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History in the making
Yesterday was historic. A major American political party officially chose a black person to be their presidential candidate.
The full significance of the event hit me when I saw black delegates crying, and a pundit remind us that some of them had not had the right to vote earlier in their lives. Whatever you think of Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, or American politics in general, you would need to have a heart of stone to be unmoved by America’s racial progress.
Barack Obama is a gifted politician. It is gratifying to note that the colour of his skin has not prevented him from getting this far. I wonder then, if, or why, Europe is different. I am sure there are gifted black politicians in Britain, but I doubt that the British would be able to look beyond race to the same degree as the Americans. And it makes you wonder how many ethnic minorities are not being given the opportunity to fulfil their potential in all manner of industries and occupations.
I wonder what effect people like Barack Obama have. I wonder if people will look at him, then look at a refugee in Ireland from the Congo or Iraq and think to themselves, this person or their children could play a huge role in this country if given a chance. Or, do people look at a Barack Obama and see in him a county Offaly man who is as different to the Congolese or Iraqi refugee as any other Offaly man?
There is an episode of The Boondocks, an American animated TV series, in which Martin Luther King comes back. I wonder what Dr King would say about today’s America and his dream. I wonder what sort of speech he would give in Europe.
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Thursday Book Club: Fishing in Utopia (Chpts 21-24)
Open thread… any thoughts on this week’s section?
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Europe and religion
On Sunday, Cardinal Seán Brady gave an address at the Humbert Summer School in Co Mayo, during which he touched on the EU’s attitude towards Christianity. The point he made, if my understanding is correct, is that Europe has been so committed to secularism that it has at times turned its back on its Christian history, values and commitments. He also said:
Without respect for its Christian memory and soul, I believe it is possible to anticipate continuing difficulties for the European project. These will emerge not only in economic terms but in terms of social cohesion and the continued growth of a dangerous individualism that does not care about God or about what the future might have in store.
It is interesting to note that some Muslim religious leaders in Turkey have been saying the same thing for some time. Turkey’s institutions, especially the judiciary and army, are strongly committed to maintaining a secular country. In attempting to steer clear of the example of Islamic states like Iran, the Turks have at times encroached on people’s religious rights.
Europe’s relationship with religion, as opposed to that in America, Africa or Asia for that matter, is very interesting. It sometimes feels as though the memory of the abuse of power by religious leaders has led to a suspicion of religion itself. Or, could it be that religious freedom and diversity have been so thoroughly welcomed that there are many religions to choose from and an overwhelmed Europe has chosen to choose none? Maybe secularism suits today’s Europe far better than either Christianity, Islam, or anything else that can’t be verified by science.
It will be interesting to see if in time, Europe becomes more like Turkey where religion is concerned, or if Turkey goes the way of Europe.
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Michelle Obama’s Speech
Ronald Reagan famously said: Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close. That was in 1966. Forty something years later, America politics is show business.
Yesterday marked the beginning of the Democratic Party’s convention in Denver. The whole event resembles reality TV much more than a serious presidential election campaign. Fox TV and the producers of American Idol could learn a thing or two from the Democrats. They have done an amazing job at creating drama, excitement and an altogether entertaining experience.
And into that mix stepped Michelle Obama with the main speech last night. I really like Michelle Obama. Although my observations have been from a great distance, I think she is an incredibly intelligent, attractive and warm person. I think she is also a very ‘real’ person. That is why I was so disappointed by her speech.
The speech was very well received, but that may be part of the problem. While I don’t doubt her sincerity, I resent the fact that she had to take on a certain persona and present herself and her family in a certain way. I resent the fact that if Michelle Obama is herself, she risks being perceived as an ‘angry black woman’ and the Obamas as a ‘typical black family’, lumped with all the negative connotations that come with those stereotypes. Because people will only elect leaders who fit a certain mould, it is the side that puts on the best show that wins, not the ones with the best ideas.
It’s not just the Democrats, the Republicans are no different. Both parties realise that the politics are a lot like American Idol – it’s the best performer, not singer, who get the most votes and wins.
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Series on China’s relationship with Africa
Foreign Affairs correspondent, Mary Fitzgerald, has an interesting series on the relationship between China and Africa in The Irish Times that started on Saturday and will run through to Thursday. The first two parts of the series have made for a very interesting read and I’m looking forward to the rest of the articles in the series.
I have found the wider debate around China’s interest in Africa interesting. I would love to know what people think about it and specifically, about the issues raised in these articles. I’ll share my own thoughts on the subject after the series has run its course.
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Looking back on Beijing 2008
Participants perform on a drum suspended in the air during the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 24. Photo: Phil Noble/REUTERS
One of the things that stick out about my childhood is Christmas. It was usually a happy time, but my siblings and I never quite got the presents on the top of our Christmas lists. My father’s rationale for this was simple: after Christmas comes January…would you rather have fancy presents or be able to go to school wearing decent uniforms and eat decent food?
I was really impressed by what China was able to pull off with respect to the Olympics. If the aim was to show the world that a new super-power has emerged, the Chinese succeeded. For a couple of weeks, most of us were in awe of them, and they even managed to end the games at the top of the medals table. An added bonus was that the world could pretend to ignore the rising tensions between Russia and NATO and focus on happier things, like Usain Bolt’s dance moves.
But was it all worth it? Was this a case of China blowing too much money on Christmas presents rather than focusing on the realities that will come into focus when the world’s attention moves on to the next thing? Or can China afford to spend as much as she likes on her image? Other than a temporary bout of admiration, what has China really got out of the whole thing? Will people forget about the pre-Olympics condemnation of China’s human rights record, or was the last two weeks just a time-out?
It will be interesting to see if it is possible for a country to buy and dazzle its way to a good reputation. It will be equally interesting to see if, having experienced how it feels to be embraced by the ‘international community’, China bends over backwards to stay in the ‘in crowd’.
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Picture of the week
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt celebrates as he wins the 200-metre final in a world-record 19.30 seconds in the Bird’s Nest yesterday. “Aye, I’ve been saying all season, to everybody, that the 200 means a lot more to me than the 100 metres. I’ve been dreaming of this since I was like, yah-high? The 200 has been my love since I was 15.” - (Photograph: Thomas Kienzle/AP) -
iPhone
I’m a little surprised. A lady in America is taking legal action against Apple because she feels her iPhone is not as great as some of the advertising suggests. The specific complaints centre on data transfer and dropped calls.
I know I missed the first wave, but I put my name on a waiting list for my own iPhone a couple of days ago. Granted, I’m partial to all things Apple, but after watching a friend use his, I couldn’t resist the urge to get my own. Not only is it beautiful, it also seems really functional.
Is the buzz around the iPhone just hype, or is the United States just a highly litigious place?
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Poverty in Ireland
Photograph: Fran VealeIn a really good article in today’s Irish Times, Carl O’Brien looks at poverty in Ireland. That more than 6% of the country lives in ‘consistent poverty’ surprises me.
And here’s why: not too long ago, if I’m not mistaken, most Irish people were relatively poor. So the memory of poverty should be very real for much of the country. Although this may be idealistic, even naive, I would have thought that there would be an overwhelming level of sympathy for those who have not benefitted from the good times. My expectation would be that people would not allow 5,000 people to live without a home, 43,000 households to be on local authority housing lists and 36,000 children to live in families on social housing waiting lists.
In his biography, Andrew Brown chronicles the transition of Sweden from a relatively poor, socialist country into a wealthy contemporary European state. Describing the attitude towards those who got left behind during the transition, he writes that people felt a rather superstitious contempt, as if their bad luck might rub off on everyone else.
I wonder if that is what has happened here. Do people feel that the poor have only themselves to blame for their plight?
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Thursday Book Club: Fishing in Utopia (Chpts 17-20)
I love this book. It is beautifully written, and it provokes all sorts of emotions and thoughts. It is also incredibly personal, which is why I sometimes feel as though I’m intruding when I try and make sense of it at anything other than face value.
If I had to distil this week’s section into a single word, it would be ‘inevitability’. In Chapter 17, The World Intrudes, the author writes:
…the retired couple to whom we spoke had the mixture of gratitude and pride that characterized their generation.
The young woman showing journalists around belonged to the future of credit cards and insatiable hunger. Neither gratitude nor satisfied pride seemed emotions that came naturally to her or her peers.In Chapter 20, Andrew Brown goes on to write:
Soon the daughter whom I had carried on my shoulders round a lake one perfect sunlit day would be grown up. Soon after that, in the way of middle-aged journalists, I would be sacked from something for the very last time. I understood my own life suddenly as that of a hooked fish, pulling with all my strength against a painful and bewildering destiny.I wonder if, given the option, Brown would turn back time. Say he had a magic wand, I wonder if he would take Sweden back a generation, bring Olof Palme back to life, and go back to his youth. He does throw back the fish he catches which he doesn’t intend to eat after all. Does the sadness that sometimes flows from this book come from the fact that there is no magic wand? Or am I just getting carried away?
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Africa’s greatest asset
WE WISH to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us . . . our vices and our degradation are ever arrayed against us, but our virtues are passed unnoticed.
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Seperate but equal
Fine Gael Education Spokesperson, Brian Hayes, has called for the separation of immigrant children whose English is poor from mainstream classes. The idea is that they will then be reintroduced to the regular classes when their English improves.
I am a little surprised. Mr. Hayes called for the hijab to be banned in schools earlier this year on the grounds that “There is enough segregation in Ireland without adding this to it. Segregating in this way is not helpful to Muslims and not helpful to anybody.”
Some people have been unhappy with Hayes’ proposal being labelled as ‘segregation’. But at the end of the day, that is what it is. Bear in mind that the idea behind the segregation of American schools was ‘separate but equal’. I’m struggling to see how the TD sees the wearing of headgear by some as segregation, but not the removal of some students from regular classrooms. Is it just me or are those positions inconsistent?
What do teachers think of this proposal? The largest teachers’ trade union, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), has described it as ‘discriminatory, inequitable and deeply flawed’. The high school union, the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) supports the idea of separate ‘immersion classes’ in the first few weeks of school that would concentrate on English language skills. I would have thought that real immersion would involve putting those students whose English isn’t good in an overwhelmingly English speaking environment.
Karl Kitching has written a really good opinion piece on this issue. What must be taken into consideration, beyond questions of ethics, are the social repercussions of separating immigrant students. Most people feel that the formation of immigrant ghettos is a recipe for social disaster. Do we really want to start cultivating those problems in school children?
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Goodbye Musharraf
After Lord knows how long, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has decided to call it a day. Finally.
The former general has been very unpopular in his country for months now. The only reason his dubious attempts to hang on were barely condemned internationally is that he played a large role in the US ‘war on terror’. Be that as it may, Pakistanis have had their way. This is in no small part thanks to the efforts of people like the late Benazir Bhutto.
I think Pakistan serves as a good model for countries with flawed democracies, or no democracy at all for that matter. Whether or not the international community gets involved, sustained pressure can bring about change.
Who knows, there may be an old President in Southern Africa who decides to follow his Pakistani counterpart’s lead. If not, his people should definitely follow that of Pakistan’s civil society.
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Charlie and the Good Samaritans
My car decided to breakdown on the M4 on Saturday. To make matters worse, because of bad weather, part of the road was flooded and there was a traffic jam of note. Because of all the traffic, it would have taken a recovery vehicle forever to get to us. But as my wife and I pushed the car onto the hard shoulder, I resigned myself to the wait.
Then along came Charlie, a complete stranger in a van. He offered to tow me to the nearest garage, and before I knew what was going on, had tied my car to the back of his van. The rope snapped about 30minutes later, but by that stage, I felt I would be okay and would be able to get the car going again. Before I could thank Charlie and his family properly or even get their last name, they were off. After they left, I worked on getting the car started again. As I was doing that, at least 2 cars offered to help. And that was during a 10 minute period. I eventually got sorted and drove back to Galway without any other serious issues.
I was really impressed by how generous and helpful people were. We often talk about what’s wrong with society, but seldom discuss the positive. I think the fact that people stuck in traffic on a miserable day were willing to help out a total stranger is amazing. I was definitely blown away by the number of considerate people out there.
To Charlie and the other Good Samaritans on the M4 that day, thank you so much. God bless you for your kindness to a stranger.
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Pictures of the week
Top: Children play in a street decorated with Chinese flags for the Olympic Games in a traditional resident’s area in Beijing, China, August 11. Photo: Nir Elias/REUTERS
Bottom: Opera star Yang Liu gets ready backstage at the Peking Opera at the Regal Palace theater August 11, in Beijing, China, Special performances during the Olympics are taking place showing off Beijing’s finest historical and cultural shows. Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
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The hijab in schools
A decision has been made concerning the wearing of the hijab in schools. Minister of State for Integration, Conor Lenihan, has decided that the government will not issue a directive on the subject. Having sought the advice of thousands of school principals, the minister found that “The overwhelming evidence is that it [the hijab] is not an issue in schools.” Schools will get to decide for themselves.
My first reaction is that common sense has prevailed. But I still have two reservations. The first one has to do with the fall-out of this decision. What happens if a school decides that it will not permit students to wear the headscarf? Won’t that school be open to charges of discrimination? At some point, the government or courts may be forced to make a firmer decision.
On the other hand, I agree that a headscarf is a non-issue. Which leads me to my second reservation. Are the underlying concerns surrounding this debate being investigated and addressed? Both Fine Gael and the Labour Party wanted to have the hijab banned from schools in order to promote ‘integration’ over ‘multiculturalism’. It would be a shame if this opportunity, to thrash out what those terms actually mean and how best to go about achieve the desired end, was lost.
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Challenging conventional wisdom
There is a really good article in this week’s edition of The Economist headlined Speaking truth to Power. Here is an excerpt:
GEORGE KENNAN, the dean of American diplomats, called “The Gulag Archipelago”, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s account of Stalin’s terror, “the most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be levied in modern times”. By bearing witness, Solzhenitsyn certainly did as much as any artist could to bring down the Soviet system, a monstrosity that crushed millions of lives. His courage earned him imprisonment and exile. But his death on August 3rd prompts a question. Who today speaks truth to power—not only in authoritarian or semi-free countries such as Russia and China but in the West as well?
(Click here for full article)I have been surprised by the degree of conformity in public discourse in this country, and I’m sure in other Western societies. On one hand, I realise that people here enjoy tremendous freedoms so there is not same kind of need for people like Solzhenitsyn. Having said that, the West is no utopia either. And while the singular pursuit of wealth is nowhere near as bad as conditions in the Soviet Union, it too poses serious difficulties. And yet, there is little real disagreement or dissent.
I sometimes feel as though economists somewhere decide what is conventional wisdom. Other academics then agree, the media disseminates those views, and rational people are expected to conform. And the reason we don’t have gulags here is that we don’t need them. Social exclusion and derision are far more effective.
Did you notice the worry about the maths results of this year’s Leaving Certificate students? It’s a pity that there hasn’t been anything close to the same concern about whether those same students have been thought to think, and question.
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Thursday Book Club: Fishing in Utopia (Chpts 13-16)
This may come off as being a bit morbid, but the themes that come across strongest for me in this reading are death and transition.
First, there is the death, or end, of the author’s search for something different. Having rejected a ‘normal’ life to thus far, he then goes on to trade in his for a more mainstream one. He writes:
“…ambition was an essential part of my unhappiness. If I could function at all as a grown-up, I wanted to be one at whom the whole world marvelled. And London, in turn, seemed marvellous to me, stimulating and sating a thousand appetites.”
Ironically, the same thing later happens to Sweden.There are other transitions and scenes of death. There is the death of a marriage; the demise of political innocence with the treatment of Honeyford; Keith dies; and the biggest shock of all is the death of Olof Palme. Of Palme’s funeral, Brown writes:
“I thought then that I was not weeping for Olof Palme; that perhaps no one in the crowd was doing that. We wept for each other and for all the futures that would never be; all the past that could not have been real, for if it had been, this could not have happened. The country we had lived in was cracked open like a roofless house in winter.”But most heartbreaking for me are the words that close chapter 15:
“…by the end of that decade the country no longer seemed safe, prosperous or tolerant and even if at its core it still was those things, the progress towards ever-greater safety, prosperity, and tolerance had come to be a pious affirmation, not a historical fact.”I fell strangely in love with Brown’s Sweden. I am genuinely sad that she died.
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The Dark Knight
This is a totally random post. But, why not?
I finally watched The Dark Knight yesterday. Don’t ask why it took so long, I don’t have a good explanation. All I have to say about the film is that it really is that good.
It really is.
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Food and the Future
I’m not a huge fan of the British monarchy. It’s nothing personal. I think it has to do with the fact that I see them as representing the old British Empire and the idea that one kind of person can be better than another kind of person. One of the reasons I admire Ireland is that this country had the sense to stay out of the Commonwealth.
So it came as a huge surprise when I found myself agreeing with Prince Charles wholeheartedly. He gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he stated his disgust at genetically modified crops and the idea that GMOs are the way out of a food crisis. A recorded segment of that interview shows that the monarch-in-waiting can be a very passionate man.
Prince Charles’ argument is that what is important is food security rather than just food production, which can be very short sighted. He quotes India’s Green Revolution which worked initially, but eventually caused more harm than good, further impoverishing small scale farmers. In his eyes, the way to go is to promote biodiversity and small farms tended by families as opposed to the current corporation dominated food industry.
One of the books I’m reading at the moment is Stuffed and Starved by Raj Patel. It is a fascinating and moving look into the food industry. The author makes a lot of the same points as Prince Charles’. If these two men are right, and I think they are, I really hope people start paying attention sooner rather than later.
Incidentally, I think Trevor Sargent has similar feelings and has been working towards possible solutions as Minister of State for Food and Horticulture. It is interesting to note that farming in Ireland hasn’t been taken over by big business.
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University Fees
Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes claimed that the reintroduction of college fees by Fianna Fáil would be the most socially retrograde policy measure in a generation. Labour’s Ruairí Quinn called the proposal short-sighted and short-termist. Photograph: Cyril ByrneUniversity fees are being discussed. The big question is whether or not undergraduate students should have to pay for their education.
My alma mater is the University of Zimbabwe. We had to pay nominal fees as undergraduate students, but were also given a government grant that was at least twice the fees. But even with those grants, students from poor families really struggled. Apart from tuition and books, going to university meant forgoing a potential wage and having to come up with money for living expenses. The government grant just didn’t cut it.
On the other hand, the government subsidies were unsustainable. The country couldn’t afford to invest enough money to both maintain and upgrade the University. As a result, there was never a sense that things were getting better, or even staying the same.
I understand the argument that if Irish universities are to compete with the very best in the world, they need more funding than the government can provide. But I also understand why there is such an outcry at the idea of introducing fees. It could potentially increase the divide between the rich and everyone else. Even if some people were to be exempt from paying the fees, it would be very difficult to get the balance right.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen did say that there were going to be difficult choices to be made. He was right.
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South Ossetia
South Ossetians stay in a school shelter in the South Ossetian capital of Tshinvali, August 10. Russian troops took most of the capital of the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia on Sunday after a three-day battle. Photo; Denis Sinyakov/REUTERSThe best description I have heard for what happened in South Ossetia was that Russia and Georgia decided to play chicken and it got out of hand. So while the rest of the world was enjoying the Olympics opening ceremony, South Ossetia was being pummelled.
Why? Who knows? A lot of South Ossetians have Russian citizenship, and according to the Kremlin, theirs is a humanitarian mission. They say that they are trying to prevent ethnic cleansing. The Georgians feel that this episode is an act of naked Russian aggression that has come about because Georgia wants to join the EU and NATO. And the truth is probably made up of bits of both explanations.
Personally, I can’t help but wonder if this is related to China. With all the excitement about what China has achieved and the influence she now yields, I wonder if the Kremlin decided to remind us all that they’re still there.
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Picture of the week
Widow of writer and former Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natalia, pays her respects at the coffin of her late husband in the Academy of Science in Moscow August 5. Photo: Sergei Karpukhin/REUTERS
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China’s Debut
Prime Time did a really good show last night on the Beijing Olympics. It was a very balanced look at the implications of having the Olympics in China, and what the games mean for ordinary Chinese people and for the rest of the world.
At the end of the day, I still don’t know what to think. While the level of hypocrisy demonstrated by global leaders is sickening, it’s difficult to begrudge the Chinese of their moment. I have often argued that Africa is far from ‘fixed’, but moving in the right direction. Many Chinese would say the same about their country.
When all is said and done, China has officially made her debut today. And her debs is really impressive so far. There will be some distractions, like Russia chosing this day to send troops into Georgia and activists campaigning. But overall, the Chinese will be able to show off their economic and political miracle.
Let’s hope a social one isn’t too far away.
Fireworks explode over the National Stadium during the Opening Ceremony for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium on August 8 in Beijing, China. Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images
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Pluralism
I grew up in a plural society. I went to school with Christians, Muslims, a Jewish guy and a couple of Hindus. Most of my friends were, like me, black. But I also had brown and white friends. By the age of 12 I had either gone to a birthday party or had a meal in the home of at least one member of each of those groups of people.
As a hungry university student, I often invited myself to different peoples’ homes for meals. My favourites were the homes of a Tanzanian family, a Sri Lankan friend and an Indian classmate. Multiculturalism was never questioned. It was all around us and was generally viewed as a positive thing. I certainly learnt a lot and enjoyed the love and friendship of my diverse group of friends. And for some reason, I assumed that the rest of the world was the same.
From the time this blog began, there have been people who have expressed their unhappiness with Ireland’s growing pluralism. Some people have also expressed frustration with what they see as a tendency to paint anyone who questions multiculturalism as a racist. Until now, I have tended to brush these complaints aside. Part of the reason is that I see further immigration and mixing of cultures as an inevitable end. That is one of the prices a country pays for, and maintains its prosperity. The only real question as far as I can see is how that process is managed. I also dismissed those weary of new-comers because some of them gave silly, outrageous or even sometimes, outright racist objections to a plural Ireland.
That said, I think people who genuinely feel that there has been too much of an influx of different people into Ireland should be able to make their case. It is, after all, their country. You have the floor.
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Thursday Book Club: Fishing in Utopia (Chpts 9-12)
I’m going to try something different today. Any thoughts on chapters 9 to 12?
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Jacob Zuma
Jacob Zuma, leader of South Africa’s ruling ANC, sings for his supporters at the Pietermaritzburg High Court outside Durban August 5. Photo: Rogan Ward/REUTERSI love Jacob Zuma. Seriously. He is one of those people I wish I was related to. I would love to have him for an uncle. Uncle JZ. He is funny, word has it the man is great company, and he is obviously really smart.
Some people will argue to the death that Zuma is not an intelligent man, but that’s just silly. You do not rise to the head of the African National Congress (ANC, South Africa’s ruling party) without smarts. He may have said some stupid things in the past, most notably the ‘shower’ comment, but he’s a smart man.
I really do like Jacob Zuma. And, I really do wish the man were my uncle. But for South Africa’s sake, I hope he does not end up being president. A man shrouded in corruption allegations, whether or not they are part of some larger conspiracy, should not hold high office. To cap it off, although he was ultimately acquitted, the revelations surrounding his alleged rape of a family friend were unsavoury.
I hope Mr Zuma surprises us all and decides that he doesn’t want to be president after all. That may be the biggest contribution he could make to his country. But I’m not holding my breath.
He really would make a great uncle.
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Health System
The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, announced a cervical vaccine programme yesterday. Maman Poulet is rightly upset about a perceived lack of seriousness about rolling out this program. As for me, I don’t know where to begin.
Walk into any given public hospital, talk to any frontline member of staff, and they could rattle off a list of changes needed in the health system. Some of them would involve money, which the government may not have in abundance right now, but a lot wouldn’t. I really wonder how much communication happens between policy makers, administrators and front line staff. Most of those front line people would argue that their opinions are not wanted.
The problem with that, though, is that genuine health issues are not resolved even though a lot of new programs are announced. For example, how much effort has gone into programs on cervical and breast cancer screening? Treatment and vaccination are great, but how much money and human life would be saved if there was greater emphasis on prevention? A lot! But the emphasis seems to be on the flashy and attention grabbing rather than basic, boring, essential policies.
The same thing happened with the plan to have ‘centres of excellence’. Instead of admitting and working to fix a broken system, a flashy new disruptive program was devised. While the real problem was inadequate funding, money was poured into promoting a distraction. Whether or not there are ‘centres of excellence’, real progress against cancer will come from investing in new equipment, staff and launching a serious breast cancer awareness program.
What bugs me is that if the people working in the hospitals were listened to a little more, health policy would be better.
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Development
I recently read Understanding Power by Noam Chomski and it has really challenged my thinking. One of the central themes in it is the belief that all social and political change occurs from the bottom-up rather than from the top-down. This flies in the face of the mainstream view that ‘leaders’ lead change.
I think the idea of bottom-up change needs to be applied to development. If there is going to be real, substantive development in sub-Saharan Africa, there needs to be substantial investment in rural infrastructure. The majority of Africa’s population is rural, and these people need to be seen as potential Nobel Prize winners and capable, talented people rather than ‘poor black babies’. The challenge for all those who want to see the poorest places in the world move forward is coming up with ways to see that potential realised. While some food security, education and access to information is vital in the short term, the main goal should be in ensuring that locals are able to bring about their own long term development.
That begs the question, how? The truth is that I’m not sure. The starting point has to be a change in mindset. It takes decades to see a return on an investment in education. It takes so long, and the return is so difficult to quantify, that rather than build top class schools and universities in rural Africa, it is easier to send cows or sink wells. Not that there isn’t a place for the latter, but the path of quickest ‘results’ is not always the best.
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A thought
For all that has been said about Irish politics on this blog, it is definitely more substantial than America’s. The longer the US presidential race goes on, the more it starts resembling a drawn out beauty pageant.
A friend sent me an excerpt from an address Richard Lee gave to some university students in 1997. He cautioned them that:
“You may have the added task of getting a fresh hearing for reasoning that considers ends more than means, that discerns more than it calculates, that more often questions “why?” rather than “how much?” A post-intellectual society is one where few think critically and the rest do not listen to the few that do. It is a fraying democracy where the majority do not vote, fewer read, fewer discuss, and fewer care as education dumbs down, culture stupefies, and all that entertains is true. You may be entering a society of so many pleasing fictions that your first intellectual task may need to be the fresh invention of reality.
“A post-intellectual society is one where public relations substitutes for public policy, where one mass-media image can wipe out many careful arguments, where sound moral character means feeling good about yourself, and the increase of freedom means more consumer choices. It is, finally, a society where intellectuals are very comfortably kept thinking about what they are told to think about. I suppose the biggest difference in the past 30 years is that the intellectually gifted now have so many more places to sell out.”
Unfortunately, the society described above is true of not just America.
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Picture of the week
Airplane flies past during a partial solar eclipse in Almaty, Kazakhstan August 1. Photo: Zturgan Aldauyev/REUTERS
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Beijing 2008
Performer taking part in a procession outside the National Stadium as preparations continue for the Olympic Games in Beijing, China July 31. Photo: Daniel Aguilar/REUTERSThe 2008 Beijing Olympics start in a week. The big elephant in the room is China’s human rights record. Prime Time discussed the issue last night. On the one hand, there was the argument that participating in the opening ceremony legitimises a government with a shocking human rights record. The counter argument was that engagement is the way to go and boycotting will just remove the opportunity for negotiation. The same argument has been played out all over the place recently.
I wish people were more honest and consistent. With respect to Robert Mugabe, most people would like to see his regime removed. Thabo Mbeki has turned into a global villain for engaging in ‘quiet diplomacy’ with the Zimbabwean dictator. Yet when it comes to China, the top industrialised nations, no less, are insisting on a form of ‘quiet diplomacy’. Mugabe may be a murderous tyrant, but in terms of sheer numbers of people affected, he is easily dwarfed by the Chinese regime. And while Mugabe and al Bashir of Sudan are treated with the contempt they deserve, the miracle that is China’s economy seems to atone for the leaders’ abuses. Chris Rodrigues makes this argument better than I could.
What upsets me most about all of this is the inconsistency and hypocrisy. China, in light of problems ranging from the treatment of pro-democracy activists, Sudan, Tibet, and even Beijing’s air pollution, would never be able to host the Olympics were it not for her wealth.
The moral of the story seems to be that all countries are equal, but the ones with huge trade markets and huge reserves of hard currency, are more equal than others. Likewise, your life, liberty and happiness may be subject to what is in the best interest of the global (rich countries) economy.
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