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EH annotation 1 Cancer Alley Azusa Internship 2023

E.Hernandez11

This gas leak took place in Bhopal, India and I think that the location has an important impact on the aftermath of the situation. After the gas leaked people protested to be compensated for their lost ones but many died before they were able to be justified. I feel that if this happened in America, circumstances would have been different, there would have been more media coverage, and action would be taken more swiftly. The location of this occurrence had an impact with how it was handled after and if it had occurred some place else then it would have been different. 

EH annotation 1 Cancer Alley Azusa Internship 2023

E.Hernandez11

This film focuses on the environmental and social problem of having large gas (lethal) plants near cities or other populated areas where people can be harmed. Environmentally these gasses are no good because they are emitted into the air and are very soluble in the water which leads to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification makes it so that the ocean has a lower pH level, this can harm marine wildlife. Socially, the gas is toxic to people and as seen in the Bhopal tragedy, it can kill people or severely alter their lives. This could be seen through the immediate deaths of civilians, deformities of children born after the incident, and the families affected even years after hoping for justice.

EH annotation 1 Cancer Alley Azusa Internship 2023

E.Hernandez11

From watching the video, I feel affected emotionally because it was definitely hard to watch so many people die, especially the innocent children. It is a hard pill to swallow to watch the lives of so many people taken away from them so unexpectedly in their own homes. I feel affected by seeing the photo of the unknown child because it was hauntingly touching as it was for so many people that advocated for justice after this tragedy. It was also really daunting seeing so many people being buried and burned in mass because they were not granted the ability to be respectfully honored for their death which I think is something very valuable. Intellectually I think that this film made me think about how this tragedy could have been possibly prevented if the plant had been maintained and checked up on regularly or if the plant wasn’t so close to a whole city in the first place. And I also feel gratitude to those who are still advocating for justice for the victims and trying to get people with government power to make that change.

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Andreas_Rebmann

"To return to the story: with humanitarians effectively governing in crisis zones, it is not surprising that gender-based violence should become an issue; having been categorised as a human rights violation, one which garnered significant attention, it could not be easily ignored or brushed aside as a ‘private’ matter. Still, approaching gender-based violence as a humanitarian issue required some translation. Humanitarians are primarily concerned with saving lives and relieving suffering; humanitarianism of the sort practised by MSF is most significantly focused on health, and the lives and wellbeing of populations."

"The complications of treating gender-based violence as a humanitarian issue were raised early on by MSF in their work in the Congo Republic. In his essay, Marc Le Pape discusses how, because of rape and violence perpetrated by groups of armed men who set up roadblocks and then proceeded to do as they pleased with those they trapped, humanitarians had to decide whether to accept military escorts on aid convoys to protect against such roadblocks, again with serious political repercussions. Caritas did eventually allow trucks to carry military escorts, yet these escorts in turn invited their friends – armed militiamen – onto the trucks, even as they carried with them the spoils of their plunder"

"Humanitarianism’s mission has expanded so that it now occupies a dominant place in the global political arena – whether humanitarians asked for this or not. But the incorporation of genderbased violence shows humanitarianism at its limit; gender relations and gender-based violence cannot be contained by forms of crisis-driven, moral and medical intervention. In other words, this type of politics based on protecting a universal humanity cannot do all our political work for us; such violence renders visible inequalities that are simply unmanageable and unchangeable by its methods."