Geography assignment
Geography assignment
This was a term used by the whites (Americans) in their round the world tours aiming at making the world believe that America was not at war with anyone. This came after the US learnt that their atrocities towards the blacks in America were angering the world. The Americans came up with a plan of using soft power possessed in talents like music to camouflage and hide the hatred that the whites had for the blacks. Some American music styles like jazz and buzz were used by some blacks on their mission of showing the world that America was not discriminating anybody by race. This has been seen to penetrate to other countries like Jamaica and Cuba where musicians in these countries have largely adopted the American music styles (Tom, 2008).
Special period
In the history of Cuba, there occurred several economic cycles which saw the Cuban economy undergo significant changes. This was mostly due to change in the reliance aspects or drivers of the economy. The economy of Cuba stopped being much reliant on the sugar and the US due to some sore international relationships between Cuba and the US. This made the exports of Cuba to decline greatly making the total gross domestic product of the country to drop by a third between 1989 and 1993. This was what was called the special period whereby the total trade between West and Russia in general dropped by about 96%. This also reduced the labor input and some very strict rules or trade curfews imposed. This led to the rise in black market activities which made some people flourish and the national economy of Russia and Cuba drop most significantly in their histories (Tom, 2008).
Hard power
During the different wars that occurred in the world history, several tactics were employed to make the enemies subdue to their opponents. This led to establishment of two categories of power applied which were categorized as soft power and hard power. In Cuba, the soft power was mainly by disguised assimilation into the American culture where music and other aspects of American culture were introduced to Cuba and other countries. For example, the spread of jazz and blues music styles can be viewed as soft power.
However, soft power was introduced side to side with had power. Hard power involved military action which saw direct rule used on the country. This was best felt in Cuba when the Americans directly controlled the economy of Cuba mainly by taking Cuba as an extension of the US. This was a direct exhibit of hard power used on the people of Cuba (Tom, 2008).
Internationalism as a resource
This term main deals with the idea of how internationalism can be of help to a country. It tries to evaluate the economic worthiness of having international ties. Taking a look at Cuba, the country generated a lot of income from good international relations and foreign investments. Taking a look at specific examples, the economy of Cuba in the 1960s through to 1980s was driven mainly by sugar export business. This meant any sore international ties would destabilize the economy of this country. In another illustration, Cuba invested in Ethiopia in cement plants. This helped the country to generate a lot of foreign currency which can be viewed as service exports. In terms of military power, a country can benefit a lot from internationalism. For example, troops sent on peacekeeping generate a lot of income for their local countries for their services in the foreign country (Tom, 2008).
Problem of the zafra
These terms were used to describe the situation of a certain region in Cuba but in reality were referring to the whole country. This region was mainly involved in sugarcane production. As a result, the economy of the region depended on the region thus only had money being generated only due to sale of the sugarcane. However, sugarcane was bought only for two months a year leaving the residents with about 10 months of working without any substantial income being generated. This phrase was mostly used to address the problem of the population of the Cuba in general in addressing their economic constraints and overdependence on only one major project in stabilizing the economy (Tom, 2008).
The US embargo
This can be defined as a sanction put on a country following sore international relationships. This form of sanction was put by the US against Cuba in 1960 following some internal wrangles in Cuba that was the country end as a communist region instead of a capitalism state. This embargo started off as a partial sanction but by 1962 it was almost a total embargo.
In 1993, a similar embargo was placed by the Americans against Cuban government with an aim of forcing the Cuban government to accept democratization and recognize human rights to own property as opposed to what the government worked for (communism). This embargo is what led to the famous special period in the Cuban history and became almost total embargo in 1993 when some of the key aspects that the west was advocating for in Cuba were looked into (Tom, 2008).
Human development
This aspect of social sciences deals mainly with personal progress in poverty eradication. In most cases, this aspect is drawn from employment related projects that aim at improving personal economic worth. The best example to use can be drawn from Korea. In the early 1920s, Korea had one of the highest levels of poverty but currently has one of the best growing economies in the world. National development is mainly fueled by human development. The most significant facets of human development as discussed in development of Korea include education, healthcare and to some extent economic development.
Reference
Tom G. 2008. Bacardi and the long fight for Cuba: the biography of a cause, Viking Adult Publishers
