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Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, published in 2009, received critical acclaim upon its release and it remained number one on the New York Times bestseller list for a year. By the time the 2011 film adaptation of the book went to theaters, The Help had sold 3 million copies, featured in the New York Times bestseller list for over two years, and had been published in 35 countries and translated into three languages (S. Jones, 8). The popularity of Stockett’s novel was widespread, yet many historians and scholars have raised questions about the stereotypes that the novel perpetrates and the accuracies of the dialect of the characters. Stockett writes African American character’s dialogue in a broken, marked form of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) while representing all white characters, even those of the working-class, with very few vernacular markings despite the fact that most, if not all, characters would have had Southern vernacular markings. The novel plays into the racial stereotypes that Stockett claims she was trying to eliminate, but the feel-good “we’re all the same” themes and the fact that the white, upper-middle class woman protagonist succeeds in the end suggests that the popular acclaim may have come from an audience playing into white fantasy, not one seeking to reveal truths and heal racial wounds. I argue that the major success of Stockett’s The Help and its consequent film, despite its misuse of AAVE and its perpetuation of African American stereotypes, suggests that its audience might subscribe to those same stereotypes.
Get original essayThe Help gained immediate priority on the lists of book clubs since 2009, and the release of its movie in 2011 sent it to the top of the charts yet again, heading The New York Times bestseller list six times during its 103-week tenure. The success of the novel, both before and after the release of its movie, is not insignificant: it was ranked number three on its list of best-selling hardcover books in 2009 by Publisher’s Weekly; it was the first single Amazon Kindle title to sell one million eBook copies; it won the 2010 Indies’ Choice Award given by the American Bookseller’s Association; and it won the 2010 Book of the Year for Fiction given by the Southern Independent Booksellers Association (Wilson, 2012). The film enjoyed a large promotional push that included links to southern recipe and cooking guides, women’s fashion and style guides, and further cross-branding efforts. The Help film was highly successful, probably due to its vast marketing as well as the book’s popularity. The film grossed approximately $170 million domestically and $210 million worldwide (Wilson, 2012). However, the 2011 release of the movie was not met with only a public appeal: many viewers raised concerns about the exaggerated African American vernacular, the overt domestic worker stereotypes, and the perpetuation of the white savior trope. These concerns are all apparent in both the novel and the movie, which suggests that the large audiences that gave them their popularity are willing to look past— or maybe not even see at all— the problematic depictions of race and the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s.
The conversation surrounding Kathryn Stockett and her novel began immediately after its release— it was controversial because some readers found it to be disparaging towards African Americans and a complete misrepresentation of the Civil Rights Movement. Ida E. Jones, the National Director of the Association of Black Women Historians, succinctly described many of her own problems with race in The Help in an essay entitled “An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help.” “Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice,” she writes, “The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism,” (I. Jones, 2014). The film, she argues, portrays the Civil Rights Movement through rose-tinted glasses, and in doing so it ignores the constant adversaries like sexual assault and less than adequate pay that the women had to deal with. It invalidates an entire violent, hard-fought movement by suggesting that it was people like the preppy, upper-middle class white Southern woman protagonist, Skeeter, who really spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement. Furthermore, Jones argues, it completely mutes the violence by suggesting that racism was not an institutional cultural psyche, but a handful of problematic individuals. “Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness,” (I. Jones, 2014). Jones further argues that Stockett has used the Civil Rights Movement as a plot development strategy without giving it the respect that she believes it deserves: “In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own,” (I. Jones, 2014). Jones is far from the only scholar to raise concerns about the handling of race in The Help, and yet the book is still considered a keystone piece of literature in many wine-and-cheese book clubs.
The popularity of The Help, both film and movie, suggests that large numbers of Americans are comfortable either ignoring the stereotypes represented, or simply do not recognize the fallacy of the story and the language used by its characters. Constance Ruzich and Julie Blake argue in their essay entitled “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing: Dialect, Race, and Identity in Stockett’s novel The Help,” that the African American community, by contrast, is able to see the misuse of dialect as it is shown in the film and on paper. “For many in the black community and/or for those with experience and understanding of African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Stockett’s representation of the maids’ language does not ring true and thus is perceived as insulting, demeaning, and racist,” (2015). Ruzich and Blake continue to suggest that the actual markings within the dialogue of the African American domestic workers are not necessarily the problem, but the process of “enregisterment” that readers and viewers undergo in consuming the novel as entertainment. Barbara Johnstone, who works in the Pittsburgh area studying AAVE and coined the term, describes it as “if hearing a particular word or structure used, or a word pronounced a particular way, is experienced in connection with a particular style of dress or grooming, a particular set of social alignments, or a particular social activity, that pronunciation may evoke and/or create a social identity,” (Johnstone, 2011). Asif Agha, who can be put into conversation with both Ruzich and Blake and Johnstone because of his work with enregisterment, defines it as “the process by which a collection of linguistic forms or features becomes linked to a social identity and its accompanying ideological and cultural values,” (2003). Using this definition of enregisterment, Ruzich and Blake argue that the social identity Stockett attempts to portray to readers through the marked dialect of the African American domestic workers is that of being black, poor, and uneducated.
In his essay “If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” James Baldwin, argues that specific dialects become institutionalized because they had belonged to the people of privilege at the time of the language’s conception. With this in mind, the idea of “correct” and “incorrect” speech patterns becomes hazy. He writes that the arguments surrounding African American dialects are “rooted in American history and [have] absolutely nothing to do with the question the argument seems to be posing. The argument has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language. Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker,” (Baldwin, 2001). By describing characters through their marked vernaculars, Stockett is suggesting that particular speech patterns correlate with different races, specifically that African American English is more marked with “inaccuracies,” although the institutionalized creation of “correct” English was in itself classist. Stockett’s markings are clear in the dialect of the African American characters while many of the white characters, even those of the working class, maintain a nearly pristine speech pattern. In this way, both the novel and the movie are suggesting that specific vernaculars are aligned with class and race intrinsically and that the marked vernacular of the domestic workers should be recognized as a dialect used by the working class while the more “correct” version of Southern American English used by the white characters should be viewed as one with the upper-middle class (Ruzich & Blake, 2015). Ruzich and Blake argue that The Help adds to a preexisting cultural enregisterment that links AAVE to the poor, uneducated, and lower class.
The process of enregisterment in The Help becomes even more problematic when one considers the markings (or lack of markings) in the dialogue of the white characters. Ruzich and Blake support critiques of the novel on this basis, because upon close study of the lines of dialogue, they found that “the speech of Stockett’s white characters, no matter their social class or rural/urban differences, is significantly less marked for dialect than that used to give voice to the black characters in The Help. In the language of her [Stockett’s] white characters, dialect markers occur approximately once in one-hundred words, as compared to the language of her black characters, in which dialect markers occur approximately once every ten words,” (Ruzich & Blake, 2015). This is offered in juxtaposition with the fact that historically, both African American and white characters would be speaking an accented form of Southern American English (SAE).
The implication of this skewed form of dialect within the novel and the book suggests that, as a middle-class woman in the South, Stockett formed her own prejudices that translated into her writing (Ruzich & Blake 2015). This problem is exacerbated due to the novel’s popularity within white audiences because it suggests that Stockett’s internalized stereotypes are part of a larger, more widely accepted discourse. “The linguistic stigmatization of the black characters in Stockett’s novel, then, needs to be viewed as something much larger than a reflection of a single author’s individual prejudices, but rather, as a popular culture indication of the racial and class anxieties that are deeply woven into the sociocultural fabric of American society, a society that embraces and popularizes such linguistic choices,” (Ruzich & Blake, 2015). This problem is highlighted by Stockett’s handling of the dialect of the white working-class, which is represented by Celia Foote, a woman from Sugar Ditch who marries into wealth and is taught basic housekeeping and cooking skills by one of the African American domestic workers, Minnie. She is specifically interesting to linguists and historians looking at the accuracy of the novel because, despite the fact that being a lower class woman is intrinsically part of her character, she does not have nearly the amount of vernacular markings that the domestic workers do. Despite the fact that historically, Celia Foote’s language would have been just as marked as that of the domestic workers, Kathryn Stockett actually spoke in an interview about how she created Celia Foote’s half-broken hybrid English. “I had a lot of fun writing Miss Celia. I wanted to create a character who’s so poor that they’re beyond prejudice. But in terms of dialogue? Hers was the hardest to capture. When you really get down into deep, thick redneck accents, you kinda have to take out all your teeth before you can really pull it off. But I do love those accents,” (Calkin, 2009). Ruzich and Blake wrote that they found this specific quotation particularly disturbing because it shows the true lack of attention that Stockett seemed to pay to the markings of AAVE and accented SAE, which all of the characters would historically be speaking. “Stockett’s assertion that she depicts Celia with a “deep, thick redneck accent” is difficult to reconcile with the comparatively infrequent markers of dialect found in Celia’s speech,” they argue, “In fact, after examining the linguistic features of Celia’s speech, it is unclear in what sense Stockett “took out all her teeth” in order to represent a character she describes as “so poor that they’re beyond prejudice.” Instead of highlighting differences between rich and poor, Stockett’s novel underscores the differences between black and white,” (Ruzich & Blake, 2015). This type of enregisterment becomes problematic when it is being perpetrated by popular culture, but it becomes even more concerning when books and films that play into the misrepresentations of race become the most popular piece of literature about the time period. The problems with the dialect of character in the novel and movie are far from the only example of misrepresentation of African American domestic workers, although it may be arguably the easiest one to point out directly. When one considers the failings of Stockett’s version of broken AAVE in tandem with the misrepresentations found in the characters and plot itself, it becomes clear that the novel and film could be considered not only misrepresentative of a culture, but at times flat-out inaccurate.
Allison Graham in “‘We Ain’t Doin’ Civil Rights’: The Life and Times of a Genre, as Told in The Help,” argues that one of the many ways in which race is misrepresented in the novel is its use of the Civil Rights Movement to generate idle discussion. The movement acts as background noise to the actual plot, which is centered around a privileged white woman, although the book is marketed as a piece of Civil Rights Movement literature. She further argues that the conclusion of the movie, although it achieves its “feel good” intent, really only suggests a “happy ending” for Skeeter and some extra money for the domestic workers involved. The only light at the end of the tunnel for the African American domestic workers is that “the film gives no hint that Abilene and Minny will feel further backlash from ‘doin’ civil rights,’” (Graham, 2014). By focusing the entire story on a “white savior” protagonist, the novel and the film are allowing white audiences to relate to the main character while feeling as though they understand the Civil Rights Movement completely. Other scholars, like Tikenya Foster-Singletary, have raised many concerns about the misrepresentations of color within The Help: “Stockett’s handling of race slips in a number of ways, marring the novel’s ultimate task and weighing it down with the problematic language and details for much of the story,” (Foster-Singletary, 2012). Graham and Foster-Singletary are just two voices in a large pool of critiques who suggest that there are problems with the way Stockett’s The Help handles racial issues and the Civil Rights Movement.
Many literary critics, scholars, and casual book bloggers seemed to pick up on the overt problems in the description of race within the novel. In her essay entitled “The Help: A Critical Review,” April Scissors discusses some of the issues that she found within the text, such as the lack of African American male characters, which perpetrates the stereotype that African American men are not involved in family life at all, and when they are, they are violent (like Minnie’s abusive husband who is only shown in the film as a threatening shadow). She also argues that many scenes in both the film and the novel follow a stereotype by suggesting that African Americans must be religious and forgiving. Especially when these qualities are expected from middle-age African American women, the line between what is a “black mammy” stereotype and what is an accurate depiction of domestic workers becomes blurred (Scissors, 2013). “It is important to note that as a black woman, Abilene could not tell the stories of other black women and have the book be received as well as The Help has. If a black author wrote the book, or if the story allowed for Aibileen to be in charge of her own freedom, The Help would be relabeled as “African American fiction” or a “Black movie,” marginalized by its topic and not half as successful,” (2013). It is clear that many readers and viewers of The Help, especially Southern African Americans, find it an inaccurate depiction of life in Jackson, Mississippi, and yet its popularity among audiences seems unaffected. What does this suggest, then, about the audiences that are willing to consume entertainment that is widely viewed as inaccurate?
Some literary scholars argue that at least part of the success of the novel was due to its tendency to bend more towards the audience’s emotional reaction than the actual historical truth. By revealing the full extent of the violence and struggles within the Civil Rights Movement and the lives of domestic workers in the 1960s, Stockett would have forfeited the ability to bring the novel to a tidy, optimistic close. Instead, she chooses to collapse all of the racial injustices suffered by African American domestic workers into a single, bit-sized and hatable character, Hilly Holbrook. With her defeat at the end of the novel, it is assumed that the defeat of all “racists” would follow. In this way, audiences are allowed to ignore the issue that the movie claims to push: the racial injustices of domestic workers in the 1960s. Henneberger writes in her critical review of the novel that “the book’s real appeal, it seems to me is in its invitation to ease into a warm bath of moral superiority over the racist ninnies in the book, who worry about the diseases they might catch if the women who cook their food and raise their children were also to tinkle in their toilets,” (Henneberger, 2011). The audience, she argues, is given an archetype of a “racist,” who just appears to be a mean-hearted and largely under informed woman. By placing the racial problems of this period squarely on Hilly Holbrook’s shoulders, the audience can take the weight off of themselves. In this way, I argue that some of The Help’s popularity comes from its misrepresentation of race relations in the 1960s because it allows for the momentary ease of white guilt. By allowing racial injustices as a whole to be condensed to a single antagonist, audiences are trading historical truths for the temporary pleasure of a fictional story.
Perhaps, then, the widespread success of both the novel and the film is suggestive of the consumers, although I would be hesitant to claim that a buyer of the book is equivalent to a firm supporter of the book. I would love to suggest that perhaps the book’s market popularity comes from the conversations that are generated about its misrepresentation of race, but I think that would be far-reaching optimism and that, in reality, its popularity comes from its perpetration of white fantasy stereotypes. Ruzich and Blake agree, arguing that “the commercial success of Stockett’s novel can be explained by its attempts to meet the emotional and political needs of her audience,” (2015). These “emotional and political needs,” they explain, include the need to alleviate white guilt and the need to personally connect with a lead white character who becomes triumphant in the end. “It could be argued that the central concern of the book is not about social justice for black people, but rather is about white people trying to figure out what roles they will still get to play in a social landscape in which a black man is President of the United States—a black man from the North who doesn’t talk like Uncle Remus,” (Ruzich & Blake, 2015). This becomes especially problematic when considering that this is one of the few novels written by a Southern author that depicts Southern life during the Civil Rights Movement (however inaccurately) at all. The Help is an inadequate source of history, but for many current movie-watchers, it is the most information that they’ve received about the Civil Rights Movement at one time since high school. In Ann Hornaday’s review of the novel, she concurs, stating that many of her worries come from the fact that the novel might not be popular despite the historical inaccuracies, but because of the inaccuracies. She leaves the reader to experience the book for themselves, but to be aware of the problems surrounding race as depicted in the novel. “Surely both taste and perspective will inform whether viewers will find “The Help” a revelatory celebration of interracial healing and transcendence, or a patronizing portrait that trivializes those alliances by reducing them to melodrama and facile uplift,” (Hornaday, 2008). Although my paper argues that the misrepresentations of African Americans within The Help probably added to its popularity among white audiences through its perpetration of white fantasy, I do completely recognize and understand the importance of reading texts that propose problems because it reveals the psyche of not only the author, but of the audience. I would argue that The Help was published at a convenient time in American history in that white guilt was heightened by the slow recognition of police brutality and the novel offered a quick-fix remedy. The social climate in which the novel was published, its perpetration of white fantasy stereotypes, and its tendency to reduce racial injustices into a single antagonist in order to act as if they have been completely resolved probably added to the novel’s popular appeal. The movie’s release made the same themes even more readily available and it opened a discussion that the country was nervous to have about historical racial tensions and it offered a clean, although not complete, answer: “racism is bad, so don’t be a racist”. The themes displayed in The Help ignore the fact that racial tensions are historically an intrinsic part of American history, that racism is an internalized misunderstanding of another race and not a mean-spirited individual, and that racial tensions still exist today. Instead, it perpetrates themes that suggest that racial injustices are a phenomena of the past and that racism can be defeated with shit pie.
In conclusion, this paper was meant to describe, in detail, the misrepresentations of class and race in The Help while asking what its massive popularity suggests about its audience and their willingness to accept such stereotypes. In this paper, I outlined the popularity of the novel and movie, used quotations from critics to gather an understanding of the popular opinion of each, discussed specific instances of Stockett’s misuse of AAVE and misrepresentation of African Americans, and considered what its popularity despite its obvious problems says about its audience. I found that many scholars, including Ruzich and Blake, would argue that “the linguistic stigmatization of the black characters in Stockett’s novel “needs to be viewed as something much larger than a reflection of a single author’s individual prejudices, but rather, as a popular culture indication of the racial and class anxieties that are deeply woven into the sociocultural fabric of American society, a society that embraces and popularizes such linguistic choices,” (2015). Even Aibileen’s repeated mantra in the film, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important,” is marked by a form of uneducated dialect that is not in coherence with accented SAE, which the character would be historically speaking. Stockett’s claims that she draws directly from memories of her own African American nanny, in my opinion, offer very little reconciliation because it is an admittance that she consciously chose to write from childhood memory instead of a true form of Southern American English or African American Vernacular English. The fact that the popular audience’s reaction to a piece of art as problematic as The Help was widespread approval suggests that people found comfort in its dramatized versions of the 1960s and muted descriptions of the Civil Rights Movement. The Help tells a story in which a “white savior” protagonist uses the stories of domestic workers to further her own personal agenda of being a journalist while claiming to be a book about Civil Rights. It attempts to alleviate white guilt by personifying racism as a single, definable character who can be defeated and it paints the “good” white people as the heroes. These characteristics of The Help probably helped in its vast success because it was received by an audience eager to fix racial wounds quickly and silently. It offered a way to resolve the racial tension, eliminate internalized white guilt, and provide the “feel-good” sensation required of an enjoyable movie, and it was accepted by an audience too eager throw away historical truths to bask in the warmth of white fantasy.
Works Cited
Agha, Asif. “The Social Life of Cultural Value.” Language and Communication 23 (2003): 231, 73. Print.
Alim, H. Samy. “Critical Language Awareness in the United States: Revisiting Issues and
Revising Pedagogies in a Resegregated Society.” Educational Researcher, vol. 34, no. 7, 2005, pp. 24–31., www.jstor.org/stable/3699797
Baldwin, James. "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?." The Black Scholar, no. 1, 2001, p. 5.
Calkin, Jessamy. “The Maid’s Tale: Kathryn Stockett Examines Slavery and Racism in America’s Deep South.” The Telegraph. 16 July 2009. Web. 24 Sept. 2012.
Foster-Singletary, Tikenya. "Dirty South: "The Help" and the Problem of Black Bodies." Southern Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 4, Summer2012, pp. 95-107.
Graham, Allison. "'We Ain't Doin' Civil Rights': The Life and Times of a Genre, as Told in the Help." Southern Cultures, vol. 20, no. 1, 2014, pp. 51-64.
Henneberger, Melinda. "Southern Discomfort: A Novel, a Lawsuit & an Unhappy Legacy." Commonwealth, vol. 138, no. 6, 25 Mar. 2011, p. 7.
Ann, Hornaday. "Using Stereotypes to Explain Racism." Washington Post, the, Nov. 2008.
Johnstone, Barbara. "Dialect Enregisterment in Performance." Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol. 15, no. 5, Nov. 2011, pp. 657-679.
Jones, Ida E., et al. "An Open Statement to the Fans of the Help." Southern Cultures, vol. 20, no.1, Spring 2014, pp. 32-33.
Jones, Suzanne W. "The Divided Reception of the Help." Southern Cultures, vol. 20, no. 1, Spring2014, pp. 7-25.
Ruzich, Constance and Julie Blake. "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing: Dialect, Race, and Identity in Stockett's Novel the Help." Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 48, no.
3, June 2015, p. 534.
Scissors, April. “The Help: A Critical Review.” Cease and DaSista. 30 June 2011. Web. 2 Mar. 2013.
Wilson, Kerry B. "Selling the White Savior Narrative: The Help, Theatrical Previews and US
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This section illustrates an overview of the different positions offered by e-sonic. It comes up with a detailed description of each position in a way that suits the needs of the organization.
Get original essaySummary
The profile of an Executive Assistant includes the ability to perform high-level administrative tasks such as conducting researches, crafting reports, taking care of information requests, and do protocol duties such as communication, receiving visitors, organizing conferences, and scheduling meetings (Mclnerney & Walker, 1998). They may also train and monitor the work of junior administrative staff.
Duties
They are in charge of monitoring executives' schedules and organizing their travel plans (Mclnerney & Walker, 1998). They prepare necessary documents such as the required word, spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentations, and database documents, letters, prepare invoices, write reports, and draft memos. They are involved in the coordination and proper monitoring of office services such as assisting the executives, making budgets, finances related to their department, and housekeeping services (Thompson, 2001). Every-day duties involve responding to calls, taking messages, and directing calls appropriately.
Qualifications
Should meet the following requirements: a college graduate with a major on Business Administration or any other relevant major related to Business, at least two years of experience in serving as senior professional level support personnel in preferably a technologic environment (Thompson, 2001). Should also have excellent computing skills, English language proficiency (written and spoken), and protocol skills.
Summary
Members of this role are in charge of assisting all the protocol functions in the organization (Thompson, 2001). They should have strong multi-tasking capabilities and excellent interpersonal skills as they will work in an incredibly dynamic environment that is characterized by change (Thompson, 2001). They may be able to supervise other staff and handle tasks for the senior management. They usually maintain management schedules and administrative functions.
Duties
They manage workflows by assigning responsibilities to other administrative staff, monitoring adherence to timelines, and ensures work is done correctly (Thompson, 2001). They assist in the training of other teams and the hiring process. They generate memos, reports, and send and receive emails when appropriate. They assume the task of office equipment maintenance. Respond to information inquiries and answer incoming calls (Thompson, 2001).
Qualifications
At least a high school diploma that is supported by some technology and business skills (Thompson, 2001). Those with at least some college education or have been through a vocational training center, computer course, communication, and office skills have an added advantage. Those with college credits that allow them to pursue Certified Administrative Professional examination are highly considered (Thompson, 2001).
Summary
The e-sonic office environment is managed by the office manager who coordinates all the functions that promote its efficient and smooth operations (Thompson, 2001). The offices are busy and client-oriented and, therefore they need a well-organized manager with current skills to run the day-to-day activities focusing on efficiency and time management (Thompson, 2001). They will bear the responsibility of designing communication procedures, rationalizing administrative protocols, supervision of office staff, and delegation of duties (Thompson, 2001).
Duties
They uphold office services by planning office operations and protocols. They include payroll preparation, managing correspondence, developing filing systems, reviewing and authorizing office supplies requests, and allocating and supervising clerical works (Thompson, 2001). They achieve the financial goals of e-sonic by preparing annual budgets, arranging expenditure, evaluating differences, and instigating corrective exercises. Responsible for office staff hiring and training of employees (Thompson, 2001). They design and implement office strategies for defining standards, assessing results against the set-out rules, and making the required modifications (Thompson, 2001).
Qualifications
They should possess at least a high school diploma. A degree certificate is considered an added advantage. They also should have two years of experience in office management responsibilities or related tasks (Thompson, 2001). Should be computer literate with knowledge in Microsoft office. They should demonstrate excellent management skills, familiarity with office surroundings and a deep understanding of the operations of businesses (Thompson, 2001).
Summary
The position aids e-sonic in the creation of both digital and print advertising materials (Thompson, 2001). The organization chose to have this function to develop it in-house marketing capacity. They are responsible for developing primary written texts for creative and advertising purposes (Thompson, 2001). They should be able to create writings in a tone that befits the requirements of the customers and brand style, and it should apply across many platforms such as digital resources, press advertising, articles, marketing materials, and brochures (Thompson, 2001). They should monitor any changes that take place in the media industry and have the potential to influence ideas and make concepts innovative and new.
Duties
Decoding a client’s message and putting it into written content. They should write content that is engaging to the reader (Thompson, 2001). They should adhere to the voice tone required by the customer and make any amendments as per the client’s specification. Come up with innovative ideas to develop creative campaigns. Supervise and advise junior copywriters (Thompson, 2001).
Qualifications
They should have at least a four-year degree qualification in marketing, advertising, or a creative role (Thompson, 2001). Need to demonstrate proficient writing skills by generating succinct work that is devoid of grammatical errors. They should have a keen eye for details. They ought to have strong research skills and creativity. Stick to deadlines without compromising on quality (Thompson, 2001).
A singular person, at any moment in time, will have several different identities that they embody. Our identity is always changing, with every event, every action, and every interaction our identity evolves. But for many women, their role and to an extent their identity according to society is meant to be static. A woman is a mother, a whore, a wife, or a virgin, these are for most the only labels in which they are given or may identify with. This is especially evident in more traditional cultures where a woman’s identity is solely based around her family and husband. In fey Weldon’s the life and loves of a she-devil Ruth’s constant mistreatment and oppression from her husband causes her to defy the role society has given her and discard her old identity as a mother, wife, and women in order to embrace the label She-devil. Meanwhile, In Han Kang’s The vegetarian Yeong-hye’s passive deviations from her society’s and families expectations snow balls into a full blown resistance and defiance of the norms. While the motivation is different for each of the character as to why they decided to discard their personal identity their journeys are quite similar. In this investigation I plan to show through the language and narration how the oppression of their family and society has forced them to completely discard the person they were and how through their own means, including physically changing themselves, decide to reinvent, recreate, and take control over their identity.
Get original essayBoth novels take place within cultures, 1980s England and 2000s Seoul, that put a lot of value on tradition and conformity to the norm. Ruth is a woman who outwardly is viewed as everything a woman should not be and at the start of the novel constantly compares herself to her husband mistress, Mary Fisher, “I am as dark as Mary Fisher is fair” (9, 7). This reveals that Ruth sees Mary as the ideal woman and as her opposite and is also extremely envious of her for having Bobbo in a way that she cannot. Yet, if her appearance is disregarded she actually conforms to societal norms of a mother and wife very well and says this herself, but believes that this is not enough to be desired, “A man cannot be expected to be faithful to a wonderful mother and a good wife – such concepts lack the compulsion of the erotic” (9, 22). This emphasises that what really matters when it comes to a woman is her appearance and everything else is secondary. It does not matter that she is the best wife and mother if she is ugly and men do not find her desirable. This is supported when she calls herself clumsy in an imagined version of Bobbo after describing her first and only meeting with Mary Fisher. “’clumsy,’ he would have said” (9, 20), Ruth frames herself in a negative way due to her seeing it as Bobbo criticising her, since If she was pretty then it would be perceived as a positive or cute attribute but as it is not it is stacked against her. Furthermore, Ruth conforming so well to these norms are no coincidence, she puts a lot of effort into her home and children in the pursuit of being a good wife and mother but also in order to make up for her lack of beauty. She therefore considers them to be like chores, not something she actively wants to do but must in favour of fulfilling her predetermined role, “compose my face the sooner to return to my matrimonial duties, to wifedom and motherhood, and my in-laws” (24, 20). This exposes how far Ruth is willing to go in order to please those around her, even though she is forced to act in such a way, regardless of her own desires. Unlike Ruth, Yeong-hye naturally conforms in many ways, she is described as someone who does not stand out in terms of appearance or in the way she acts, but that her personality is odd compared to most women. Her husband describes her as a quiet woman but also at times too quiet, although he does not have too much of an issue with this as “after all, hadn’t women traditionally been expected to be demure and restrained?” (21, 8) which depicts how even though she does conform it is not because she wants to it is simply because she does.
Yeong-hye expends no effort into conforming and neither into not conforming until she decides to become a vegetarian. Within both of the novels the husbands of the main characters, Ruth and Yeong-hye, have married them out of convenience and not genuine love as they believed it would allow them to live an easier life. In the Life and loves of a she-devil Bobbo clearly states this to Ruth “our marriage was one of convenience, my dear. I think we both acknowledged that” (22, 8) which Ruth then gives a rebuttal that it was him it was convenient for him which shows that Ruth had certain expectations when getting married and that she had most likely wanted to be a traditionally married couple. Whereas Bobbo’s expectations were that he would be able to more or less do as he pleased and that Ruth would have to be ok with it, which is clearly illustrated when they discuss having an open marriage (30, 18-32). Bobbo does not ask or propose this arrangement but declares it to Ruth who does not know what this means and questions him. He does then not give an actual definition but says that it’ll will make them more honest and that “true love isn’t possessive” (30, 30), this alludes to him knowing that Ruth would not be ok with it but wants to trap her into agreeing so that she is bound to her word and his affairs are guilt free. Similarly, in The Vegetarian Mr Cheong, Yeong-hye’s husband, repeatedly states that he strived to live the most average life he could and made all his decisions according to this in order to live the most stress free life, which extended to the kind of woman he wanted to marry. He expresses how the reason he was attracted to Yeong-hye in the first place and decided to marry her was because she was “the most run-of-the-mill woman” (4, 10). Mr. Cheong had no want for a fussy or overbearing wife that would cause him to go outside of his comfort zone. Therefore, when Yeong-hye becomes a vegetarian it breaks his average life since now he has an unusual wife. However once the main characters do, or continue to in Ruth’s case, not act in accordance to their husbands predetermined lifestyle it causes them to become frustrated and angry which then makes them completely abandon their wives. Both of the husbands are extremely egotistical and demonstrate this in similar ways. In life and loves of a she devil Bobbo blames Ruth for him leaving, that it is because of her behaviour during his parent’s visit that causes him to seek out shelter with Mary fisher. “Merely the consequence of your actions. ” (46, 18), this perfectly depicts how egotistical he is because by phrasing his leaving as a consequence it means that he sees himself as a privilege, someone who Ruth must earn the company of. In comparison, although Mr. Cheong may not see himself as a privilege he is just as self-centred.
At first he is quite baffled by his wife decision to become a vegetarian and thinks of her as being quite selfish for expecting him not to eat meat alongside her, “how on earth could she be so self-centred” (13, 17), But even though he claims it’s selfish of her to expect him not to eat meat, is it not also selfish of him not to even try to understand why she has undergone this decision? Besides the first time he asks he never tries to delve into what the dream was about or why it had this affect to her, showing how he only really cares about her when it affects him. Moreover, he thinks that if he waits everything will return to normal, yet, once he realises she will not change back he becomes even more confused and believes there must be something else going on. “if it had been another instance of a woman giving up meat in order to lose weight then there would have been no need to worry” (15, 28), this then illustrates how he believes that a women would not do something alone based on their own moral values if it that had nothing to do with how others view them. Their family is another source of oppression for the main characters, from both childhood to adulthood they are both criticised or punished for either not fitting in or going against their families norms. In Ruth’s culture family is important, yet, she receives backlash for going against societal norms surround what a woman should be, while Yeong-hye’s is due to societal norms surrounding family. Ruth’s mother is depicted as someone who only cares about beautiful things which has led Ruth to internalize that her own mother does not love her, “I think perhaps she would have loved me, if she could. But ugly and discordant things revolted her: she couldn’t help it” (11, 12).
This could be the root of Ruth’s initial complacency at the start of the novel as she has been led to believe that the one person who is supposed to love her unconditionally does not because of her ugliness. This could therefore have caused Ruth to believe that she must do her best to please others and follow their wants in order to be loved in return. For Yeong-hye her husband describes her as nothing out of the ordinary which means that she mostly conformed to what a woman should look and act like, although when it comes to familial norms she strays. During the family get together her family try to pressure her in a multitude of ways in order to convince her to eat meat. Both of Yeong-hye’s parents order her to eat meat dishes “This one, and this, and this—hurry up and eat them. ” (36, 20) and expect complete obedience in return. In-hye, Yeong-hye’s sister, states that “Yeong-hye had been the only victim of their father’s beatings. ” (157, 16) because in-hye helped her mother and Yeong-ho was not bothered by the violence. This really illustrates that because she wasn’t different that she was neither better nor worse and so she was singled out by their father. In addition, the narration itself is an example of the family’s oppression of Yeong-hye as the only time the novel is from her point of view is during her dreams at the start of the novel, otherwise, each of the three sections being of the point of view of her husband, her brother in law, and her sister. This means that Yeong-hye is constantly portrayed through her family and therefore it is never truly her story that is being told. Furthermore, this can then be interpreted as how in Korean culture how ones family views one is the most important thing above all else. Ruth has always been different yet what ignites her intense desire to change is when Bobbo labels her as a she devil. This then prompts her to take drastic steps in order to achieve this. She decides to cast away her social self, in other words the roles she previously occupied as a wife and mother. As she is being divorced by Bobbo her role as wife is not something she can discarded as it is already being taken away from her, yet her role as a mother is a different story. The first steps she takes in order to change herself is to burn the family home down in Eden Grove, “toning prettily and safely with avocado walls” (23, 8). This is a symbol that shows how she has burned down her role as a mother and can now consequently never return to it. This is due to the home representing comfort and safety which is also what a mother is supposed to be. However, it is also because the walls had the colour of an avocado, which look like a uterus after a woman has given birth, and therefore a mother. This is further emphasised when she leaves her kids with Bobbo, effectively abandoning them and then passing on her role to Mary.
The street Ruth and her family live on is called Eden grove which could be a metaphor for the Garden of Eden. Eden Grove is described as “green, leafy, prosperous and, some say, beautiful” (7, 29) which is eerily similar to how the Garden of Eden is portrayed. This metaphor is then extended to the three essential characters as each of them depict a different figure in the stories of Lilith and Adam and Eve. Bobbo depicts Adam as not only is he the only man but he wishes to control Ruth and have her comply with his wishes, Ruth is therefore Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Eden is supposed to be paradise but is just a pretty prison as Ruth only wants to be loved and respect by Bobbo but he denies her this and so she leaves to take control of her own life, akin to Lilith. Eve is then represented by Mary, the ideal woman in the eyes of Bobbo because she is everything that Ruth is not. Yeong-hye’s decision to become a vegetarian was all due to a dream that centred on animals being treated extremely violently which then left her with no desire to take any part in the consumption of meat and became a vegetarian. Although she never explains this, she shouldn’t have to, but, her sudden shift into such strong moral values are seen as rebellion against society and her family as she is not doing exactly as they want her to. While her family try hard to coerce her into meat again at the family get-together nothing works and when they demand answers her only response “was to set the chopsticks she had picked up back down on the table. ” (37, 7). This is her first act of defiance, by not submitting to their wishes and not answering their questions she acknowledges that she is going against the norm but will stand firm in her beliefs. Both of the main characters go through a physical transformation, although Ruth’s transformation is something she actively sought after and achieved, while Yeong-hye’s desired transformation is impossible but her actual one was due to the consequence of her actions. Ruth’s transformation reveals a lot of her motivation on why she becomes a ‘she-devil’. Even though she has accomplished so much, instead of accepting herself and learning that there is nothing wrong with her she still wants more. But this has nothing to with greed and everything to do with her deep seated want to be desired and her envy of Mary Fisher, “Since I cannot change them, I will change myself. ” (203, 9). Despite her repeated claim that she is a she-devil and that they feel nothing Ruth is still desperate to fit into society. The reason she chooses to change herself to look like Mary Fisher is because, as stated previously, Ruth sees Mary as the Ideal woman and her total opposite. Additionally, Mary is also the one who Bobbo loved in a way that he did not love Ruth, which is all she had every wanted from him. Ruth’s physical transformation is also foreshadowed from the very early on in the novel when she is referred to as an ugly duckling by both her mother (11, 10) and Bobbo (28, 12).
Just like the ugly duckling in the children’s story Ruth is unloved and unwanted by those around her and once she embraces the label of she-devil she becomes an entirely different person mentally which then allows her to change herself to become beautiful and someone who is admired by all. For Yeong-hye her physical transformation is not something she willingly sought out but is a direct consequence of her refusing food altogether. She believes that she no longer need food and only sunlight as she has now become a tree. However, obviously she is not and so becomes thinner and thinner as time goes on. Thus, unlike Ruth her transformation is not physical but is of more of a spiritual nature. one of the ways in which she tries to act like and live as a tree is that she does hand stands at every opportunity. “Look, sister, I’m doing a handstand; leaves are growing out of my body, roots are sprouting out of my hands…they delve down into the earth. Endlessly, endlessly…yes, I spread my legs because I wanted flowers to bloom from my crotch; I spread them wide… “(127, 21), It is possible that she believes that if she does this for long enough she will actually become a tree. This is further supported by her exclamation that she feels a kinship with trees, “all the trees of the world are like brothers and sisters. ”(144, 24). This shows how she now feels connected to and apart of nature. Additionally, at several point in the novel Yeong-hye strips of her top and bears her breasts in public in order to ‘absorb’ sunlight, “unbutton her hospital gown and bare her breasts to the sun. ” (138, 28). By doing this she is not giving her body nutrients, as a plant would do, but her soul because by exposing her chest she is effectively also exposing her heart which can be equated as the ones spirit. Throughout the novels Ruth and Yeong-hye achieve a great deal, from become a successful business owner to peace within themselves, but their main goals are not achieved and never will be. Within most of the life and loves of a she devil Ruth’s only goal seems to be enact revenge on Bobbo and Mary for the misery they both had put her through. Yet, towards the end it is revealed that she wanted to and then physically became Mary fisher due to her intense envy of the woman.
However, this goal in the end was completely futile as just as Mr. Ghengis, one of Ruth’s surgeons, says “’though you can change the body you cannot change the person. ” (202, 26). Even though Ruth goes to great and painful lengths to embody Mary Fisher she is and will always be Ruth. Furthermore, this can also been seen with her moles; at the start of the novel one of the attributes Ruth is characterised by is the moles on her chin, which after her plastic surgery struggle to reappear (237, 26) which illustrates how even after everything parts of who she was are still trying to resurface and that no matter how much she wishes to escape her former self, no matter the amount of aliases she conjures up to hid herself, that person is still her. On the other hand, similarly, Yeong-hye’s initial goal was to just avoid all meat and meat by products, yet this quickly escalates into an impossible desire to become a tree. However, although she does numerous things in order to live a more plant like existence, such as trying to absorb sunlight or doing handstand at every opportunity, this obviously does not happen but she instead becomes more animal like as time goes on. “Biting their arms savagely and letting out an incomprehensible roar. ” (137, 2), By using zoomorphism to show that Yeong-hye is trying to strip away layers of herself and in pursuit of trying to become a simpler being, a tree, has instead devolved into an animal relying on primal instinct. In contrast, this could also be viewed as her body becoming more animalistic but her soul being that of a tree. This is because in multiple parts of the novel the surrounding the mental institution she is held in is also given animalistic traits, “the rippling flanks of a massive animal, wild and savage” (182, 31). By using the same type of zoomorphism to both the forest and Yeong-hye it shows how they are so very alike instead of two separate entities and that in some way she has in some small way achieved her goal.
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Get custom essayBoth characters in some sense get what they want. They both set out to become different people, to discard the person that cared what others thought and who constrained them into tiny boxes that they were forced to exist within. At the start of the novel both character were passive women who lived by their husbands and family’s oppressive rule. But just by being themselves, by doing what they thought they should their lives change and they begin to take back what is theirs. Ruth becomes a strong and fierce individual that proves that she is more than capable and willing to do what she needs in order to get what she wants. Yeong-hye, in comparison shows herself to be a compassionate and extraordinary person who is willing to defy everyone and everything she has ever known for what she believes is the right thing to do, even at the cost of her wellbeing. While morally both these characters reside in grey with how they achieve all of these things it is of no question that they will only take part in a world that does not allow them to live as who they want to be.
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Get original essayThe problem of preventing cybercrime on an international scale has received considerable attention from many different countries. This essay analyzes cybercrime law. It aims to review past legislation and how it affected the present day, current law and its effectiveness, and what potential future problems are, and how current lawmakers can address them. As technology increases in importance and scale, so does the need for effective legislation to deter people from engaging in criminal acts. Some government systems, such as the European Union or the Group of Eight seem to be on similar pages regarding this battle, while others seem not to have any interest. This style of a united front against these types of crimes should be widespread throughout the world. All countries working together to eliminate a common threat would help secure information for all parties involved and also help protect citizens who might be targets for these criminals.
Get original essayThe definition of cybercrime crimes is directed at computers or other devices where computers or other electronic devices are integral to the offense. Since January 2016, the total volume of events increased almost fourfold between January 2016 and October 2017. These types of attacks can cover a multitude of offenses ranging from credit card fraud to ransomware to DDOS attacks. As cyber-attacks become more and more common against both consumers and companies, the need for government bodies to enact comprehensive legislation to help deter these attacks grows larger and larger. A unified front against cyber-attacks by different Government Bodies could lead to more progress in the battle against threats and secure information from those who should not have access to it.
Traditional penal laws were not written with the online society in Cyberspace in mind. Throughout the world, government bodies were not expecting nor were they prepared for this area of crime to develop at such a rapid pace that in present-day attacks would be occurring daily. Due to low preparedness, the issue of cyber-attacks went unaddressed leading to initial shortcomings for protection from threats and laws to enforce on those caught committing them.
There were many problems and questions that government bodies must ask before enacting laws. The main problem is the applicability of this legislation on cybercrime and to what extent. This problem meant that government bodies needed to develop a system that applied to cybercrime correctly and decide which acts should define cybercrime. While many laws had been enacted to prevent different types of unethical behavior such as fraud, without using precise wording regarding computers it would have been difficult to enforce these laws without specific text. Without the definition of an explicit act, criminals who commit these acts cannot be convicted based on a loose interpretation of current regulations. This undoubtedly stalled development of necessary legislation required to pursue criminal charges.
The initial introduction of criminalizing certain cyber activities began in the 1970s. In the U.S., the Ribikoff Bill was introduced in 1977 by Senator Ribikoff. This bill made it a Federal crime for a person to directly or indirectly access or cause to be accessed for fraudulent purposes a computer system affecting commerce or having a connection with a Federal agency or financial institution. While this bill failed, it sparked the conversation of the need to define the scope of this problem and address it.
Interpol introduced the problem of cybercrime to the international stage in 1979. At this time, Interpol hosted its Third Interpol Symposium on International Fraud. Here they discussed legislation against computer crime. Interpol continued to make changes and pointed out specific areas where countries' legislation was unsatisfactory and recommended changes. From this meeting came the First Interpol Training Seminar for Investigators of Computer Crime as well as a list identifying areas where there was insufficient legislation such as modification of data with destructive intent or disclosing data without authority. Identifying areas that were lacking was the first big step toward providing protections for people from cybercrime and criminalizing cybercrime.
As computers continued to evolve through the 1980s, governments around the world recognized the problem even more. In 1982, another European organization by the name of The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development met. From this meeting came to a specially formed committee meant to address needed changes regarding penal codes. The committee made a proposal defining different acts such as computer fraud, computer forgery, damage to computer data and programs, unauthorized infringement of a protected computer program, and unauthorized access to or interception of a computer system.
While the Council of Europe did adopt the recommendations proposed, most law enforcement did not have much insight into digital forensics, or the ability to recover and investigate digital material, which made the implementation of these recommendations difficult. Along with this came a lack of support by agencies. Most individuals who had the desire to learn about computer forensic skills had to do so on their own. Their agencies were not supportive of their efforts, but we owe these individuals a debt of gratitude for the personal and financial investments that they made. All these individuals believed this to the extent that they spent much of their own time and money learning about new computing technologies. With this lack of resources and support, catching these criminals would prove to be very difficult unless law enforcement found them engaging in cybercriminal activity.
Between the 1990s and 2000s, the internet became more global, and from this came the need for countries to cooperate more than ever. Decisions such as the Council of Europe's recommendation to help procedural law. From this came seven areas of focus being search and seizure, technical surveillance, obligation to co-operate with the investigating authorities, electronic evidence, use of encryption, research, statistics and training, and international cooperation. These areas further defined how law enforcement does their job, and enabled working together with other countries to help eliminate cyber threats. With the internet being accessible worldwide, that meant that attackers could be virtually anywhere. Another group of nations known as the Group of 8 was also formed to prevent this problem. The group of eight, consisting of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, Canada, and Russia, wanted to make sure that hackers could not find a place to hide from prosecution. This group of countries enacted laws meant to preserve data stored in their respective state and provide legal support or other forms of assistance that enabled law enforcement to find criminals and bring them to justice effectively. As time progressed through the 2000s, conventions and councils were held to continue addressing cybercrime issues leading up to the modern-day.
In the present, technology is an integral part of everyday life. As humans, we depend on technology for most basic needs from waking up to an alarm on our phone to using google to find information. With modern technology, we can control our home temperature and monitor children through a wireless connection. All of this helps live simpler more comfortable lives, but that comes with a cost — the threat of cyber-attacks. Most people in the world have some device that can access the internet, and with that comes the danger of attackers breaching that device to take personal information or credentials. Companies with databases full of information including customer credit cards, health information, and employee information are also at risk. In 2016, there were 17.68 billion devices capable of internet connection and with this, there are also 17.68 billion avenues to deliver an attack. With all of this in mind, the need for effective cybercrime legislation is needed now more so than ever.
Proper measures are significant regarding preventing cybercrime. Laws help to keep people from doing something unethical and punish them for doing it. This disincentive is seen to help keep some attacks at bay. Studies show that Convention on Cybercrime law enforcement is effective in deterring DDOS attacks and has led to an average reduction of at least 11.8% and could be up to 68.7% of DDOS attacks in enforcing countries.
Along with this, there is a thin line between protection and invasion. While protecting people's information is vital, so too is respecting the privacy and allowing them the right to keep that information to themselves. There is also a discussion about whether corporations should be liable for data breaches resulting in the leaking of customer information. Should corporations behave negligently, and those responsible for a lousy information security plan?
Another problem throughout the world is the concept of law itself. The majority of cyber-crime is reported to be international. If there were an instance where a criminal initiated a cyber-attack in one country against a person in another, this raises multiple questions. Which country has jurisdiction? Are there extradition laws? The global scale of the internet poses these questions and exposes problems that can potentially lead to a lack of justice, and discord between countries if they choose not to cooperate.
One of the leaders in the effort to harmonize cybercrime law throughout the globe is the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, also known as the Budapest Convention. This convention held in 2001, is still applicable to modern-day crime. To start, they defined a computer system as any device or a group of interconnected or related devices, one or more of which, pursuant to a program, performs automatic processing of data and computer data as any representation of facts, information, or concepts in a form suitable for processing in a computer system, including a program suitable to cause a computer system to perform a function. These definitions addressed one of the main problems with new cybercrime legislation, the lack of precise wording that clearly defines the laws. The implementation of the recommendations following the convention was to take place in all the countries present. In all, they created 12 bills, their respective governments enacted in each state that is a member of the Council of Europe. Four of these articles stand out more than the others.
Illegal access made it a criminal offense to access any part of a computer system without right intentionally. Illegal access meant that any form of tampering with a device without the owner's consent is punishable by law. It also covers bad intentions so even if someone is authorized to access a device if they perform an action not approved they are still able to be punished. Despite being written 18 years ago, this recommendation is still relevant in the present. It protects devices in their entirety. With cyber-attacks happening every day, it is necessary for legislators should enact laws to protect a user's device from any inappropriate access. An instance of a measure preventing this is the state of Colorado's Bill SB18-086. SB18-086 requires the state to take steps toward securing state records containing trusted, sensitive and conditional information from unauthorized use.
Article 3 of the Budapest Convention defined illegal as intentionally intercepting of non-public transmissions of computer data to, from, or within a computer system including electromagnetic emissions from a computer system carrying such computer data. With privacy as a significant concern for people around the globe, laws to protect that privacy is essential. Attackers may attempt to access private communications to get valuable information regarding people or corporations. Legislation preventing this type of attack is necessary for protecting people's and companies' privacy.
Data Interference is when someone intentionally damages, deletes, deteriorates, alters, or suppresses computer data. A party may require that this action results in serious harm. Data interference can be applicable in many different instances. It may involve activities such as deleting user information stored in a database or altering company data to avoid taxes. These legislations can keep people and corporations liable. Corporations might be tempted to change certain accounting principles to get a higher valuation such as Enron. Deterring actions like this can be helpful to the world considering modern-day businesses can be involved in international economies and therefore have different effects on the way the world operates.
The fourth and final article discussed is Corporate liability. Corporate liability is meant to make sure that if a person commits any of the mentioned crimes for their benefit, acting individually or as part of a corporation, who has a leading position based on a power of representation of the legal person; an authority to make decisions on behalf of the legal person; an authority to exercise control within the legal person. In addition to this, each party shall take measures to guarantee that a legal person can be held liable where the lack of supervision or control has made the event possible. This article comes with several implications. It means that if a person is a high-ranking official such as a CEO or CFO commits any of the offenses listed in the convention, then that person may be held liable, and if done for the corporation then it can be held responsible as well.
Along with this, it implies that if it was possible due to a negligent supervisor, the person might still be held accountable. Enacted legislation regarding corporate liability was already in several countries. For example, the United States has already passed laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPPA, to ensure corporations, protect data or be held liable. Legislation like this can help prevent cyberattacks from a defensive standpoint, requiring businesses to take necessary steps to safeguard information.
One of the main threats to international Cybercrime legislation and one of the most challenging hurdles is harmonization. Harmonization refers to creating a consistent and compatible plan to combat these threats. Many countries, despite alliances, do not want to cooperate. An example of this is Russia. Russia refused to ratify the recommendations for one of two reasons: either because they view it as infringing on their sovereign rights as a nation or because they were not present in the drafting. Regardless, this type of resistance makes it difficult to pass any form of International law. Another country that has been resistant to the Budapest Convention is China which is not very keen on information or intelligence sharing. While they are not in support of the Budapest Convention, Russia has been in support for a UN cybercrime treaty, which has been opposed by the European Union and the United States of America because they believe the Budapest convention implies there is already a global agreement. Small alliances of countries exist across the world, but without all agreeing on one set of principles, cybercrime legislation will continue to have problems and have specific areas where it is not sufficient. Along with this, negotiating and ratifying a United Nations treaty on cybercrime would take years due to each country has a unique view on the topic.
The future of cybercrime is one shrouded in mystery. Cybercrime is the fastest-growing crime in the United States. Accompanying this increase in the popularity of cyber-attacks is the fact that there were nearly 4 billion people with internet access, up from only 2 billion in 2015, and projected to grow to 7.5 billion by 2030. With the intense and rapid evolution of technology alongside its availability, comes different styles of attacking will also change and evolve. Along with this, the world must put thought into certain information-related issues such as who controls the information hardware and who has access, along with how these will be protected. With cybercrime increasing, how can lawmakers look to stay a step ahead of the cybercriminals?
To address how future legislation can help fight cybercrime, we must first try to see what future attacks are going to appear. To start, we can look at the value of data. In the information age, it is what most people are after. Corporations track spending habits and what you watch to sell to advertisers because data on people is valuable. Data is also useful to a hacker, although not what you are viewing on Netflix. Attackers may try to access personal information such as bank account numbers and passwords. As verifications start to move to a more technological side, they may be able to get different information to pose as you. As data becomes more autonomous and centralized, the attackers can begin to single out locations. The cloud is also a major focal point for the future. One concern is highly distributed denial of service attacks using cloud processing and a move from device-based to cloud-based botnets, hijacking distributed processing power. Along with this, more information is being transported digitally, increasing the threat of a hijacked connection will also continue to grow. Now, 62% of traffic that traverses a network middlebox has reduced security and 58% of middlebox connections have severe vulnerabilities.
The future of business is shaping up to be automation. In the present day, we already have distribution centers run by robots, trucks driven automatically, and vehicle manufacturing done by robots. With this increased automation comes two things, risk, and reward. More automated businesses can save money from labor and make more profit; however, being automated comes with a cost. Possible attacks could shut down an entire business from operating. Ransomware could threaten entire manufacturing facilities, and with automated cars, people may be able to reroute and control them directing deliveries to locations they are not supposed to be and potentially stealing objects from them. They may also be able to control distribution centers and send themselves items that are not meant to be sent out. There are limitless possibilities to what a cybercriminal can do. Data from a business is also still valuable. Customer information can be taken and used against them with malware such as ransomware. Cybersecurity spending is projected to reach 1 trillion cumulatively between 2017 and 2021. In the future, businesses must look at how to protect this data and get connections secure.
Device Manufacturers
With the future shrouded in mystery, it is difficult to predict how the government can handle the different types of attacks. The first step in the right direction would be regulation. Despite differing opinions, protecting the people should be the government's priority, and can be ensured by regulating businesses. Technology companies are continuing to advance, and the government should place more regulations on these companies to create a secure form of protection on devices with an internet connection. Even devices that are currently in use by consumers should have some type of firmware update to protect them. Along with this, manufacturers should be held liable if they were negligent with device security. Manufacturers should be held to higher standards and expected only to apply updates when they're proven to work and expected to accept responsibility should they jeopardize their user's security knowingly or negligently.
Like Device manufacturers, corporations should also have to face specific regulations. Some rules and regulations have already been implemented such as HIPPA, and Security Breach Notification Laws, have already been implemented in the United States. Similarly, to HIPPA, other laws should be enacted to cover other areas of the business to ensure that customers have a certain level of privacy. Although not legislation, companies should also be encouraged to share different strategies, and a committee could be formed out of information specialists to determine different practices that could be effective in protecting stored information. Applying pressure on businesses to increase security and protect users
Along with this, companies should have to follow a set of rules to protect user data that has been collected and stored in databases. Limiting access to this information will help keep users' personal information safe and secure. While these regulations will certainly not stop all attacks, it can help place more pressure on businesses. Governments should apply more pressure to companies to also put their users first. Governments should also implement more strict penalties for people who commit these crimes.
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Get custom essayTo conclude the essay, the problem of cybercrime is and always will be a problem so long as the internet exists. However, with the implementation of proper cybercrime laws and a collective effort throughout the world toward the goal of information security can help reduce the impact that cybercrime has. Preventative measures can be taken using regulations on businesses, and the implementation of corporate best practices could potentially lead to a safer environment for everybody involved.
Japan is located in the continent of Asia and known as the world's third-largest economy (“Japan Country Profile”, 2018). Unlike most countries in the Asian region, Japan has four distinct seasons. The historical background of japan is quite interesting as a country that has been isolated from the outside world since its inception, until the 1500s when missionaries and merchants began to arrive from Europe. Since then, Japan continues to develop and to date has become an economic and technological powerhouse (“Brief History of Japan”, 2018). Japanese people are not too familiar with English since there are just a few immigrants from western countries. This country also has a diverse and interesting culture, where the locals are able to change in line with millennial tred and mode without eroding the old traditions and culture. Harmony is the key value in Japanese society as a guiding philosophy within the scope of business, family and in society as a whole. This system is then applied on their work environment by focusing on group work. The working system is based on good relationships between instruments within an organization. In addition, the workplaces in Japan are more formal and has long working hours compared to other Asian countries that are mostly casual with shorter working hours.
Get original essayBefore assigning asignee to work in Japan, it is necessary to first understand the cross-cultural communication aspects contained in that country. Refers to the existing of 5 dimensions; power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long term orientation, Japan and Singapore have significant differences. Japan is a borderline hierarchical society, which very conscious of their hierarchical position in a social order. This has an impact on decision making that tends to be slow because all the decisions must be confirmed by each hierarchical layer before reaching the top management (Harada, 2017). Power distance in Japan itself is not so high because Japanese society upholds equality. Japanese society shows collectivistic and masculinity society by embracing a group mentality with a competitive spirit. Japan is one of the most uncertain avoiding countries on earth (Harada, 2017), since natural disasters often occur, and also known has high future orientation. They encourage thrift and efforts in modern education as a way to prepare for the future (Harada, 2017). On the other hand, Singapore has higher power distance. This is because Singapore adheres to the belief in stability of society based on unequal relationships among people. Not much different from Japan in terms of work environment, Singapore society relies on group work as well, although they are value and encourage softer aspects of culture more such as leveling with others, being modest and humble. Singapore also considered as one of the country with the lowest uncertainty avoidance and has long vision for fututre orientation. Based on all dimensions analysis on Singapore and Japan, also aligning the objectives of sending assingnee to work overseas, it can be determined that the most suitable organizational design to be applied at Japan subsidiary is a divisional organization structure which this structure works by dividing divisions on the basis of product, region (geographical), the process or equipment. Each division can operate independently under the direction of a division manager, who is directly responsible to the CEO, so that coordination between functions in each position becomes easier. In a divisional organizational structure, division managers can develop strategies for each division. These divisions can be a good place to train young managers and it is also a good place to develop entrepreneurial intuition and increase a number of initiative centers within a company. This structure also allows the processing of multiple tasks in a parallel way and allows diversification of skills or cross functional skills.
The staffing process can be seen as a series of activities which carried out continuously, to maintain the personal needs of organizations with the right people in the right positions and at the right time. In staffing policy, there are three approaches that can be used which are ethnocentric approach, polycentric approach, and geocentric approach. In this case, the approach that will be applied is an ethnocentric approach. The ethnocentric approach fills the management position with workers from the country of origin of the company or expatriates. The aim is to maintain competitiveness by carrying out structural standardization and operational control so that the quality of production and performance of the operational units are maintained according to the wishes of the directors as the strategy makers (Tiwari, 2013). This approach could train expatriates in honing their skills in the field of international business, by getting to know and understand various cultural cultures as well as the wishes and expectations of local consumers towards the company.
Recruitment is the first step taken by the company to attract and seek human resources in accordance with the qualifications required by the company. The most suitable recruitment for overseas assignments is internal recruitment. As a company that has an outstanding reputation in Singapore, certainly it takes people who already know the ins and outs of the company and can fully commited to the company. To carry out internal recruitment, there are several activities that can be done including succession plans, open offers for one position (job posting), assistance to workers, groups of temporary workers, promotions and transfers. Internal sources include employees who are currently working and can be nominated to be promoted, transferred or reassigned, and former employees who can be re-employed. Useful tools used for internal recruitment include employee databases that can be used to search for talent internally and support the concept of promotion from within, job announcement procedures and job submissions (Gusdorf, 2008).
The next stage after recruitment is the selection process. The selection process is a very important stage in human resource management, by choosing and getting the best candidates to fill vacant positions and do the work needed, the organization will get employees who are high-performing and of good quality (Corniuk, 2016). In this case, selection can be done using several supporting tools. The first selection tool is background checks. Background checks cover more than just the search of criminal record, because the company has responsibility for the safety of its employees and customers. Background checks include checking previous work, every award or certification registered and references. The next selection tool is personality inventory. This personality test is very important, with the aim to measure the honesty of prospective employees and their mental stability. The last tool is behavioral analysis. This tool helps the company to provide insight into how employees will think and behave.
Training and development has an important role in determining the effectiveness, efficiency of the company and employee performance. Training and development is more focused on improving the ability and expertise of the expatriate related to the position or function which is the responsibility of expatriate. When an employee has been chosen for an expatriate position, training before departure is considered as an important step to ensure the effectiveness of expatriates and the success of their work abroad. Effective cultural training also allows individuals to adapt to the new cultures faster. Pre-departure training that contributes to the smooth transition to other countries, includes cultural awareness training, initial visits, language instructions, and practical assistance.
Cultural awareness training programs need to be well designed, to foster an appreciation of the host country culture so that expatriates can behave accordingly, or at least imitate and develop appropriate patterns. The component of the cultural awareness program depends on the country of origin, duration and the purpose of the international assignment.
One technique that is useful in orienting international employees, is to send them on initial journey to the host countries. A well planned trip abroad for expatriate candidates, provides a possible review to assess their suitability in the assignment. The trip serves to introduce expatriate candidates to a business context at the host country and help them to do a proper preparation before their departure to international assignment.
The ability to speak a foreign language can increase the effectiveness of expatriates and negotiation skills. In this case, it is very important for expatriates to learn Japanese, since Japanese people are not very fluent and familiar with English. expatriates also need to understand the company's general language as a form of standardization of reporting and other control mechanisms, especially normative control.
Practical help makes an important contribution towards the adaptation of expatriates and their families to their new environment. This practical assistance will be provided by the personnel department in the host country.
Besides planning pre-departure training, it is also important to consider the repartiation process. The repatriation process can be divided into four related phases:
Preparation, involves developing plans for the future and getting information about new positions. Companies can provide a checklist of things to be considered before returning to their home country (such as closing bank accounts and settling accounts or preparing others for the return of employees and families to the country of origin);
Physical relocation, referring to the transfer of personal influences, breaking ties with colleagues and friends and moving to the next position, usually the country of origin;
Transition, means occupying accommodation where necessary, making arrangements for housing and school and completing other administrative tasks ( such as renewing a driving license, opening a bank account, registering for health insurance); and
Re-adjustment, involves overcoming aspects such as company changes, culture shock, and career needs.
In the process of implementing international assignments, it is closely related to remuneration and compensation. Consideration in making and calculating the value of compensation that will be given to foreign workers, depending on various aspects such as legal diversity, living costs, taxes and other factors. Compensation that given to expatriates are varies with key components which are basic salary, foreign service inducement / hardship premium, allowances, and benefits. The application of remuneration and compensation for expatriates who are sent to Japan, is supported by the balance sheet approach. this approach system is designed to equalize the purchasing power of employees at the level of life abroad with positions that can be compared with the country of origin and provide incentives to compensate for qualitative differences between assignment locations. This approach links the basic salary with the relevant state salary structure. In this balance sheet approach, there are four main categories of expenditures imported by expatriates, which are:
The cost of living in Japan is not much different from the cost of living in Singapore, since both are known as big and advanced countries. This is also caused by Singapore's exchange rate against Japan for only S$ 0.012. The concept of housing in Japan can be said to be in the same category as Singapore, with a monthly rent payment system ranging from S$2,000 - S$3,000, depending on the area and type of unit. Japan also has transportation facilities as well as Singapore with convenient and regular public transportation facilities. Related to daily needs, this is adjusted to the consumption and needs of each expartite. By looking at important aspects of the cost of living in Japan, it can be determined that each senior executive will receive a total remuneration and compensation package of approximately S$492,000 per year, including a basic salary of around S$15,000 per month along with other benefits and allowances.
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Get custom essayIn the process of sending employees to do overseas assignments, careful and well-structured planning is needed. Beginning with finding information about the subsidiary state related to social aspects, customs, culture, environment and work style applied there, in this case in Japan. Japan and Singapore have different cultural dimensions. This affects the right organizational structure for divisional organizational structure. This Japanese subsidiary organizational structure works on the division of divisions based on the same product. In its work process, the subsidiary is under the direct control of headquater in Singapore. In the selection of candidates for this foreign assignment, it has been determined that it will be carried out through an ethnocentric and internal recording approach, so that expatriates can be found committed to the company. After going through the staffing process, the next step is to prepare pre departure training which includes cultural awareness training, initial visits, language instructions, and practical assistance. In addition to pre-departure training, it is very important to support the repatriation process which includes financial management, re-entry schock and career management. For the determination of remuneration and compensation for expatriates, this is adjusted to the cost of living in the host country and the needs of each expatriate.
What is a 'Cartel?' A cartel is an organization created from a formal agreement between a group of producers of a good or service to regulate supply in an effort to regulate or manipulate prices. In other words, a cartel is a collection of otherwise independent businesses or countries that act together as if they were a single producer and thus are able to fix prices for the goods they produce and the services they render without competition. A cartel has less command over an industry than a monopoly — a situation where a single group or company owns all or nearly all of a given product or service's market. Some cartels are formed to influence the price of legally traded goods and services, while others exist in illegal industries, such as drugs. In the United States, virtually all cartels, regardless of their line of business, are illegal by virtue of American anti-trust laws. Cartels have a negative effect for consumers because their existence results in higher prices and restricted supply.
Get original essayThe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has made the detection and prosecution of cartels one of its priority policy objectives. In so doing, it has identified four major categories that define how cartels conduct themselves: price fixing, output restrictions, market allocation and bid rigging (the submission of collusive tenders). The World's Biggest Cartel The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is the world's largest cartel. It is a grouping of 14 oil-producing countries whose mission is to coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its member countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets. OPEC's activities are legal because it is protected by U.S. foreign trade laws. Amid controversy in the mid-2000s, concerns over retaliation and potential negative effects on U.S. businesses led to the blocking of the U.S. Congress attempt to penalize OPEC as an illegal cartel. Despite the fact that OPEC is considered by most to be a cartel, members of OPEC have maintained it is not a cartel at all but rather an international organization with a legal, permanent and necessary mission.
OPEC’s activities are focused on oil, a commodity that has contributed more than any other form of energy to economic development around the world, over the past century and a half. Analysts agree that hydrocarbons will remain the most important source of energy for decades to come. I believe that OPEC’s actions over the present difficult period provide a vivid demonstration of the important role the Organization plays in stabilizing the volatile oil market, a role that it will continue to play well into the future. The obvious conclusion from what I have just said is that OPEC is not a cartel, as some people still insist on calling us. Instead, it is an international organization of sovereign states, with a legitimate, permanent and essential mission for both its Member Countries and mankind generally.
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an intergovernmental organization of 14 nations as of May 2017, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela), and headquartered since 1965 in Vienna. As of 2016, the 14 countries accounted for an estimated 44% of global oil production and 73% of the world's"proven oil reserves, giving OPEC a major influence on global oil prices that were previously determined by American-dominated multinational oil companies. As of May 2017, OPEC's members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (the de facto leader), United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela, while Indonesia is a former member. Two-thirds of OPEC's oil production and reserves are in its six Middle Eastern countries that surround the oil-rich Persian Gulf. OPEC was based on principles which are as valid today as they were then — despite the vast number of changes we have since experienced in technology, economics, politics and many other aspects of our lives. These principles revolve around the coordination of our Member Countries’ oil policies, so as: to ensure price stability in the world oil market; to obtain a stable revenue for oil-producing nations; and to provide a regular, reliable, efficient and economic supply to consuming countries and a fair return to investors in the oil industry. Commitment to these principles was reaffirmed as recently as the year 2000, in the Solemn Declaration that concluded the Second Summit of Heads of State and Government of OPEC Member Countries, which was held in Caracas, Venezuela.
Moreover, we are dedicated to the ideals of last year’s World Summit in Johannesburg, to ensure that energy reaches all people and all nations, rich and poor alike, as an essential element in the sustainable development of mankind. OPEC’s mission is not restricted by time or circumstance, however. It is, instead, a permanent one, which is centred on petroleum, but broadens out into the energy industry generally. It involves close cooperation and exchanges with other leading, influential parties in the sector at national and international levels. Oil market stability OPEC developed its price band mechanism at the 109th Meeting of its Conference in March 2000. At that time, it identified US $22–28 a barrel as the price range that balances the needs of consumers and producers. The success of the mechanism can be judged from the fact that, since its inception, the OPEC Reference Basket has averaged $25.30/b, which is slightly above the centre of the band. The price band mechanism has faced a stern test over the past seven months, in the light of the supply disruptions in Venezuela, Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria. The Venezuelan oil industry strike, which began last December and extended into January, withdrew a startling 2.8 million barrels a day from the market. This pushed prices to more than $3/b above the band. In response, OPEC rapidly organized an Extraordinary Meeting of its Conference, which raised the OPEC-10 production ceiling by 1.5 mb/d and restored some balance to a potentially destabilizing market. Oil and cooperation Cooperation is central to OPEC’s thinking.
Recently, eight non-OPEC oil-producing nations have become observers of our Organization’s activities and this includes attendance at our Ministerial Conferences. Before these Conferences, we hold meetings to exchange ideas among our Ministers and the representatives of observer countries. We also promote workshops and bilateral meetings between observers and OPEC. Moreover, contacts and action plans are being made among producers and consumers. The Permanent Secretariat of the International Energy Forum has now been established in Riyadh. The relationship with the IEA has been strengthened through different events, such as high-level bilateral meetings, joint press conferences and the Joint Workshop on Oil Investment Prospects we held at our Secretariat in Vienna just a fortnight ago. Oil and the environment In speaking of the future, it is also necessary to dispel another common, but mistaken notion that fossil fuels are a dirty form of energy. Possibly this can be traced to the old days of coal. However, the situation has improved greatly in recent years and this will continue into the future. Currently, natural gas is a well-used, cleaner-burning form of energy, while new technologies, such as CO2 sequestration, will allow gas and other hydrocarbons, such as oil, to be burned at even the zero emissions level. It is important to remember that fossil fuels are a product — and gift — of nature. Technical advances are allowing us to use this gift without damaging nature in return. Today, it is only a question of cost.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Role of Saudi Arabia (Dreca, 2012) The aim of this research is to explain the OPEC position and the role of Saudi Arabia within OPEC. Saudi Arabia as the largest producer and country with largest oil reserves of oil attract many attention and many studies try to explain which role Saudi Arabia plays within OPEC, is it the role of dominant producer and which strategy Saudi Arabia used during its membership in order to keep its position and its market share. Saudi Arabia role is to keep the balance of production within OPEC. Saudi Arabia was explained as swing producer, and in order to protect itself and its interest because of cheating of other members of OPEC, it was forced to adopt the strategy tit-for-tat. There is big question of it is good to have dominant producer, or all of them to be equal. OPEC in the Epoch of Globalization: An Event Study of Global Oil Prices (Bina, 2007) OPEC is neither a cartel nor exhibits any sign of market domination, market control, or monopoly. This confirmation is also in accord with the pioneering account of the competitive differential oil rents formed across the global industry since the crises of the 1970s. OPEC is reflective of the competitive differential oil rents earned by its members; and, contrary to both the right and the left, and their obfuscating echo in the media, it rolls with the heavy-handed punches of global market in the present epoch Oil Market Modelling and OPEC’s Behaviour (Ayed Al-Qahtani, 2008) This literature review is divided into two parts (1) oil market modeling and (2) OPEC’s behavior within the oil market. In the first part, I looked at various oil market simulation and optimization models conducted to date with more emphasis on the optimization ones as I attempted building an oil market model of a similar nature. The second part of the review covers the literature on the efforts conducted to date on modeling, testing and analyzing OPEC’s behavior within the oil market as such a market behavior is pivotal to the proposed model’s mathematical formulation and solution.
A Review of Factors Determining Crude Oil Prices (Happonen, 2009) The impacts of the price changes were broad and altered industrial activity, consumer behavior and political power globally. Understanding the factors behind these changes is important for commercial investments and public policy making. Academics, analysts and politicians seem to disagree on what is the main driver for the oil price development. Usual explanations are resource scarcity, cartel behavior, commodity speculation and market conditions.
OPEC and the international oil market: Can a cartel fuel the engine of economic development? (Noguera, 2005) The OPEC cartel was formed to promote two economic goals, one microeconomic — low oil market volatility — the other macroeconomic — promotes economic development of its members. These goals create a tension since the cartel's single tool is output quotas. Using this dual micro/macro perspective we analyze oil exporting countries' behavior. We find that the effects of the cartel's choices will be reflected in oil market stability, long-term macroeconomic development, and international oil market structure. If an oil producing country cares about both oil industry profits and macroeconomic stability, the goal of output stability may be inconsistent with cartel membership.
What OPEC Means for Today's Oil Market At the bi-annual meeting in Vienna last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced its decision to extend the production cut of 1.8 million barrels of oil per day until the first quarter of 2018 to support the recovery in oil prices. While the market had anticipated the move, the extension did not have a strong impact on crude oil prices, unlike the surge in commodity prices witnessed in November 2016 when the OPEC deal was first announced. To put things in perspective, WTI crude oil prices had gone up by more than 9% in November following the initial agreement to reduce output, as opposed to just a 2% jump in oil prices when OPEC announced the extension of the cuts. This trend not only indicates that the proposed output restrictions are not enough to have a meaningful impact on oil prices, but also hints at the fact that OPEC's power to influence crude oil prices is waning.
OPEC's Changing Position In The Oil Markets. Historically, OPEC accounted for more than 40% of the world’s crude oil production, and was responsible for exporting nearly 60% of the total petroleum traded internationally. Consequently, the cartel’s huge spare capacity that could be easily maneuvered to suit the condition in the global oil markets, coupled with its significantly low cost of production, allowed it to play the role of a Swing Producer, exerting strong influence on crude oil prices. However, things changed for the worse when oil prices crashed in mid-2014 due to the oversupply created by U.S. shale producers. At first, OPEC decided to keep pumping high levels of oil, despite the plummeting prices, to defend its share in the global oil markets. Until mid-2016, this strategy seemed to work well for the member countries as they could easily sustain their oil output even at a price of $30 per barrel. That said, the prolonged weakness in oil prices started weighing heavily on the OPEC members and their economies, which are highly dependent on oil exports. Thus, the cartel members, who had earlier decided to take an aggressive approach to push back on U.S. shale producers, were forced to pull back their output to boost oil prices, and in turn stimulate their dwindling economies.
The purpose of OPEC for members is to"coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of its Member Countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital for those investing in the petroleum industry. OPEC members collectively supply about 43% of the world's crude oil production. Together, OPEC members control about 81% of the world's total proven crude reserves. OPEC member countries monitor the market and decide collectively to raise or lower oil production in order to maintain stable prices and supply. A unanimous vote is required on raising or lowering oil production. Each member country controls the oil production of its country, but OPEC aims to coordinate the production policies of member countries. Oil and energy ministers from OPEC member countries usually meet twice a year in March and September to determine OPEC's output level. They also meet in extraordinary sessions whenever required. Current Members: Algeria - 1969-present Angola - 2007-present Ecuador - 1973-1992, 2007-present Gabon - 1975-1995; 2016-present Iran - 1960-present Iraq - 1960-present Kuwait - 1960-present Libya - 1962-present Nigeria - 1971-present Qatar - 1961-present Saudi Arabia - 1960-present United Arab Emirates - 1967-present Venezuela - 1960-present
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Get custom essayThe task of stabilising the oil market and guaranteeing secure demand and supply, with reasonable prices and fair returns to investors, cannot be carried out by OPEC alone. Cooperation is necessary. Cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC producers. Cooperation between producers and consumers. Cooperation among organizations. Stable prices allow consumers and producers to meet today’s needs. Secure supply prevents disruptions that can send prices spiralling and stall economic growth. And sufficient investment ensures that we will be able to provide the necessary oil to meet the growing energy requirement of the future. These are the common goals we share — although at times this fact might be obscured when we view the challenges too strongly from one perspective. To achieve these goals will require the efforts of all of us. But I can assure you that the future looks very bright, if we seize the opportunity to work together.
Japanese-American foreign relations are currently in good standing, with both nations striving economically on a global stage, and being global superpowers. This, however, has not always been the case, particularly in the interwar period between World War I and World War II. Due to a series of agreements, events, and economic sanctions, Japanese-American foreign relations deteriorated drastically, leaving two rising nations as enemies in time of rising global tensions. A Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii, sparked a war between the two nations in December of 1941. This paper will assess the years that precede the beginning of the Japanese-American conflict in World War II and aim to prove that despite the aggressive tactics used by Japan, the Americans’ unwillingness to compromise provoked the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor.
Get original essayThe rise in Japanese-American tensions during the interwar period can be seen to start at the Washington Conference of 1921. This conference was a meeting between the biggest naval powers in the world at the time. This list of nations includes Britain, the United States, and Japan. Since the German loss in World War I, the idea of militarism had grown old, and the strive for democracy emerged as a new goal for the international community. The entire conference was dedicated to global disarmament. During this conference, the Japanese took the world by surprise by not only their presence at the conference, but also their demands. The Japanese ambassador to the United States insisted at this conference that the Japanese were only interested in the protection of Japanese citizens and property, insisting that Japan has no interest in international affairs. Contradicting the ambassador’s words, Japan was very keen on expanding their power in Asia and saw the United States as their main competitor to dominance in Asia, specifically China. The conference ended on the signing of a treaty which shrunk the size of the participating states’ navies, creating a 5:5:3 ratio. This ratio was meant to ensure that for every five ships the United States or Britain has, the Japanese could only have three. Another aspect of the agreement is known as the Nine Power Treaty. The Nine Power Treaty allowed the continuation of the Open Door Policy in China. This was seen as a major win for American diplomacy, as it meant that the United States could continue to assert their economic dominance in China. These two agreements were attacked by Japan as they saw it as a threat to their security. Since Japan is an island nation, they rely heavily on their navy for defence. The signing of this treaty leaves Japan susceptible to an attack from a stronger nation, particularly the United States. The Japanese left this conference angry, but still signed the agreement. Their participation, however, would not happen as they continued to expand their navy.
Almost a decade after the Washington Conference, Japan and the United States participated in the London Naval Conference of 1930. This conference was held because of the lack of disarmament in the international community, despite the multiple attempts to enforce it. In this conference, the Japanese shocked the United States with a demand to have a navy 70% the size of the Americans’ navy. Japan justified this demand by stating it was imperative for their defence against a Pacific invasion. Despite this demand by the Japanese, it was eventually decided that Japan was to have a navy ten times smaller than the American navy. At ten times smaller than the American navy, Japan was still able to defend themselves from an attack but would not be powerful enough to launch their own attack. This is another instance of American dominance over Japan, because not only are they taking away the ability for Japan to expand into Asia (something that the Americans were trying to do economically), but they were also, once again, leaving Japan susceptible to a Pacific invasion. At ten times larger, the American navy would overpower the Japanese navy in an attack. This agreement was also a clear implementation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact on Japan, a treaty that stated that all armament should be for defensive purposes only and the number of arms created must be relative to the amount needed for defence, and not on the United States.
Less than a year after the London Naval Conference, in September 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army wanted to destroy a section of the South Manchuria Railway in Mukden. The Japanese planned to blame the attack on the Chinese and use it as an excuse to take military action in China. One Japanese Colonel leading the attack stated that he hoped by doing this, it would start a “struggle for supremacy” between America, the “leader of the West”, and Japan, the “master of the East”. Stunned by the actions of the Japanese, American Secretary of State Henry Stimson pled with President Hoover to place economic sanctions on Japan. Hoover refused and instead opted to work with Britain and France to create a neutral zone in a nearby city to Mukden. Stimson, who had no other options, verbally attacked Japan and leaked confidential information from the American ambassador to Japan that the Japanese planned to attack Jinzhou, another city in China. This strategy by Stimson caused a great rift in American-Japanese relations and may have influenced how the Japanese conducted the rest of their foreign policy with the United States during the 1930s.
Looking at Japanese-American trade at this time provides yet another insight into American domination over the Japanese and is the beginning of Japanese dependence on the Americans. During the 1920s, Japan’s biggest export was silk, and America was their biggest buyer. When the economic depression began in late 1929, the importing of silk from Japan drastically fell, hurting the Japanese economy. In a desperate attempt to recover, the Japanese attempted to sell manufactured goods to the United States. By doing so, this angered many American competitors. Japanese manufactured goods also could not thrive in the United States because of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which enforced high tariffs on many imported goods. As a result of this, the Japanese economy struggled in the early 1930s as they were unable to generate enough revenue from their economic ventures in East Asia alone.
After multiple years of relatively quiet Japanese-American relations, 1937 is the beginning of increased tensions between the two nations, and these tensions do not settle until 1945, after Japanese surrender and the end of the War in the Pacific. By 1937, the American government had estimated that Japan would not be able to sustain their expansion into China because of their poor currency. The Japanese yen, the currency used in Japan and all Japanese territories, was not a convertible currency and could not be used to buy products abroad. Japan was entirely dependent on trade, as they lacked essential commodities such as: metals, oil, lumber, and some foods. As a consequence of their poor currency, the Japanese had to keep a reserve of gold and foreign currency in order to trade on the international market. American economic experts had predicted that the Japanese were close to a complete depletion of their gold and foreign currency, and was close to bankruptcy; however, they also cited that it was possible that they held secret caches of foreign currency that was able to sustain them for the foreseeable future.
In mid-1938, the Japanese had continued to expand into Indochina and was growing as a threat to American aspirations in Eastern Asia. As a result, the American government placed their first economic sanction on Japan, this is known as the moral embargo. This embargo was never made a legitimate law, however, the government discouraged warplane manufacturers from exporting their products to Japan. This embargo was officially enacted as a result of the bombing of Chinese civilians by the Japanese, but scholars believe that the Americans only enacted it as a way to save the Open Door Policy in China.
Shortly after the implementation of the first moral embargo, the United States enacted another moral embargo in December of 1939, targeting the exportation of metals to Japan. The United States government asked producers of aluminum, magnesium, and molybdenum to stop exports to Japan. Aluminum is a main material in the creation of warplanes, and since the Americans had already placed a moral embargo on warplane exports to Japan, this proved to be a tough obstacle for the Japanese, as it forced them to use scrap metal from their factories to continue their production of warplanes.
At the same time as the moral embargo on metal, the United States used another strategy to attempt to stop the creation of Japanese warplanes. On December 20, 1939, the American government asked American aviation manufacturers to stop future delivery of plans, plants, manufacturing rights, or technical information for aviation gasoline to Japan. This came as a result of the continued reliance on American knowledge from Japanese petroleum producers who paid for American blueprints and instructions on how to create correct fuel solutions, and even paid for Americans to go to the Japanese plants and teach them how to set up and run the petroleum plants. This attempt, however, was enacted too late by the American government as the Japanese already had the knowledge on how to create fuel, and run their manufacturing plants.
All while implementing unofficial moral embargoes, the thought of an actual embargo on Japan, as well as the freezing of Japanese assets, loomed in the minds of American government officials. Many studies were conducted in the United States of the effectiveness of a potential embargo, and they concluded that an embargo would be detrimental to the Japanese economy. This was based off the fact that the Japanese imported 90% of its petroleum, 88% of its steel, 100% of its metal alloys, 100% of its rubber, and 100% of its cotton from the United States. All of these materials were crucial in the Japanese war in China, and any embargo would surely result in a Japanese loss.
After endless consideration, as well as countless studies done, in July 1941, the Japanese expanded into Southern Indochina, causing the Roosevelt administration to seriously consider placing a complete embargo on the Japanese that would result in the freezing of all Japanese assets. The Roosevelt administration spent July trying to come up with different terms and rules of the embargo, until finally on July 26, the American government placed the full embargo on Japan, sending an official message of dissatisfaction of Japanese expansion in Eastern Asia. After implementing the freeze, Franklin Roosevelt was confident that Japan would not react violently. Japan was immediately affected by the freeze. Within days of the freeze, Japanese insurance companies closed, banks suspended their business, and export businesses closed. Since the freeze created an embargo on all goods, the Japanese were unable to obtain any oil from the United States, causing a major shortage in the Japanese empire within weeks. Japan tried many strategies to overcome the freeze. One attempt was by trying to implement a semi-bartering system with the Untied States. The most common attempt was to trade large quantities of silk for American oil, an attempt that was crushed by the American government. Another attempt to work around the freeze and obtain oil was to trade with other nations, specifically in the Dutch East Indies. However, since the yen was an unconvertible currency, they tried to convert it to yuan, the currency used by the Chiang Kai-shek regime in China, which was a convertible currency and could be used to buy products abroad. This strategy, however, failed.
In a desperate attempt to end the freeze, the Japanese tried to come to an agreement with the Americans during negotiations between Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Japanese Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburo. Many problems with these negotiations were present, especially because Nomura was a Colonel in the Japanese navy and was untrained as a diplomat. He did not even have enough political influence in Tokyo, nor did he have a full understanding of the complexity of the situation between the Japanese and the Americans. These talks began in April of 1941, a few months before the financial freeze, but the talks escalated after the freeze was implemented. Weeks after the freeze, Nomura and the Japanese sent the Americans a treaty offer which included: suspension of military advancement by both the United States and Japan, cooperation in obtaining oil from the Dutch East Indies, restoration of commercial relations, peace talks between the Japanese and China, and the withdrawal of Japanese troops in Southern Indochina. This proposal by the Japanese shows the dire need for American investment and trade for the economy, as they are willing to end their expansion into China and Indochina in order to resume relations with the United States. A few days after the Japanese sent their offer to the United States, the Japanese received a response known as the “Hull Note” which was the United States’ final offer. The Hull Note was taken as an insult to the Japanese as it called for a total withdrawal of all Japanese troops, air force, and navy from China and Indochina, as well as recognizing the Chiang Kai-shek regime as the only legitimate government in China. Even though this would unfreeze Japanese assets, the Japanese refused to accept unless the Americans agreed to do the same in Latin America. The Americans would decline the counter-proposal offered by the Japanese, and the talks ultimately ended without coming to an agreement. Some scholars believe that there was a major miscommunication between Hull and Nomura, however, many cite the fact that Nomura was an unexperienced diplomat to the reason that an agreement was not reached.
Only a few months after the negotiations between Hull and Nomura ended, in the early morning of December 7, 1941, the Japanese launched an attack on the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,000 Americans. This attack was seen as an act of war by the Americans and on December 8, the Americans declared war on the Japanese Empire. This war lasted until August 1945, when the Japanese surrendered to the Americans after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
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Get custom essayThus, when assessing the years that precede the War in the Pacific, despite the aggressive tactics used by the Japanese, the United States’ unwillingness to compromise provoked Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor. It is easy to look at history and think about what could have happened had the Japanese not have attacked Pearl Harbor, or what could have happened if there was an agreement reached during the Hull-Nomura talks. Nonetheless, it is worth asking whether or not the War in the Pacific was an inevitable clash that would have happened as a result of two empires attempting to assert their domination, or if this was an avoidable conflict that could have been peacefully resolved through proper diplomacy.
Tesla’s international-level strategy is the transformational strategy. With this strategy, Tesla looks to concurrently attain low prices through economies of scale, location economies, and understanding outcomes; and transform its cars across global industry to record for local differentiations. Most of Tesla’s strategies in the foreign market are close to those it employs in the United States. These strategies are as follows.
Get original essayTesla sells its cars straight to clients through its showrooms and galleries or through the Tesla website. Elon Musk (2012) describes that the major cause for this direct selling, and not vending through traders, is the basic dispute of engrossment confronted by traders between selling gasoline cars, which comprises the huge bulk of their business, and selling the advance technology of electric cars. Advantages of this direct selling comprises better client contentment since Tesla can vastly meet its manufacturing with buyer predilections and a lesser total price grateful to the absenteeism of trader prices such as inventory financing and insurance and advertising and sales commissions.
Tesla utilizes a buyback agenda called Certified Pre- Owned (CPO) in countries such as Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, and Canada. Through this agenda, a Tesla Model S is sold with the guarantee to give it back to the organization after three years for a reimbursement of 43% to 50% of its original price. Tesla then examines, renovates, and verifies the pre-owned cars, after which it increases the guarantee and sells the cars for about 62% of a Tesla Model S new car’s price. With this strategy, Tesla not only accumulates the resale profits (since it sells directly to clients) but also enhances more into the main market as it can appeal the not-so-wealthy clients by selling at a more reasonable price.
Other strategy used by Tesla in the foreign market is purposely placing its showrooms and galleries in high foot traffic, prominent retail venues, like malls and shopping streets that people often go in a very pleasant buying mood. According to Musk go to the people before they decide for a new car.
As one of its schemes to appeal clients in the foreign market, Tesla modifies its cars to match local requirements and to please the tastes and priorities of its clients. For instance, in answer to client responses, Tesla made some advancements to its Tesla Model S in China, comprising an ‘executive rear seat choice, which costs $2000 over the main design and points to make the rear seat experience more suitable.
A scheme made by Tesla to enhance internationally is associated expandation through strategic association with well-organized global auto and battery manufacturers. Tesla actively amalgamates with foreign organization in the research, enhancement, and manufacture of electric powertrain elements (lithium-ion battery cells). This was the case with the Japanese automotive producer Toyota, for which Tesla make the lithium-metal- oxide battery and other powertrain elements for the Toyota RAV4 EV Second generation; the German automaker Daimler AG, for which Tesla produced electric powertrain elements for the Mercedes-Benz A-class E-cell and the Mercedes-Benz B-class ED; and the Japanese battery cell maker Panasonic, together with which Tesla develops nickel-based lithium-ion battery cells for electric vehicles and with which Tesla corporates on the production of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. With these collaborations, Tesla was ready to understand bigger price economies by profiting from the experience of these well-organized firms and, thus, construct a superior international place not only in the electric car sector but on the whole automotive market.
International students have an increasing presence in higher education institutes in Malaysia. According to Muhammad, Sabbar, Shahid, and Rai Imtiaz (2013), “international students or foreign students are those who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of study” (p.834). As international students are those who travel to a country from their homeland, it is agreeable that they encounter greater challenges and difficulties.
Get original essayBased on recent statistics from Planning, Research and Policy Coordination Division, Ministry of Higher Education, percentage of international students enrolled in Malaysia Public Higher Education Institutes is 4.85%. These students come from different parts of the world such as Maldives, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Maldives, Nigeria, Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Brunei, Saudi Arabia and others. This statistic shows that Malaysia is regarded as one of the preferred destination that international students choose to pursue their higher education studies. However, despite the preference, international students who pursue their higher education in Malaysia still cannot deflect themselves from having challenges and problems throughout their studies life in Malaysia. Many people claim that students in higher education institutes deal with many problems throughout their studies life and there are few main problems that almost all university students have to deal with at least once during their years in Malaysia.
Nevertheless, in terms of challenges and difficulties, international students or foreign students face greater and different adjustment challenges compared to local students. International students are as important as local or domestic students in higher education institutes in Malaysia. Without their massive presence, Malaysia will lose the chance to develop as higher education institute is one of a key factor in the development of the nation. As a result, it is important to find out the main challenges and problems faced by international students in Malaysia so that a better solutions or incentive can be taken into account in order to help them.
Basically, it is believed that the main problems dealt by international students in Malaysia are categorized by difference in social and culture, difficulties in financial and inadequacy of facilities provided by the university.
International students or foreign students faced greater challenges throughout their studies in Malaysia due to the difference in social and culture. There are differences in terms of ethnic groups, races, customs, culture and traditions. When the international students come to Malaysia, they would be expected to be able to adapt with the culture of Malaysia as this country is one that have most multicultural nations in South East Asia. For the sake of gaining knowledge, these students will have to do some necessary adjustment or socio-cultural adaptation in order to fit into the unfamiliar place and environment by reaching out to domestic people. On that account, it could be difficult to do so if there is no interaction between foreign students and the locals. It is quite infamous that Malaysians are timid when it comes to stranger or foreign people who come to the country.
For instance, a study by Abdullahi, Noor and Musa (2014) found that “On socio-cultural aspects, they express difficulty in understanding the nature of the Malay people and the culture. The Malay people on average were known as peaceful, calm, quiet and highly reserved; they maintained a low level of interaction with their guests (foreigners)” (p.164). From the study, we can clearly see that international students in Malaysia are having difficulty in adapting Malay culture. Although the Malays on average were known as peaceful, calm, quiet and highly reserved, it is not consider as a bad or unhealthy signal. Nevertheless, for people who are not raised within the environment of Malay culture, this can be seen as a bad or unhealthy signal or simple perceived as a sign of hatred.
In addition, international students might experience more painful adjustment to their life in the overseas as compared to their own nation. Adjusting to a new culture can be a challenging and stressful experience. Yusliza and Chelliah (2010) opined that “international students differ greatly in adjusting to their new circumstances and studies. Some adjust easily while others find it very difficult” (p.275). For international students, coming to Malaysia literally means entering into a new social and educational environment where they have to go through a difficult condition. This might resulted to a painful adjustment to their life as they will need to deal with the dissimilarities between their personal cultural values, rules and custom of their own nation (GulRaihan and Sandaran, 2017). Being opposite in cultural values may result in affecting their mental health leading to helplessness and loneliness.
A study by GulRaihan and Sandaran (2017) has found several factors that influence the sociocultural adaptation challenges of international students, namely language profiency, academic adaptation, environmental adaptation and interpersonal adaptation. Based on the study, international students encounter difficulties in understanding the English accent of the Malaysians and vice versa. Sometimes, they even find it hard to speak English rather that their own language. It has been affirmed that English proficiency and adjustment appears to be positively related and will affect their adjustments (Yusliza and Chelliah, 2010; Sawir, Marginson, Mewett, Nylan and Ramia, 2012). It is important for the international students to overcome language difficulties first, otherwise other problems would come along such as difficulties in coping with academic work, being uncertain when expressing ideas in class, or hard to understand what is required from them at university.
Apart from language proficiency, environmental adaptation also affects the international students in adjusting their life in Malaysia because they have to live independently from their parents and family. They will need to getting used to the pace of life in Malaysia. So, it is proven these factors will affect international students’ sociocultural adaptation. Hence, social and cultural differences may be one of challenges faced by international students throughout their studies life in Malaysia.
Financial pressure is another big problem or one of the major constrain affecting the study of international students in Malaysia, especially those who do not get financial aids and have to pay tuition fees and living expenses all by themselves. According to Baharak and Ramli (2015), a research had showed that international students who received graduate assistantship do not experience financial difficulties compared to international students who do not get financial aids or a selfpaid student. The reason for this financial difficulty faced by selfpaid international students is because of the stress of not having enough money to pay their tuition fees and accommodation fees. It is generally known that the tuition and accommodation fees that international students have to pay to the university is higher compared to local students.
On the other hand, international students also have less opportunity to make extra income that will further enhance their financial capacity. For an example, international students can make extra income by while studying in Malaysia by doing a part time job. However, although international students are allowed to work part time in Malaysia, the part time employment opportunity for them are limited and the competition is also fierce. Nowadays, nearly two thirds of local students are working part time to help fund their studies. The increase number of working part time students is due to the high cost living in Malaysia which does not affect the international students only but the local students.
In addition, there are also several restrictions or guidelines which governed international students who wish to do part time job during their studies in Malaysia. The Malaysian Immigration Department has specific guidelines for international students studying in Malaysia who seek for part time work opportunities. This guideline more or less lowers the opportunity of international students to make extra income as they are bound by certain restrictions. According to Alghamdi and Otte (2016), financial difficulties also regarded as one of the challenges faced by international students. This article supports that financial difficulties face by international students is due to less opportunity to do part time job as they holding a student visa and therefore restricted by law. They also have limited work rights and limited knowledge about their rights in workplace.
To sum up, as international students are restricted by law and have to spend more money on tuition fees, accommodation and transportation cost, it is believed that international students face bigger financial difficulties compared to local students in Malaysia.
The issue of inconvenient facilities in Malaysia are equally important in determining factors of why international students face greater challenges throughout their study in Malaysia. Facilities are seen as a hindrance if they are poor, inconvenient and inaccessible. Baharak and Ramli (2015) explains facilities are divided into three main groups which are place to stay, conveyance facilities and eating place. Some international students may struggle in finding a good accommodation, nonetheless there are fortunate students whose their universities provide the accommodation. If students are unable to access university-provided accommodation, private rental is the next option. Private rental would not be a burdensome granted that they are located near the university. However, if it is too far from the university, the international students may feel quite reluctant to stay there since it will incur higher cost as transportation may be added to the cost of house rent.
Apart from having difficulties in finding accommodation and transportation, some international students admit the food is not suitable for them. It is notorious that Malaysian cuisine is spicy in general since it is heavily influenced by Thai, Chinese, Indonesian and Indian cuisine. A study by Baharak and Roselan (2013) shows these international students have declared that food is not to their liking. These students alleged the food was too spicy for them and on top of that, these foods were served in unhygienic state. Moreover, they also asserted that there are not enough restaurants around the campus. So, there are not many options for them to choose. These problems are piled when the students are not allowed to cook their own food. Thus, these rules and preventions are no help to their problems.
Therefore, international students face bigger challenge in terms of facilities provided in Malaysia than the domestic students. As for domestic students, they may have been familiar with the housing area around the university and some of them are staying with their parents. As regards to the food quality and spiciness, surely these Malaysians are accustomed with their own traditional food. Thus, there is no such problems they would confront compare to international students.
In a nutshell, the major constraints that could be interfering international students’ life in Malaysia are due to a different in social and culture, difficulties in financial and insufficient facilities to cater them. Overall, international students have greater and different adjustment challenges than local students because of social and cultural differences, financial difficulties and insufficient facilities. Nevertheless, for every single problem occured, there must always have solution available.
Despite many challenges faced by international students in Malaysia, it is advisable for them to cope with the challenges as failure to do so will affect their study life. Likewise, the challenges faced by them also not entirely gave negative impact to their life as for example, some students believed that students who socialize with other culture are likely to have increased respect for other culture. Simultaneously, other people from different culture may look up to those who respect their culture. It is also suggested for international students to appreciate their life in Malaysia as it is and feel grateful to the life they are living. As people said, these problems they faced may be a blessing in disguise. Allah mentioned in the Quran in Surah Al-Luqman that says:
"...And whoever is grateful is grateful for [the benefit of] himself…”
These international students must learn to be aware of and to appreciate the good things in this world to prevent taking them for granted. Being aware of the fact that it is Allah only who has helped people in their life will make people appreciate His blessings more. There is a link between practicing gratitude and feeling happy. Allah also mentioned in Surah Ali Imran verse 145 that He would reward those who practicing gratitude.
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Get custom essay"...And whoever desires the reward of this world - We will give him thereof; and whoever desires the reward of the Hereafter - We will give him thereof. And we will reward the grateful.”