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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.

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• Of crucifixes and rights

  November 4, 2009 @ 1:24 pm | by Bryan

  The European Court of Human Rights has decided that having crucifixes up all over the place in Italian schools denies some people their rights. In the Court’s words, “The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions.”

  Hmmmm…… Where to begin? This verdict makes a strong case for cultural relativism.

  Very broadly speaking, human rights can be viewed in two ways. Universalists believe that rights are universal standards that should apply to all people, in all settings, regardless of the cultural context. Cultural relativists, while not necessarily denying the existence of absolute moral standards (or acknowledging them in some cases), believe that those standards are socially and culturally construed, so that the fundamental rights in one place will not necessarily be the same as those in another.

  So take the issue of religious pluralism, a value I hold to. If you sit on the bench of the European Court of Human Rights you probably believe that the right to choose one’s own religion, or none at all, is a fundamental human right that trumps even the Italians’ proclivity for putting up crucifixes all over the place. If you’re Ayatollah Khamenei on the other hand, while you may also find crucifixes on classroom walls objectionable, it’s probably not because of a shared belief with a judge on the European Human Rights Court. I’m guessing the Supreme Leader, and many ordinary Iranians, would have a view on religious freedom that would make many universalist vomit. The thing is, I would identify myself as a weak relativist.

  Do I really want to align myself with Ayatollah Khamenei? Not if I can help it. But if we really hold to the right to self-determination, that has to include the right for people in other cultural contexts to consensually uphold values we disagree with. While this particular case may be more about the interpretation of rights rather than what the fundamental rights are themselves, it still highlights the merit of the cultural relativist argument. Italy should be able to work out its own value system based on the prevailing culture as well we the history of the country – ideally through a mass deliberative process. If when all is said and done the Italians still want t have crucifixes in schools, so be it.

  The idea of a court in Strasbourg interpreting the foundational values and their application in Italy is troubling. It’s not quite as troubling as the insistence that the whole world’s foundational values be based on a document that was put together by a handful of people in 1948. But it’s troubling all the same.

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• The war crimes trial gimmick

  October 27, 2009 @ 12:15 pm | by Bryan

  

  Radovan Karadzic supporters drink and play gusle, a traditional instrument, in a bar in New Belgrade, Serbia, yesterday. Photographs: Amel Emric, Srdjan Ilic/AP.

  Former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, brought proceedings in the Hague to a standstill yesterday. He decided not to attend the opening of his genocide trial, claiming that he was unprepared. Karadzic is representing himself and the trial couldn’t go on without defence counsel. Big anticlimax.

  But maybe that’s the problem. These big war crime trials bear a striking resemblance to what I can only imagine medieval public executions looked like. I’m not sure how much they have to do with justice as opposed to public retribution. It’s as though the ‘international community’ needs to demonstrate, as visually as possible, that ‘international justice’ really exists and really works, and that – to quote a former US president who had a way with words – ‘evildoers’ really get their comeuppance in the end. I’m not sure.

  I don’t like Karadzic and what he represents. I think the people responsible for acts like Srebrenica make an incredibly strong case for capital punishment. At the very least, they should be tried quickly and if found guilty, locked away somewhere for good. But I also think that the likes of Karadzic, Slobodan Miloševic before him, and Saddam Hussein are right when they say that these genocide trials are gimmicky public spectacles rather than genuine attempts at delivering justice. Were justice the real aim, Karadzic apprehension would not have been the result of a political settlement nor would the massacre of thousands be attributed to just a handful of suitable villains. Also, assuming that justice is blind, the criteria for who counts as a war criminal would be less selective and less dependent on political considerations.

  Still, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT will eventually get underway. If he doesn’t inconveniently die during the process (like Milosevic), Karadzic will almost certainly be found guilty of something serious – crimes against humanity, violations of the laws of war, something. Some will celebrate the decision as a mark of progress. Others will hold their former leader up as a martyr. The news cycle will roll on. But I’m not sure very much substantive justice will have been done.

  Maybe this is why the African Union don’t want the International Criminal Court getting involved with the situation in Sudan or Uganda.

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• Money makes the world go round?

  October 6, 2009 @ 5:07 pm | by Bryan

  

  Yes campaigners celebrate outside the main count centre in Dublin Castle on Saturday after the convincing Yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum. Photograph: Cathal McNaughton/Reuters.

  Let’s face it, there was only ever going to be one result to Lisbon II. It has been said that it is evaluated experience, rather than simply experience itself, which is the best teacher. So let’s evaluate the referendum’s outcome. Why was there such an overwhelming ‘Yes’ vote? In my opinion, it all boils down to money.

  What did the ‘No’ camp have to offer? Legitimate concerns about sovereignty, the spirit of democracy, and justified anger. Anger at not only being asked to pass a reworked version of a document that was well and truly rejected not too long ago, but also being asked to rethink what officialdom considered the lapse in judgement that resulted in Lisbon I’s defeat. These legitimate concerns were unfortunately shrouded by various elements on the ‘No’ side, in nonsensical non-issues.

  The ‘Yes’ camp also put forward their fair share of nonsense. But at the heart of their appeal was economic survival. In short, their message was, “Mess this up and you will literally pay for your mistake.” I have no idea if that proposition was correct. But that’s irrelevant since at the end of the day, a large majority, staring economic uncertainty in the face, chose not to risk irritating those nice Europeans who have over the years invested significantly in Ireland.

  When this issue is stripped bare of niceties, isn’t this the lesson: money really does make the world go round? Couldn’t we also say that in the hierarchy of societal ideals, financial security trumps the finer questions around constitutionality and even democracy? Were that not the case, there surely wouldn’t have been such an all encompassing effort to circumvent the safety mechanism worked into the Nice Treaty that called for unanimity? Lisbon I’s Irish defeat would have sounded the treaty’s death knell.

  Why then, does the Western political establishment make such a big deal about Hugo Chávez calling for a vote to remove term limits, or Kagame establishing himself as a de facto military dictator? In both cases, the vast majority of the local population has decided that the prospect of economic stability trumps constitutional concerns. Just like the majority of the population here, they would rather be prosperous than rigidly stick to the tenets of some piece of paper.

  Both here and elsewhere, money really does seem to make the world go round.

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• Lisbon prediction

  October 2, 2009 @ 7:19 am | by Bryan

  

  The scene on O’Connell Street in Dublin yesterday as demonstrators blocked a working taxi driver during a protest by taxi drivers that lasted most of the day and caused major traffic disruption.

  Today, the country gets to vote on the Lisbon treaty. Since all politics is supposedly local, is this referendum going to be about the governance or Europe, or feelings towards Ireland’s governance? Held on the backdrop of strikes, a bank bailout that supposedly isn’t a bank bailout and a widespread uncertainty about the future, it will be interesting to see how the results are be interpreted.

  Here’s my one prediction. The side that loses – be that the ‘Yes’ or the ‘No’ campaign – will claim the electorate voted on some of the issues above, rather than on the treaty itself.

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• 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.

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• Amusing Ourselves to Death

  September 15, 2009 @ 2:03 pm | by Bryan

  Concluding another excellent piece of writing in today’s Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole makes the following plea:

  …can we perhaps conduct the crucial debates on Nama and Lisbon without conjuring bogeymen to give force to our arguments?
  

  I really wish we could, but apparently, that is just not going to happen. Let’s give NAMA a break and take the Lisbon Treaty as an example. I’m sure there is no end to the number of sensible arguments for and against it that one could make. But take a walk down any busy street and read the posters that have sprung up. Neither side is being very subtle. In bright colours and, at times, with provocative imagery, elements on both sides of the debate are trying to conjure up the scariest bogeymen possible.

  And just to ensure that we are entertained, both sides, and the media, are pushing their most glamorous stars forward. In the same way that Coke picks attractive young people; that Gillette shows off Thierry Henry, Tiger Woods and Roger Federer; and just as a circus promotes its trained monkeys in bright red suits, we’ve been given Ganley and O’Leary. Like in a true soap opera, we’re building up to a climax in which these two individuals go at it, dramatically exchanging the most outrageous claims possible.

  Hard as I try, I just cannot understand why there is this almost wilful desire to avoid confronting the substance of the difficult issues confronting us, but to engage in fringe or made-up controversies. I really don’t get it. Do we just not have the collective attention span required to ask difficult, boring questions of each other? Why do we feel the need to have individuals that come across well on TV and radio leading such important debates, instead of the most knowledgeable, sensible and courteous people? Imagine, a panel debate in which the aim is that both sides understand the other’s point of view and engage in a back and forth aimed at clarifying issues, not scoring cheap, publicity points. Unthinkable!

  I can only conclude that Neil Postman was right in his belief that our desire for ‘entertainment’ – be that in the discussion of the news and in other areas, such as education – would be our downfall. The title of his book, in that sense, was prophetic. Amusing Ourselves to Death.

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• 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.

  …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

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• 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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• Understanding the Lisbon Treaty

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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