Maria Vacca Crisostomo, Grade 12
UWC-USA
“You will need to give a presentation about a political issue from where you live” Normally, I would wander in my thoughts trying to find a starting point of the possible topic that I could choose. This time, I had too many options to choose from. Sixteen years living in a country in South America gave me enough situations to politically analyze, but I was not sure which one would be the most suitable for my Global Politics class. Finally, I decided to go with the most current issue at the moment: The political polarization as a result of the presidential elections in Peru.
I prepared for days, timing my presentation and polishing it to the minimum detail. I wanted this conflict to be as impactful as possible as it covered other issues that are still present: discrimination, classism, centralization, and others.
The day of the presentations came and I was nervous. As other classmates presented, I slowly got ashamed of myself. Not because of the quality of my information but of the level of my conflict. I started to think that other countries had “easy” conflicts. Situations that you could come up with solutions for, just as if it was a Model United Nations simulation. Immediately, my perception of my country changed.
After hearing about problems regards the lack of access to resources, as well as the structural violence against some communities, I realized that most of these conflicts were targeted. It does not make it better for the victims, but it provides a narrower sequence of actions to produce an adequate solution. That was the moment where I remembered all of the times that my country was labeled as a “third world country”. Minutes later, I presented and immediately started to think about the root of the problems in Peru.
Most of the causes are situated in education. And it was ironic for me to discover that since I was studying abroad thanks to a competitive scholarship that only 1% of the pool of applicants got from my National Committee. I noticed that in my classmates’ examples, the victims usually had more obstacles to accessing quality education. In Peru, the standard for schools is low. Most students cannot even afford to attend school without it being a financial burden for their families. I continued digging deeper and more causes arose to the surface.
After finding probably ten different causes and zero solutions, I realized that I had been thinking about it in the wrong way. I simply cannot compare two different conflicts because they do not have the same factors, or the same culture or society. Even if you compare two similar countries, the numbers do not add up and will never do. I had felt ashamed of my nation and, in some way, I was unloyal to it. I criticized it while forgetting all of our history and past problems. From that point, I started to look at the world with a different perspective - avoiding comparisons to every extent I could and immersing myself in the levels of depth in each situation.
Image Courtesy: https://wrt30306spring16.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/digging-deep/
I prepared for days, timing my presentation and polishing it to the minimum detail. I wanted this conflict to be as impactful as possible as it covered other issues that are still present: discrimination, classism, centralization, and others.
The day of the presentations came and I was nervous. As other classmates presented, I slowly got ashamed of myself. Not because of the quality of my information but of the level of my conflict. I started to think that other countries had “easy” conflicts. Situations that you could come up with solutions for, just as if it was a Model United Nations simulation. Immediately, my perception of my country changed.
After hearing about problems regards the lack of access to resources, as well as the structural violence against some communities, I realized that most of these conflicts were targeted. It does not make it better for the victims, but it provides a narrower sequence of actions to produce an adequate solution. That was the moment where I remembered all of the times that my country was labeled as a “third world country”. Minutes later, I presented and immediately started to think about the root of the problems in Peru.
Most of the causes are situated in education. And it was ironic for me to discover that since I was studying abroad thanks to a competitive scholarship that only 1% of the pool of applicants got from my National Committee. I noticed that in my classmates’ examples, the victims usually had more obstacles to accessing quality education. In Peru, the standard for schools is low. Most students cannot even afford to attend school without it being a financial burden for their families. I continued digging deeper and more causes arose to the surface.
After finding probably ten different causes and zero solutions, I realized that I had been thinking about it in the wrong way. I simply cannot compare two different conflicts because they do not have the same factors, or the same culture or society. Even if you compare two similar countries, the numbers do not add up and will never do. I had felt ashamed of my nation and, in some way, I was unloyal to it. I criticized it while forgetting all of our history and past problems. From that point, I started to look at the world with a different perspective - avoiding comparisons to every extent I could and immersing myself in the levels of depth in each situation.
Image Courtesy: https://wrt30306spring16.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/digging-deep/
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