Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of Communism

As a result to previous Soviet leaders shouting for totalitarianism,Mikhail Gorbachev found that these social and economic reforms brought about new ideas and information. In 1985, he called this "glasnost", which means openness. An openness to new ideas and thoughts. He used this new term to encourage Soviet citizens to improve their civilization.

This simple term brought creative new changes into the society. Churches were opened. Dissidents were released from prison. Books were published by previously banned authors. Reporters were free to broadcast their opinions. It was as if the constitution freedom of speech was suddenly released and everyone was taking what they could get.

In 1985 again, Gorbachev brought in another term called "perestroika", which means economic restructuring. This gave local managers more power to take care of their farms and factories and people more freedom to open up their own shops to provide profit for themselves. Gorbachev's focus wasn't on exterminating communism but with this new process of economic restructuring, that exactly what started to slowly happened.

Collapse of Communism

Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the USSR because concern about nuclear annhilation was thought to have not been needed.

The people tore down the Berlin Wall because the oppurtunty to invade the Soviet Union without the military close by had arisen and the diplomats took it. They wanted to profit from the financial situatrions.

Many individual flags were put up to replace the Soviet red hammer-and-sickle flag as the newly formed countries declared sovereignity. Russia itself changed its flag back to the tricolored horizontal stripes. The economic took a direct hit from all of this conflict and chaos. Under the rule of communism, people were provided for as they worked. When capitalism came to Russia, the countries split up. This separation caused people to become more dependent on themselves than others.

Creation of Israel

Zionism is the establishment of a Jewish state which gave the belief that Jews have a national privilege on Palestine, and the State of Israel has a right to discriminate against non-Jews (or against Jews) in order to maintain the Jewish nature of Israel.

Since most Arabs had rejected the U.N. partition because they wanted to keep their land as their own this then led to the acceptance of the Jews. On May 14, 1948, Israel was declared as an independent state. President Truman alongside the Soviet Union seemed to have supported this declaration but not all seemed to take this new change so lightly.

The Palestinians found it humiliating that the Jews had just come and taken their land. They found it wrong how they had been forced out of their homes. The Palestinians showed their disapproval with a vengeance.

The day after their independence was declared, Israel was ambushed by the Arab states and Palestinians. After this brutal ambush came a major Middle Eastern war that existed between the Jews and the Palestinians. The Jews stood alone in their fight against the many for the Holy Land. Upon hearing the news of imperialism, others began to join forces against the Jews. There was Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Europe.

After the 1948 war, Israel had increased to about 8,000 square miles of Palestine which decreased the Arab lands that had been in the 1947 U.N. partition by about 50 percent. Jerusalem was divided, with Arabs on the east side of the Green Line and the Jews on the west.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid is a discrimination and individualization of people of different races.
The word "apartheid" was created in the late 1930s by the South African Bureau for Racial Affairs (SABRA). It was first put into action in 1948, when the Afrikaner National Party gained power under Prime Minister Malan.

After the apartheid was upheld international pressure for the changes of South Africa's racial policies grew, and in October 1989 President de Klerk permitted antiapartheid demonstrations. This was followed in 1990 by the abolition of the Separate Amenities Act, and a new constitution was also promised by the South African government.

In this same year came Nelson Mandela, who was a leading figure in the African National Congress (ANC) in 1964, was released from prison on Feb. 11, 1990 after 27 years and was later elected president. In 1991 the remaining major discriminating laws that supported apartheid were terminated, including the Population Registration Act of 1950.

In February 1993, Mandela and de Klerk agreed to form a government that embodied national unity, despite race or color. The elections were held in April 1994, with the ANC winning 62% of the vote and Mandela becoming president. After Mandelas' win, South Africa rejoined the Commonwealth in June 1994, and a committee was set up to start a new nonracial constitution. In 1995 a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was appointed to investigate human-rights abuses that had taken place during the time of the apartheid.