Imperialism+Jigsaw+Projects+3D

Group: Shawn Kim, Minhee Jo, Jeemin Han, Winston Lee



Storytelling:  Kajir was an ordinary boy living in a Middle-East region that is known today as Iran. His family consisted only of himself, his dad and his mom. Although they lived in poverty, they were relatively happy: the mother made tapestries, and his dad was a butcher. The earning was not much, but Kajir’s family had lived in poverty long enough to know how to cope with such problems.

Alex was an ordinary boy living in England. His lived in a proper Western housing, went to school to learn a great many things, and at home he learned about the Bible from his mother. He lived with his mother, father and a sister; only the father worked out of the four, but the income was quite enough. Alex’s family, however, was never satisfied with their income. Thus, Alex’s father decided to look for a new job.

The new job involved living in a Middle-East region as temporary missionaries, and spreading Christianity around for a short period of time. It paid quite well, so Alex’s father took the job immediately, and so the family left England.

It wasn’t long after the colonization of that area when Alex’s family arrived there. But for some reason Alex did not understand, the people in this country seemed to hate him and his family members.

Kajir’s family’s lifestyle changed completely after imperialist countries took over their territory. Some people came to their house every morning to preach them about the good deeds of God, and how God was not Allah, and other nonsense nobody in the right mind could believe. In exchange to teaching such nonsense, they demanded some tapestries from Kajir’s mother.

To Kajir, these whites seemed like very peculiar beings. They often discussed on how they should prevent other European countries from getting more Middle Eastern land and controlling a larger part of something called the market. After some time, Kajir started to think of these people as selfish creatures, willing to do practically anything to earn more money.

To Alex, on the other hand, the Middle Easterners were quite peculiar. They had a dirtier skin color, which his dad explained was because they were an inferior race. They did not have many of the commodities everyone seemed to possess back in England. His dad explained that this, also, was sign of the White’s racial superiority, and that it was the White man’s duty to spread the great culture and technology of Europe to these inferior countries.

As days went by, the relationship between the two groups of people worsened. The Middle Easterners were complaining about not being paid properly for all the goods they produces, while Europeans were arguing that they were making the country’s overall wealth rise by using the area as a trade center between Europe, Africa, and Asia.

That is why Kajir felt so much hate towards Alex, whom he came to know by mere chance. Kajir felt that Alex was unfairly taking what should have belonged to himself. Alex, on the other hand, learned to treat children like Kajir as if they were inferior beings, and one day ended up insulting Allah in front of a group of children, of which Kajir was part of.

The end of this story came quite abruptly, as Kajir threw a stone at Alex, hit his head and killed him, a fight broke out that just proved how much the two sides hated each other.

The consequence: the Middle East residents became even poorer than before, and to add to that, they became generally less happy. The Whites, on the other hand, profited from this great position in the trade route. Middle East was in between Europe, Africa and Asia, which made many goods from various countries flow into the region.