Human nature Essay Example

Human nature Paper With each page of the story the reader cannot help but wonder how things could become worse. It is a wonder that should not be anticipated as it is dispelled soon enough. The depravations are beyond belief. Sadism and cruelty rule the day. The Wiesels, father and son, were moved from Auschwitz to the Buna concentration work camp. Soon they were forced to witness hangings, including a young boy whose light weight was not enough to kill him as the floor dropped. He hung from the gallows for a half-hour, â€Å"struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. Behind me I heard a man asking ‘where is God now’ and I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘He is hanging here on this gallows†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ã¢â‚¬  (71). Wiesel had just begun to see the unimaginable horror. As the Russian front against the Germans advanced the camp was evacuated. While Wiesel’s faith in God is torn—he feels he is the accuser, God the accused (73) it is his father’s presence that keeps him going through the hell of the camps, the fear of â€Å"selection† to death, and the death march of evacuations. Wiesel soon sees the real horror in the forced marches. We will write a custom essay sample on Human nature specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Human nature specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Human nature specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Unlike him and his father staying together, a Rabbi is looking for his son, and Wiesel realizes the young man had moved away from his father, â€Å"to free himself from an encumbrance which would lessen his own chances of survival† (94). He would soon see worse. Passing Germans would throw crumbs of bread to the starving Jews and watch with amusement. He noticed an old man free himself from the melee, clutching a piece of bread. Wiesel describes the terror: With remarkable speed he drew it out and put it to his mouth. His eyes gleamed; a smile, like a grimace, lit up his dead face. And was immediately extinguished. A shadow had just loomed up near him. The shadow threw itself upon him. Felled to the ground, stunned with blows, the old man cried: â€Å"Meir. Meir, my boy! Don’t you recognize me? I’m your father†¦you’re hurting me†¦you’re killing your father! I’ve got some bread†¦for you too, for you too†¦Ã¢â‚¬  He collapsed. His fist was still clenched around a small piece†¦the other threw himself upon him and snatched it†¦the old man died amid general indifference. His son searched him, took the bread, and began to devour it. (102-103) The son was also set upon by the starving men and was killed as well. Wiesel, recalling the scene, remarks that he was fifteen years old. When Wiesel’s father dies he â€Å"did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like—free at last! † (113) He does not elaborate as to whether he was thinking of his father, now free of human suffering, or himself, freed of the burden of an ill father. It is probable he was referring to both of them. Wiesel’s account of human nature is brutal, ugly, and remorseless, with the occasional glimpse of kindness and humanity obscured from the smoke of burning bodies. Throughout the examination of the Holocaust runs the emotional and moral thought of â€Å"how can people do this? † How could the Germans and others be so cruel to Jews to tor-ture and murder them in such a hideous fashion? What has caused this base indifference and hatred? While reading Night those questions are certainly and quickly raised, and just as certainly and quickly dismissed. Man’s inhumanities to man will always exist, and each millennium of human history has its revolting share of genocide, pogroms, ghettos, and â€Å"final solutions†. Wiesel seems to be saying ‘yes, take that as a given. It exists and always will and man is powerless to prevent it. Now let us talk of real horror, of a child abandoning his burdensome father. Let us talk of a child who will murder his father for a scrap of bread. Here is real horror—and can you prevent it? Can you take the dreadful abuse and starvation and not wish you did not have to share? ’ This is the ultimate horror the Nazis inflicted on normal caring, moral, loving people who in ordinary circumstances do ordinary and even extraordinary things to help or save their fellow man. Our human culture all but demands we look out for family, and then friends, sharing what we have and they need, now even body parts. Countless examples from the beginning of recorded history describe mortal sacrifices made for others known and unknown. How can this moral drive be extinguished? Wiesel’s Night explains in graphic detail how this drive is not only extinguished but is replaced by something far darker and deadlier. As one who has been there, he does so without judgment, and makes no excuses for his or anyone’s â€Å"moral failings†. Wiesel’s story is not about failing, it is about surviving against the Nazi’s greatest torture of all: forcing immoral activity upon moral people. His story, as all of his writing, has a profound effect upon the reader. If only it could have a similar affect on the dark side of human nature. Works Cited Wiesel, Elie. Night, 1972: Hill Wang, New York.

First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-1842

First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-1842 During the nineteenth century, two large European empires vied for dominance in Central Asia. In what was called the Great Game, the Russian Empire moved south while the British Empire moved north from its so-called crown jewel, colonial India. Their interests collided in Afghanistan, resulting in the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839 to 1842. Background to the First Anglo-Afghan War In the years leading up to this conflict, both the British and Russians approached Afghanistans Emir Dost Mohammad Khan, hoping to form an alliance with him. Britains Governor-General of India, George Eden (Lord Auckland), grew extremely concerned with he heard that a Russian envoy had arrived in Kabul in 1838; his agitation increased when talks broke down between the Afghan ruler and the Russians, signaling the possibility of a Russian invasion. Lord Auckland decided to strike first in order to forestall a Russian attack. He justified this approach in a document known as the Simla Manifesto of October 1839. The manifesto states that in order to secure a trustworthy ally to the west of British India, British troops would enter Afghanistan to support Shah Shuja in his attempts to retake the throne from Dost Mohammad. The British werent invading Afghanistan, according to Auckland- just helping out a deposed friend and preventing foreign interference (from Russia). The British Invade Afghanistan In December of 1838, a British East India Company force of 21,000 mainly Indian troops began to march northwest from Punjab. They crossed the mountains in the dead of winter, arriving at Quetta, Afghanistan in March of 1839. The British easily captured Quetta and Qandahar and then routed Dost Mohammads army in July. The emir fled to Bukhara via Bamyan, and the British reinstalled Shah Shuja on the throne thirty years after he had lost it to Dost Mohammad. Well satisfied with this easy victory, the British withdrew, leaving 6,000 troops to prop up Shujas regime. Dost Mohammad, however, was not ready to give up so easily, and in 1840 he mounted a counter-attack from Bukhara, in what is now Uzbekistan. The British had to rush reinforcements back into Afghanistan; they managed to capture Dost Mohammad and brought him to India as a prisoner. Dost Mohammads son, Mohammad Akbar, began to rally Afghan fighters to his side in the summer and autumn of 1841 from his base in Bamyan. Afghan discontent with the continued presence of foreign troops mounted, leading to the assassination of Captain Alexander Burnes and his aides in Kabul on November 2, 1841; the British did not retaliate against the mob that killed Captain Burnes, encouraging further anti-British action. Meanwhile, in an effort to soothe his angry subjects, Shah Shuja made the fateful decision that he no longer needed British support. General William Elphinstone and the 16,500 British and Indian troops on Afghan soil agreed to begin their withdrawal from Kabul on January 1, 1842. As they made their way through the winter-bound mountains toward Jalalabad, on January 5th a contingent of Ghilzai (Pashtun) warriors attacked the ill-prepared British lines. The British East India troops were strung out along the mountain path, struggling through two feet of snow. In the melee that followed, the Afghans killed almost all of the British and Indian soldiers and camp followers. A small handful was taken, prisoner. The British doctor William Brydon famously managed to ride his injured horse through the mountains and report the disaster to British authorities in Jalalabad. He and eight captured prisoners were the only ethnic British survivors out of about 700 who set out from Kabul. Just a few months after the massacre of Elphinstones army by Mohammad Akbars forces, the new leaders agents assassinated the unpopular and now defenseless Shah Shuja. Furious about the massacre of their Kabul garrison, the British East India Company troops in Peshawar and Qandahar marched on Kabul, rescuing several British prisoners and burning down the Great Bazaar in retaliation. This further enraged the Afghans, who set aside ethnolinguistic differences and united to drive the British out of their capital city. Lord Auckland, whose brain-child the original invasion had been, next concocted a plan to storm Kabul with a much larger force and establish permanent British rule there. However, he had a stroke in 1842 and was replaced as Governor-General of India by Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough, who had a mandate to restore peace to Asia. Lord Ellenborough released Dost Mohammad from prison in Calcutta without fanfare, and the Afghan emir retook his throne in Kabul. Consequences of the First Anglo-Afghan War Following this great victory over the British, Afghanistan maintained its independence and continued to play the two European powers off of each other for three more decades. In the meantime, the Russians conquered much of Central Asia up to the Afghan border, seizing what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. The people of what is now Turkmenistan were the last vanquished by the Russians, at the Battle of Geoktepe in 1881. Alarmed by the tsars expansionism, Britain kept a wary eye on Indias northern borders. In 1878, they would invade Afghanistan once again, sparking the Second Anglo-Afghan War. As for the people of Afghanistan, the first war with the British reconfirmed their distrust of foreign powers and their intense dislike of foreign troops on Afghan soil. British army chaplain Reverand G.R. Gleig wrote in 1843 that the First Anglo-Afghan War was begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, [and] brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. It seems safe to assume that Dost Mohammad, Mohammad Akbar, and the majority of Afghan people were much better pleased by the outcome.

Definition of Libel Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Definition of Libel - Research Paper Example This has an adverse effect of denying the public a chance to access important information, which they could have been freely exposed to, had there not been the stringent libel laws. However, according to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as the requirements of the United Nation Commission on Human Rights, freedom of speech and expression has been guaranteed (Okrent, 2009). Thus, a myriad of jurisdictions has attempted to resolve the incumbent tension in various ways. Another emerging trend with regards to libel laws is the prevalence use of the internet to disseminate information, some which may constitute a libel. Consequently, many jurisdictions have had to extend the applicability of libel laws to incorporate libels committed over the internet. In the United States, libel is governed under the United States defamation law whose history dates back to the time of the American Revolution. Even so, due to the lack of an elaborate libel legal framework in t he United States over a long time, the libel laws were largely contingent on the traditional English common law of defamation. However, a remarkable case that laid the framework upon which defamation law was laid in the United States is the famous and prominent New York Times Co. v Sullivan case of 1964, in which the Supreme Court explored defamation claims regarding a public official. It was held that â€Å"public officials† were required to prove â€Å"actual malice†. Three years later, the Curtis Publishing CO. v. Butts played a palpable role in extending the â€Å"actual malice† standard to incorporate â€Å"public figures† which is rather wide and includes politicians, celebrities and other persons of high profile. Another remarkable case is the Gertz v.Robert Welch, Inc. which guaranteed the power of the states to establish their own standards of liability in libel cases. Using these cases, I establish the background of libel with regards to the sub stantial changes in the legal framework which governs libel. Much emphasis is placed on the English common law which forms the basis upon which libel law of many countries is based. In addition, the various defenses for libel are discussed at length. Finally, I discuss the applicability of the incumbent libel law to internet libel. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S 254(1964) A remarkable libel case is a case involving the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S 254(1964). This case involved the advertisement that featured in the New York Times, which sought to solicit funds aimed at defending Martin Luther King, Jr. who was facing charges of Alabama perjury inducement (Hall & Urofsky, 2011). Among other information in the advertisement, there were some inaccurate allegations including the mention that the Alabama State Police had arrested King several times. On the contrary, they had only arrested him on four occasions. Thus, the inaccurate criticism regarding the action of th e police against King was regarded as defamation especially against the Montgomery Public Safety Commissioner named L.B. Sullivan by virtue of his position as the supervisor of the police department. The Supreme Court later overruled the decision by the state court in Alabama which had initially found the New York Times guilty of libel based on the information printed in the advert (Hall & Urofsky, 2011).