Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Price of Going to Class
At Menlo, the price of going to class is registered in dollars. In Afghanistan, the price of going to class is your life. We have the luxury of riding in cars or on trains to school. Everyday thousands of women across Afghanistan travel miles by foot to get to schools. Along their routes, they face the dangers of Taliban. The only dangers we face are of street cameras catching us running a red light or making an illegal u-turn. Conditions in Afghanistan are frightening. Women are burned with acid, like Shamsia Husseini. Her face was injured so badly that she was forced to leave the country to get it healed. Posters, or Propaganda, are place on Mosques and on buildings saying "Don't let your daughters go to school." Afghani women face these problems because of the Taliban and their fundamentalist take on Islam. The Taliban consider women as lesser beings, just as the Nazis did with the Jews. These two examples of persecution are strikingly similiar. While the Taliban may not have the same organization or power that the Nazis did, they certainly still believe in persecuting those who they view as lesser beings. The Nazi party had to be completely crushed in order to stop the persecution. The same has to be done for the Taliban. We had them cornered in 2003, but we let them slip away. And now, they have begun to rebuild and regroup. President Obama told us of his plans to redeploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. He must come through on this promise for it is our duty, as Americans, to help those in the face of persecution. It always has been and it always will be. We can't allow a price for going to class.
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This is a really interesting topic to talk about because normally when we think of going to school, we don't put a strong emphasis on how lucky we are to have made it there safely. By comparing growing up in a safe setting to growing up in a place where girls are afraid of going to school, we are able to see the magnitude of all of this in perspective with our own lives.
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting and i liked your connections between Menlo and Afghanistan. This was effective because it pulled me in from the start. But, i would've like more info on this comparison b/c its hard to compare 2 completely different places.
ReplyDeleteIm going to agree with bob, I felt that more information was needed relating Menlo to Afghanistan, but it was a strikingly good comparison that had me wondering about how perhaps one's economy determines the difficulty of gaining knowledge. The ending was a great connection, considering America almost the polar opposite of Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteIn this op-ed, you displayed a great sense of how to connect one problem to many different situations such as Menlo, the Nazis, and President Obama. The had great detail and your evidence was really strong, but there could have been a little more about your opinion. A lot of this is facts and evidence, but in order to make this an amazing op-ed, more opinion could have been shown. Overall great job.
ReplyDelete- j-dub
This op-ed certainly makes us feel grateful for the lives we have. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be constantly scared. You make this point very clear in your opening sentence. It also makes me realize that we must do something about this situation. I agree with everything you said.
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