jueves, 10 de marzo de 2011

North Korea, a remaining comunist trace

North Korea´s current situation and future perspective is so worrying and critical that it  invites us to think about the contradictions of the globalization system and its supposed consequent integration. While the majority of the humans beings live surrounded by development, highly exposed to information and communication technologies and aware of what happens in the opposite site of the globe within just a few minutes after, we still ignore that there is still a country that remains freezed under the cold war schemes and where freedom has a manipulated and erroneous meaning.
Is precisely in North Korea, where the population has to worship its former leader Kim Il Jong and its refuse is punished through “corrective” measures that go from public humiliation to hard work (in a sort of concentration camps intended to “educate” those who don’t support the leader and his system) where none of the characteristics that must of the worldwide population experience exist. The country counts with highly developed technologies in the military field representing the 9th global nuclear power but still, half of the population suffer malnutrition and life quality is way under the world´s average.
Repression methods and anti-capitalism brain wash tactics  are so tough and deep that year after year, children must reaffirm their hate to the United States, masses are daily mobilized under the announcement of a possible enemy attack, colored clothes are strictly forbidden, any sort of external communication is filtrated and extinguished, internet is inexistent and the social equality promised as a reward is not precisely applied to the elite government members that enjoy luxurious cars and parties.
All of this features contrast with the nation´s neighbor, South Korea, which obtained, in spite of the lack of resources and shared overpopulation, a market economy that ranks 15th in the world and is one of the fastest growing economies nowadays, a highly ranked life quality, a cohesive social system mixed with stable politics and the potential of becoming, according to Citi Group, the position of the  10th richest country in the world measured by GDP per capita in 2020.
Isn’t it paradoxical?, the answer is no, its just the well known consequence of a repressive model that was created to disappear 20 years ago.

miércoles, 2 de marzo de 2011

THE MICRO-SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION & THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION IN INDIA

While the Macro level of religion describes the historic changes, innovation, conflict, rise and fall, religious market processes and the place of religion in the social history of culture, states and economies, the meso level deals with the divisions within societies, how they are broken apart by income, ethnicity and the like and , when religion focused, it includes church organization, religious movements, religious demography and the entwining of religious with politics among others. In the case of the micro, intimate level , it deals with the daily actions and interactions of people in society observing everything as closely as possible and going deep in the details that conform the complex reality of current lives.
In India, where 79.8% of people belongs to Hinduism religion, its sociology is analyzed from the caste system that divides the population into four groups and an unrecognized fifth group. The belief states that each individual was created from a specific part of Brahma being the Brahmin caste the replacement of Barhma in earth,  the Kshatriyas the Kings, Soldier warriors, Agriculturist and nobility the Vaishya caste the Marchants, cattle herders and artisans, the Shudra caste the craftsmen and laborers, and the Dalito Outcaste also named as the untouchables. This social structure also coexists with secondary religions such as jainism, sikhism, a zoroastrianism (parsis), and budist and even if such structure is the reflect of discriination, the indian peple accept their role in the society  and live according to it.