Interesting news this morning from Jordan, where the very conservative Islamist party has withdrawn its candidates from the mayoral elections. It isn't directly related that this is why, but this is the first round of elections in which a high percentage of women were allotted quotas, which in Jordan means that (under new legislation) 20% of government seats are guaranteed to women. Now, presumably this would be achieved by appointment if the popular vote did not fulfill that expectation, and in a highly Islamic country that seems to be a very likely scenario.
Jordan is a monarchy, and so their version of democracy really isn't direct representation like the United States version is supposed to be. Before this year, the King, Abdullah II, appointed mayors. He also appoints half of Parliament. But he has done more to democratize the monarchy than any of his successors, although arguably King Hussein, who ruled before him, did a lot. I am not sure what the ultimate aim of the Jordanian monarchy is- by all accounts it isn't to create a democracy and abdicate the reins of power, but they are one of the most moderate of the Middle Eastern states. It is quite possible that this tentative democracy is simply a way of ensuring an economic future in a country with few resources of its own. They do, after all, have a free trade agreement with us to maintain and if our tactics in other countries hold true, I'm sure there's been pressure from Washington to democratize.
I do want to point out that this progressive process of giving women a voice in government predates Jordan's alliance with the US. If I had to guess, I would guess that it has been the influence of the Queens of Jordan, all of whom seem to have been very strong, opinionated, smart women, that has created this impetus. I seriously doubt we can take any credit, as a country, for this refreshing news.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Aid recommendations for Iraq and the role of corruption in redevelopment delays
This morning's reading is of a white paper published by Oxfam detailing a 'looming humanitarian crisis' in Iraq. Sad stuff.
I remember when the American public was told that the Armed Forces would be welcomed with open arms and seen as liberators. What seems to have escaped the folks making that claim is the issue of responsiblity. We owe the people of Iraq assistance in getting back on their feet after we have destroyed their country through extended warfare. I know it wasn't all roses before the invasion, but this is a step backwards. For example, only 20% of Iraqi citizens now have access to sanitation, and malnutrition among children has risen by half. These same children, growing up in wartime, will have a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, their ability to learn is damaged, and we are therefore helping to create an entire generation of people whose intellectual capital has been stunted from the very outset. This does not bode well for productive reconstruction efforts, and it is, without debate, a worse state of being for the citizens left alive than before the invasion happened.
I wish I could take the large portion of my taxes that is going to the defense fund and divert it to Oxfam.
One thing that is interesting is the number and variation in NGO's in Iraq that have stepped up to do what neither government seems capable of doing- sharing water and food, distributing medical supplies, and so forth. It saddens me that in this country, if I were to give money directly to any one of them to assist with the distribution of humanitarian aid, and any portion of that were to be used for sectarian agendas, even without my knowledge, I could in theory be arrested for abetting an enemy of the United States. However, from my view, if the ability of the citizens of Iraq to pursue 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is being deliberately impaired by our country, we have failed every touted objective of this war already. How can they seek happiness with IED's everywhere? Liberty with curfews? No sanitation and no water, food rations inadequate? All three of these ideals that we espouse as essential to the great American idea of democracy, that we seek (at least in rhetoric) to promote across the globe, are in danger if not already lost, and we are the cause of it.
This is not the freedom I know.
I remember when the American public was told that the Armed Forces would be welcomed with open arms and seen as liberators. What seems to have escaped the folks making that claim is the issue of responsiblity. We owe the people of Iraq assistance in getting back on their feet after we have destroyed their country through extended warfare. I know it wasn't all roses before the invasion, but this is a step backwards. For example, only 20% of Iraqi citizens now have access to sanitation, and malnutrition among children has risen by half. These same children, growing up in wartime, will have a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, their ability to learn is damaged, and we are therefore helping to create an entire generation of people whose intellectual capital has been stunted from the very outset. This does not bode well for productive reconstruction efforts, and it is, without debate, a worse state of being for the citizens left alive than before the invasion happened.
I wish I could take the large portion of my taxes that is going to the defense fund and divert it to Oxfam.
One thing that is interesting is the number and variation in NGO's in Iraq that have stepped up to do what neither government seems capable of doing- sharing water and food, distributing medical supplies, and so forth. It saddens me that in this country, if I were to give money directly to any one of them to assist with the distribution of humanitarian aid, and any portion of that were to be used for sectarian agendas, even without my knowledge, I could in theory be arrested for abetting an enemy of the United States. However, from my view, if the ability of the citizens of Iraq to pursue 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' is being deliberately impaired by our country, we have failed every touted objective of this war already. How can they seek happiness with IED's everywhere? Liberty with curfews? No sanitation and no water, food rations inadequate? All three of these ideals that we espouse as essential to the great American idea of democracy, that we seek (at least in rhetoric) to promote across the globe, are in danger if not already lost, and we are the cause of it.
This is not the freedom I know.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Brave new worlds
In the novel Snow Crash (by Neal Stephenson), one of the most seminal cyberpunk pieces of fiction ever written, the main character lives in a storage unit with a roommate and delivers pizza to earn money. He and his roomie are effectively economic refugees in an LA of future imagining, in which anyone with any money has walled themselves into a gated community. But Hiro, the main character, has no problem with his surroundings because he is a computer genius who spends all his spare time in a virtual world which he had at some point helped to design, and in which, therefore, he lives a totally unreal life of luxury and social standing.
This (second life) would be a case of life imitating art (imitating life!), the designers making a Snow-Crash-esque virtual world in which to forget the crushing meaninglessness and desperation of everyday existence.
I realize this is unusual fodder for a news blog but I do a lot of thinking about why it is that people are content with the status quo. I think that there are probably a lot of people who use prosthetics for their imaginations in order to escape a Hobbesian reality. The danger is that without any sort of perceived need to change everyday reality, citizens of any nation-state become pliant and gullible. Our critical thinking skills are not required, and therefore they atrophy. One thinks of our President's post-911 admonition to go shopping and to take the family to Disneyland. There is a particular type of backlash to the boredom of the middle classes as well, which I observe in the moneyed young men of my brother's generation- driving around in Eugene listening to hip hop and trying to pick fights and live large, simply because life will then have adrenaline and spark to it. Such posturing is generally unproductive in my opinion, but it seems to satisfy them, at least in the short run.
I bring this up because I feel that it is difficult for me to understand news like this, about the suicide bomber outside the Red Mosque in Islamabad. I have never in my life touched the edge of the level of desperation and hopelessness that would be necessary to give momentum to such a desire, let alone carry such a thing out. I simply lack the ability to understand such a thing. But from the outside, what I see is an act of horrible, soul-crushing disenfranchisement. It is the most final and horrible way in which one could possibly say "listen to me!" and yet the message, whatever it is, is lost along with all respect for any cause that could inspire such fanaticism. It is a totally opposite response to the perceived horrors of the modern real world, than that of the hyperenhanced daydreaming which is fostered by the creation of a perfect virtual world.
This (second life) would be a case of life imitating art (imitating life!), the designers making a Snow-Crash-esque virtual world in which to forget the crushing meaninglessness and desperation of everyday existence.
I realize this is unusual fodder for a news blog but I do a lot of thinking about why it is that people are content with the status quo. I think that there are probably a lot of people who use prosthetics for their imaginations in order to escape a Hobbesian reality. The danger is that without any sort of perceived need to change everyday reality, citizens of any nation-state become pliant and gullible. Our critical thinking skills are not required, and therefore they atrophy. One thinks of our President's post-911 admonition to go shopping and to take the family to Disneyland. There is a particular type of backlash to the boredom of the middle classes as well, which I observe in the moneyed young men of my brother's generation- driving around in Eugene listening to hip hop and trying to pick fights and live large, simply because life will then have adrenaline and spark to it. Such posturing is generally unproductive in my opinion, but it seems to satisfy them, at least in the short run.
I bring this up because I feel that it is difficult for me to understand news like this, about the suicide bomber outside the Red Mosque in Islamabad. I have never in my life touched the edge of the level of desperation and hopelessness that would be necessary to give momentum to such a desire, let alone carry such a thing out. I simply lack the ability to understand such a thing. But from the outside, what I see is an act of horrible, soul-crushing disenfranchisement. It is the most final and horrible way in which one could possibly say "listen to me!" and yet the message, whatever it is, is lost along with all respect for any cause that could inspire such fanaticism. It is a totally opposite response to the perceived horrors of the modern real world, than that of the hyperenhanced daydreaming which is fostered by the creation of a perfect virtual world.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
133
That (one hundred and thirty three) is the total number of Iraqi refugees that have been allowed into the United States in the last 9 months.
Let's put that number in perspective with the numbers of refugees being housed in some other countries:
Syria: 1,200,000
Jordan: 750,000
Iran: 54,000
Lebanon: 40,000
Jordan has been housing Palestinian refugees since 1947 or so, and is the site of no less than four UN-funded permanent refugee camps already.
So where is our sense of responsibility as a nation? It makes me angry that we can't house the very people who we are displacing because of 'security concerns'- how about if we as a nation stop contributing to the insecurity of the planet so that we won't have to worry about it!
Not only that, but what do you suppose the number of Iraqis in Guantanamo Bay prison is? Larger than 133? Anyone want to bet on that?
Let's put that number in perspective with the numbers of refugees being housed in some other countries:
Syria: 1,200,000
Jordan: 750,000
Iran: 54,000
Lebanon: 40,000
Jordan has been housing Palestinian refugees since 1947 or so, and is the site of no less than four UN-funded permanent refugee camps already.
So where is our sense of responsibility as a nation? It makes me angry that we can't house the very people who we are displacing because of 'security concerns'- how about if we as a nation stop contributing to the insecurity of the planet so that we won't have to worry about it!
Not only that, but what do you suppose the number of Iraqis in Guantanamo Bay prison is? Larger than 133? Anyone want to bet on that?
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Links to articles for this class
This page, from a previous iteration of the INTL240 class, seems to have links to many of the articles we are supposed to be reading.
Enough to eat up the rest of tonight's homework time, anyway!
Enough to eat up the rest of tonight's homework time, anyway!
First post....
Ok, so here's a little about me so that you, the reader, can understand where I'm coming from a little bit. I'm an environmental science student and the things that really fascinate me are climate change, global ecology (how different biomes interact with each other and evolve over time) and the human dimensions of these changes. Now, it would be really easy to cherry pick the news and post all sorts of things that may or may not be related to actual climate change (like, for example, the heat wave in Hungary that's killing people right now) but that really wouldn't be intellectually honest because we don't know whether it's related or not. The jury's still out. The causal link isn't visible to us right now.
But there is a direct causal link between pollution and industrialization, and here is an interesting example of what happens when a country that is poised to host an upcoming Olympic summer games can't seem to face up to the fact that steel mills spew pollution, and cement creates greenhouse gases, and, well, in order to have massive Westernization, you need steel mills and cement.
In the last paragraph, we read that the Chinese government successfully blocked inclusion in a World Bank report of the number of people who died prematurely every year from air and water pollution. That number was 760,000. Now, why would they object? Was the figure inaccurate? If so, how inaccurate? What if it was exaggerated twice over? (That would be the best case scenario in terms of human life. ) That would mean that only 380,000 had died prematurely.
But what if it was too low, yet still so shocking that the Chinese government didn't want it released for fear people would investigate and find that the number was actually much higher? That would make the actual number to be something approaching a million. Even taking the number at face value, an entire San Francisco or Indianapolis worth of Chinese are dying every year, of what amounts to industrial poisoning.
You hear a lot of talk about not buying Chinese goods because of their human rights record, and that is a good and valid reason. But what about not buying so that the factories will have less reason to continue to pollute? Is it even possible to have such an impact?
I will be watching the Olympics, when they happen, not so much for the atheletes (sorry, sports fans!) but as a primer of PR spin. You can bet there will be plenty to go around.
But there is a direct causal link between pollution and industrialization, and here is an interesting example of what happens when a country that is poised to host an upcoming Olympic summer games can't seem to face up to the fact that steel mills spew pollution, and cement creates greenhouse gases, and, well, in order to have massive Westernization, you need steel mills and cement.
In the last paragraph, we read that the Chinese government successfully blocked inclusion in a World Bank report of the number of people who died prematurely every year from air and water pollution. That number was 760,000. Now, why would they object? Was the figure inaccurate? If so, how inaccurate? What if it was exaggerated twice over? (That would be the best case scenario in terms of human life. ) That would mean that only 380,000 had died prematurely.
But what if it was too low, yet still so shocking that the Chinese government didn't want it released for fear people would investigate and find that the number was actually much higher? That would make the actual number to be something approaching a million. Even taking the number at face value, an entire San Francisco or Indianapolis worth of Chinese are dying every year, of what amounts to industrial poisoning.
You hear a lot of talk about not buying Chinese goods because of their human rights record, and that is a good and valid reason. But what about not buying so that the factories will have less reason to continue to pollute? Is it even possible to have such an impact?
I will be watching the Olympics, when they happen, not so much for the atheletes (sorry, sports fans!) but as a primer of PR spin. You can bet there will be plenty to go around.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)