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• Di-Aping, climate change and the Holocaust

  December 21, 2009 @ 8:28 am | by Bryan

  

  [The Copenhagen Accord] asks Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries. It is a solution based on values, the very same values in our opinion that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces. – Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping (Chief negotiator for the G77 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen).

  You’ve got to hand it to the Sudanese chair of the G77. Europe is still pretty touchy about the holocaust, and the suggestion that the continent is helping to get the gas chambers cranked up was always going to evoke a response. Di-Aping knows how to make headline grabbing statements, but is there any substance to his charge?

  First of all, there’s the suicide pact stuff. On that, I’m with Di-Aping. The smaller countries don’t really get much consideration (and that’s me trying to be as generous as possible to the rich and powerful ones). Barack Obama didn’t take Malawi, Bangladeshi, a couple of Pacific Island nations and Paraguay into a private room to discuss their grievances. Part of that is Malawi et. al. aren’t responsible for much of the greenhouse gases the world produces so they can’t be expected to be at the forefront of a new green revolution. That said, because they aren’t very well off and don’t have much political clout, the views of Malawi et. al. aren’t going to be seriously considered. Let’s face it, Greenpeace have a better chance of getting a hearing from the Obama administration on the effects of climate change than Malawi. I’m not the only one who thinks as much. According to Michael Levi of the Council for Foreign Relations, “The climate treaty process isn’t going to die, but the real work of coordinating international efforts to reduce emissions will primarily occur elsewhere.” “That elsewhere,” speculates the New York Times, “will likely be a much smaller group of nations, roughly 30 countries responsible for 90 percent of global warming emissions,” i.e. the 30 most powerful nations. As for the weak, heard of Darwin?

  Then there’s the values stuff. What values led to the holocaust? I’m no expert in this area. On some level, ‘The Pearl’ must be right – there was money to be made in the exploitation and murder of millions of innocents. More interesting philosophical and sociological explanations have been put forward, but when all is said and done, most come down to the fact that we (people) like situations that work to our favour, especially if the consequences (or victims) are safely out of sight. The structure of the global political economy, for example, is such that I can easily afford to buy a cup of coffee most mornings, while the farmer who grew and harvested that coffee might struggle to feed her family. The distance between us allows me to sleep peacefully at night.

  So maybe Di-Aping is right on both counts. Maybe the small and vulnerable will continue to pay the price for the short-sightedness of the rich and powerful so long as ‘the dollar bill’ lies at the centre of our global value system.

• Afghanistan

  December 2, 2009 @ 2:04 pm | by Bryan

  

  I can only imagine what George Orwell would make of difference between America’s response to Afghanistan’s elections, and to those in Iran. The thought brings a smile to my face.

  There is another discrepancy which is much more serious. What George Bush termed the ‘war on terror’ was at heart an ideological matter. The groups that engage in activities like flying hijacked planes into buildings claim their legitimacy and material support primarily on the back of US foreign policy. Military action against these groups inevitably spills over, affecting innocent people. This only serves to bolster the arguments of the likes of the Taliban. No speech, no matter how elegant, is going to mask the fact that the US President is sending a little army to Afghanistan in order to support the dodgy dictator his predecessor installed ‘for the good of the people’. Again, I can only imagine what Orwell would make of it all.

  So what should America do? Not only should they ‘turn the other cheek’, but they should also ‘bless (materially) those who curse’ them. The only way the ‘war on terror’ ends is if the accusations made against the US are disproved beyond a shadow of a doubt. The way to do that is not with tanks and armed helicopters, but with tangible, material assistance – food, drugs, infrastructure development.

  But, when you have a whole bunch of tanks, helicopters, remote controlled planes which can drop real bombs, and a pile of guns so big you don’t know what to do with it, the Jesus/Gandhi approach doesn’t look very attractive, does it?

• Hooray for the G20?

  September 25, 2009 @ 1:50 pm | by Bryan

  

  “The fact that 20 or so individuals right now are determining economic trade policies for four to five billion people just isn’t right,” Mr. Griffith said. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Most news organisations are making a big deal over the fact that the G8 is being replaced by the G20. The fact that a handful of the most powerful ‘developing nations’ are being added to the elite club that gets to set the economic rules for the rest is supposed to represent the dawn of a new inclusive era or something. It does no such thing.

  Let’s take a look at some of these ‘developing nations’. China. India. South Africa. Turkey. Brazil. These aren’t exactly the nations that I would pick were I trying to get a good understanding of the concerns of the typical state in the South. China is China. India, while being home to some of the world’s poorest people, is also incredibly wealthy. So much so, the Indians not only sent a rocket to the moon, they were also the ones who recently discovered water there. They’re not exactly Malawi or Haiti – nations trying to come up with a formula for growing enough food to meet domestic needs. As for Brazil, the OECD has been trying to woo them for a while. The OECD, you may have noticed, have not expressed much interest in Cuba or Paraguayi. The G20 is so inclusive that neither Nigeria nor Egypt, Africa’s second and third wealthiest nations, were deemed worthy. And yet, just about all of Europe is represented there by the EU. But just to make sure, France, Germany, Italy and Britain get their own special seats. The same is true of North America – the US, Canada and Mexico are all members.

  So just to re-cap, the G20 is made up of Europe, North America, and everyone else with too much economic clout to ignore. And what happens when only the powerful get to make the rules? Let’s look at the response to the recent financial crisis, shall we? As was recently demonstrated on the excellent three part BBC television series, The Love of Money, the politically powerful got together with the economically powerful to craft a solution to the crisis. Unsurprisingly, it was decided that to avoid catastrophe, the economically powerful could not be allowed to fail. Equally unsurprisingly, the chosen mechanism of their rescue was a transfer of wealth from the rest, to those deemed to large to fail. Could it be that the proposal to transfer wealth to struggling mortgage holders instead of, or in tandem with the banks bailout, would have got more of a hearing were struggling mortgage holders part of the deliberations? Hoping that China, Brazil or even South Africa will represent Malawi’s economic interests is like expecting AIB or Bank of Ireland to ask the Finance Minister to consider my local credit union’s needs, and give some of the taxpayer money allocated to the banks to St. Anthony’s Credit Union instead. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

  Like Trevor Griffith, I have serious problems with a small group from the most powerful nations making potentially life and death decisions for the rest of the planet. If however, that’s the direction the world is going to take, then at least let’s be completely honest about it and get rid of the charade that is the United Nations General Assembly. Maybe let’s get rid of the UN altogether? It can’t be that important if the real decision makers use it as a pit stop en-route to G20 meetings.

• 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.

• 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?

• Obama and Bush

  June 3, 2009 @ 11:45 pm | by Bryan

  

  Stylistically, there is no comparing Presidents Bush and Obama. Substantively however, when it comes to foreign policy, is there any real difference? Obama wants to help the rest of the world ‘embrace’ the ‘American values’ that Bush tried to force down their throats. The endpoint is the same. Militarily, their objectives are the same. In terms of the global economy, both men’s first goal is American dominance. Inequality and the global distribution of wealth are further down the list for both.

  I like Obama, a lot. But I’m not convinced that where the rest of the world is concerned, he is anything more than a carrot where Bush was a stick. A change in methods is a far cry from real change.

• Human nature

  May 21, 2009 @ 12:53 pm | by Bryan

  

  Human nature is an odd thing. Take the Guantánamo detention centre for example. A lot of people were rightly upset with the idea of a prison in no-man’s land that wasn’t subject to either US or international law. A place where the inmates were captured or abducted and then incarcerated without a trial, and in some cases, without even the prospect of a trial. No sentence, no communication with the outside world, totally vulnerable.

  So a new president comes along and decides that Gitmo has to go. Great. His political party and the outside world rush to help end this abominable prison? Not exactly. This is where human nature kicks in. The idea of people being wrongly imprisoned offends our sensibilities. That righting those wrongs may cost us something … that’s not a reality we like to face up to by nature.

  European governments have been resisting US pleas to take in Gitmo inmates who are found to have been innocent but who would not be safe in the country of their origin. Amnesty International in Ireland has been trying to convince the Irish government for a while now to take a prisoner. I asked someone from Amnesty if, were there a referendum, she thought the country would vote to accept that prisoner. Let’s just say I wasn’t convinced by her answer, and I’m not sure she was either.

  In the United States, even the democrats (in both houses of Congress now) have voted against providing their president with the funding necessary to close Gitmo. The same people who cheered Obama on for announcing its closure would rather Gitmo stayed open, than face the prospect of ‘terrorists’ in their prisons. Forget the fact that there are already a number of proven terrorists in American jails. The suspicion of Al-Qaeda membership obviously endows a person with supernatural destructive powers.

  According to the New York Times, 1 in 7 released Gitmo prisoners returns to ‘terrorism or militant activity’. Some will read this and see justification for their refusal to help put an end to Gitmo. I think that’s just human nature engaging in its most instinctive act — self-preservation. While I have no evidence, I think the longer Gitmo stays open, the angrier innocent detainees will get, and that 1 in 7 figure will rise.

• Prostitution and power

  May 19, 2009 @ 11:30 am | by Bryan

  Lately, the Republican Party in the US has come under a lot of criticism. The bulk of it comes down to the perception that the Republicans aren’t evolving or moving with the times. They are seen by some as holding on to values that the country has moved away from. The suggested antidote? Change.

  But should they? I vaguely remember the film Pretty Woman. When Richard Gere meets Julia Roberts (who plays a prostitute), he asks, “What’s your name?”
  “Whatever you want it to be,” she replies.
  That makes sense. She’s a prostitute after all. Maybe I’m just an idealist, but isn’t a political party supposed to be different? Aren’t they supposed to start off with a core set of values and principles that they stick to, as opposed to transforming into the mould of the client’s fantasy?

  Here’s my idea of how the party system should work. Party X stands for agro-based policies and wants everyone to wear green all the time. Party Y wants to build a ‘knowledge-based economy’ and wants people to wear futuristic, silver suits all the time. Party Z openly has no clue about the economy but thinks everyone should be able to wear whatever they want to wear. I get that things change and that at some stage a party might decide that an agricultural economy isn’t sustainable. They can change that specific policy goal. But if wearing green clothes is a core value, if you change that because the pollsters say that’s the only way to get into government, then how is that any different to Julia Robert’s on-screen prostitution? Shouldn’t you just stick to your values in the hope that one day the electorate will identify with those values again? If they don’t, what’s wrong with a party deciding that hey have run their race and closing shop?

  After the last Irish general elections, the Green Party was being advised by commentators to join the government because then, they would have some power. They got their power, but arguably at the expense of their pre-election values. I wonder if it isn’t better to stay out of power if the cost of acquiring it is moving away from who you are? It might mean that you’re never in government, but if your values are only held by a minority, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Isn’t it better than changing and leaving that minority stranded, without representation?

  Likewise, though I think the Republicans need to figure out what their values are, I hope they don’t end up becoming what they think the pollsters want them to become.

• The ‘markets’

  May 11, 2009 @ 2:49 pm | by Bryan

  The New York Times approves of now President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet picks. And it’s not just the Times, the Wall Street Journal approve of his choice for Finance Minister as well as the fact that the outgoing one gets to remain in the cabinet.

  So what? In appointing his cabinet, Zuma had to keep one eye on the international ‘markets’ and the other on the nearly two-thirds of South Africans who voted him into office. All the media concern about how he would govern and whether or not he would ‘bow to the pressure from his supporters on the left’, the very same noise that accompanied the new presidency of Brazil’s Lula, ensured that no such thing would happen. For better or for worse, every ‘serious’ economic player in the world is in a polygamous marriage with ‘the markets’. And it’s one of those old-school marriages – divorce is not an option. The only way out is to do a Cuba, North Korea or Zimbabwe and commit economic suicide.

  It’s a fascinating system. The range of options that are realistically available to the Irish government for dealing with the downturn are constrained by the markets. Even if the McWilliams proposal was adopted and the euro was scrapped, Ireland wouldn’t have economic autonomy. Britain, with its own central bank and monetary policy is still bound by the conventional wisdom of the markets.

  All this would be well and good if the markets were some metaphysical positive entity, some type of economic god. But they aren’t. At the end of the day, aren’t the market simply the collective wisdom of a bunch of super rich guys (and maybe the odd girl here and there) whose chief interest is the continued existence and growth of their wealth?

  I actually don’t think that the greatest threat to South Africa’s poor is Zuma embarking on some radical economic policy. He wouldn’t last a week if he tried to do that. His party would recall him like they recalled Mbeki and replace him with a market friendly guy the Wall Street Journal and New York Times would approve of. No. The Greatest threat to South Africa’s poor is the possibility that their interests and those of the Wall Street Journal reading ‘markets’ may differ.

• First 100 days

  May 1, 2009 @ 5:33 pm | by Bryan

  

  The idea that the first one hundred days of a four year presidency is any sort of barometer strikes me as foolish. President G.W. Bush, for example, was relatively popular at the one hundred day mark. Ordinarily, I would reserve my judgement on Obama’s performance to date. But, in words that would make my parents cringe, since everybody else is doing it…

  I think the idea of Barack Obama as the Messiah has started to fade away. Finally. But he’s still incredibly popular and a good deal of that popularity is, I think, warranted. Obama has shown that he will think things through and he generally resists the temptation to jump at every little controversy that comes along. He has also shown a humility and desire to listen that is a welcome change from the last administration. Though some may disagree, I also think he has begun to address some of the entrenched structural issue in his country surrounding the distribution of wealth and power, as well as the role of the state versus that of the market and civil society. How far that will go is anybody’s guess, but I’m not expecting too much. Still, any improvement is better than none at all.

  On the other hand, he is a politician, and I harbour all manner of prejudice against politicians. He is also just one part of a complex system of government. On top of that, his chief end is the interest of America, not that of the rest of the world.

  With all of that in mind, I think the American President has started well, I wish him well, but I think it is still way too early to credibly rate his performance.

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