outsidein

• Silvio’s distractions

  July 3, 2009 @ 5:18 pm | by Bryan

  Italy is a special place for many different reasons. One that never ceases to amaze me is the Berlusconi government.

  I’m not a libertarian. I like rules. I think laws, provided they aren’t stupid, are wonderful things. Italy is well within her rights to keep non-Italians out. When the border patrols fail, as they invariably will, Italy also has the right to send illegal immigrants back to their own countries. But to fine illegal immigrants? And to legislate for vigilantism? Someone really needs to make a film about Berlusconi. It should be titled, ‘Because I can!’, or the Italian equivalent.

  I understand how the world works. A global recession has a way of making the people in power seem a lot less attractive than the opposition. People have a way of believing that things couldn’t get any worse, even when it’s clear that they could. If you’re a head of state who has been accused of paying attractive young women (of dubious public standing no less) to attend your parties, on top of a public row with your wife, you’re probably going to feel a little vulnerable. If, just to make matters worse, you crafted a law stating that the head of state (i.e. you) couldn’t be sent to jail, you probably want to remain as head of state, or at least have one of your friends in the job. And what better way to maintain support for yourself and your party than to come up with a completely irrelevant distraction?

  Italy has a lot of real problems. An influx of Roma and African ‘illegal’ immigrants, by comparison, isn’t that big a deal. This has happened before. Rather than dealing with law and order, it was recently decided that violence against women, especially in the form of rape, was the result of Roma gypsies. The solution was to throw them out of the country, despite their legal right to remain. Let’s say that happened. Let’s imagine, for a moment, that Italy was completely Roma free. Does anyone really think rape would cease to be a problem? Yet now that a literal ‘witch-hunt’ against illegal immigrants has been signed into law, the country’s problems will be swept away?

  For the umpteenth time,

  …Bibo’s central hypothesis was that when a community fails to deal with a problem that challenges, if not its existence, then at least its way of being and self-image, it may be tempted to adopt a peculiar defensive ploy. It will substitute a fictional problem, which can be mediated purely through words and symbols, for the real one which it finds insurmountable. In grappling with the former, the community can convince itself that it has successfully confronted the latter. It experiences a sense of relief and thus feels itself able to carry on as before. - Terray, E. 2004, Headscarf Hysteria, New Left Review, 26.

  Those fleeing poverty and hunger aren’t the barbarians at the gate. The real danger comes from our propensity to fall for the distraction, unable or unwilling to see things as they really are.

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• National Sovereignty Day

  June 30, 2009 @ 1:28 pm | by Bryan

  There was a lot of speculation at the time of the invasion of Iraq that oil was a significant motivating factor in that conflict. It’s ironic that on the day that security for urban Iraq was handed over to local forces, oil reserves were being auctioned off to foreign firms. Mission accomplished?

  The day has been declared a public holiday, ‘National Sovereignty Day’, no less. I’m not an economic nationalist. Well, not an extreme one anyway. But isn’t celebrating this day as a mark of sovereignty incredibly cynical? Yes, US troops have left the cities, but they’ve just moved into the countryside. Should violence flare up again, they’ll be back. Also, how do you define sovereignty? It has been reported that a sizeable proportion of Iraqis aren’t happy with the idea of their oil fields being sold to foreign firms. The auction is an admission of the country’s inability to extract and make adequate use of its own national resources. It hardly strikes me as a day to jump up and down for joy at the thought of your sovereignty.

  I would far rather be under the domination of Exxon Mobil than Saddam Hussein. And who knows, Exxon Mobil may leave enough crumbs for many Iraqis to benefit from their presence - although the fact that they are already haggling over prices is worrying. Still … the fact that there has been a significant improvement in the country’s security situation should be celebrated. Only, let’s not call it National Sovereignty Day. It’s quite clear that Iraq is anything but a sovereign state.

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• Democracy: in word and in deed

  June 29, 2009 @ 10:34 am | by Bryan

  A few days ago:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k6hPlnYFAs&rel=0

  Yesterday:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nstqPduuB3E&rel=0

  President Manuel Zelaya of Hondurus has been ousted. What fascinates me is the fact that the coup is being legitimised as a democracy saving act. In short, the perpetrators argue that Zelaya was a megalomaniac in the making. The army, judiciary and others simply took preemptive measures against a leader with dictatorial designs.

  I’m always amazed at how the language of ‘democracy’ is co-opted by various power groups, especially in the developing world. It’s seen as a legitimising ointment almost. If your actions can somehow be linked to the constitution, or free speech, or better still, the people’s rights, then they’re okay. So on one hand, the fact that Hugo Chavez has taken such a liking to his job that he wants the option to remain in it indefinitely is okay. It’s okay because people voted for the necessary constitutional changes in a referendum, and as we all know, ‘people’, ‘referendum’ and ‘vote’ are some of the most powerful words in the democracy lexicon. On the other hand, Zelaya had to go because he was going to fiddle with the constitution (another important democracy word). In reality all he did was ask people to vote on the prospect of a later referendum on constitutional change. The language of democracy can be used to cast the act of democracy in an undemocratic light.

  Which begs the question, is democracy, especially in regions of the world with comparably less experience with it, little more than a façade? Is it just a mask behind which power hides? In Hondurus at least, it seems that the old alliance between the military and the middle class got tired of the charade, and for a brief moment, removed the mask.

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• Picture of the week

  June 27, 2009 @ 8:24 am | by Bryan

  

  The late Michael Jackson at a press conference in London in March. Photography: Joel Ryan/AP Photo.

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• Alternatives

  June 26, 2009 @ 10:46 am | by Bryan

  Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa blamed capitalism for the global economic mess. No surprise there. Left leaning leaders of Latin American countries have a tendency to say that sort of thing. Capitalism is a problem. White guys with blue eyes created the recession. We’ve heard it all before.

  That said, Correa and some of his colleagues went a step further. According to Reuters,

  “Patching up the Bretton Woods system, which we do not control, makes no sense for (developing) countries,” Correa said in a speech on the second day of the conference.
  Reforming the IMF and World Bank “would be an insufficient stopgap solution,” he said, adding that “we are faced with a crisis unlike those (previously) provoked by capitalism.”
  If the Bretton Woods institutions cannot be abolished, he said, then they should be changed and given less authority over the world’s poor countries. More financial decision-making power, Correa said, should go to the United Nations instead.

  That’s more potent than your run of the mill ‘capitalism is bad’ statement. Yet even this rather more radical stance is not new. From about the 50s onwards, the developing world has been trying to fight the ‘establishment’ view on development, and the rules of global financial and economic governance. There have been a plethora of statements, pledges, plans and even alternative organisations set up to combat the influence of the Western dominated Bretton Woods institutions. But the outcome is always the same.

  Again, according to Reuters,

  The final proposals, watered down from an initial draft that was prepared by [UN General Assembly President and former Nicaragua foreign minister] D’Escoto and rejected by Western powers as too radical, include a call for reforming the IMF.
  But the only specific reform they call for is that the decision-making power of emerging market and developing states be increased in the next IMF quota review by early 2011.

  Sometimes I wonder why the likes of D’Escoto bother. At best, these measures get some lip service while nothing really changes. More often than not, they are just ignored and treated with contempt. Which begs the question, is it possible to offer a development paradigm that is antithetical to that of the IMF and World Bank? What more have it adopted and allowed to succeed?

  Are real alternatives, real departures to the status quo, possible? Or is the best that someone like D’Escoto can hope for a haggling session that ends with a statement of the intent to give up, at some undisclosed occasion in the future, a few crumbs?

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• Perspective

  June 25, 2009 @ 12:49 pm | by Bryan

  Unemployment stands at 10% and it has been suggested that it may rise to 16% by year end.

  Double digit unemployment is far from ideal. That said, I can’t help but wonder if there hasn’t been a loss of perspective here. Things aren’t great, but they could be so much worse. And if the OECD is to be believed, the global economy is starting to turn around which means that in the coming year or two, Ireland’s economic fortunes could turn.

  But let’s assume that OECD is wrong. Based on past performance, that’s not too much of a stretch. Let’s assume that the recessions lasts for another 5 years (that’s my attempt at creating a worst case scenario). Even then, aren’t things in Ireland a lot better than we like to think? Long-term unemployment can have serious personal and social consequences, but part of that is based on how society frames that state of unemployment. And in a place like Ireland, there is a definite safety net so the loss of your job does not equate to the loss of access to healthcare, education, housing or food. At the same time, a depressed economy is probably the easiest one to reform. Evidence for that can be seen in the calls for a referendum to reduce the earnings of judges.

  I’m not trying to trivialise the difficulties many of us are currently undergoing, but I think there’s a real need for the country to stop and breathe. The sky isn’t falling. Things aren’t as good economically as they might have been, but they could be a lot worse. Having lived in a place with 80% unemployment and an inflation figure that you couldn’t pin down because it grew so fast, I honestly think Ireland needs to follow Bill Clinton’s advice and just ‘chill out’.

  Rather than doing the Chicken Little thing, shouldn’t we be calmly discussing what kind of society we want to become and then work towards that? Instead, all of us - pundits, politicians, the electorate - are guilty to swinging from one sign of impeding doom to another in fits of hysteria.

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• Changing culture

  June 23, 2009 @ 11:15 am | by Bryan

  In an opinion piece titled Our calls for reform fail to blame our basic culture, Elaine Byrne writes:

  Prof Coakley spoke about the paradox of Irish political culture. Irish Independence signalled the overt rejection of British influence in Ireland, yet we accepted British models of government as our own.
  Are our institutions more appropriate to the egalitarian organisation typical of Protestantism, which gave them birth, and less suited to the hierarchical disposition of Catholicism, which inhabits them?

  I’ve often wondered about the same thing with respect to sub-Saharan African countries. For example, having rejected colonialism, nascent African states decided to reaffirm uti possidetis juris, the principle of international law stating that newly formed states should maintain their previous borders. The same artificial borders that were the result of a negotiated settlement in Europe at which some grumpy old men carved up the continent with a pencil and ruler. It didn’t end there. Former French colonies tend to have institutions that resemble those in France. British colonies likewise, down to strikingly similar ceremonies for the opening of parliament.

  At a talk he gave in Dublin towards the end of last year, Malcolm Gladwell suggested that there are times when culture needs to change to function in today’s systems. That evening he gave the example of South Korean pilots needing to learn to put behind their deferential culture at work in order to fly airplanes safely. In his book, Outliers, Gladwell also writes about the struggles poor inner-city children must go through to attend charter schools. His suggestion seems to be that rather than expecting reform of the education system, the culture of the poor must change if they are to have a hope of breaking the poverty cycle.

  On the surface, that seems reasonable, but is it? How reasonable or realistic is it to expect tectonic shifts in culture? Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to change our institutions so that they conform to their cultural context? Or would that require more imagination and courage than we are comfortable with?

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• Hilarious!

  June 22, 2009 @ 10:46 pm | by Bryan

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94&rel=0

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• Picture of the week

  June 20, 2009 @ 8:29 am | by Bryan

  

  Top: Supporters of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi light fires during protests in Tehran, Iran June 16. Photo: Getty Images.
  Bottom: Demonstrators attend a protest in support of defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi in Vienna June 16. Photo: Leonhard Foeger/REUTERS.

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• Understanding the Lisbon Treaty

  June 19, 2009 @ 11:33 am | by Bryan

  

  Taoiseach Brian Cowen arriving at the EU summit today. Reuters/Sebastien Pirlet.

  I knew the Lisbon Treaty was back on the agenda when the Minister for Overseas Development devoted at least half of a speech on Africa’s development, to Europe and the treaty’s importance in making Europe a force for development. There couldn’t have been more than fifty Irish people in the room.

  I’m surprised. The Taoiseach felt he needed legally binding guarantees on abortion, tax and defence before asking the country to vote on the Lisbon Treaty for a second time. His European counterparts evidently agreed and those guarantees will be enshrined in future treaties.

  I’m surprised because, with the recession, I would have thought that the country would be running into Europe’s arms. If the economy doesn’t improve in the foreseeable future, I imagine that the government would rather look to Europe for help than the IMF. And since it always helps to be on good terms with the people you might need to borrow money from, why is the Lisbon treaty still an issue?

  I get the independence and sovereignty argument. It resonates with me. But if you’re potentially economically dependent on an entity like the European Union, how politically independent can you be? Personally, I like power to be as decentralised as possible. That said, based on past help, and the potential for more of it in the future, Ireland owes Europe, doesn’t she?

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