Obama's speech in Tucson

Two days ago I was assigned by my English tutor to analyze Obama’s speech regarding the Arizona shooting. I am ashamed to admit my unawareness to the subject, and needed to google it in order to acquire more information about the shooting. I would not be able to analyze the speech if I knew nothing about the tragedy, would I?

I could not get a hold of the video of Obama delivering the speech, but I did get it in text from my tutor. I must admit, it was very moving. Obama mentioned every single victim of the shooting and told the audience a little bit about every victim’ life story. This is wonderfully done, as it makes the speech felt more personal to the audience and easier for anybody to relate to.

The tragedy surely tells a thing or two about the US society. It tells how disagreement on something can lead into something so violence as bloodbath, how a gun that is supposed to be used for self-defense used for otherwise, and how a young man in his twenties could actually do something as hideous as shooting people randomly even after he has shot his target. People can be so uncharitable sometimes.

However, at the other side it also shows that not everyone is like that. Three of the dying victims out of six and some bystanders showed the true meaning heroism. They were willing to save others, even if it meant that they had put their life at stake. Obama’s willingness to reflect from this tragedy also shows that the US is willing to learn from mistakes, instead of running/hiding from it.

Barrack Obama, as the President of the United State, he is the most powerful man in the world and his action without doubt will affect a lot of countries in the world, thus, dare I say, his willingness to strive to be better by reflecting from the tragedy will surely affect the world and therefore it can be seen as an act of globalization. And maybe, the world will someday be a better place to live.

Globalization

The world we live in is constantly changing, regardless of where in the world we live in or what culture we grow up with. The change may vary from time to time. It can be a financial change, a cultural change or even a lifestyle change. A change that influences many parts of the world is called globalization.

Globalization may happen anytime and anywhere, irrespective of whether we are ready for it or not. An example of globalization is the English language. It is the lingua-franca and most spoken language in the world. Against of what most people may think, globalization does not always mean a good thing. If not anticipated carefully, globalization can lead into extinction of a country’s culture or lifestyle. An example can already be seen if we take a closer look at the young generations who live in big cities. Take Canada, for example. The country is globalized already. A lot of young generations of the Inuit over there only speak English, resulting in a lot of young people unable to communicate with their grandparents, who only speak Inuit-language. The inabilities to communicate with own family members are not the only thing that needs to be put in consideration. The risk of the Inuit-language going into extinction really needs to be thought thoroughly.

Greenland, just as any growing country, is now on its way towards globalization. It is still developing towards a better future and its citizens’ well-being. It can be seen with all that is going on in the education sector. The Government of Greenland and its politicians begin to take a better care for the young generations and their education, seeing the rapidly growing well-educated young people in the country. 

The good thing with globalization in Greenland is that the country is no longer isolated. There are more and more possibilities available for having a better lifestyle. However, globalization does not come without risk. Although Greenland is the world’s biggest island, it is one of the smallest as in population speaking. The disadvantage of globalization is the big risk of losing the country’s culture and at the worst case possible: it may lead to confusion, identity struggle and frustration among the people, especially young people who cannot keep up with all the changes and are forced to live in-between their traditional culture and the modern society that keeps growing, which can unfortunately lead to the increasing number of suicides.

The question is: are we ready for the change? I am not saying that change is bad. A change is of course needed once in a while. However, we should not just follow the stream of life carelessly and forget who we really are as a person. If we, as the very own citizens of a country, do not take this matter seriously, who will? A country’s culture’s lasting depends on whether the citizens of country care about it or not after all.