outsidein

  • Participatory democracy

    July 30, 2009 @ 11:23 pm | by Bryan

    Beyond elections is an interesting documentary. It takes a critical look at the mainstream view of ‘democracy’, and offers an alternative based on participatory models that have emerged from Latin America. One of these is the concept of ‘participatory budgeting’, where the community democratically decides how state resources should be used in open fora.

    The cynic in me is not completely convinced that participatory budgeting is that democratic in reality. Even in that kind of context, some individuals or groups will have more power than others and will therefore have disproportionate influence. I suppose I’m not convinced that a true democracy is possible. That said, I do think that the participatory model is much more democratic than the system that currently exists in most places.

    A case in point is Ireland. The governing culture here isn’t very participatory in my opinion. For example, when it became obvious that the banks were in a bad state and that the broader economy was in trouble, the public sentiment was that the government should fix things. The thinking seemed to be that the government was the only institution that could legitimately propose solutions. The opposition, the media and even academia tended to critique the actions of the government much more - sometimes even to the exclusion of - putting forward their own suggestions. Fast-forward some months, and the main government proposal (an apparent bailout that the finance minister is adamant is not a bailout) has sparks controversy.

    It won’t happen here any time soon, if ever, but I can’t help but wonder if a participatory national (or at least regional) budgeting process would work in Ireland. We would need to get over the idea that only experts have a valuable contribution to make. And there would be regional and class interests to overcome. Still, if you’re going to call something a democracy, shouldn’t you do everything possible to ensure that it actually is one?

  • A compromised dream

    July 29, 2009 @ 3:29 pm | by Bryan

    According to his biographer, Mark Gevisser, Thabo Mbeki’s chief concern as South Africa’s first democratically elected government assumed office can be summed up by Langston Hughes’ poem, A Dream Deferred:

    What happens to a dream deferred?
    Does it dry up
    Like a raisin in the sun?
    Or fester like a sore–
    And then run?
    Does it stink like rotten meat?
    Or crust and sugar over–
    like a syrupy sweet?
    Maybe it just sags
    like a heavy load.
    Or does it explode?

    Based on my experiences in Zimbabwe, foreign news reports of riots tend to be exaggerated. Often, fairly contained events are blown up or made to look more widespread than they really are. I suspect that’s true in the case of the riots in Johannesburg.

    That said, Mbeki was right to worry about the Dream Deferred. Lord knows what will happen when poor South Africans of colour eventually discover that their dream was compromised away a long time ago.

  • What informs our morality?

    July 27, 2009 @ 10:03 pm | by Bryan

    The ‘Just migration?’ post illicited the expected range of responses. The more extreme ones got me thinking about a related subject. In a ‘post-religious’ society, which people/ideas/institutions play the role of moral compass?

    The original question had to do with establishing whether or not the existing immigration law are just. Maybe the real question that needs to be posed is even more basic than that. Once upon a time in Ireland, the Pope (I imagine) largely informed society’s values. Who now decides what is right and what is wrong? For example, most people would agree with Martin Luther King Jr.’s assertion that, “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be.”

    Who or what informs our interpretation and application of that ideal when it comes to global poverty or migration? At what stage was it decided that the just response to living in an unequal, unjust world is to give some crumbs from our table to those with nothing? Or is the assent to the likes of MLK simply good etiquette devoid of any real meaning? Is the fight against global poverty, for example, one of those things that is only worth pursuing so long as it costs us nothing that we truly value?

    Which brings me back to the question, what informs our morality? I understand that many people have problems with organised religion, but in its absence, doesn’t self-interest rule? And isn’t self-interest the thing that props up the structures that perpetuate inequality?

  • Picture of the week

    July 25, 2009 @ 8:23 am | by Bryan

    Martyn Turner's Cartoon. 22 July, 2009.

    Martyn Turner’s Cartoon. 22 July, 2009.

  • Race and Class

    July 24, 2009 @ 5:13 pm | by Bryan

    A sociologist, for whom I have the greatest respect, is convinced the colonialism had very little to do with race. As far as she is concerned, it had much more to do with class and power, and race was almost incidental. I agree. An interesting case study into the interaction between race and class is currently unfolding in the United States.

    To set the scene, Dave Chappelle…

    And now, Professor Gates…

    And if the fancy audience, and the fact that he is a famous Harvard professor isn’t impressive enough, here is one of Gates’ friends sticking up for him.

    Here’s the thing. I think what happened to Gates is shameful. To arrest a disabled older man because he ‘mouthed off’ after having been incensed about being accused of criminality, is just wrong. That said, I agree with those who have pointed out the fact that there are plenty of people of colour who are subjected to far worse who aren’t chummy with the president or equally famous attorneys. But this story is far more complicated than race.

    It has made headlines because the victim is a Harvard law professor. Let’s face it, that makes him a member of the country’s ruling elite. The truth is that the police officer’s real mistake wasn’t harassing an old black man, it was harassing the wrong old black man. He treated someone of a higher social class badly, and for that, he has become a household villan … sort of.

    Fox News’ Juan Williams thinks Gates was at fault. He says that he has learnt not to mouth off to the police. Not to be ‘uppity’ because, in his opinion, police in America are prone to treating people of colour with less grace than they do white America. Williams seems to be more bothered by Gates’ classism than any potential racism that led to the arrest.

    It’s a fascinating insight into race and class relations. In the age of Obama, it seems as if anything that could be construed as racism towards people of the upper classes is intolerable. The structural inequalities that make minorities less likely to receive a decent education, housing, employment and more likely to be stopped by police or go to jail don’t get nearly as much attention.

  • Just migration?

    July 22, 2009 @ 4:02 pm | by Bryan

    Migrant workers outside the office of Tánaiste Mary Coughlan in Kildare Street, Dublin, protesting in May this year against changes in work permit rules being brought in. Photographs: Lar Boland

    Migrant workers outside the office of Tánaiste Mary Coughlan in Kildare Street, Dublin, protesting in May this year against changes in work permit rules being brought in. Photographs: Lar Boland.

    This issue has come up on this blog in a hundred different ways. I’m almost weary of bring it up again because I can already tell you what the responses will be.

    The ‘I’m afraid of/hate/some combination of the two’ immigrants camp will say that home is where you are born or have citizenship and these demonstrators should pack up their bags and leave. The ‘economic pragmatists’ will say that things are what they are. Jobs are scarce and those that are there should go to Irish people. the ‘one love’ people will point out that these are human beings that are being discussed and we can’t treat them like statistics.

    But, in case I’m wrong, I’ll go through with it anyway. Ruadhán Mac Cormaic had an excellent series on migration (here, here and here). It got me thinking. Is it just, in such an interconnected world, to deprive people from poor countries the right to live, work, and even be unemployed in the richer nations? People here indirectly benefit from a global system of trade and politico-economic relations that favours the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Are immigration laws therefore just? Their primary purpose, let’s be honest, is to keep out the poor. Is that right?

  • A giant leap for mankind?

    July 21, 2009 @ 3:33 pm | by Bryan

    “Let others go to the moon,” said Tanzania’s President Julius Nyerere, “We must work to feed ourselves.”

    I share Nyerere’s ambivalence towards space travel. There are so many problems here on earth, that I’m not sure if things like the race to land on the moon, or to land on Mars, are a wise use of limited resources.

    Granted, useful technologies are invented in the process of getting to the next NASA frontier, but I don’t think the world’s greatest challenges are technological. Global inequality has worsened since 1969 while technology has advanced drastically. Let’s face it, technology is great for those who possess it, but since most of it doesn’t come cheap, the technological advances that were birthed from the space program probably haven’t translated into anything of practical value for the majority of the planet. Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to get my emails delivered to my mobile phone. I’m just not sure that convenience of that sort counts as helping to make the world a better place.

    I remember, years ago, asking a fellow Zimbabwean if he was planning on doing anything special for the Independence Day holiday. His response that while the country was free from British rule, he didn’t feel independent of the people running the country so he planned on deliberately not celebrating. Maybe he rubbed off onto me. I couldn’t care less about the fact that yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the moon landings. A massive transfer of wealth to those who currently have nothing would be a giant leap. Stepping onto another planet … that affects ‘mankind’ how?

  • Mandela day?

    July 19, 2009 @ 1:18 pm | by Bryan

    Mandela day celebrations

    Preparations before last night’s concert in celebration of Mandela Day. Photograph: Getty Images.

    Maybe I’m just overly cynical, but I don’t get it. I don’t understand modern society’s tendency to turn people into icons. Recently, the death of Michael Jackson was turned into an odd media frenzy. An eccentric man, no doubt one of the best performers the world has seen, was for a moment turned into something of a god. Never mind the fact that while he was alive most seemed relieved by his departure from the spotlight.

    This weekend was Nelson Mandela’s turn. I have a lot of respect for Madiba. But I feel that we’ve replaced the man for a myth. In the process, we’ve decided to forget about apartheid and how it was overcome. In place of that, we have erected a monument to Mandela. Now, I wonder how many people outside of South Africa know of people like Chris Hani, Robert Sobukwe or Steve Biko. I wonder about the degree to which the end of apartheid is thought of as some sanitised negotiated settlement with a lone figure in a prison cell talking down not just his jailers, but also the leaders of a repressive regime.

    Chomsky has written about the way in which we tend to think of social movements being the product of great, visible leaders. History gets distorted and protracted struggles, won by anonymous foot soldiers, are ascribed to people like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. Unfortunately, that makes sense. God forbid that we should acknowledge the fact that people, many of whom today live in little tin shacks, are the heroes who made South Africa a more just society. We couldn’t have Carla Bruni, Stevie Wonder, Lil’ Kim, Wyclef and Alicia Keys performing in their honour in New York. It’ one thing to have Morgan Freeman play Madiba in a biopic that reinforces our great man view of history, but there just aren’t enough black A-list actors in Hollywood to create a film that honours all those who played a significant role. Not even Spike Lee could pull that off. But even if he did, the world might then be confronted with the fact that heroes are literally living in slums. And that might be too much truth for us. No amount of praise for the few could then be sufficient penance for our neglect of the many.

    I think that’s why I dislike the ‘iconisation’ of even great men like Madiba. It’s a selective process that allows us to forget other great people. It distorts our memory of history. That’s problematic for me because, in the words of the Czech writer, Milan Kundera, “the struggle against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

  • Picture of the week

    @ 1:15 pm | by Bryan

    Economist Colm McCarthy at the Department of Finance with the Report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes. The report has come up with recommendations that would cut €5.3 billion

    Economist Colm McCarthy at the Department of Finance with the Report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes. The report has come up with recommendations that would cut €5.3 billion.

  • Delusions of grandeur

    July 16, 2009 @ 9:06 pm | by Bryan

    I haven’t read the entire ‘Bord Snip’ report. I just looked through the sections that interest me most - Foreign Affairs and Health. I’ll save foreign affairs for another day because that’s a long rant in itself. For now, I’m going to limit myself to health.

    I can’t imagine how difficult a task Colm McCarthy had. The country is essentially broke, living off borrowed funds. It makes sense that something has to give. And it’s also important to point out the fact that it’s so much easier to spectate and comment from the sidelines than it is to have to take the kinds of measures that the government have been forced into. The, ‘they wrecked the economy in the first place’ argument isn’t completely without merit. But because no-one benefits if the government fails, it’s probably best, at least for now, to focus on the actions taken since the ESRI told us we were in recession.

    With all of that out of the way and my position clear, I disagree with some of the suggestions for health in the report. In some ways they don’t go far enough, while in others, I think they go way too far.

    The single biggest problem with the health system here is that it suffers from delusions of grandeur. I’m serious. Ireland has a population of somewhere in the region of 4.5 million people. Why isn’t there just a single entity responsible for health? Zimbabwe, a country with more problems than most, with a population of over 10million people, managed to have a single department look after health and child welfare. The NHS is a wonderful system, but Britain can afford it. With the size of their population, they may even need it. Ireland doesn’t.

    Another manifestation of the delusions of grandeur is the preoccupation with centres for excellence. The country needs a solid primary health care (PHC) model. To strive for world class cancer centres without an adequate PHC system is like … it’s like buying a fancy door knob for the house you’re going to build one day. Great if you can afford it, but if you’re struggling to pay the rent…

    I’m no economist. I’m certainly no Colm McCarthy, who I think is an incredibly intelligent, brilliant man. But getting rid of jobs and merging a few departments together isn’t very imaginative. And if Ireland needs something right now, may I humbly suggest that it’s imagination. Keep those people in jobs, but reassign them. Redisign the entire system to serve the most people at their most basic needs. If that means people need to go to Belfast for specialist treatment because they can’t get world class attention for some rare conditions here, so be it. But if you get the basics right, if you effectively get vaccines to children, have a solid health education program, motivate the staff and reassure them of their continued employment, who knows…

  • The end of the world, and jobs

    July 15, 2009 @ 2:29 pm | by Bryan

    Years ago, I read an interesting apocalyptic novel. Unfortunately, I can’t remember title, or the author, but the story has stuck with me.

    Basically, humanity makes scientific breakthroughs which allows parents to chose the sex of their offspring at the time of conception, or shortly thereafter (it must have been an old book, even at that time). Everyone decides that they want boys, but I forget why. After some time, there are very few women in the world and sex crazed young men run wild and destroy the planet. Or something like that. The moral of the story was that you need to think about the long term ramifications of your immediate actions.

    Ever since it became clear that the American financial market was headed for trouble, there has been an emphasis on stabilising the ‘system’. That has largely been interpreted as making sure that big banks and investment firms stay in business. A close second has been that big corporations don’t fail. All over the world, governments have been working to ensure that there is adequate liquidity in the market to ensure the survival businesses. Businesses, both large and small, have in turn been encouraged to make the cuts required to stay afloat. That has meant job losses primarily. And it’s not just businesses. The government here has put in place a recruitment embargo and rumour has it that there are plans to push, or shove, people out of the civil service.

    The result of these steps, and other like them, taking place all over the world, is growing global unemployment. Yet for some reason, I don’t think unemployment has been given enough attention. So much so that we are told that the economic outlook is starting to turn around, even though mass unemployment will remain in place for some time to come.

    I’m not the kind of person who likes to come up with apocalyptic prophesies. I don’t think there is an immediate danger of unemployed people running wild and introducing total anarchy. But we really need to think about the employment situation. I can’t help but think that were there more job prospects in Belfast, that some of the people involved in the riots there would have been at work, or doing something more constructive, like working on their CV. The rise in far right parties across Europe is probably the result of the presence of more unemployed young people with little hope of getting a job anytime soon.

    If I don’t have my economic theories mixed up, Keynesianism views the state as the employer of last resort. Shouldn’t the government be taking a more Keynesian approach and recruiting people rather than getting rid of them? And while they’re at it, a rail link from Galway to Sligo, and then to Donegal would be great! So would more schools, hospitals, teachers, nurses,… and so forth. Anything to give people the opportunity to work.

  • Belfast riots

    July 14, 2009 @ 12:42 pm | by Bryan

    A rioter in Ardoyne last night. Photo: Charles McQuillan/Pacemaker.

    A rioter in Ardoyne last night. Photo: Charles McQuillan/Pacemaker.

    When I was growing up in Zimbabwe, Belfast seemed like some virtual war zone where people blew things up over religious differences. It made no sense to me at all. Now that I’m older and have moved to Ireland, I can honestly say that frosty relations in the North still make no sense to me.

    Here are some of the specific things that confound me. First of all, these marches. It’s simplistic, I know, but if after every parade there are going to be some skirmishes, why not just stop having them? I’m serious. If you live in a highly divided society, do you really want to celebrate things that emphasise those divisions or those that point to areas of common ground? Why not replace some of the events celebrated by just one side with new, joint ones?

    Another thing I don’t understand is this phenomenon of young people, teenagers even, who throw petrol bombs and stones at ‘the other side’ and set cars on fire. Are their grievances real, or are they just a cohort of kids who have nothing else to do and have stumbled onto a way to express their disillusionment? I understand why Palestinian teenagers engage in that sort of activity when confronted by Israeli police or soldiers. But I thought Northern Ireland had come to a political agreement that is largely acceptable to both sides.

    What confounds me most though, is how far removed the goings on in the North seem to the day-to-day lives of people in the South. Living in the West of Ireland, I feel closer, or more connected to London than to Belfast or Derry. Apart from the odd Gerry Adams speech with a reference to ‘a united Ireland’, Northern Ireland seems like a completely different entity. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why it seems as though the North is still, at some level, at war with itself.

  • Picture of the week

    July 11, 2009 @ 6:17 pm | by Bryan

    Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin and Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche at the launch of the White Paper on the Lisbon referendum in Government Buildings yesterday. Photograph: Matt Kavanagh

    Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin and Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche at the launch of the White Paper on the Lisbon referendum in Government Buildings yesterday. Photograph: Matt Kavanagh.

  • Lisbon: why bother?

    July 8, 2009 @ 7:33 pm | by Bryan

    Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin at the launch of the White Paper today. Photo: Matt Kavanagh/The Irish Times

    Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin at the launch of the White Paper today. Photo: Matt Kavanagh/The Irish Times.

    …a key characteristic of our times is the fact that true power, which is able to determine the extent of our practical choices, flows, and because of its ever less constrained mobility it is exterritorial … Today the principal agenda-setters are ‘market pressures’ which are replacing political legislation, and while geographical space remains the home of politics, capital and information inhabit cyberspace in which physical space is cancelled or neutralized. - Slater, D. 2004, Geopolitics and the Post-colonial: Rethinking North-South Relations, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, p. 17.

    I came across the above recently and since then, I haven’t been sure what to make of it. The announcement of the date on which the Lisbon Treaty referendum will be held got me thinking about it again.

    The truth is that I think the referendum is a charade. Brussels decided that the treaty would come into effect some time ago, and Ireland’s economic and political elite obviously concurred. The average man or woman on the street, truth be told, couldn’t care less. What they care about are ‘bread and butter issues’, such as the likelihood of being in employment next year. In exchange for believable, or almost believable guarantees from those who run the country that Lisbon will increase that likelihood, most people would sign just about anything.

    So what happened at the last referendum? A segment of society that has a fair bit of social capital disagreed with the political and economic establishment. Both sides made their arguments to the electorate, and the non-establishment group won. Take note though: that fight had about as much to do with the substance of the treaty as the ‘Troubles’ in the North had to do with disagreements on theology. Neither side encouraged its supporters to read the document. There weren’t workshops at which legal experts could go through it with you. Instead, there were arguments on abortion, conscription, commissioners, sovereignty, wars, people with dodgy American military connections, political influence within Europe, and my favorite, who you should trust.

    This time round, if the establishment is smart, we will hear about the economy until mention of the word provokes a tic in all of us. There may be the odd allusion to the Great Depression and, since this is Ireland, the 1980s. But because ‘hope’ supposedly wins elections, there will also be a lot about salvation, in the form of jobs and buckets of money, coming from Brussels. And on October 2nd, Lisbon II will be passed.

    If my take on things is correct, if ‘market pressures’ do determine the extent of our practical choices, why go through this song and dance? Why endure the months of debate on all sorts of peripheral Lisbon issues when at the end of the day fear of economic catastrophe will dictate the outcome of the vote?

    Wouldn’t our time be better spent just ratifying the treaty and getting on with life, or, having a substantive discussion on what real options and power ‘the people’ and ‘the state’ still have? While the former would delight the establishment, the anti-establishment group won’t stand for it. The latter would probably involve too much introspection for both camps

  • Imagination and the lack thereof

    July 7, 2009 @ 3:18 pm | by Bryan

    In Caritas In Veritate (Charity in Truth), the Pope today called for a rethinking of the world’s economic system. You know the system is in trouble when everyone, including the Vatican, wants it reformed.

    A book that has had a huge influence on my thinking is Edward de Bono’s Lateral Thinking (1970). In it, he claims that one of the greatest barriers to creativity is the desire to build on what is already there, as opposed to trying something completely different. Starting from what is already known limits the direction and nature of change or progress possible. The inbuilt flaws of the ‘now’ constrain the ‘what could be’. I wonder if these calls for economic reform aren’t falling into the same trap.

    I can’t help but believe that Margret Thatcher’s TANA (there are no alternatives) was the result of a depressing lack of imagination. But being ‘imaginatively challenged’ isn’t confined to stuffy conservatives. Progressives and radicals are also given to the same condition. When you bring up the idea of politico-economic alternatives, there is an assumption on both sides of the ideological divide that you have to be talking about some variant of Marxism or Sweden-like socialism.

    I wonder if part of the problem the Pope is trying to highlight is our capitalism/communism view of the world. I wonder if real alternatives will only be found when we break free from that dichotomy and try to see the world and our possibilities in broader terms.

    If someone could just figure out what that would look like, I might be able to actually finish my dissertation! Oh, yes … the world might also turn into a better place.

  • Immigration day

    July 6, 2009 @ 4:05 pm | by Bryan

    Today was that special day all migrants look forward to with great excitement. I had to go to immigration to get my papers renewed.

    It’s hard to express the emotions that go into this ritual. I’m told that the process is now very civilized and a walk in the park compared to what it was ten years ago. I can believe that. Each time I go through it, the process does get less painful. Today was almost pleasant.

    What makes going to immigration tough is that it can be really random. For example, you can find yourself being asked for some arbitrary document for the first time, that is suddenly crucial to the process. Never mind that it isn’t written down anywhere that you need form X, if the official dealing with you on that day decides you need it, then you need it. What typically happens in my house is that my wife starts collecting everything with an official letterhead for weeks before our appointment, just to narrow the odds of our having to go through the whole thing all over again. I do my bit too. I try to put on my least threatening look, at the same time mindful of the fact that if I come across as the village idiot, I won’t have helped our chances. But most importantly, both of us pray that the person on the other side of the counter isn’t in the middle of a horrible break-up with someone who looks just like one of us.

    Fortunately, today was fine. They now have fancy finger-printing equipment. I had to get finger-printed and checked out by Interpol before I could start working as a doctor in Zimbabwe (don’t ask), so I didn’t mind immigration doing the same too much. At least they didn’t ask for a DNA swab or a retinal scan. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like the idea of Dermot Ahern and his justice department knowing me that intimately. I must have trust issues.

    It’s also interesting to note that the heightened security measures will make it easier to monitor documented immigrants. I wonder if the government are just tightening all things immigration, or if someone decide that screening out all the work permit applicants wanted by the CIA would be a good way to keep Irish jobs for Irish people. Or maybe it’s just part of the groundwork in anticipation of the passing into law of the Immigration Bill. If you’re going to make it mandatory for migrants to carry ID cards with biometric data at all times, it helps to have the infrastructure in place before hand.

    Whatever the reasons, at least it was done by a friendly official with a smile.

  • 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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