The Nukak Makú

For this latin American entry, I wanted to research about a group in my country that I had little or zero knowledge at all. I found an indigenous group called the Nukak Makú that definitely grabbed all my attention and that I want people to be aware of what is happening to them.

The Nukak Makú’s are an indigenous group in Colombia. They live deep in the jungle between the Inirida and Guaviare rivers in the southeast of the country.
They are known for being the last indigenous nomad group and for being expert hunter-gatherers. Sadly, they are also close to extinction because of the violence in Colombia and the diseases they have contracted because of the contact with outsiders. It is said that there are around 400 or 500 Nukak Maku’s left. They were if not the last, one of the last indigenous groups to be discovered, the first time the Government heard of them was in the 1980’s.

The territories they used to live in have been occupied by guerrillas, paramilitaries, and coca growers displacing some of the Nukak Maku’s to small towns and impeding them from developing their normal activities such as hunting and changing those habits to “white habits”.

There have been some initiatives to protect the rights of this group and have been very successful. Aside from indigenous organizations, the Colombian government has also taken part in these campaigns and created a reserve for the Nukak in 1993, which expanded in 1997. But still, many things could be done to help them preserve themselves and get back all their culture. Colombian citizens should be more aware of what is happening to these people and how any kind of organization could help them get back to the territories they lived and develop all their traditions the way they used to. After years of displacement and the dilemma of losing their customs they just want the borders of their reservation to be respected and that they can live there in peace.

References:
http://www.cafeinternetsd.galeon.com/productos830853.html
http://www.colarte.arts.co/recuentos/Colecciones/ETNIAS/NukakMaku.htm
http://www.survival.es/indigenas/nukak
Image reference:
http://manosartesanasenamerica.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/nukak_mak__colom.jpg

Best of BOB's

Out of all the blogs visited at the BOB's webpage, my favorite one was the one called "Planet Positive" which is written by Selen Kesrelioglu, Christina Wood. I liked it the most because it has shocking facts and also it talks about what is happening with our environmental problems such as climate change. After reading it, it makes us take responsabiility for the actions that worsen the environment and it recommends things, as reducing the carbon footprint, that we should do to help resolve this environmental problems.

Go visit their blog at http://www.planet-positive.org/how_planetpositive.php and START ACTING NOW!!!

Image reference

http://www.planet-positive.org/ppblog

Trade Unions: The Cases of Europe and Colombia

The concept of labor union or trade union is an association of fair wage-earners uniting for the purpose of maintaining and improving the conditions of their employment. Even though these kinds of associations exist in a lot of countries they might differ in the way they act and the real purposes they fight for.

Colombian trade unions and those from Europe have some similarities and differences to be analyzed.

In Europe, over the last 20 years there has been a decline in trade union memberships and it might keep decreasing, the unions that remain are gathered in the European Trade Union Confederation which acts as a single voice, on behalf of the common interests of workers at the European level. They believe that workers’ consultation, collective bargaining, social dialogue and good working conditions are the key to promoting innovation, productivity, competitiveness and growth in Europe. Their objective is to promote the European Social Model which represents a society that combines sustainable economic growth with improving living and working standards including full employment, social protection, equal opportunities, good quality jobs, social inclusion, and an open and policy-making process involving citizens in the decisions that affect them.

If we analyze the case of Colombian trade unions, we see that our trade unions are also gathered in organizations such as the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) and the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Colombia (CTC). These organizations are created to become a stronger and more powerful voice to negotiate the fulfillment of their labor rights with the Government or the private companies.

Another aspect to analyze is that trade union members have claimed that they have been persecuted and in some cases even murdered by the Government or other right-wing groups. The abuses committed against them have had negative impacts in the qualifications our country receives in international organizations such as the International Labor Organization and also when negotiating agreements with other countries, because they demand respect for the freedom of association. But this point here has definitely improved in the last years.

Contrary to what has been happening in Europe, trade unions in Colombia won’t likely decrease in the next years. Trade union members claim that their labor rights are not respected totally and that they need better labor conditions, trainings, higher wages to cover all their needs and more benefits should be granted from their employers, to avoid being exploited.

References: http://www.etuc.org/r/2

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Labor_union

http://www.cut.org.co/

Image Reference:http://jonesview.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/unions21.jpg

The Stolen Generations

From your own point of view it useful to say "Sorry" after years of wrong policies towards a minority? Why, what else is needed?

The policy of the forced removal of Aboriginal children, where children as young as babies were stolen from their families to be placed in girls and boys homes, foster families or missions,is a clear example of how Governments have attacked minorities through policies they believe are the most correct ones.

This chapter of the Australian history is known as the “Stolen Generations” because many generations suffered this kind of abuse and it brought a lot of pain into aboriginal families who were separated from their loved ones. Furthermore, by removing the children they also removed them from all their cultural ties like language, traditions, knowledge and beliefs. With this, the Government was killing their culture.

After many years of the execution of this practice, in 1998 the government gave a well-deserved apology where they expressed their regret over the historical mistreatment towards the Aboriginals.

Even though apologizing might be the first step used to heal that traumatic situation, there is more needed than just pronouncing that word. The main thing they should do is take actions and demonstrate they really meant that apology, because what sense would it make to say sorry today but not change the course of actions in the future?

Other actions that should be taken to continue the healing process is that the Government should acknowledge the Aboriginals as being an important part of the citizenship, an important cultural resource, give them the recognition they deserve and help them in the preservation of their culture. They should also promote respect towards them among all the citizens and they must not try to impose rules that they think will benefit them if at the end they will only harass their culture. Health and job opportunities should also be given by the Government and also if they want they should have an important presence in the Parliament to fight for their rights. After saying sorry the next step is to compensate them with real actions.

Reference:

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics/stolen-generations.html#ixzz0oVI0t6Z7

Image Reference: http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/02/13/sdefconsorry2.jpg

Islamism & E-Commerce

E- Commerce has revolutionized the way business is done. People are engaging rapidly in this new way of conducting business because it is faster, cheaper and overcomes barriers such as time and distance. But what happens when that innovative tool could struggle with the accepted actions and beliefs of your religion?

The case of Islamism and ecommerce is a case to be considered. When we hear about new technologies created for making our day to day activities easier, we don’t hesitate to think if that new creation will be against our beliefs, however many Muslims who are eager to be part of this new trend have to take into account their religious rules so they don’t disobey their law.

Islamism guides people’s social, political and personal life through the Quran. In it they find the guiding principles that are applicable for every sphere of their lives. Luckily, Muslims have found that e-commerce is not against their religious beliefs if used it in the right way. They must fulfill prerequisites as permissibility, which means that the commodity and service in question must be permissible by the Islamic law, and harmless, which means that the commodity or the service must not be harmful for the contracting parties or the general public. Aside from these, there are also five stages for validating e-commerce recommended: Initiating a contract, confirming the validity, implementation, binding and delivery. Aside from that, people should also follow the Islamic principles of conducting business, transactions should be made in a truthful way, clarity in communication is very important, and interest should be avoided.

Even though, some of us may think of religious guiding in all the spheres of your life as something out of mind, we should acknowledge that at least those Islamic principles for conducting business should be something that every individual should have in mind when being part of a transaction. Unfortunately, some people use commerce and e-commerce as a way to commit frauds, fool the counterpart and for self-enrichment. Another point to consider is that Muslims are adapting both their traditions and new technologies to keep pace in the world of technology, and whether we agree or not with their way of coping with it their effort for doing so is an important step for them to demonstrate or reply to those allegations of their religion as being very restrictive in this aspect and against the use of technological innovations.

Reference:Zainul, Norazlina et al. 2004. “E-commerce from an Islamic perspective”. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 3 (2004): 280-293.

Image Reference:http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/10465264/2/istockphoto_10465264-saudi-arabian-business-man-holding-a-phone-and-laptop.jpg

Colombian Salesperson

Based on variables as organizational commitment, leadership behavior, role stress and cultural factors I will describe the average salesperson in my country Colombia.

Starting with the organizational commitment I think the average salesperson has a lack of affective commitment towards their place of work. Sometimes the main bond they have with the enterprise is how much they get paid or the position they are in, therefore, it is not surprising that once they are offered a better position or a higher remuneration they will quit their current job. The reason is that many of the salespeople are students who seek for extra cash or people who really depend on the job and on the income they have to survive. Their main goal is the money and as a result they always seek for a place to work that will pay them the highest wage.
When it comes to the leadership behavior it is very clear that the manager is constantly giving its subordinates tasks, defining their roles within the store and telling them what to do. Rarely will the manager take into account the ideas of its subordinates. Salespeople depend a lot on the manager and hardly ever they will take the initiative to do something without the manager giving them the instructions.

As for the role stress, I think there is a low role ambiguity because roles are pretty well defined within each organization, but it could happen also that a salesperson may have to do something but he/she is not allowed to do so. I think there is also the possibility of the role conflict, where a salesperson could receive different contradictory orders from people in a higher position and become confused of whose order he/she must follow.

Finally, for the cultural factors I think Colombia has a high power distance and low individualism due to the definition of the roles. Since salespeople know that they must follow orders and they feel that their ideas won’t be taken into account they do not take the leadership when developing their tasks, thus they respect a lot the decisions from their superiors.

Best Blogs

I've been checking some of my classmate's blogs and their entries are pretty interesting. But i have to say I have 2 that I liked the most:

The first one is Carlos Vallejo's blog, I like his analysis and arguments in each entry. After you read each entry it makes you think about each topic and he really gets to the point.
http://www.carlosvallejod34.blogspot.com/

The other one i liked is David Perez' blog, it seems to me that he really enjoys writing on it and i like the fact that he always gives his point of view. Also the video about Colombia is very interesting for all the foreign people that visit his blog. That is a good way to educate people about our country and to start changing our image around the world.
http://oneworlddifferentperceptions.blogspot.com

You should check them out!!