France Blog Reflection

Since the beginning of the semester our group has focused on the terror attacks in France by the group ISIS. These have taken place with increased frequency over the past few years and sadly have been some of the deadliest in recent history. In the first blog post our group decided to cover a basic overview about the history of ISIS as a terrorist group. This included its formation in Iraq and Syria and its raising growth and popularity over the years. We also explained some of the reasons for ISIS attacks and why France in particularly is targeted as opposed to other European countries or even the US. The second blog post was more about the reasons for strained relations between France and the Middle East. This included France’s colonial development and the assimilation process which France was a big supporter of during that period, as well as the justifications that groups like ISIS use when carrying out terrorist attacks. Finally the last blog post was about the repercussions and aftereffects that are being seen in France’s society as well as attitude towards the Middle East in general. These included the policies of secularism being pointed more towards the Muslim faith, people of Middle Eastern decent and immigration policies. These were discussed in conjunction with the rising tensions and Islamaphobia that is spreading widely across the West. 

The research that went into the group was done mainly through the internet and the resources of the library on campus. The way in which research was done was that each post the group would be split individually, unless a large topic was being discussed. Each of us would then research the topic thoroughly and make notes on important dates or anything we though would be found interesting. After a couple of days we would then meet as a group and discuss what we had found. We then would write it together by combining notes and then switch papers and decide if something should be edited and consult the group. In my opinion this was a good system and it seemed to work for us whenever we needed to get things done. It was good to do these in groups as well as it enabled us to get a variety of sources from across the internet and also provide several of our opinions into one post. 

Finally the amount of information that I learned about the terrorists attacks was immense. On the surface these just seemed to be random acts of violence between one ideology against another however, when looking deeper there was a large amount of details about how and why these attacks occurred. It was also very good to learn about events that are taking place on another continent and explore more into what the local impact is having rather then just focusing on the United States. To me while working as a group was advantageous most of the time it was also difficult to organize when everybody was free to be together due to scheduling differences. There was also the issue of not always knowing what others were doing or ways in which they thought but overall these were more or less solved by the end.