Picture of the week
The late US Senator Edward Kennedy.
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A thought
He had erased her, her and his love for her, he had scratched out her image until he had made it disappear as the party propaganda section had made Clementis disappear from the balcony where Gottwald had given his historic speech. Mirek rewrote history just like the Communist Party, like all political parties, like all peoples, like mankind. They shout that they want to shape a better future, but it’s not true. The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. We want to be masters of the future only for the power to change the past. We fight for access to the labs where we can retouch photos and rewrite biographies and histories. - Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
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What’s the plan?
Mary Robinson is right. Where is Ireland going? More specifically, does anyone have a clue what the current government’s vision is for this country? I don’t mean that in a wishy-washy way. Has any sort of end point, 10 year plan, or anything like that been articulated by either government or the opposition?
I ask because at the end of the day, doesn’t everything else rest on the answer to that question? What to do about the banks, third level education, the health system, and yes, immigration - they all depend ultimately on what sort of Ireland is being built.
Here is the problem: I don’t think there’s a blueprint. If there is, it’s such a secret that even the builders have forgotten where it was hidden. And this is significant because? It’s significant because without a coherent plan, things will be done by trial and error and costly mistakes will be made. It will be like electricians, plumbers, plasterers, painters, bricklayers and others arriving at a building site and doing the best job they can in a predominantly uncoordinated fashion. The outcome could be a work of genius, but statistically, it’s more likely to be an unmitigated disaster.
This country sometimes remind me of Zimbabwe. The people who have run it since its independence from colonial rule were freedom fighters. Unfortunately, I doubt that they ever really got beyond the idea of fighting that particular war. One day, I suppose time rendered them irrelevant. The rest is history.
Sometimes, I get the feeling that in a not too different way, Ireland’s political establishment is busying itself with some past era rather than with the future. What I find even more interesting is that a good deal of the country is in exactly the same boat.
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‘Whiteface’
This is such a stupid issue. I’m struggling to understand the thinking that went behind the decision. Did some PR guy really think that having a black guy on a poster would dent Microsoft’s sales in Poland? Were I Polish, I would be offended by the implication.
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Neither hungry, nor angry?
Eamon Gilmore, leader of the Labour Party, has rightly pointed out that NAMA (the National Asset Management Agency), the government’s attempt at creating a ‘bad bank’, lacks popular support. An irishtimes.com poll has close to 60% of respondents agreeing with Fine Gael’s decision to vote against the legislation needed to bring NAMA into being. So why do I think that NAMA will still happen?
Ending an excellent column, Fintan O’Toole wrote the folowing:
…Nama has to be stopped, and … public opinion has to make itself felt. If Nama goes ahead without the largest public demonstrations ever seen in the State, we deserve what we get. Our kids deserve better.Apart from the response to the proposed withdrawal of medical cards for all senior citizens, I don’t think I’ve ever seen real public demonstrations in Ireland. Not over the fact that children were learning in prefabs during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years. Nor the fact that the former head of state claimed not to have a bank account when he was the finance minister. There have been complaints over long waiting time in hospital A&E departments and over misdiagnoses, but no massive protests. It is said that a hungry man is an angry man. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people in this country haven’t been very angry about much in the recent past.
Despite the change in Ireland’s economic fortunes, this is still far from being a country of hungry people. Maybe that’s the reason. Or maybe it is because deep down inside, few of us care very much about how the government goes about its business provided that they make us feel as though they have things under control. Maybe the opposition knows that to be true and is only opposing NAMA in order to be seen to be active, and in possession of credible alternatives.
Whatever the reason, I have a feeling that Fintan is going to be disappointed. I’m just not convinced that there are that many people who are engaged enough with the political process to mount anything close to ‘the largest public demonstrations ever seen in the State’.
Then again, when it comes to the Irish public and their politics, I have a lot to learn.
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Third level fees
University students will probably have to pay fees from next year. I don’t understand how anyone could see that as a sensible course of action.
While some have questioned the very notion of a knowledge-based economy, that is the strategy that has been adopted by the government. That being the case, the assumption is that the same government will do all that it can to ensure that the country has as knowledgeable a workforce as possible. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m struggling to see where the reintroduction of third level fees fits in to this picture.
In the early 80s, soon after its independence, Zimbabwe’s government decided to make primary and secondary education a priority. To that end, the cost of that education was reduced, and in some cases scrapped. Granted, in time, sustainability became an issue. That said, because the barriers to education were tackled, the country at one time had the most educated workforce on the continent.
One of the things I admire most about Ireland is that it is not as divided along class lines as places like Zimbabwe or South Africa. Theoretically, a poor Irish person has almost the same educational opportunities as a rich one. Theoretically. The introduction of fees can only further distort the educational playing field.
Questions of sustainability are a function of priorities. In the US for example, the argument for health care reform is that despite the cost, universal health care is a priority for the Obama administration. How much of a priority is education here? Is the thinking behind the proposed knowledge based economy about the quality of education as opposed to the quantity of people who receive it?
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Owning Congo
I have a friend who recently went on the dole. Determined to be independent, she began a new career doing freelance work. She doesn’t earn enough money to live off this, but it’s a start. What frustrates her is that there are times when she has to turn down work because of the structure of the welfare system. Sometimes, a little extra work can mean a disproportionate reduction in her welfare subsidy.
Her situation came to mind as I read and thought about the infrastructure for minerals deal between China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC is probably the country most richly endowed with natural resources in Africa. Unfortunately, the former Belgian colony has been plagued by conflict since its inception. From Belgian, French and American sabotage soon after its birth, to what some dubbed ‘Africa’s World War’, it is little wonder that the country has had its share of tyrants. As Chomsky has pointed out, a harsh environment cultivates a certain type of leader because only they survive long enough to take the reins of power.
But then Kabila Jr. and China happened. A deal was struck between the Congolese president and the Chinese in which the latter would build roads, railway tracks, hospitals and even two universities in exchange for copper and cobalt. The deal, valued at $9 billion, would see much needed infrastructure development in the DRC in exchange for vast quantities of its mineral deposits.
To cut a long story short, the IMF decided that the Chinese weren’t offering the Congolese a fair deal, and that the DRC would be straddled with even more debt. Complicating matters is the fact $11 billion worth of debt relief that had been put on the table by Western donors would only be released on condition of IMF approval of the Chinese deal. In fact, IMF approval would also mean access to more development aid money and loans from Western governments and institutions.
Yesterday, China and the DRC agreed to scale back their initial deal in order to obtain IMF approval. Honestly, I’m disgusted. Once upon a time the DRC belonged to King Leopold. Now, while they may not own it, the IMF has a lot of control over it’s economic and development policy. How that country choses to utilise its mineral wealth is subject to the wishes of the IMF. That’s even worse than my friend having to turn down work. It’s more akin to her being told by the department of social welfare which jobs she can take on and which she may not.
All the antipathy towards the Chinese, based on the fear that they want to re-colonise Africa. misses an important point. Africa is already a colony in lots of ways. Just ask the Congolese.
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Determining the parameters of the debate
Chad Terhune and Keith Epstein wrote an excellent article for BusinessWeek titled ‘The Health Insurers Have Already Won’. Here is an excerpt:
As the health reform fight shifts this month from a vacationing Washington to congressional districts and local airwaves around the country, much more of the battle than most people realize is already over. The likely victors are insurance giants … [They] have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable.
Terhune and Epstein’s article reminded me of the cover story on Goldman Sachs that appeared in the New York Magazine a few weeks ago. This dealt with the investment bank’s influence over the US government. A lot of people in senior government positions are alumni of the bank. That has raised questions about the legitimacy of Goldman’s influence over public policy.
All of that got me thinking about Ireland’s banking crisis. This is a small country. It is hard to believe that the people running government, the opposition, banks, trade unions, and big business (including developers) don’t know each other. It seems reasonable to expect there to be a web of relationships - be that as a result of having attended the same schools and universities, or just because there aren’t that many things to do and places to go for the rich and powerful in a small country. When something then happens that necessitates some degree of public debate, to what extent are the parameters of that debate predetermined by those relationships?
Take NAMA for example, Ireland’s proposed bad bank. It has been argued that its existence favours the very people who contributed most to the downturn. Were the Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) running the country, it is more likely that there would be a bailout of people struggling to pay their mortgages, and maybe businesses in the same position, than a bailout of bankers and property developers. And if there was to be some shoring up of the banking system, the SVP would probably recapitalise the credit union system before AIB and BOI.
The general consensus is probably that NAMA is more likely to improve the country’s long-term prospects than my imaginary SVP proposal. But how much of that has to do with the manner in which public consensus is formed as opposed to the merits of the ideas? Are we immune to the US health care reform phenomenon, where vested interests frame the debate?
According to the father of neoliberalism, Friedrich von Hayek, “what to the contemporary observer appears as a battle of con?icting interests decided by the vote of the masses, has usually been decided long before in a battle of ideas con?ned to narrow circles.” On this point, I think Hayek was right.
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Picture of the week
The Tall Ships leave Belfast Lough in a Parade of Sail to mark the end of the Tall Ships festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland August 16. Photo: Paul Faith/PA.
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Manufacturing scientists and engineers
This also happened last year. The major concern, once the Leaving Certificate results came out, was Maths and Science. I suppose the official thinking is that research and development (R&D) represent the most lucrative aspect of the global economy and Ireland needs a workforce that allows it to attract as much of it to its shores as possible.
That’s all well and good, but what happened to the theory of comparative advantage? What happened to the idea that countries should focus on what they are naturally best at? I’m not entirely convinced that if you have a population that leans towards the Arts, then focus on those, even if it is less clear how to monetize that. But at the same time, if you don’t, if you try to turn artists and social scientists into physicists and engineers, don’t you also run the risk of getting the worst of both worlds - average cogs in an R&D machine at the expense of talent elsewhere?
Not too long ago, I had an interesting conversation with an academic in one of the large Irish universities. She was frustrated by the way in which commercial interests were dictating the academic priorities of that institution. Areas in which her faculty was strong were being sacrificed on the basis of market trends. Her feeling was that the university was becoming less of an institution of learning and more of an assembly plant for industrial inputs. I wonder if the same thing can also be said of the primary and secondary education sector.
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Apologies
My apologies for this week’s unexplained silence from this blog. Things are back to normal.
Below is an interesting video from the most racially polarised country that I am aware of - South Africa. It reminded me of the 1995 film, White Man’s Burden, with John Travolta, Harry Belafonte and others.
Some of the comments on Youtube in response to the video got me thinking the fears around immigration that have been articulated in both the US and Europe. At heart is the fear that one day people will wake up to find that they are minorities in their countries. Implicit in that is the fear that they will be treated like minorities.
I wonder what an Irish version of this film would look like.
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Clinton in Africa
As an aside, Hillary Clinton has moves! I’ve seen video clips of her boss dancing, and I’ve got to say, she could teach him a thing or two.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on an African tour that includes Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Cape Verde. It’s an interesting group of counties.
Kenya is hosting the AGOA (African Growth and Opportunity Act) forum, a US - sub-Saharan Africa economic gathering which includes discussions on trade matters. South Africa is the most politically and economically influential country in sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is an important supplier of oil to the US. Angola is Africa’s largest oil producer, a recipient of large amounts of Chinese investment, and China’s biggest oil supplier. The DRC has enormous deposits of minerals and other natural resources.
I’m sure Secretary Clinton will say all the things an American diplomat of her stature is expected to say. She has already stated that the US wants to be a ‘partner, not patron’ of Africa, a message that is in keeping with President Obama’s speech in Accra a few weeks ago. Democracy, human rights, corruption, good governance, and other catch phrases will be used liberally. But at the end of the day, what really matters is ‘securing US interests’. And that’s why China is so popular in sub-Saharan Africa.
It is often said in Europe and America that China is a negative influence on Africa because it condones poor governance and it is only interested in exploiting Africa’s resources. Implicit in that assessment is the idea that Western governments instead care about poor Africans. Recent history does not necessarily bear that out. The difference between the Chinese and the US is that Chinese self-interest is more closely aligned with African interests, for the present time at least, than US self-interest. Chinese investment comes with infrastructural development. American investment comes with speeches on governance which America itself ignores if applying those ideas means losing out on Nigerian oil or the prospect of an Islamic militant group in charge of Somalia with popular support.
There is an interesting video discussion on this topic here.
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Justice a key issue in debate on migration
RUADHÁN MAC Cormaic’s recent articles on migration have brought back to the surface some concerns I have had for a while now. At the heart of these is the question of justice.
One of Karl Marx’s more provocative statements was: “. . . primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology…
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A thought
This is a long video, but it’s worth watching it for anyone who is interested in development. The big question for me, having considered everything that Ha-Joon Chang says in the video, is why ‘the rules of the game’ get so little attention? To use his example, why is there so much attention on the lack of discipline on the part of a 12 year old girls’ football team, and so little on the fact that they are being made to play against the Brazilian national team?
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The cult of personality
I’m convinced that one of the greatest weaknesses in contemporary politics is the fixation on personality. Mugabe is bad so he must be the sole reason that Zimbabwe is a mess. Tsvangirai is good so there is hope. Mandela was great so it comes as no surprise that South Africa did well under him. Mbeki was bad - an AIDS denying ‘Afrocentric’ man with a chip on his shoulder - so he must be at fault for the problems that have manifested in discontent and even riots in his country today. That, despite the fact that even under Mandela’s tenure, it was Mbeki who essentially ran the show.
The best example though is Obama and race. Obama is black and he is the president of the US so race must no longer be a significant issue there. We now live in a post-racial world. He’s also part African so he’ll sort that continent out while he’s at it. And yet, if the Gates - Crowley affair has really been a ‘teachable moment’, surely the lesson is that the presidency is an institution, not any single person. And that institution is subject to all sorts of political forces.
Think about it. Obama stood up for his friend ‘Skip’ who was arrested in his own home for treating a policeman with contempt. He dared to imply that as evidenced by the history of police-minority relations, as well as by current statistics, Skip’s race meant that he was more likely to be arrested for a ‘stupid’ reason than his white counterparts. That should not be controversial. But controversial it became and Obama eventually created a media event (the ‘beer summit’) to show that he could be trusted not to allow his race to colour the normal functioning of the institution of the presidency.
I can’t help but wonder what that means for ordinary minorities; people who aren’t the president’s buddies. If Obama couldn’t challenge the dubious arrest of his friend, what about a justice system that seems to be biased against minorities? Or if you don’t buy that argument, how about the undeniable structural inequalities that disadvantage minorities? You can tell people to switch off the TV and buy their kids books all you like (as Obama has done on several occasions). But if having done that people are still faced with insurmountable odds, few will bother.
In a very good article and an interesting interview, John Ridley expresses his frustration at the challenges still faced by minorities who play by the rules. While I understand his frustration, I think it stems from focusing on individuals as opposed to structures. It reminds me of a black friend who was dating an Asian girl. He was shocked and upset when he found out that her parents disapproved of the relationship because of hang-ups they had about African culture. He was especially hurt because he thought that his education and professional achievements, his sophistication and relative wealth - he thought those things should set him apart from any racial or cultural stereotypes.
The assumption that the personal characteristics of the person in charge can be redemptive for all is just as flawed as my friend’s thinking that his achievements could undo the prejudice of his girlfriend’s parents.
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Picture of the week
Climbers head for Croagh Patrick’s peak during the annual “Reek Sunday” pilgrimage yesterday. Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons.
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