AlandMizell.com

The civil war in Turkey has not started yet, but it is knocking on the door with the recent outbreak of violence and fighting between Turkey and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which halted the already fragile peace process between them. However, the increase in violence should be seen more as an outcome, rather than a cause, of the peace freeze. It is an outcome due to the decline in mutual trust between the Kurds and the Turkish government, a decline for which there are domestic and global reasons. The Kurds are a nation without state, if by nation I mean a people who are ethnically distinctive and now have written for them a history of political and military struggle to achieve self-rule and cultural autonomy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Kurds became the largest ethnic group in the world without a nation state of its own. The obstacles to Kurdish nationhood, however, have been in part due to the Kurds themselves. Continue reading →

The Need to Prepare Students with Skills for the Twenty-First Century There has been a paradigm shift in the qualifications needed for job seekers. Economic projections for the next forty or fifty years indicate that for both world economies and the United States’ economy, there will be a paradigm shift in the qualifications needed for those who want to get a job. Due to increased globalization and innovations in technology, new skills are needed to succeed in the global workforce. It is important for schools to take urgent action to keep up with the new demands. As in all reforms, education will play an important role in preparing the next generation of workers. However, the quality of today’s education in the Philippines falls short in providing students with the necessary skills, because education systems are mostly focused on preparing students for standardized testing and increasing the passing rate, but with a lack of research, a lack of textbooks, and a lack of application of the learning. Students are not developing the necessary skills to compete or prepare for the next generation’s economy. According to Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008, certain skills such as critical thinking, communication, innovation, problem solving, research, and technological proficiency are important to compete in the new global work force. Yet, the Philippines has not yet utilized its resources to teach and to assess these skills. Potentially, the Philippines might fall behind the other Asian countries because it has not fully understood the link between students’ development and the future of its economy. Continue reading →

The recent Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage through the United States has angered millions of Americans because of this left-wing decision. Marriage has always been a covenant between a man and a woman, which is by its nature ordered toward raising children and providing unity between and the wellbeing of the child and the wife. Same-sex marriage or gay marriage is totally different. The advocates argue for the union between two men or two women, denying the physiological, biological, and psychological differences between men and women. Marriage between a man and a woman can produce a child that allows our civilization to exit and persist. Marriage is a cornerstone of a family. Families are the foundation of civilization, and the proponents of the homosexual agenda are trying to destroy the foundation of our civilization.  The main goal of gay activists is not to have many same-sex marriages, but their goal is to destroy the institution of marriage. Gays argue that the government should allow them the right to visit their partner when they are sick in the hospital; so the government should change the laws and let them visit their partner, but not redefine marriage. Some of the gays argue that they should have the same benefits as traditional couples do in marriage, but that argument does not give the justification to redefine marriage. Again, we can provide equality as a societal law to make sure they have rights as well. Continue reading →

The conflict in Southeastern Turkey between the government of the Republic of Turkey and the Kurdish rebel group (specifically the PKK) has been going on for more than three decades. The recent government and the PKK peace process is welcomed; but it is not the first time that the Turkish government has not kept its pledges; for example, in 1920, after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed and foreign powers invaded the Anatolian heartland, the Kurds were promised independence. Ataturk unified all inhabitants against the foreigners after Turkey got its independence, declaring it one nation, but in the process he denied the existence of the Kurdish people, calling Kurds “Mountain Turks.” The other example is that soon after the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2003, the AKP suggested a repentance plan asking for rebels to lay down their arms and join the political process; however, the plan never floated. What assurance does Turkey give that it will not do the same thing its predecessor did?  We all hear that the PKK will lay down their arms, and that rebels will withdraw from Turkey, but we have not heard anything about what the government will do. The government may still call the PKK a terrorist group. It never solved the Uludere massacre in which Turkish jets bombed and killed thirty-four Kurdish people who were traveling back to their villages in Sirnak. Instead, the Turkish government released a report, saying that the attack was an “accident. “ Continue reading →

Power in the Middle East is shifting. The new Greater Middle East map will not be drawn without Kurdistan in it. Kurdish influence in the Middle East has increased; when Kurds unite, none of the major power players can use the Kurds for their national interests anymore. Because the Arabs, Turks and Persians not only lack unity against the Kurds anymore, but also all three are fighting each other in a power struggle for the Middle East. In the past they were all united against the Kurds, but after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the two variables of the war in Syria and the emergence of ISIS in the Middle East show that the fighting between the Sunnis and the Shias will continue.
Multiple actors juggle for power in the Middle East. The cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran continues. Saudi Arabia and Israel already support a Kurdish independent state not because they care about the Kurds, but because they do not want Iran to advance, so they use the Kurds against Iran. The region has a lack of leadership against the ISIS. Continue reading →

Fighting poverty is increasingly becoming a priority for many people. The staggering number of individuals living below the poverty line continues to increase thereby creating a moral imperative to help the poor.  When I look at the issue of poverty alleviation for those living in poor countries, most of the scholarly work on poor nations is written by rich nations. I am not by any means discrediting the valuable work of wealthy nations; however, I strongly believe that effective solutions to poverty reduction will ultimately come from people who live in poor countries. Many poor countries are getting poorer in spite of getting help from the rich nations. As a matter of fact, it seems that most of time, those who have come to help the poor countries have instead ended up hurting the people they intended to help. The question is how to fight with poverty without hurting the poor and yourself. Continue reading →