and beset by the breakdown
of families, cultural and moral values, ever-increasing inequality, large-scale destruction of the
environment and the ever-increasing risk of climate disasters. If somebody speaks about
"maximizing the happiness of men," he will most likely be seen from another world as an alien.
For people growing up learning that accumulating wealth is the only goal in life and that money
alone can make them happy, somebody might be scared to suggest that they pause and think
about where they're going.
The Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) provides an alternative way of measuring a
country's progress in reality, a better way. This argues that a holistic approach should be taken by
giving equal priority to non-economic aspects of human well-being in order for growth to be
sustainable. The GNH thus covers people's spiritual, physical, and social well-being as well as
environmental health.
Bhutan's former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, proposed the idea of GNH in
1972.Until then, the government's primary goal has been to boost the health of people. The Cente
r for Bhutan Studies (CBS) was founded in 1999 as an autonomous research institute to ' promot
e and deepen gross national happiness understanding. It also helps policy makers identify
development policies to support the GNH and test that there is no policy that goes against GNH's
guiding principle. The center conceived the idea of quantifying happiness as a Gross National
Happiness Index and came up with 9 well-being domains to be measured across 33 measures.
Therefore, GNHI allows happiness to be quantified.

2. How was the influence of western medias hurt underdeveloped nations?

There are people who really believe that people in underdeveloped countries have had the
time and means to access Western media. Underdeveloped countries spend all their time and
resources learning foreign languages at a certain level of skills to understand Western media
because it is the main objective for underdeveloped countries and people living in those
countries.

English was one of Samoa's two official languages, and most Samoans were able to speak
English at a better level than the average non-native English speakers around the world.
Furthermore, we used to be colonized by 3 Western colonial empires, and through their
Australian colonies we were geographically close to Australia, New Zealand, and even the UK.
And I think that Samoa and Samoans may have been some of the nearest to the Western media's
potentially harmful impact. "Underdeveloped countries" or less developed countries are words
for classifying developing countries that are far from other developing countries that they are
close to becoming developed countries in a not so far-reaching future.

For a good reason, developing countries are also not developed countries.  There is
nowhere in this world where people from "underdeveloped" or less developed countries have had
the time, the opportunity and, most importantly, the ability to be influenced by Western media in
any way. During everyday life there are much more important things to think about than what
has been said by this or this Western media. Some Westerners don't care about their own media
themselves.

The assumption that Western media has been influencing “underdeveloped” countries is a
delusional theory which, in reality, has mostly been used and propagated on purpose by some
non-Western countries and non-Western leaders who have been in opposition with the Western
world.

Nonetheless, interestingly in the Pacific Islands, we have seen more Chinese politicians,
Chinese businessmen, and even Chinese netizens on our online platform telling us how poorly
Western media affected us and how hostile Western countries were to us. The Western world
may be the devil, it doesn't mean other people aren't too. It would have been clear for a while if
Western media had any impact on us. Never on any Pacific Islands has Australian media affected
something. Nauru with the detention center is the best proof. No one in Nauru is worried about
what the Australian media might suggest. I don't even have to think about homosexuality. Many
Pacific Islands are more likely to be considered homophobic than accepting countries against
homosexuality, while New Zealand, Australia, and even France, on the other hand, have
advocated homosexuality acceptance in this area of the world. Go to any Pacific Islands to see if
anyone has taken care of those Western media's message of acceptance. So, stop believing that
one day Western media had the power to influence anything else, particularly developing
countries.

The truth is that Western media is nothing more than a good tool waved by some countries
and some leaders who want some developing countries and their citizens.

The very existence of Western media angered the corrupt rulers and their pro-dictatorial
followers and worshipers, they simply cannot accept the fact that since their birth many people
are entitled to some basic human rights, these pagans can even obtain access to free speech,
rights to private properties, medical assistance, labor unions, and university education.
 3. Does Colonialism still affect the nations that were colonized? Pick a nation
and explain the continuing problems in that nation due to the history of being
colonized.
The ruling Black's in South Africa have become the new Whites. It was a beacon of hope, but
it has become a glimmer of hope. Countries were colonized because Solidarity was missing.
Beginning with England, it consisted of distinct kingdoms that could have repelled most, if not
all, invasions together. A union of English and Scottish kingdoms might have repelled the
Normans.
Colonization operates on already existing partitions. This functions on the rivalries that exist.
Since there was no mutual protection, slavery was made possible. Britain, Scotland, Ireland have
all been subjugated by tribalism. Britain became a leading colonial power thanks to the success
of' the Children.
The new Colonial Power, the United States, has a different parenting strategy. They go to
scream, kick the arsis of the kid's, cut the wire to the street light, use the equipment, and then
bugger off. The British constructed Flood defenses to defend what is now one of the world's
richest cities, Mumbai, over a hundred years ago. That's what the children do to it. The walk
along Mumbai's famous Marine Drive is crowded on a Sunday evening in June, the walk along
the iconic Marine Drive of Mumbai is packed. Families are running around eating ice cream,
kids are chasing street vendors peddling cotton candy, and friends are pressing together against
the Arab Sea's blue-gray waters. Dark, roiling monsoon clouds churn across the horizon as
waves smash against the concrete barricade a meter away.
A century ago, when India was part of the British colonial empire, the promenade was
built. The days of the walkway can be numbered. According to tide gage records, the coastal
waters of Mumbai rose at least nine centimeters during the 20th century. Now, during high tide,
seawater spills frequently across the promenade. We failed to improve the initial protections.
The original defenses have not been improved. They have not been able to plan for additional 
needs. They have thousands of uninsurable businesses and what work is being done is to use out
dated data.
Countries that were colonized mainly functioned as a supply chain for raw materials for the
colonizing country-based industries. It facilitated de-industrialization and the rise of a quasi-
aristocracy in colonies that owed their riches not to technology, but to the exploitation of profits
from raw material production, such as mines, plantations, etc.
Post-colonial societies are still dominated by the ancestors of these elites, who by holding
down wages rather than investing in innovation to protect their wealth. They see themselves as
exiled Europeans and do not spend in their countries of origin. The United States is a notable
example because we had a civil war in which the northern industrialists vanquished the holders
of the southern plantations.

4. Present ISIS situation.

ISIS uses modern tools like social media to promote reactionary politics and religious
fundamentalism. Fighters are destroying holy sites and valuable antiquities even as their leaders
propagate a return to the early days of Islam.
In 2014, ISIS controlled more than 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq, from the
Mediterranean coast to south of Baghdad. In early 2016, the United States calculated that ISIS
had lost 40% of its 34,000 square miles of territory.
In 2015, ISIS was believed to be holding 3,500 people as slaves, according to a United
Nations report. Most of the enslaved were women and children from the Yazidi community, but
some were from other ethnic and religious minority communities.
ISIS's revenue comes from oil production and smuggling, taxes, ransoms from kidnappings,
selling stolen artifacts, extortion and controlling crops.
Timeline:
2004 - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi establishes al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
2006 - Under Zarqawi, al Qaeda in Iraq tries to spark a sectarian war against the majority Shia
community.
June 7, 2006 - Zarqawi is killed in a US strike. Abu Ayyub al-Masri takes his place as leader of
AQI.
October 2006 - Masri announces the creation of Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), and establishes Abu
Omar al-Baghdadi as its leader.
April 2010 - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes leader of ISI after Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and
Masri are killed in a joint US-Iraqi operation.
April 2013 - ISI declares its absorption of an al Qaeda-backed militant group in Syria, Jabhat al-
Nusra, also known as the al-Nusra Front. Baghdadi says that his group will now be known as
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS).
January 2014 - ISIS takes control of Falluja.
February 3, 2014 - Al Qaeda renounces ties to ISIS after months of infighting between al-Nusra
Front and ISIS.
May 2014 - ISIS kidnaps more than 140 Kurdish schoolboys in Syria, forcing them to take
lessons in radical Islamic theology, according to London-based monitoring group Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights.
June 9-11, 2014 - ISIS takes control of Mosul and Tikrit.
June 20, 2014 - The UN announces that more than one million Iraqis have been displaced.
June 21, 2014 - ISIS takes control of Al-Qaim, a town on the border with Syria, as well as three
other Iraqi towns.
June 28, 2014 - Iraqi Kurdistan restricts border crossings into the region for refugees.
June 29, 2014 - ISIS announces the creation of a caliphate (Islamic state) that erases all state
borders, making Baghdadi the self-declared authority over the world's estimated 1.5 billion
Muslims. The group also announces a name change to the Islamic State (IS).
June 30, 2014 - The Pentagon announces the United States is sending an additional 300 troops to
Iraq, bringing the total US forces in Iraq to nearly 800. Troops and military advisers are sent to
Iraq to support Iraqi security forces and help protect the US Embassy and the airport in Baghdad.
July 2014 - ISIS takes control of Syria's largest oilfield and seizes a gas field in the Homs
Province, storming the facility and killing dozens of workers. Militants conquer a 90-mile stretch
of Syrian towns, from Deir Ezzor to the Iraq border. In Mosul, they blow up Jonah's tomb, a holy
site dating back to the 8th century BC.
August 6, 2014 - ISIS fighters attack the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, home of a religious
minority group called the Yazidis. More than 30,000 Yazidi families are stranded in the Sinjar
Mountains. A Yazidi lawmaker says that 500 men have been killed, 70 children have died of
thirst and women are being sold into slavery.
August 8, 2014 - Two US jet fighters bomb ISIS artillery units in Iraq. US President Barack
Obama authorizes "targeted airstrikes" if needed to protect US personnel and prevent potential
genocide of minority groups.
August 19, 2014 - ISIS posts a video showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley,
missing in Syria since 2012.
September 2, 2014 - ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of US journalist Steven
Sotloff. The apparent executioner speaks in the same British accent as the man who purportedly
killed Foley.
September 11, 2014 - The CIA announces that the number of ISIS fighters may be more than
three times the previous estimates.
September 13, 2014 - ISIS posts a video showing the apparent execution of British aid worker
David Haines.
September 23, 2014 - The United States carries out airstrikes against ISIS.
October 3, 2014 - ISIS releases a video showing the apparent beheading of British hostage, Alan
Henning.
November 3, 2014 - The Iraqi government announces ISIS militants have killed 322 members of
a Sunni tribe in a series of executions.
November 14, 2014 - The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria
concludes that ISIS has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.
November 16, 2014 - ISIS posts a video that appears to show a dead American hostage, Peter
Kassig.
January 22, 2015 - US diplomatic officials say that coalition airstrikes have killed an estimated
6,000 ISIS fighters.
January 24, 2015 - A photo and audio released by ISIS appear to show the beheaded body of
Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa.
January 31, 2015 - ISIS releases a video that appears to show the decapitated body of a second
Japanese hostage, Kenji Goto.
February 3, 2015 - Video and still images posted by ISIS apparently shows Jordanian pilot
Moath al-Kasasbeh being burned alive while locked in a cage.
February 5, 2015 - Jordanian fighter jets carry out airstrikes over Syria, reportedly hitting ISIS
training centers as well as arms and ammunition depots in Raqqa. The next day, ISIS claims that
the airstrikes killed American hostage Kayla Jean Mueller. ISIS posts a picture of a collapsed
building and the terror group claims Mueller is buried in the rubble.
February 10, 2015 - Mueller's family announces she is dead, after receiving confirmation from
ISIS, including a photo of her wrapped in a burial shroud.
February 11, 2015 - Obama asks the US Congress to formally authorize use of military force
against ISIS.
February 15, 2015 - ISIS posts a video in which militants appear to behead more than a dozen
Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach. The next day, Egyptian warplanes strike ISIS targets
in Libya.
February 22, 2015 - ISIS releases a video that appears to show at least 21 Kurdish Peshmerga
fighters in cages carried down Iraqi streets.
February 26, 2015 - Jihadi John, the disguised man with a British accent who appeared in ISIS
videos as the executioner of Western hostages, is identified as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwaiti-
born Londoner. On the same day, ISIS releases a video of its fighters destroying antiquities at the
Mosul Museum.
March 2015 - ISIS posts images of a man being thrown off a building in Raqqa, Syria. He had
been accused of being gay. There is at least a half dozen documented cases of ISIS killing men
accused of being gay.
March 1, 2015 - ISIS releases 19 Christian prisoners. All but one is reportedly from a group of
220 Assyrians captured in northern Syria.
March 7, 2015 - In an audio message purportedly from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau,
the Nigeria-based radical Islamic group pledges allegiance to ISIS. Days later, an ISIS
spokesman claims the caliphate has expanded to western Africa.
March 12, 2015 - Iraqi forces retake most of Tikrit. In western Iraq, ISIS blows up the Iraqi
army headquarters north of Ramadi, killing at least 40 Iraqi soldiers.
April 1, 2015 - Iraqi forces, aided by Shiite militiamen, take full control of Tikrit.
April 8, 2015 - According to Iraqi Kurdistan officials, ISIS releases more than 200
Yazidi women and children, as well as the ill or elderly.
April 19, 2015 - ISIS releases a video that appears to show militants beheading two groups of
prisoners in Libya. The Ethiopian government confirms that 30 of the victims were Ethiopian
citizens.
May 16, 2015 - A key ISIS leader is killed during a US Special Operations raid in Syria,
according to US officials. His wife is captured and the raid yields significant intelligence on
ISIS's structure and communications.
May 17, 2015 - ISIS seizes control of Ramadi, the largest city in western Iraq, after government
security forces pull out of a military base.
May 21, 2015 - ISIS takes control of Palmyra, an ancient Syrian city that is a UNESCO World
Heritage Site. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, it was the last Syria-Iraq
border crossing under control of Syrian troops.
June 14, 2015 - A British teen, Talha Asmal, is reportedly one of four ISIS suicide bombers who
attack the headquarters of a Shia militia group in Iraq, killing at least 11. Before the bombing,
ISIS posted photos of Asmal, 17, posing next to their black flag on social media. According to
the BBC, Asmal left England in March to join the Islamic fundamentalists.
June 19, 2015 - The US State Department issues its annual terrorism report, declaring that ISIS
is becoming a greater threat than al Qaeda. The frequency and savagery of ISIS attacks are
alarming, according to the report.
June 24, 2015 - The Syrian government reports that ISIS militants have destroyed two Muslim
holy sites in Palmyra. The group attacked a 500-year-old shrine and a tomb where a descendent
of the Prophet Mohammed's cousin was reportedly buried.
June 26, 2015 - A gunman kills at least 38 people at a beachfront Tunisian hotel and a bomb
kills at least 27 people at a mosque in Kuwait. ISIS claims responsibility for the attacks.
July 1, 2015 - ISIS launches simultaneous attacks on five Egyptian military checkpoints,
reportedly killing 17 Egyptian soldiers and injuring 30 others. According to the Egyptian
military, 100 terrorists are killed in the fighting.
July 4, 2015 - The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports it has received a video
showing ISIS militants executing 25 captives in Palmyra.
July 17, 2015 - As Iraqis in Khan Bani Saad celebrate Eid al-Fitr, a holiday marking the end of
the fast for Ramadan, ISIS detonates an ice truck bomb in a crowded marketplace, killing at least
120 people and wounding at least 140 more.
August 2015 - ISIS destroys the nearly 2,000-year-old Baalshamin temple in
Palmyra. UNESCO, the UN's cultural organization, calls the destruction of the temple a "war
crime."
October 30, 2015 - The Obama administration announces that it is deploying US Special
Operations forces to join the fight against ISIS in northern Syria. Fewer than 50 troops are going
to Syria, according to the White House. Over the next 14 months, an additional 450 American
troops are sent to Syria to help train the local groups battling ISIS.
November 12, 2015 - The Pentagon announces that it has conducted a remote control drone
strike targeting Emwazi, also known as "Jihadi John." ISIS later confirms the death of Emwazi.
November 12, 2015 - Two suicide bombs hit the Bourj al-Barajneh district of southern Beirut,
killing more than 40 people and wounding hundreds. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.
November 13, 2015 - Kurdish forces liberate the Iraqi town of Sinjar from ISIS after two days of
fighting. The Kurds were backed by coalition air power.
November 13, 2015 - Three teams of gun-wielding ISIS suicide bombers hit six locations
around Paris, killing at least 130 people and wounding 494 others.
December 10, 2015 - A spokesman for the US-led coalition confirms that ISIS Finance Minister
Abu Saleh was killed in an airstrike in late November in Iraq.
December 28, 2015 - Iraqi troops retake the city of Ramadi from ISIS and raise the Iraqi flag on
top of the government compound in the city's center, according to an Iraqi military spokesman.
January 24, 2016 - ISIS releases a video that purports to show final messages from the Paris
attackers.
February 21, 2016 - Multiple attacks in Homs and southern Damascus kill at least 122 and
injure scores, according to Syria's state-run SANA news agency. ISIS claims responsibility.
March 22, 2016 - Attacks on the airport and a subway station in Brussels, Belgium, kill more
than 30 people and wound about 270 more. ISIS claims its "fighters" launched the attacks.
March 25, 2016 - The Pentagon confirms that US forces have killed ISIS' finance minister, Abd
al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli. A US official tells CNN that special operations forces intended to
capture Qaduli alive but the plan was modified at the last moment.
June 26, 2016 - A senior Iraqi general announces on state TV that the battle for Falluja is over,
as Iraqi troops retake the final ISIS holdout in the city.
June 28, 2016 - At least 44 people die and more than 230 are injured when three attackers arrive
at Turkey's Istanbul Ataturk Airport in a taxi, then open fire before blowing themselves up. US
officials believe the man who directed the three attackers is Akhmed Chatayev, a terrorist from
Russia's North Caucasus region and a well-known ISIS lieutenant.
July 1-2, 2016 - Attackers invade the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in a diplomatic enclave of
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Gunmen kill 20 hostages and two police officers before
authorities raid the restaurant and end the nearly 11-hour standoff. ISIS claims responsibility for
the attack, but Bangladeshi officials say the attack was carried out by homegrown militants. US
officials focus on ISIS as the perpetrator after photos purportedly showing the inside of the cafe
and dead hostages are posted on an ISIS-affiliated website.
July 3, 2016 - A suicide car bomb detonates in a busy shopping district in Baghdad, killing at
least 292 people and injuring another 200. It is the deadliest single attack in Iraq since 2003. ISIS
claims responsibility.
August 30, 2016 - According to a statement from the terror group and its Amaq news
agency, ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani has been killed in the area of Aleppo, Syria.
Without confirming Adnani's death, the Pentagon confirms that coalition forces conducted an
airstrike in al Bab, Syria, targeting him.
September 16, 2016 - Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook says a US air strike targeted and
killed Wael Adel Salman, aka Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, ISIS's chief spokesman. Salman was
the ISIS minister of information, responsible for overseeing the production of "terrorist
propaganda videos showing torture and executions," Cook says.
October 17, 2016 - Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi makes a televised
statement announcing the start of the mission to retake the key city of Mosul, the last remaining
ISIS stronghold in Iraq.
October 24, 2016 - Suicide bombers attack sleeping cadets at a police training academy in
Pakistan, killing 61 and injuring 117. ISIS claims responsi
responsibility, releasing a photo of the three purported attackers but Pakistani military leaders
say they believe a Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi carried out the attack.
April 9, 2017 - ISIS claims responsibility for two deadly bombings targeting Coptic Christian
churches on Palm Sunday in Egypt. At least 49 people are killed and 119 others are injured in the
blasts.
April 13, 2017 - The US military drops its most powerful non-nuclear bomb on an ISIS
compound in Afghanistan. An Afghan official later tells CNN that 94 militants were killed in the
blast.
May 26-28, 2017 - More than 200 civilians are killed by ISIS militants in Mosul, according to
the UN.
May 26, 2017 - Buses carrying Coptic Christians in Egypt are attacked by assailants, who fatally
shoot at least 29. ISIS claims responsibility.
July 10, 2017 - Mosul is liberated from ISIS.
October 17, 2017 - ISIS loses control of its self-declared capital, the Syrian city of Raqqa. US-
backed forces fighting in Raqqa say "major military operations" have ended, though there are
still pockets of resistance in the city.
December 6, 2017 - The Pentagon announces that there are 5,200 American troops in Iraq and
2,000 troops in Syria. Troop levels are trending down, according to the Pentagon, as Iraqi forces
and the Syrian Democratic Forces have liberated about 97% of the territory and people in the
caliphate declared by ISIS.
December 9, 2017 - The Iraqi military says it has "fully liberated" all of Iraq's territory of "ISIS
terrorist gangs" and retaken full control of the Iraqi-Syrian border. The campaign to defeat ISIS
in Iraq took more than three years and about 25,000 coalition airstrikes.
July 25, 2018 - At least 166 people are killed in a suicide bombing and other attacks in the
southern Syrian province of Suwayda, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs in Syria says. ISIS claims responsibility.
August 23, 2018 - ISIS releases what it says is an audio message from leader Baghdadi. In the
55-minute recording, a man admits that ISIS groups are losing and urges his followers to carry
on with the fight.
August 25, 2018 - The leader of ISIS in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed Orakzai and 10 other ISIS
fighters are killed in an airstrike in Nangarhar province, according to provincial spokesman
Attaullah Khogyani.
September 6, 2018 - The US special representative to Syria, says American troops will continue
their mission until there is an "enduring defeat" of ISIS in Syria.
December 19, 2018 - US President Donald Trump sets the stage for a rapid withdrawal of
American troops from Syria with a tweet falsely claiming that ISIS has been defeated. Although
coalition forces have been successful taking back territory that was once part of the ISIS
caliphate, militants continue to control a small swath of land near the Euphrates River. Estimates
vary as to how many ISIS fighters are left in Syria. A Defense Department inspector general
report put the number of ISIS members in Iraq and Syria as high as 30,000.
January 16, 2019 - A deadly explosion kills four Americans and at least 10 other people in the
Syrian city of Manbij. ISIS claims responsibility for the attack.
March 23, 2019 - The Syrian Democratic Forces announces that ISIS has lost its final
stronghold in Syria, bringing an end to the so-called caliphate declared in 2014.
April 2019 - For the first time in five years, ISIS releases what it says is a new video message
from its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
August 6, 2019 - The Pentagon issues a report saying that ISIS is "re-surging" in Syria, less than
five months after Trump declared the terror group's caliphate there had been 100% defeated. An
accompanying message to the report, written by Glenn Fine, the principal deputy inspector
general, notes that, "The reduction of US forces has decreased the support available for Syrian
partner forces at a time when their forces need more training and equipping to respond to the
ISIS resurgence."
August 21, 2019 - US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper states that ISIS is not "in a resurgent
state in Syria" despite the Pentagon report.

References:
https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/index.html
https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/Bhutans-Gross-national-happiness-can-change-the-world
https://www.quora.com/How-has-the-influence-of-western-medias-hurt-underdeveloped-nations