Madison Rambles #16: Now We're Getting Modern

Hello, everyone!

I'm very sorry that this post is late. I had a lot of work last week, especially reading. Have you ever had to read an entire book in a week? Well, I was glad to have found the audiobook, because The Kite Runner is 300+ pages of an author struggling with his past.

But now, with one of my classes already over, I have a bit more freetime to answer questions. So here's me answering three questions from the penultimate chapter.

This is Chapter 22, or the second-to-last chapter in the book.


9) Why do you think Abdul Khan is generally unknown? Where does he fit in the larger history of the twentieth century?

Do you mean generally unknown worldwide? In the West? I think Abdul Khan's obscurity compared to Gandhi is an interesting thing to talk about.

Abdul Khan, while peaceful, was radical. The government hated his opposition to the creation of Pakistan, even to the point of thinking he was a communist, and arrested him for his advocacy.

The radical views of refusing to accept Pakistan and India as separate, unlike Gandhi eventually did, reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Martin Luther King Jr. was seen as less extreme than Malcolm X, and thus he is more remembered than his counterpart. Unlike Malcolm X, however, Abdul Khan was still a pacifist; he just held onto his original beliefs more than Gandhi.

His role in history is the Muslim counterpart to Gandhi. While Gandhi represented the Hindu population, Abdul Khan represented the Muslim part. Together, they were united to gain independence.

This may be diving into conspiracy theory territory, but I have a theory that the reason why Abdul Khan isn't mentioned in American textbooks is because of Eurocentrisism. He was Muslim and was accused of being a communist. Maybe part of the reason for his obscurity in the United States is because of that. Hopefully, future textbooks will mention him alongside Gandhi.

12) What conclusions can you draw from the Snapshot graph titled “World Population Growth, 1950-2011” on page 994?

From my experience in statistics class, I can determine with great certainty that this is a left-skewed test. This means that the population of the world has been increasing since the 1950's. Although more tests have to be done, I have formulated a hypothesis that I wish to prove using calculators I found on Google advanced formulas.

All jokes aside, let's analyze the graph closely. Asia has most of the world's population now, with over 4 billion. This isn't surprising, as China and India are the most populated countries in the world, with over 1 billion each.

What is surprising is the population of North America and Europe combined. They are much tinier than I expected, with only roughly 1 billion people. Considering those places being known for the English language (along with other European languages, but English is the lingua franca), it really shows how ridiculous it is to assume everyone can speak English easily. Yes, there are L2 speakers (or L3, L4, etc.), but not everyone who learns the language can speak it well. Just look at Spanish classes.

The graph makes me want to explore the vast world beyond my English-speaking bubble. I can already speak to roughly 126 million more people thanks to learning Japanese. Maybe I can boost it up to 1 billion more by finding the motivation to learn Mandarin.

To everyone else, let this graph be proof that there is more to the world than just the West. Explore the world beyond your world!

20) From the viewpoint of the early twenty-first century (2000-2015), to what extent had the goals of nationalist or independence movements been achieved?

Scotland is still part of the United Kingdom, Hong Kong is still part of China... the independence movement still has some room to grow.

But even then, we have made amazing progress toward independence. India, African countries, Latin American countries, and more have gained independence from their colonial powers. Ireland has even become mostly independent, and the United Kingdom has wanted to control them for centuries.

But I feel it is hard to answer this question without talking about after 2015. I mean, Brexit could be considered part of the independence movement, too. It's the United Kingdom being separated from the European Union. They have separated peacefully from the other governments. Isn't that an accomplishment?

However, there's also Hong Kong, which is not allowed to even protest for independence without fear of getting killed. It's horrible what is happening there, and I hope they are able to be safe one day.

As for nationalism, I think the movement is being questioned heavily now. Some are refusing to stand during sports games, or they frequently question the government's actions and what they're hiding. This is in America, one of the most stereotypically nationalistic countries in the world. I think the Vietnam War started people questioning American nationalism, and then it escalated from there.

Can you believe that the next blog post might be the last blog post? It's been busy, but I'm going to miss doing these blogs.

Next time, I'll be talking about the final chapter's topic: history until today. It will talk about globalization as well. This chapter will be like reading the first chapter of a book before abandoning it, since COVID-19 seems to make us question how we're doing globalization, especially in outsourcing.

Until next time!