Weekend 1. Day's 8 and 9. AND WALES!

Wow. What a country. All I can say is that I've had one of the best weekends in a long time this weekend.

We started by waking up at 6:00 AM and trying to make it to the bus by 7:30. Beatrice and I ended up making it around 7:15ish, so that was good. We had quite the tube trip.

We take the 3.5 hour drive to Wales. I took tons and tons of pictures and a lot of video too. Hopefully they'll get up on facebook soon. I'm exhausted tonight so this post is going to be the extent of my activities tonight.

I responded to my uncle on the question I was asked on Thursday. I'll post that at the end of this, too.

So the first time I step foot in Wales I'm on an old Roman military establishment. There were some awesome remains of a series of baracks and other necessary living quarter rooms. There was also a very neat old Amphitheater that we got to go in and out of. It's one of the most well preserved in Europe. Wales actually has quite a few awesome "one of the black in London" tid bits.

After that we went to a nearby Castle called Caerphilly Castle. It was the first time I've ever been that up close and personal with a castle. We toured the castle, I took tons of pictures, and generally had a great time. Learned a little bit of history about how to storm a castle, how they were defended, etc. Was very interesting.

After that we went to an open air museum dedicated to the lives of the Welsh. We essentially saw how the Welsh lived from the early modern period to basically present day. Was very interesting, although I liked the second castle we saw at the same place called St. Fagans castle much better. The castle had beautiful gardens, a full interior (this was a modern-period castle) and it was generally well preserved and cool to go through. Saw the biggest birdhouse ever. Took a picture of it for Mom.

Following that we went to our hotel, which was one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed at. We ate, and then spent some time on the beach at wales. I took some photos and some video. It was a great time.

This morning we started at 8:45. We went to what was my second favorite part of the entire weekend. And that was a museum dedicated to the Coal Mining industry. Except this museum is a coal mine. We got to go down into the mine and everything. I couldn't believe how small it was, how much you had to duck to get around, how heavy the equipmen was (yes, we wore it all) and finally how dark it was when you cut off the lights. There is simply no way I could ever have done it, especially as a child at the age of five working in the mines in complete darkness. Our guide had us take off lamps and just sit in the darkness for a minute. It was literally one of the longest minutes of my life. That children and men would sit for hours like that at a time was hard to believe. It was cold, wet, and dreary downstairs.

One of the interesting things our tour guide said was how amazing the fellowship was down there. He said that in the capitalist world it's all about getting where you want to go by any means necessary. And he's right. He thought it was barbaric, while I just see it as competition. But he said the best co-workers you could ever ask for were those down in the mines with you. And I imagine he would be correct. There's no chance for advancement. There's nothing worth looking forward to and not really anything worth trying to achieve down there. There's no back stabbing... nothing. But he also said the people that ran and owned the mines were horrible people. He said that they were exploited more than we could know right now. He had two stories. The first was that a group of them that were working in the mines when it closed down still go to the man's grave who then owned the mine and piss on his grave every anniversary of his death. And their kids will do it too. And their kids. He said a miner never forgets. He also said that about 10 years back a man came who was boasting that his family used to own this mine in front of his friends that he was with. They wouldn't let the descendant go down in the mines. They never forget.

Finally, we went to an old abbey. In the 1100's... medieval Europe style. It was amazing to learn about how Monks used to live. Definitely my favorite part of the trip. I took a lot of pictures and video here too, so those should be up soon!

Here was my answer to the question my professor posed. Tomorrow I finish up Thursday and Friday blogs. :-)

A little more context to the question I was asked though... Essentially, the video stated that the United States had made the problem in the Middle East today. Which I also agree with. But something that I think a lot of people are forgetting is why we have made the actions in the second half of the 20th century that we did. So this was essentially my reply...

In Iraq, between 80-88, we supported Hussein. Because they were fighting Iran, which in turn (after the Islamic Revolution in 1979) had turned Pro-Communist. We gave billions of dollars worth of weapons, training, etc because we fighting the Soviet Union, which was the largest threat at the time. We made al-Qaeda in that we supported the Taliban between 1979 and 1989 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Finally, we were very involved with Egypt during the 1960's because of President Nasser, who was essentially an Arab Socialist and very marxist-oriented in regards to ideology.

*This little part is a some context that the movie provided*

The name that is essentially given credit for the ideology that started Islamic fundamentalism was a man named Sayyid Qutb. He was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960's at their most active and most radical time. They are a non-violent Islamic group, but with aims to see the establishment of an Islamic state. Qutb was writing in response to a lot of things, but a central one was that of the United States involvement in the life of Muslims. It would only get worse, from their context, as the United States would come into countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan and manipulate the politics and regimes their to our own benefit. Again, I agree with everything that we did and I'll tell you why... so we have the United States essentially giving the now-Islamists all the ideological weaponry that they need.

But here is why the problem would be so much worse had we NOT intervened in the politics of the Middle East. Afghanistan would have fallen to the Communists if not for the U.S., and probably Iraq too. Egypt was already on the path towards National Socialism with Nasser. Sayyid Qutb had already written his influential book "Milestones" by the time any of this happened. Therefore, the seeds of Islamism was already there. Therefore, Islamic Radicalism would be an issue today even if the United States hadn't stopped the Middle East from going communist.

But it would be a bigger issue. And this is because at it's central Islam is NOT a violent religion. Communism, on the other hand, is exactly the definition of an ideology in which violence is a central and integral part of the rhetoric. When Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto, he was responding to the revolutions of 1848 that had broken out all of Europe. Therefore, he saw that the ONLY way to stop the capitalist, greedy "bourgeoisie" was for the working class... the "proletariat"... to revolt against the established higher classes. And by revolt, he means war. The working class must recognize itself as a class, gain the class consciousness necessary for everyone to feel as one, and the overthrow the bourgeoisie. The end result is a classless society and the abolishment of private property.

So imagine the problem that we currently have. But add in an ideology that is essentially violent at it's core. Then we have a much larger problem. There are many Muslim organizations that call for greater Islamic rights (and there are certainly quite convincing arguments, statistics, and data out there to support their claims that they are sociologically discriminated against in a variety of ways) without seeking violence. In fact, there is only a small majority of people... and we're talking a VERY small majority, that support violence in the forms of terrorism as a means of getting those rights. So that's why I think that everything we did in the Middle East has turned out right. Because we wouldn't want Radical organizations that were also Marxist in nature. That'd be even worse.

So that was answer. But I also come from the realist perspective in regards to International Relations ideology. There are four other schools, and he made it clear that it wasn't his own perspective.

Then he asked me what I thought about nuclear weapons. And coming again from the realistic perspective I told him that I thought that as more and more countries develop the capability to develop and deploy nukes, the safer the world becomes.

Imagine World War II when the United States dropped the nukes. We were the ONLY country in the world that had the ability to do that. And we're lucky. Because that's the only time in the history of the world that a nuke of that power has been released. And we were damn lucky that we got them first because imagine if Hitler had first developed nukes and dropped one... or the Japanese and we didn't have them. The world would be a much different place.

But also imagine if there had been an Axis power that had the capability to drop a nuke. We wouldn't have dropped it. Because we would have been assured of a retaliation. And that's my perspective. There will NEVER be another nuke dropped on the planet because of the countries that have nukes, not all of them are allies. If a nuke is dropped, there WILL be a retaliation, and then we get into a principle called Mutually Assured Destruction. If one drops, another will drop, and another will drop, etc. Now if only one country, or a group of allied countries, all have nukes they can do whatever they want. But if countries are afraid of retaliation, simply due to the sheer power of nuclear capability, they will not drop it. So as more and more countries gain nuclear capability, the safer the world becomes.

If you have any questions, feel free to facebook me. I love talking about this stuff.

Goodnight,

Ryan Bowyer