These photos were taken on December 15, 2005 next to Broadmeadows Secondary College, a grade 7-12 school in the Melbourne, Australia suburb of Broadmeadows. Next door to the school was a polling place.
What strategies can you use to find out what the purpose of this poster is?
- What is this poster for?
- What language is this?
- Who do you think the person is in the smaller pictures under the main poster?
- Why is this poster hung up in this neighborhood?
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The news:
There was an Iraqi election being held on 15 December 2005. However people (Iraqi) who live outside their mother country, Iraq, were being banned from their voting rights, such as in Australia and Canada. As a result people went on demonstrations and strikes in order to protest for their voting rights on the election. The government ordered the army to stabilize the situation. However, due to miscommunications and failed consultation the situation eventually went worse and moreover, it went bloody. 740 Assyrians were being killed in the conflict. In order to protest about this incident, the Assyrians went to a demonstration and named, 740 The Assyrian Democratic Movement in order to mourn for the people who were being killed in the conflict. They also used posters, which are widely known as the ‘Poster War’, to let the world to know about the demonstration as well. Within the poster, it includes the Iraq flag, Assyrians or the Iraqi Christians, the number ‘740’ to mourn for the people who were being killed in the conflict and most importantly the man Yonadam Kanna who is the slate 740 campaign manager of North America. These posters are also being posted in abroad as well for example Australia and Canada, written in Assyrian as well.
The Sequential Paragraph:
Because I was being given only a little information, only two pictures and one sentence, briefly explains about the location of where the posters are posted and the incident that the poster is showing, it was really important for me to find more detailed information about the incident, in order to be able to reconstruct the original article. First of all, I was looking at the pictures given which show the posters of the incident. The first thing that came into my eyes was the three big red colored numbers ‘740’. It told me that this article and the incident must be about this number ‘740’. Later on through detailed observation, I found that there are two modern Iraq flags in the poster. So I guessed that the article and the incident must be something about or something happening in Iraq. Secondly, after I made my prediction, I went on to the internet to find more information about the article. At the beginning of my research, I was so straggling to find the correct and the accurate information about the article. Moreover since I didn’t know almost anything about the article, I wasn’t being given too many information about the article, therefore there would be a probability that although I found the correct information or the right article however I just ignored it. Because I didn’t know what is the correct article that I have to find. This might be the cause of why I took a really long time to find information about the article and the picture. Indeed, since I took really long time struggling to find information about the article, I was probably bored at the end or more accurately I wasn’t being really motivated anymore. These two are probably the two main factors that affected the efficiency of my work. However later on, through different combinations between words and phrases and information that I gained little by little through countless trials, I eventually reached to the right article and the right information. Eventually, last but not least, I was able to find the correct information about the article and the incident by the end of the class.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) was responsible for the “out- of- country voting” (OCV) program. Since Australia is one of the countries that signed this system, they allow foreigners to participate in the OCV program. These photos were taken in December 15, 2005 in Melbourne, Australia suburb of Broadmeadows. The picture was taken in Melbourne and the poster is Iraqi election poster for Iraqis who live in Melbourne. Even though they are living in Australia, they have the opportunity to vote. Because of the flag in the poster, it symbolizes Iraq. The language is written in Assyrian and they are Iraqi Christians. The man in the picture is Yonadam Kanna and he is the leader of the party. The number 740 is the name of their campaign and it refers to the ‘Assyrian Democratic Movement.’ In fact, 740 people have died in the conflicts during the movement.
Researching is the common way of gathering information. However, if we don’t have enough clues, it is hard to find relevant information. This time, our task was researching about the given pictures and writing the sequential paragraph for the procedures. When I first saw the pictures, I could not think of any ways to find out what those pictures are. Firstly I just tried to ‘google’ it but it did not work. Then I figured out the flag and I was looking for what the number 740 meant. Then I went to google and searched for “740 Iraq in Australia on December 15, 2005.” Finally, there were a lot of websites came out. So I was able to find out where the pictures originally came and some news articles. Next, I also found some official documents about the important events that happened in Iraq. After I understood the historical background of the conflict in Iraq, I could discover enough information for the pictures. Almost of all students, they tend to use google for researching engines but the most important thing is the ‘keywords’ that they put in. Once they get appropriate keywords, it is easy to find information. Therefore, searching with relevant keywords is very important.
The photos that we were researching were about the Iraqi National Election. The election was held on December 2005. The voters vote for a certain party from a list of parties. National Rafidain List is a Iraqi political coalition that has one party: the Assyrian Democratic Movement, which is lead by Yunadam Kanna. Assyrian Democratic movement was founded in 1979 and it has a purple eagle logo, which was shown in the photos. In the election of 2005, much of the voters were from other countries and most of them are Christian. That explained why the photos were posted in Australia. There were other voters in other countries as well. The leader Yunadam Kanna’s picture was also in the photos that we researched on. The party was named: 740 The Assyrian Democratic Movement because 740 people were killed in a conflict against the government. The language that shown in the photos was Assyrian.
This was not an easy researching task for me because I know little about this issue. I needed to find all the information from the Internet. The first thing that I did was find out the photos and look at the details of the photos. I picked up details that can be used as key word when I do the research, such as the flag, the person, the logo and the number 740. Next, I tried to search each one separately. However, I found it’s difficult to find the information I want because the one key word is too general and there are too much extra information. Then, I tried to search by using several key words putting together to limit results and that was quite successful. I found out the flag belongs to Iraq. After that, I accessed an official website that founded by the party that I was looking for. I got most of the information there but I still can’t figure the meaning of 740, which is shown in the middle of the photo. Finally, I got the information I want by rearranging my keywords. After that, I could answer all the questions about these photos. The task was successfully done.
The picture with number 740 is election poster in Australia. The photo only has a big size number 740 on the middle with many people holding the flags of Iraq. The picture is saying people in Australia can vote especially the Assyrian Iraqi Christians. This poster is for the 740 Assyrian Democratic movements and the number 740 means the number of people who died in the conflict. There are words in poster that not many people familiar with is Assyrian language. There is also a man in the poster who is named Yonadam Kana and he is the leader.
The photo we got only has a big size number 740 on the middle of the poster. I am not also familiar with those words from poster. Actually we got two pictures that are posted on the blog and that two pictures are same thing but one is glued on a telephone pole. We needed to find what it refers to using internet. When I began to search it was pretty hard because the information that I got was only the number 740 on the picture and states some words that I never seen before. I was confused. First I type 740 in google but I didn’t find any. Second I type in 740 and December 15, 2005 and Broadmeadows Secondary College Melbourne, Australia because that is saying in the blog and the many information came out. So I discovered it is about the Assyrian Democratic movement and elections. I think the keywords are the important to make research better.
The news:
On December 15, 2005, there was an Assyrian election in Iraq of voting for the new government, and this election also allowed the citizens of Iraq who live in Australia to vote. Yonadam Kanna, the leader of one side, who is also the person in the posters, tried to gain more advantages in this election by reminding the people the scarify of 740 Assyrians in a democratic movement. The word 740 in the posters refers to this event.
Sequentital Paragraph:
In order to find out the situation which the photos are showing, I have gone through many processes. First of all, I tried to look for some clues in those photos which could help me understand more about the situation, and the most useful clue I found is the flag showed in the pictures. At first, I had no idea what country does the flag represent, but I assumed that it is a mid-East by looking at the people’s dresses. Fortunately, my guess is right; the flag in the picture is almost the same as the flag of Iraq. After I knew the country where this event took place, I tried to find another clue which is helpful for me, and the clue I found is the number “740″. In order to find out the meaning of 740, I used this number and the word “Iraq” as keywords on the Google to try to search for the websites which can give me an answer. However, there were many irrelevant websites that blocked my way of finding the true answer, so I tried many different combinations of keywords to narrow the results. Finally, I obtained the information which I needed and I fully understood about the event in those photos.
The picture is taken when the Iraqi oversea election was held in Australia in December 15, 20005. The poster is showing one of the parties, called Assyrian Liberation Party (GFA), that is leaded by Yonadam Kanna. They are mostly the Christians in Iraq and the language that they use is Assyrian. The poster is saying 740 because 740 people of Assyrians who passed away in The Assyrian Democratic Movement.
The most common and basic way to research is researching in internet. It would difficult to search if we do not have several clues or relevant information. The task was to search about the picture. Since the picture was a poster, and had a short paragraph about the event, it was easier to look for the information. However, the poster was in Assyrian that makes somehow hard to find. The first step that I took to find the data was searching the articles by the most important name in the paragraph that the picture had. It was too common that the internet gathered irrelevant informations. Therefore, I added the date of the event and the place that the event took. Then, the websites that I looked for were gathered narrower, and I could reach the specifical information about the poster.
There are two pictures posted on the blog, and one of them shows that a poster is hung up in the neighborhood. Another picture shows the image of the poster. In the poster, there are people under the number 740. The number 740 is emphasized. There is a symbol above the number, and beside the number, unknown language is written. The color of flags that people are holding is purple. According to the information I have found, this picture is about election in Iraq. The flag and the symbol that are shown on the poster are therefore Iraq’s. The people on the poster are Assyrians, the Iraqi Christians. Therefore, the language that is used on the poster is Assyrian. Also, the person in the smaller pictures under the main poster is Yonadam Kanna, who is the candidate of the election. Moreover, the number 740 refers to the name of the campaign. The number 740 also means the number of people who died in the conflict in Iraq. The situation is occurred in Australia. According to the information, Iraqi living in Australia can also attend election like Iraqi living in Iraq. Now, I’m going to write how I found this information.
First, when I looked at the picture, I observed some images closely in order to find some keywords. Selecting keywords is important because it will be helpful to find the information about the picture. For example, the symbol, language and words that are posted on the poster are important keywords that are helpful for researching. After typing keywords on the search engine, I looked over some articles that are related to the keywords. After finding some relevant articles by looking at the title of the articles, I chose some articles that are most related to the posters. Then I summarized common information from the articles, and match them to the poster. The difficulty that I have been through is distinguishing irrelevant information. However, using appropriate keywords, it was easier to find the good information.
On December 15, 2005, Iraqi election was held and government said Iraqis who lived outside of Iraq were banned to vote. So, Iraqis who lived in outside of Iraq protested to obtain the authority to vote from outside of their country. For this event, government used force to stop the protest. However, due to miscommunications, situation got worse. In this protest, there is a number 740. It represents 740 Assyrians who were killed during the conflict. This poster was made to show remembrances for Assyrians who were being killed.
Before researching about the title of the picture, I should look at the things carefully in order to find some clues to find the title of the picture. In this case, Mr.Marshall gave some vital information about the picture. By using that information that he gave us, I can copy all the information or copy some of information about into the search bar. Then, some of websites will be found that would contain the information about the picture. Among those websites, there will be some sites that will give the language about the picture. However, it will be hard to find the most suitable site. So, as I learned last time, I used web tools from google in order to find the country’s national website to get accurate information. If you type the similar information and additional information that were found by using the web tools from google, it will give you the correct web site that has all the information that I need.
Although these photos were taken in Australia, it is advertising the election in Iraq, which promotes Yonadam Kanna, an Assyrian Iraqi politician. Because Iraqis had to move outside their country in order to earn their safety, many people were not given the right to vote for their leader. Thus, hundreds and thousands people started to demonstrate and protest against this law. As a result of this conflict, between the people and the government, 740 Assyrians were killed. This number, as you can see, has now been used as a slogan. These photos can be seen in other countries as well.
Since we were only given a limited amount of information, two photos and a brief description of them, I first had to analyze the picture. What caught my attention, at first, was the flag. Containing red, white, black and few stars; I was able to guess the right country, Iraq. However, that was the only thing I was able to get from the two photographs, since the information on the photo were all in Syrian (which I didn’t even know). After I made the assumption of that it has something to do with Iraq, I did some research using the internet. From the limited information given, we were told that the photo was taken in Australia. Thus, I was finally able to come up with keywords that allowed me to find descriptive articles about the photos on google, or yahoo. And from the results, I found out what the poster meant, which is explained above.
Information Paragraph:
Two pictures are posted on the blog. Two of them are showing similar pictures. One is showing a telegraph pole which has a big poster on. The other picture shows the details of the poster. It has a purple crest in the middle of the poster. Under the crest, there is a number 740. On both sides, something is written in another language. At the lower part of the poster, there are many people who are holding many kinds of flags. Most are purple, some are white and the others are Iraq’s flag. Right after I saw the pictures, I thought it is about the Middle East and it was confirmed by the researches that I did. I found out the poster is about election in Iraq on December 15, 2005. The words on the poster were written in Assyrian. The number 740 not only refers to the campaign’s name but also the number of people who died protesting against the government for the right to vote in Iraq. The main issue was that the government didn’t allow Iraqis who don’t live in their own country to vote. That explains why the poster was posted in Australia. Under the poster, the person in the smaller pictures is Yonadam Kanna, who is the candidate.
Sequential Paragraph:
To find the information of the pictures, I have done many processes. First, I copied the instruction. Then, I googled it. What I got was the same activity posted on another website and I also found our blog. It didn’t work well so I started to find key words in the pictures. I typed what I could understand which was 740. It was not really useful. I focused on the words such as 740, Iraq, election and the date. Eventually, I got the website which has the same crest that the poster has. There was limited information about the poster. Finally, however, I found the article that was talking about the 740 Assyrians who were killed in a democratic movement. So I read few articles about the incident and I got the information regarding the pictures.