Unit 1: World Religions
Monotheism: the belief in one god
Polytheism: the belief in many gods
What is civil disobedience?
Civil disobedience is the peaceful or nonviolent refusal to obey a law seen as unjust.
Explain the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews in the Middle East.
The Arabs and Jews are fighting over land in Palestine/Israel in the Middle East. Both believe that they have a claim to the land; for Jewish people, it is their holy land, and for Arab Palestinians, they lived in this land for centuries.
What is communism?
Communism is an economic theory that calls for the elimination of social classes and total equality in access to resources.
Describe the resource curse in Africa.
What are the Abrahamic Religions?
Who is Gandhi?
What is Islamism?
Islamism is the belief that Islam should be the basis of a well-functioning society and government.
Who was Mao Zedong?
What were the causes and effects of the Rwandan Genocide? Which barrier to development is it an example of?
Effects: 800,000-1 million Tutsis were killed over a 100 day period.
Barrier: Ethnic conflict
What is samsara? Which religion is it important to?
Samsara is the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. It is one of the core beliefs of Hinduism.
What is Gandhi's first principle of civil disobedience? Give an example of it in action.
Gandhi's first principle of civil disobedience is to respect the rule of law except for the one you think is unjust.
An example: following all the rules except for the Salt Tax, by collecting salt from the sea.
What did the UN Partition Plan do? Who supported it, and who didn't?
The UN Partition Plan was the United Nation's attempt to split land between Jewish people and Arabs in Palestine. The Jewish people accepted the plan, because it formally gave them land. The Arabs rejected the plan, because it gave away 50% of the land they believed was theirs.
Centralization is when all of the decision-making power about a process or a system is placed in the hands of one person or a small group.
This relates to the 5 year plans in China because industrialization efforts and agriculture were centralized, and placed under the control of the CCP.
Corruption in African countries makes it more difficult for infrastructure to be built/maintained. Corrupt African leaders take money from the government. Individual Africans are forced to pay bribes to access things like public education, healthcare, and legal systems.
Explain the importance of Abraham in Judaism.
Abraham was the person who made the covenant, or agreement, with God. The covenant granted Abraham and his descendants the status of God's chosen people, and gave them the holy land (Jerusalem) in exchange for them following only the one, true God.
What is Gandhi's second principle of civil disobedience? What is an example of this in action?
Gandhi's second principle of civil disobedience is to accept the consequences for breaking the law.
Example: Gandhi and many of his followers went to jail for collecting water and making their own salt during the Salt March.
What are the terms of the Iranian Nuclear Deal?
Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium past a certain point, reduce the number of centrifuges they had, get rid of their highly enriched uranium stockpile, and agree to regular IAEA inspections. In return, the US and other European nations would lift the sanctions placed on Iran's economy.
Explain how the Great Leap Forward worked and its outcomes.
The Great Leap Forward focused on industrialization in China, and the manufacturing of steel, as well as the collectivization of agriculture in People's Communes. Backyard furnaces were makeshift steel factories peasants were expected to use. People's Communes were large farms were thousands of people lived and worked together.
The Great Leap Forward was not successful, and resulted in the death of millions of Chinese. Agriculture was incredibly inefficient, and the Backyard Furnaces did not produce quality steel.
Explain how lack of education in Africa affects countries' development.
What are the 4 noble truths? Which religion are they important to?
The 4 noble truths are: everyone suffers, suffering is caused by greed, the way to end all suffering is to want nothing, once you want nothing you will reach nirvana.
The 4 noble truths are important in Buddhism.
What is Gandhi's third principle of civil disobedience? What is an example of this in action?
Example: Gandhi gives speeches and protests peacefully to try to win the British and the public to his side, but he does not use violence or embarrass the British officials.
Compare and contrast Iran under Shah Pahlavi and Ayatollah Khomeini.
Shah: westernizing, allied with the US, SAVAK was repressive against critics, used oil revenue to modernize but then the economy got bad because he overspent.
Khomeini: Islamist government run by clerics, enemies of the US, Iranian hostage crisis, repressive of Khomeini's critics and people who used to work for Shah
How has globalization impacted China?
Globalization has made China one of the world's strongest and most productive economies, and has improved the standard of living for Chinese people, specifically the middle class. However, globalization has also resulted in increased censorship of information in China, especially on the Internet.
What is a blood diamond? How does it contribute to barriers to development in Africa?
A blood diamond is an example of a resource, in this case a diamond, that is manufactured in a conflict zone, or in bad working conditions. Companies do not want to buy blood diamonds, because it makes them look bad/unethical. Many companies have stopped buying resources like diamonds entirely from countries were there is conflict over natural resources, which means those countries are struggling to make money.