soften a bit until we all just get along

today was the last day of i-week (international week for those who don't attend mason), well at least the last day that i'll attend. theres still tomorrow and saturday night. but anyways, while this week had some fun moments, it was nothing compared to other i-weeks. and you know why?? because countries just don't know how to play nice. last year, east turkestan was represented for the first time. the chinese didnt like this and boycotted the week. no one knew this until after the fact when the chinese embassy started to attack mason.

so this year comes along and mason decides that any country not recognized by the UN will not get to be represented. so of course countries like palestine, kurdestan, east turkestan, etc all started petitioning. after a lot of commotioning, they got the university to change its rules. instead of having a parade of nations, they would have a majorly less cool parade of cultures. instead of hanging all the flags in the jc, they'd hang a randomly selected group and hang the rest at mason hall. stuff like that.

unfortunately, a lot of the countries got screwed over. while the i-week leaders assured everyone nothing was based on politics, it was pretty clear this was not the case. some countries were blatantly favored over others. in the randomly selected flags, not one unrecognized state was represented. and india was represented twice. the ones that were supposedly hung in mason hall... yeah hey were never put up. in the dance competition, most people thought pakistan should win first. they were awesome. but shockingly, the judges (two of which were indian) didnt think they deserved to place at all. the kurdestan student organization was harassed by a turkish student who didnt think they had a right to be proud of their culture because the UN didnt recognize their country. things like this happened throughout the events of the week.

our generation prides itself on how open minded and progressive we are. and yet, on an extremely diverse college campus, we couldn't even let each culture express itself the way it wanted to. we were broadcasting cultures this year, not countries, and even that was too much. i dont even get why the country thing is a problem. is anyone attacking your country?? no. so let them have their own country if they want to. it's not hurting you.

*Over My Head - The Fray