The Ethnic Essay Example for Free

The Ethnic Essay ETHNIC RELATIONS IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA: THE CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS Abstract This paper looks at the changing ethnic relations in Peninsular Malaysia in terms of the interactions between the state’s policies to advance Malay cultural dominance and reduce ethnic economic inequality and the aspirations and actions of the Chinese community. The state of ethnic relations partly will depend on whether the majority of the ethnic members, in particular the ethnic elites, are pursuing separatist or amalgamative strategies and goals, and on whether the rival ethnic groups stand in positions of marked inequality or near equality to each other. In this sense, since the 1969 ethnic riots, ethnic relations have eluded out right conflicts in part because the rival ethnic communities have pursued mainly amalgamative strategies and goals, and in part because the economic inequality gap has narrowed between the Malays and non-Malays. However, the expanding place of Islam in the Malay personal, and hence collective, identity and the relative success in making social classes more multiethnic have added additional complexities to the future of ethnic relations. Introduction Ethnicity remains the most potent force in Malaysia even if of late its influence has been somewhat adulterated by other social stratification forces, principally class and gender. The potency of ethnicity lies in its ability to combine both affective and instrumental appeals. As members of distinct and self-conscious cultural communities, Malays, Chinese and Indians naturally were inclined to identify with and treasure their respective languages, cultures and religions, and thus actively strived to preserve and propagate them. 1 Since they share a common pool of generalized symbols and values, the ethnic members would primarily socialize and associate with their own. Ethnicity thus continues to constitute an integral constituent of the individual Malaysia psyche and ethnic membership critically demarcates his/her social life and taste. It follows that the effectiveness of affective appeals originates from the evident passionate attachments to a particular ethnicity that continue to sway individual identification and pattern of social life. Passionate attachments are readily excited for the purposes of galvanizing ethnic individuals to preserve, protect and promote their culture, language, and religion. Historically, in Malaysia, the affective appeals also became intimately intertwined with the instrumental pursuit of political and economic goals that aimed to manipulate the system and distribution of rewards in preference of the particular ethnic members. Consequently, because ethnicity combines â€Å"an interest with an affective tie†, ethnic groups were more effective and successful than social classes in mobilizing their members in pursuit of collective ends in Malaysia. In post-independent Malaysia, ethnic relations became entangled and influenced by the rival ethnic communities’ struggle over the cultural constituents of national identity, the share of political power, and the distribution of economic wealth. This paper is divided into two parts. The first part examines the development in the cultural relations and the second part on the economic relations. The Cultural Dimension In the Western European experience, the process of nation building was preceded by or coincided with the cultural process of collective identity formation that was grounded in ethnicity. If and when ethnicity formed the basis of nationality, the construction of a national culture/identity almost always would be based on the dominant ethnic group’s culture with the concurrent marginalization, and usually annihilation, of the minority ethnic groups’ cultures (Smith 1986). In most of the Western European nations, assimilation of the minority ethnic groups into the dominant ethnic group culture became the normative historical experience. The tacit conflation of nation and ethnicity largely arose from the emergence of European nations with relatively homogeneous national cultures. Indeed, the tacit conflation entrenched and perpetuated the notion of a nationalism that imagines the nation in terms of a people sharing a common history, culture, language and territory. In the colonial world, the conflated conception of nationalism powerfully captured the imaginations of most of the national liberation movements. Inspired by 2 the image of a homogenous cultural nation led to efforts by the dominant ethnic groups in the postcolonial world to fashion national cultures out of their own. A result of this was the proliferation of assimilationist policies in many of the postcolonial nationstates. But, given the multiethnic character of nearly all the postcolonial nation-states, the imposition of assimilationist policies regularly resulted in accentuating the relations between the dominant and minority ethnic groups. Although Malaysia is an exception to the rule in terms of not pursuing an outright assimilationist policy, the Malays, nevertheless, persisted on the construction of a national culture founded on their culture. The unequal relation between the Malay and non-Malay cultures was formally recognized and written into the 1957 Constitution2. This was a radical departure from the colonial period where no one ethnic group’s culture was given privileged status and there was no conception of a common national culture. The colonial state moreover practiced an essentially nonintervention policy in the cultural development of the colony and each ethnic group had equal access to and could freely practice their culture in the colonial public space. The postcolonial state played, in contrast, an increasingly interventionist role in the cultural development of the society and actively promoted the public presence of Malay culture. In post-independent Malaysia, the site of cultural contentions was centered over the status and place of the different ethnic groups’ cultures in the public space. To construct a national culture founded on Malay culture necessary would mean the construction of a public space where Malay culture is omnipresence with the nonMalay cultures relegated to the periphery. However, to advance the Malay cultural symbols and Islam in the public space, the state would have to roll back the historically expansive presence of non-Malay cultural symbols in the public space in general and in the urban space in particular. Constitutionally, since the assimilationist notion was abandoned in Malaysia, the predicament was how to advance Malay cultural dominance without alienating the non-Malay communities and violating their rights to practice and to propagate their cultures as guaranteed in the constitution. In short, the ambivalence around the inclusion and exclusion of the non-Malays’ cultures constitutes the key predicament in the construction of the modern Malaysian nation. 3 In the 1960s, the cultural terrain was a fiercely contested arena. This was because, during this period, the majority of Malays and non-Malays held diametrically opposing stances on the cultural, religion and language issues. On the one side, the popular Malay opinion strongly backed the dominant and privileged position of Malay culture in the new nation and expected the state to uphold and promote Malay culture and the official status of Malay language. Consequently, the perceived slow progress made by the state in advancing Malay culture and language led to increasing numbers of Malays, especially the Malay cultural nationalists,3 to become disenchanted with the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) leaders. On the other side, the majority of Chinese vigorously and persitently advocated the equality of status for every culture in the society;4 Mandarin as one of the official languages, equal treatment of Chinese culture and religion, and equal recognition of and rights to education in their mother tongue. The Chinese demand for complete equality was powerfully captured in the notion of a â€Å"Malaysian Malaysia†. The heated cultural contentions considerably envenomed the ethnic relations in the 1960s. In the immediate aftermath of the 1969 ethnic riots, the Malay-dominated state proceeded, aggressively, to reconstitute the public cultural landscape. The National Culture Policy was implemented in 1971 to amplify the symbolic presence of Malay culture and Islam in the public space. Also in 1971, the National Education Policy was executed to incrementally make Malay language as the medium of instruction at all educational levels. Indeed, after 1969, the preeminence of Malay culture in the society became a non-negotiable proposition, and questioning it could result in prosecution under the Sedition Act. Conversely, the pro-Malay cultural policies put the non-Malay communities on the defensive and prodded them to safeguard their cultural presence in and access to the public space. In particular, when the state imposed increasing regulations and restrictions on the their rights to stage public cultural performances or to acquire land to build Chinese schools and places of worship and burial, it induced the Chinese to mobilize to defend and struggle for their cultural space and rights. The impact of the state cultural policies on the ethnic relations over the years depends on several factors. One factor is connected to what was the prevailing conception of Malay culture and the elements of the non-Malay ethnic cultures that 4 could go into the national culture. Another factor has to do with the specific cultural policies formulated and the manner the Malay-dominated state had pursued them. They varying responses of the Malay and Chinese groupings to the state cultural policies constitute another important factor. In the 1970s, pressures from the Malay cultural nationalists pushed the state to strive aggressively to enlarge the presence and function of Malay cultural symbols in the official and public spaces. Since the 1980s, however, pressures from the resurgence of Islam among the Malays led the state to introduce more measures to enhance the â€Å"Islamicization† of the society. Simply put, the state allocated funds and established institutions to research on and propagate Malay arts and cultures, â€Å"altering them where necessary to fit current ideological and religious sensibilities† .

Richard Gatling - The Gatling Gun :: essays research papers

Richard Jordan Gatling was born in January 1818 in Winton North Carolina, and died at the age of 85 in 1903. Gatling's career as an inventor began when he assisted his father in the construction of machines for sowing cottonseeds, and also for thinning cotton plants. He spent a lot of time in the fields with his father who helped him build some of his inventions. Richard Jordan Gatling was a medical doctor with numerous patents for his farm equipment inventions. To his credit he came up with the famous 1862-model Revolving Battery Gun, that is now referred to as the Gatling gun. The 1862-model was one of the first reliable Revolving guns, but still had a few problems that needed to be fixed. Richard was not the first to manufacture a multi-fire weapon, but his was the first multi-fire gun used in war because of its fast, rapid fire, and ease to use. Major General Ben F. Butler purchased 12, 1862-model gatling guns for $1000 each and used them successfully at the battle of Petersburg in 1863. In 1865 Gatling's improved model, the 1865-gun was tested by the Ordnance Department. One of the changes between the improved Gatling gun and the old one, was that the new weapon used rim fire copper-cased cartridges instead of the steel-chambered paper kind. Though this model did not see service, it was adopted officially in 1866. The military was so pleased with the performance of the Gatling gun that it has been used in every battle since it was invented to this day and has been continuously upgraded and improved. Having received government approval, Gatling began to sell his guns throughout the world. This was a big mark in Richards’s future, he had gone from working in the fields to developing a gun that is used throughout the military of the world. The gun was a hand-crank-operated weapon with six barrels revolving around a central shaft. Having a gun that revolves was very difficult because the barrels would not always line up correctly when being fired. The original gun was actually designed to fire the standard military issue paper cartridge of the day, .58 caliber. A .58 caliber bullet has a diameter of an inch and is capable of damaging anything it hits. The paper cartridge was placed inside a steel or brass chamber with a percussion nipple on the back end just like the muzzle loading rifles and pistols of there time.

Reflective Writing on History Taking Essay

The first lecture on history taking that I had attended was conducted by Dr Yambao. It was an introductory lecture in understanding the basis of taking history from the patients and the effective skills on how to come out with a complete history of patients in order to identify one’s disease. It was an interesting lecture to me but far more interesting when I entered the clinical skill learning session (CSL). In CSL classes, I had acquired the idea and illustrations on how history taking is done with the help of Dr Min Zaw Aung, my facilitator for CSL Module. After few classes on CSL, including history taking on presenting illness, past medical, surgical, family and social history as well as history taking in paediatrics and women, I had better acknowledged myself in the process and techniques. However, it wasn’t that easy as I thought to carry out the history taking myself. Dr Min Zaw Aung had taught me very well in doing the history taking. Me and my CSL group members was given cases and practiced on history taking among ourselves with Dr Min Zaw Aung’s guidance. Then, comes the session where I had to do the real history taking, with the real patient at the Kepala Batas Hospital near the campus. I was excited at the beginning as I would be able to see real patients and talk to them. At the hospital, I was assigned a task on history taking in the women’s ward together with my team-mates. Later that day, I became very nervous as I thought that I wasn’t prepared to do the history taking with them. Dr Min Zaw Aung had divided the group in pairs and each pair had to take the history from one of the patient in the ward. The patient that I got was a Malay woman aged 43 years old with diabetes and a wound on her right toe. She was so friendly and she had given a good cooperation so that I and my friend can conduct the history taking very well. At first, I was worried that I will disturb the patient when she is having her rest but then, I know, I had to do this as this is important in  my process of learning in becoming a good doctor in the future. At first, we had applied the skills that were taught by our facilitator. To begin, we put the patient at ease and comfort. My friend and I did the history taking and noted everything that we have to know about her illness so that, we can better diagnose her. All the questions pertaining to patients’ symptoms and chief complaint were being asked; including history of presenting illness, history of past medical and surgical history as well as medication, dietary history, family history and social history. During the processes, I realized that we had to be careful in phrasing our questions, give good verbal and non-verbal cues, differentiate closed and open ended questions and ask relevant questions systemically. This is to ensure that the patient wouldn’t feel disturbed or angry and more pleased to give information. It turned out that, the patient I had met was actually a type 1 diabetic patient since she was 31 years old and she inherited the disease from both her parent. Her injured right toe was swollen and worsens after her first meeting with the doctor. The wound is healing very slowly and it caused bacterial infections which consequently made her feverish. So, she was diagnosed with infection on right toe associated with fever which worsens by her diabetes. After the history taking was done, we had to present the case to our facilitator, Dr Min Zaw Aung. We did the presentation well but still, there were some mistakes that we had made. Dr Min Zaw Aung had helped us in correcting our mistakes and came out with the right diagnosis. He also gave us information regarding our case and explained further about it so that I and my friend understand it better and learn from our mistakes. So, I had finished the CSL session for this semester. I had learned so many things in the classes and sessions with the lecturer especially on history taking. The experiences that I gained are an exposure to me of the medical world before I am able to be in it. All of it is so important in pursuing my medical years as training in becoming a good doctor to thousands and in fact  millions of patient s that I will attend and help in the future.

Homonymy Examples and Definition

The word Homonymy  (from the Greek—homos: same, onoma: name) is the relation between words with identical forms but different meanings—that is, the condition of being homonyms. A stock example is the word bank  as it appears in river bank and savings ​bank. Linguist Deborah Tannen has used the term pragmatic homonymy (or ambiguity) to describe the phenomenon by which two speakers use the same linguistic devices to achieve different ends (Conversational Style, 2005). As Tom McArthur has noted, There is an extensive gray area between the concepts of polysemy and homonymy (Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language, 2005).   Examples and Observations Homonyms are illustrated from the various meanings of the word bear (animal, carry) or ear (of body, of corn). In these examples, the identity covers both the spoken and written forms, but it is possible to have partial homonymy—or heteronymy—where the identity is within a single medium, as in homophony and homography. When there is ambiguity between homonyms (whether non-deliberate or contrived, as in riddles and puns), a homonymic clash or conflict is said to have occurred.(David Crystal. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 6th ed. Blackwell, 2008)Examples of homonymy are peer (person belonging to the same group in age and status) and peer (look searchingly), or peep (making a feeble shrill sound) and peep (look cautiously).(Sidney Greenbaum and Gerald Nelson, An Introduction to English Grammar, 3rd ed. Pearson, 2009) Homonymy and Polysemy Homonymy and polysemy both involve one lexical form that is associated with multiple senses and as such both are possible sources of lexical ambiguity. But while homonyms are distinct lexemes that happen to share the same form, in polysemy a single lexeme is associated with multiple senses. The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is usually made on the basis of the relatedness of the senses: polysemy involves related senses, whereas the senses associated with homonymous lexemes are not related. (M. Lynne Murphy and Anu Koskela, Key Terms in Semantics. Continuum 2010)Linguists have long distinguished between polysemy and homonymy (e.g., Lyons 1977: 22, 235). Usually, an account like the following is given. Homonymy obtains when two words accidentally have the same form, such as bank land bordering on a river and bank financial institution. Polysemy obtains where one word has several similar meanings, such as may indicating permission (e.g., May I go now?) and may indicating poss ibility (e.g., It may never happen). Since it is not easy to say when two meanings are totally different or unrelated (as in homonymy) or when they are just a little different and related (as in polysemy), it has been customary to adduce additional, more easily decidable criteria.The trouble is that, although helpful, these criteria are not totally compatible and do not go all the way. There are cases where we may think that the meanings are clearly distinct and that we therefore have homonymy, but which cannot be distinguished by the given linguistic formal criteria, e.g., charm may denote a kind of interpersonal attraction and may also be used in physics denoting a kind of physical energy. Not even the word bank, usually given in most textbooks as the archetypical example of homonymy, is clear-cut. Both the financial bank and the river bank meanings derive by a process of metonymy and metaphor, respectively from Old French banc bench. Since bank in its two meanings belongs to the same part of speech and is not associated with two inflectional paradigms, the meanings of bank are not a case of homonymy by any of the above criteria...Traditional linguistic criteria for distinguishing homonymy from polysemy, although no doubt helpful, in the end turn out to be insufficient.(Jens Allwood, Meaning Potentials and Context: Some Consequences for the Analysis of Variation in Meaning. Cognitive Approaches to Lexical Semantics, ed. by Hubert Cuyckens, Renà © Dirven, and John R. Taylor. Walter de Gruyter, 2003)Dictionaries recognize the distinction between polysemy and homonymy by making a polysemous item a single dictionary entry and making homophonous lexemes two or more separate entries. Thus head is one entry and bank is entered twice. Producers of dictionaries often make a decision in this regard on the basis of etymology, which is not necessarily relevant, and in fact separate entries are necessary in some instances when two lexemes have a common origin. The form pupil, for instance, has two different senses, part of the eye and school child. Historically these have a common origin but at present they are semantically unrelated. Similarly, flower and flour were originally the same word, and so were the verbs to poach (a way of cooking in water) and to poach to hunt [animals] on another persons land), but the meanings are now far apart and all dictionaries treat them as homonyms, with separate listing. The distinction between homonymy and polysemy is not an easy one to make. Two lexemes are either identical in form or not, but relatedness of meaning is not a matter of yes or no; it is a matter of more or less. (Charles W. Kreidler, Introducing English Semantics. Routledge, 1998) Aristotle on Homonymy Those things are called homonymous of which the name alone is common, but the account of being corresponding to the name is different...Those things are called synonymous of which the name is common, and the account of being corresponding to the name is the same.(Aristotle, Categories)The sweep of Aristotles application of homonymy is in some ways astonishing. He appeals to homonymy in virtually every area of his philosophy. Along with being and goodness, Aristotle also accepts (or at times accepts) the homonymy or multivocity of: life, oneness, cause, source or principle, nature, necessity, substance, the body, friendship, part, whole, priority, posteriority, genus, species, the state, justice, and many others. Indeed, he dedicates an entire book of the Metaphysics to a recording and partial sorting of the many ways core philosophical notions are said to be. His preoccupation with homonymy influences his approach to almost every subject of inquiry he considers, and it clearly struct ures the philosophical methodology that he employs both when criticizing others and when advancing his own positive theories. (Christopher Shields, Order in Multiplicity: Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle. Oxford University Press, 1999).