Rhectorical
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913. He was the son of Lucien Auguste Camus and Catherine Helene Camus. A little after a year Camus was born, his father had passed away during World War I during the First Battle of the Marne. Camus was a novelist, essayist, playwright, and Noble laureate. He first began his career as a political journalist. Camus enrolled at the University of Algiers in 1933 and in that same year he earned his degree and completed his dissertation. In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize. How would Albert Camus feel about the Genocide that is happening today?
Albert Camus grew up without a father due to the violence of World War I and went on to still see all the violence that World War II caused as well. How would he feel about all the innocent lives being lost in Israel and in Palestine as well? Although he was baptized and raised as a Catholic, he never really believed in the supernatural world. For Camus “it is possible to be Christian and absurd.” (Sisyphus, p 112) Camus did not believe in an afterlife, but that does not mean he did not have respect for the Christian faith and all their beliefs. Camus says death makes life absurd because there is no larger meaning to our existence. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates all the way back to the end of the nineteenth century. In 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181, known as the Partition Plan, which sought to divide the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. (Israeli-Palestinian Conflict) The state of Israel was created on May 14, 1948, and with that creation it sparked the first Arab Israeli War, the war ended in 1949 with Israel being victorious but also with that victory, 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into three parts, the State of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. (Israeli-Palestinian Conflict) Israeli troops killed 183 Palestinians and wounded 6,000 in March of 2018 because a group of Palestinians stormed the perimeter fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel and threw rocks during a peaceful demonstration.
The Israel-Palestinian conflict is driven by several factors: ethnic, national, historical, and religious. (Religion and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Cause, Consequence, and Cure) In the war of 1948 some Jewish extremist groups justified their doings as part of a divinely promised return to the holy land of Israel. Why is religion one of the main causes of this war, you may be asking yourself? Notably including the sanctity of holy sites and the apocalyptic narratives of both religions, which are detrimental to any potential for lasting peace between the two sides. (Religion and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict: Cause, Consequence, and Cure) How does this tie into Albert Camus? Albert Camus was not a firm believer in religion although he had respect and care for the people who did believe in Christ, he never really showed much emotion towards it. Although Palestinians and Israelis are religious it should not be the reason for violence. Religion should not be the root of all the evil that is going on in the conflict between the two main groups. Camus states that “we are slaves to death” because we are born and cut down after a few short years.
Throughout this conflict between Israel and Palestine there has been many innocent lives lost. Men, women, and children are being killed every day, they are being bombed, assassinated, and tortured. They are making mass graves to bury all the dead bodies. Children have their names written on them to be identified because they are covered in dirt, blood, and rocks. Albert Camus would say that violence is not the answer but who is one person to say something like that as if it would help with anything. We are all going to pass away whether we like it or not, it is part of life and life always ends in death. Genocide is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. (What is Genocide?) Another example of genocide would be World War II which Albert Camus lived through. The word genocide did not exist prior to 1944, it is a term coined by a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) who sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder during the Holocaust, including the destruction of European Jews. (What is Genocide?) Most people think of Hitler when they hear the word genocide because of everything he did and spoke. Most people know him for the killing of Jews because of the people they supposedly were. Jews represented everything the Nazis found repugnant: finance capitalism (controlled, the Nazis believed, by powerful Jewish financiers), international communism (Karl Marx was a German Jew, and the leadership of the German Communist Party was heavily Jewish), and modernist cultural movements like psychoanalysis and swing music. (How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?) Genocide is not something many people like to discuss because of how sad the whole situation is and how it comes to be. It is important to know the effects genocide has a society and how much it plays into our lives. Albert Camus was an incredible man who had many accomplishments. He would tell everyone to love each other the way we should because at the end of our time we always end up in the same spot.
Argumentative
Human trafficking is a sick and twisted underground world that not very many know the dangers of. How can we stop these heinous acts among these innocent souls? Humans are turned into sex slaves and used for work. Human trafficking is widely referred to as “the slavery of our times” or “modern-day slavery” (Weiss 1). It is a crime that takes away the rights and freedom of people. So again, how can we stop this social epidemic of human trafficking that happens all over the world?
Human trafficking is a human catastrophe, often connected with transnational organized crime (Weiss 3). Where humans are forced into doing the labors of others against their will. Where they are treated like dogs instead of human beings. They are being used as sex slaves and labor slaves. What can be done for these illegal and heinous crimes to come to an end? The dark web has many connections to human trafficking. There are websites that you can visit and see humans being sold online for many reasons. Labor trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purposes of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery (Greiman, Bain 41). Cyber technologies give traffickers the unprecedented ability to exploit a greater number of victims (Greiman, Bain 42). People all over the world need to be careful about what they share on the internet because you never know who is watching you from afar. Parents especially need to keep track of what their children show on the internet and who they have as “friends” on social media apps. There are many ways humans can be lured into a dangerous situation. For example, Facebook Marketplace, it is part of the application Facebook where people can list and sell items on the app. You always want to make sure you take someone with you if you go out to look at an item that was listed, safety should always be the number one priority. You never know who you are communicating with online, you never know their true motives. There are many people who pose online as young teenagers who try and lure innocent people in. This is why it is always important to make sure you know who you are talking to you should never talk to strangers and never put your trust in someone you met online because you never know what you might be getting yourself into.
Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purposes of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age (Greiman, Bain 41). Sexual exploitation is the most commonly identified form of human trafficking at approximately 58%, followed by forced labor at about 36% (Chamie 79). Innocent women and children are being used for the sexual satisfaction of others. They are being trafficked as if they were drugs, guns, or even money. Western and Northern Europe, North America, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Japan are considered the major destination countries for human trafficking (Vlachová 1). A sad thing is that most victims of Human trafficking are parents, friends, cousins, and even grandparents of victims. It is a sad reality of what people would do for a lump of cash. They would rather put their loved ones in danger and at risk of losing their life. Do you think they go on later to regret their decision?
In the modern era, international pressures to combat trafficking, especially of women and children, began with the growing social reform movements in Europe and the U.S. at the close of the 19th century (Chamie 82). According to the Palermo Protocol definition, human trafficking has three basic components, the first component is the act or what is done, that is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipts of persons, the second component is the means or how it is done, for example, the threat or use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim, the third basic component of human trafficking is the purpose or why the trafficking is being done, that is for the purpose of exploitation, including the prostitution of others, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery or similar practices and the forced removal of human organs (Chamie 83). It is crazy to think that humans are being sold for their organs/body parts. It happens all over the world in many different countries. They sell their kidneys, hearts, eyes, liver, etc. Innocent children who were supposed to be protected by their loved ones, the “loved” ones that go on and sell them into the dangerous world of human trafficking. Where they are mistreated, raped, beat, and killed.
Human and sex trafficking are heinous acts that take away the basic human rights of others. It is used for the satisfaction of those who are sick and twisted. Human trafficking and sex trafficking cannot be completely stopped but the numbers can be reduced. With the help of you and others it can change. If you see or hear about anyone who is in serious trouble, go to someone you can trust and let them know about the situation. Human trafficking can be put to a stop with the right people. People who want to make a difference in the world, people who want change. Together we can make a difference, we can save these innocent lives that are being forced into heinous acts. Think of those innocent children as well who were robbed of their childhood, if we stand together, we can all make a difference.
Reflective
This school semester I would say would have to be the toughest semester for me I have ever had. After losing my grandpa in September I became very unmotivated and just lost and confused. He was my motivation to finish this semester as best as I could. This semester I did not do as best as I know I can, depression is a funny thing one day you feel good and the next you feel like you don’t even want to be here anymore. My grandpa helps me get through the dark days and I see him as my motivation to finish school. Personally, for me this English Composition class was very difficult for me because it was online, online classes just do not go well for me. I need to physically be in the room while my teacher is lecturing and where I can take notes. I feel as time went on my essay formats got a little better but also worse if that makes sense. I know how to properly write an essay. It is just physically writing and putting everything together that is the tough part for me. What I learned about writing in this course is that it will not always be so easy, there will be times where there will be things you won’t quite understand but it is up to you to do your research on how to do things properly if you are having trouble understanding a concept. I had a tough time writing essays without using I’s it so hard honestly. I love using I and referring to myself in my essays so I can have a connection with my audience. I do a lot better in quoting in my essays now I feel like. With practice I got better and better. Looking back on the PowerPoints to guide me into the right place was also very helpful. I am still working on bettering my structure when I write my essays. It’s hard not to just put everything all in one paragraph. My favorite essay would have to be argumentative because I personally love arguing and getting my point across to someone without really getting in trouble, I love to get to voice my opinion. Overall, this was a great class. It was just very hard for me to keep up especially with everything that happened to me this year. I love school but I became very unmotivated this semester, but I do hope to better myself for the next semester to come.
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