The Unsolved Melancholy

A mother of two daughters, Muna, finally heard a noise. She took the babies to their room to figure out what was making the noise. She realized someone was knocking the door with his or her feet so hard. Before she headed to the door to see who was knocking, she went to the kitchen to pick up her safety knife. “Open the God damn door or I’ll break it myself,” said the infuriated person behind the door.

Muna stood in front of the door for a moment, thinking about what if that noise, which she assumed to be a man, could force itself inside the house, rape her and take all she has. It was midnight and screaming wouldn’t help because the neighbours were asleep. There is no 911 to dial because that is not how the system works in Somaliland- unrecognized independent country in the northern side of Somalia. She had no choice because no matter what she thought about doing, that man will his way in. She quickly went back to her bedroom, hid the knife beneath her pillow, just in case he pushed her to the room. She opened the door, letting the furious man get inside.

“Hey, darling! It is cold outside and you kept me waiting?” said the intoxicated, raging man, closing the door behind him. Muna was not able to figure out who was knocking the door because chewing khat gave him a deeper a voice. She was thrilled to see her husband back and started to catch her breath. “Hey, I thought you were not coming home tonight. What happened to you? Where were you all night?” she asks her husband, waiting for an answer that he cannot give her. He grabbed her and forced her to the bedroom; forcing his body on her while throwing punches at her.

Her husband, who was later sent to jail for his horrendous actions, and many other Somalis are the victims of an addictive drug, khat, in Somaliland. That night, her husband was sitting with his friends in a Maqaaxi, a small house made out of old clothes where 80% of men in Somaliland spend a quality amount of time, chewing khat, “The Somali Marijuana,” as most Somalis call it. Khat is a green plant that is mostly imported from Ethiopia. Due to the lack of jobs in Somaliland, chewing khat is what young people believe to be the “Camal la aan”, meaning “the alternative” to working. They leave their homes early in the morning, sit in a Maqaaxi, and go back to their homes at midnight inebriated. During that time, they do nothing beside chew khat, smoke, and waste time. Hassan Muse, a phenomenal reporter discussed in his article, Negative effects of qat threaten next generation of Somali, the difficulties and the hardships a 25year -old Mohmad Abdi Sardeye faced. He was a resident of Garowe, a city in the northwest of Somalia where he spent most of his life. “I started to chew [khat] when I graduated from high school. Youth have no jobs to keep them occupied. Only a few work, while the rest hang around the streets. I use it to pass time until I find work." Many people like Mohamed Abdi are naive about the effects khat has on their health, but they do it to “kill time” or as many of them say, “Wakhtigaan ku dilayaa!”

Chewing khat shuts down the user’s brain and makes him hallucinate frequently. It gives you the power to harm people and destroy marriages. It also harms your health rapidly. According to the Department of Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine’s research, “the mechanical and chemical irritation may result in the development of mucosal white lesions and dark pigmentation.” Khat chewing may reduce aspects related to risk of “gingival and periodontal inflammation”, a non destructive disease that affects the alveolar bone, “but it appears to be associated with attachment loss at the site of chewing.”  Chewing khat triggers some internal and external teeth stains which later lead to discoloration of teeth and triggers tooth decay. It induces a state of euphoria, elation and takes away your memory. According to SomalilandPress, an extensively read newspaper in Somaliland, report that 5-10% of the families in Somaliland lost their marriages due to khat issues. Men come back home late and high, then rape and beat their wives and children, destroy their houses or end up hurting themselves. Therefore, most people are concerned about the damages khat does to the future of this country. The more men chew khat and not help Somaliland get a better future, the less opportunities for Somaliland to get its recognition.  

Despite the harms khat does to the health of its victims, destroys marriages and threatens the future of Somaliland, the entire economy of the country depends on it. According to SomalilandPress, “khat does a bustling trade estimated at well over $50 million annually.” However, it further discussed how “55% of young men and women aged 20 years and younger use khat, even as they attend high school.” Selling, buying, using khat is legal in Somaliland. However, even though Somaliland gets millions of dollars from exporting khat to UK, Yemen and other countries, most of its youth are either in jail or in hospitals. There are no available jobs for them so they end up robbing people or shops then later go to jail or chew khat all day and night then later taken by an ambulance. Throughout the last ten years, over 50% of the youth in Somaliland are victimized by khat.

Khat is problematic to the Somaliland government.  If the government averts people from chewing khat by creating laws that will make it illegal or stop importing it from Ethiopia, the economy will decline and many people will lose their jobs but if it lets people chew khat, more young people will be addicted to it and problems and chaos will occur regularly. Since 1960, when Somaliland got its independence from Somalia, Somaliland is trying to sustain its economy, peace, and the government’s capability in governing the country. However, dealing with khat is more challenging than anticipated.

 Khat is a struggle that is hard to overcome and many single or widow mothers tend to suffer from it a lot. Losing her husband just because he spent the night chewing khat, pushed Muna to live and move to the streets. She didn’t have a job. Her husband was the only hope she had but now that she lost him, she had to take her babies and beg for money in the streets. She went to a court to fight not for her survival but for her babies’ survival. She went to the only court she thought would help and begged the judge to release her husband or sign her money so she and her babies can survive while he is gone to prison. After the case was closed, most people were angered by the judge’s decision; leaving the hapless mother with no choice but to go back to the streets.  She left court with tears falling off her eyes, just wishing if khat could one day be forbidden from the country. She went back to the streets to continue fighting for the survival of her babies. With khat around, the economy will boom but a lot of people will lose loved once, houses, marriages, jobs, and even surviving in the country will be an ordeal. The existence and the future of this country depend on the choice the government will make; banning khat from the country or letting its people struggle and fight for survival.

Bibliography

Gorsky, Meir. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 15 9 2004. 12 11 2013 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669459/>.

Hussein, Hassan Muse. http://sabahionline.com/. 29 9 2012. 10 11 2013 <http://sabahionline.com/en_GB/articles/hoa/articles/features/2012/10/29/feature-01>.

somalilandpress. 11 5 2009. 10 11 2013 <http://somalilandpress.com/somalilands-addict-economy-khat-drains-struggling-economy-7319>.

Does Technology Affect Our Brain?

In his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nickolas Carr-an author wh0 mainly writes about technology, culture and economics-argues that technology is changing our minds and that it negatively affects the ways we process information. Like the title advocates, Carr frequently reiterates how and why technology is taking over the human mind. The article is effectively persuasive because he uses personal experiences to show that people can lose concentration because of computers, disapproves the ideas of the founders of Google, and cites scholars who criticized technological advancement and had similar arguments ingrained with relatable analogies and imagery. Carr does this to convince his readers and show them how technologies and internet have a huge negative impact on the human mind.

Carr uses personal experiences to foreshadow the significance of his loss of concentration. Carr discusses that even as a writer, his mind struggles to keep concentrated on a book. He censures and blames the internet for his mind’s struggle and describes it as, “the perfect recall of silicon memory.” By this, Carr means that we take in information from the Internet without taking the time to understand and process information. The Internet takes away the time to fully understand information. In addition, processing information requires understanding and understanding information strengthens our way of interpreting information and use it in a more efficient way.  For instance, Carr uses an example of scuba diver verses Jet Ski to show that he skims articles instead of fully getting deep into the significant parts of the articles. Furthermore, after seeing many other people struggle to keep focused on a book without “getting fidget, losing the thread or looking for something else to do”, Carr realizes that “the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind.”

Moreover, Carr discusses that the founders of Google wanted to create Artificial Intelligence and believed that the quicker we get information, the more beneficial we can be. Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, stated that “if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.” However, Carr argues that reading a text thoroughly without using skimming activities will promote the knowledge we obtain from that text. He says that “the last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.” Carr is more convincing because companies do not help us benefit from information directly linked to our brains but instead help themselves gain more profit and expand their businesses by advertising their service instead of giving us useful information. Having information directly linked to your brain is taking away our thinking process and we are better off to spend hours on a book and take in meaningful information.

            Carr cites scientific studies and scholars who had similar beliefs and skepticism about technology as he does. He examines- and later finds out- that Socrates feared people will depend on written words, instead of carrying knowledge or wisdom inside their heads. He states that people will “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction” and “[fill] with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.” By this, Carr means that most people will read too much information online without fully learning and getting insightful thoughts and massages. The more people spend less time on books, the less knowledge they will obtain from them. This proves Carr’s point that the internet is changing the way we process information.

In addition, Carr argues that internet is changing how we read and interpret text or information. He examines neurological and psychological experiments performed by scholars to back it up and show how internet use affects cognition. He reviews a research conducted by scholars from University College London which suggests that we might change the way we think and read articles. The scholars scrutinized the behaviours of visitors to two popular sites, finding that most of them favored using skimming activities to read those articles so they can read and comprehend them faster. As technology progresses, skimming through articles became a routine for many people. Because technology offers too much information, spending more time on articles or information became a struggle. People do not want to focus on one article while many others are available; therefore, understanding information thoroughly is lost. The scholars found out that people who use these sites read no more than one or two pages of a book or article. To prove their point, the scholars came to a convincing conclusion, which is that “users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.” Their conclusion demonstrates the lost of traditional reading-reading a book from page one to last-through technology. And the easy availability of technology gives more information to people, in which they struggle to choose one type of information or article and understand and process efficiently.

Carr’s article is convincing because Internet and technological advancement really influence how our brain functions and trigger distractions.  Carr’s essay persuasively shows why and how technology and Internet is affecting our brain and backs it up correctly with personal experiences full of insightful arguments, condemns the founders of Google’s ideas, and cites scholars who had similar criticism of technological advancement. 

           

           

Work Cited

Carr, Nickolas. (July 1, 2008). Is Google Making Us Stupid. Retrieved December 4, 2013 from: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/