The Republic of Dissent

Women rights, human rights, and international politics

Human rights Watch has a very interesting report on Libya and on its “social rehabilitation facilities” that it has for women abandoned by the families because they “stained” its honor (by having kids out of wedlock). The report is very interesting and it talks about the fact that those women are forced to stay into those detention centers until somebody volunteer to marry them or unless their family reclaims them. They have no freedom and no rights to privacy and they are treated as second-class citizens, who need to be reformed with discipline and sometimes force. I wonder how much this will affect the new image that Libyais trying to create for itself considering. Libya has chaired the UN rights commission and the fact that it was able to do so shows how politicized the UN has become for a country record on human rights is not taken into accounts by countries who vote for the chairmanship of UN commission. However, the bigger question is whether the proposal to create a new UN rights council would change things. The US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has indicated that the US would vote against the proposal in its present form because he says that it will not keep countries with bad records on Human rights off the council. I am not sure that the goal of the US should be to keep those countries off the council, it should to keep them of the chairmanship of the council otherwise they would be no reform since the focus will be on what are human rights and on what constitutes an adequate record on human rights. The new UN rights council should be inclusive, but its chair should be given to countries, which have appalling records on human rights.

China and Africa: A partnership made in Heaven?

China is gaining popularity in Africa because it is viewed as a potential great partner (a country that can help by providing money and resources) for African countries but also because African governments see China as a way for them to gain more leverage against Western powers. Nigeria, for example, criticized the response of the United States in the attacks on its oil assets and turned to China for defense aid to show Washington that it had another card to play and that it needed to take its situation more seriously. The Chinese minister of foreign affairs toured African countries at the beginning of the year in search of partnerships that would help it to diversify its sources of energy. I believe that China’s presence in Africa will only strengthen because for so long the West has taken it for granted and   has acted as if Africans had no other alternative than to deal with them. However, things are changing with the emerging of powers such as China and India, which are going to take advantage of the resentment that there is towards the west and form partnerships with African countries that will only be too eager to strengthen ties with them. Western powers, I believe are going to have to reevaluate not only their attitude towards Africa, but also their strategy. This means starting to pay more attention to the particularities of the African context and to African sensibilities.

The renaissance of economic patriotism

Economic patriotism is once again popular. It is very striking to hear arguments made against Dubai Port World and to hear people argue with demagoguery and sometimes sincerity that no foreign companies should have “control” over US ports. It is as though suddenly the West has discovered that free enterprise and free trade no longer ensures that they will end up on top. It is true that the Coast Guard have raised more security concerns about Dubai Port World but those could be addressed if minds were not already made up about the deal. This resurgence is more acute in France where for the last month, the French government has showed strong opposition to the hostile bid of Mittal (which is a Dutch company owned by a Brit who is originally from India Lakshmi Mittal) for Arcelor,a French company. The reactions were by the minister of finance Thierry Breton were so over the top that the Indian government threatened to retaliate and that Lakshmi Mittal said that they were based on prejudices. This disagreement between the two countries made the visit of Chirac in India more than a week ago less successful that it might have been considering the fact that India would have been, otherwise, more open to French businesses given its differences with the US over nuclear energy. The most striking example of French economic patriotism is what happened this weekend when Dominique de Villepin announced the merger of a state energy company Gaz de France with a private one Suez. This move was to save Suez from the hostile bid of an Italian company Enel and the Italian government has asked Brussels to intervene because it believes that the Villepin government act was against the law of the European Union and that it was in fact protectionist since the goal of the fusion was to stop Enel from acquiring Suez. Villepin in an interview defended economic patriotism by arguing that, “defending vital national interests is not to build barriers but it is rather to give us the tools to defend our interests and of the ones Europe in the best possible conditions.” It seems to me that more and more governments feel that defending their economic interests means closing certain sectors to foreign companies. This is quite extraordinary when third world countries have been encouraged and sometimes even forced to open up all of their economy to foreign trade. To me, economic patriotism is an admission by governments of powerlessness and especially it is an expression of the fear to join the club of nations of the have-not, of the losers of globalization. It is ironic to see nations who have the resources and the tools to gain the most from globalization suddenly resist it because they know that there is the possibility that they can lose. It is always easier to play a game where you know that you will win more often than not because the rules favor you and because you have been playing the game longer than others have. But globalization has changed the rules, and countries are resisting this reality because they see globalization as a zero sum game since they have create it that way and they do not want to be the ones that end up with nothing. I believe of course that globalization is not a zero sum game precisely because the majority of the new winners and leaders know for the game to continue and to be popular it has to be fair or at least make the attempt to let everybody have a share of the globalization pie. This explains why Bill Gates spend his Januaries in Davos because he knows that having a large numbers of losers and of people who are on the margins of the globalization system will make it explode.

Film, culture, images, identity, and clashes

I went to the movies yesterday and I did not know what I wanted to watch. I was going to watch Freedomland, but it was starting an hour later and I did not want to have to wait that long. It was cold and I did not feel like going back home and coming back for a movie, which has not received great reviews. Anyway, I had only one choice and it was to watch Madea’s Family Reunion. I had some preconceived notions about the film and the most important of them was that it was going another stereotypical movie about African Americans grandmothers and the way they are both tough and nurturing. I gave it a chance telling myself that it could not be worse that Big Mamma 2 and I am glad that I did. It was funny, warm, and true without being insulting. Although the movie is not perfect, I feel that Tyler Perry has great potential both as writer and as director because he did something that very other directors have been able to do, he made me want to be African American. After the movie, I go into thinking about the importance that film has on culture, identity, and how we relate to each other. I believe that film play an important role in expressing either the message that we are all humans or the message that some people are just different, and that difference is not acceptable. It is for that reason that minorities are right to argue strongly that Hollywood should stop propagating stereotypes that are harmful because they create preconceived notions that are hard to erase. I think that when we will have more films, which like Madea’s Family Reunion have a strong and positive message, we will know that we are winning the struggle against extremism. Films are powerful and necessary instruments to fight against the dangerous notions that we cannot coexist. Positive and true images can obliterate the false notion because we are just too different and because some of our differences are signs of backwardness and expressions of savage civilizations.

Dying young

It is Monday and I am still hoping to have a good week. My weekend was cold and darkened by the sad realities of the fact that a young man was butchered to death because of he was Jewish and that he died before being reaching thirty, before being able to get out of the banlieues of Paris and to see something other than concrete. I thought about life, death, age and about the alarming fact that death has become more beautiful, more meaningful than existence. People like me who are part of the generation X and those younger  who are part of the generation Y feel that life is only worth living if everything including death happens fact. It is sad to say but getting old has become scarier than dying young. Why? Because being old means taking responsibility for the future that we have created and probably means dying in a nursing home without a social security check decent enough to satisfy one’s needs. Nihilism is back in fashion because what matters is no longer what you do, but how fast you are able to do it, at what age, before you turned thirty. It is better to Narcissus than to be Sisyphus and to push that rock endlessly to the top of the mountain knowing that it will fall. Life-time accomplishment are no longer valuable because the baby boomers messed up the world for us so bad that it is now more difficult to be patient and to do things slowly  because fast success and fast love are the order of the day. It is easier to die young and to die in the name of a noble idea such as freedom, religion, and a nation than to live for it because that would mean having to build something and building requires time. I am going to spend my week trying to catch up with time. I will seek reasons to sustain my profound conviction that life is worth living even if  it means living in a world that it is going to take time to improve and even if it means dying old, without hair, and without teeth alone on a hard mattress without the people whom we have loved.

African disillusions or what happens when Fukuyamism wins

The “reelection” of the Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni shows that those who believed in democracy have so far been unable to convince African leaders and yes, many Africans that it is the best way for them to govern their countries and to achieve prosperity and to create a dynamic society. Although the voting process in Uganda might have been “clean,” it is clear that the process was not for the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye. He spent the majority of his time fighting rape and corruption charges and has very little access to the media. Yet, although the West is going to deplore the absence of a leveled playing field, it is going to recognize tacitly President Museveni by acknowledging his victory. I believe that the reelection of the Ugandan president in spite of the local realities show that many Africans have bought what I will called the Fukuyama soup. They believe that it is better for them to have somebody that will keep the country together rather than a leader unable to contain the old sectarian and tribal tensions. The trouble with soup is that it might fill you up, but you do not know always know what you are eating and whether in fact it is good for you. When it comes to Africa,Western leaders are Fukuyamists. They look at the continent through a realist lens and believe that injustice is better that chaos and disorder. Africa countries are so culturally and ethnically diverse that it is often very difficult to keep them together by something other than force because they inherited a system of governance and a mindset from Colonialism that does not fit their society. It is mainly for this reason that the West prefers to let undemocratic leaders stay in power since what legitimate their governments in their eyes is the ability their countries together and avoid conflicts that would have disastrous consequences both for the local population, the region in which they live, and the west’s economic interests. The example of Congo comes to mind where the total collapse of government institutions at the end of the dictatorship of Mobutu and the assassination of Laurent Kabila just lead to anarchy and the death of millions of people. The recent events in Nigeria are particularly worrisome because the violence between Christians and Muslims and the attacks on oil tankers show that  Nigeria’s government has failed  and that it has no other means to stop the violence than by using the army to restore forcefully calm. However, what worries Western powers is not the fact a silent revolt is brewing in Nigeria, but the fact that if the situation explodes, then more likely than not, Nigeria would not be able to export its oil and the prices will go up. My point is simple (I hope) and making it gives me an opportunity to respond briefly to Francis Fukuyama’s article in the New York Times last Sunday. The choice that the United States face is not between democracy and national interest, or between stability and disorder, the choice is about what world to we want to bring and whether we are going to say that in order, to win the great struggle against Islamism, we can afford to lose the multiple, but smaller struggles against injustice. Neoconservatism failed not because it placed the emphasis on (its belief in democracy was not Wilsonian but Nietzschian in the sense that democracy becomes a tool to acquire power. Democratic principles were noble not in themselves but only since they were essential to the perpetuation of American power) democracy, but because it chose to believe that the end justified the means when the contrary is true. Neoconservatism failed because precisely because it was inconsistent and because it had a religious belief in American military power. For those reasons, people around the world especially those whose lives were influenced by its policies, believed that its belief in democracy was phone and the real objective was Americanization. Francis Fukuyama is distancing himself from the neocons but unfortunately he is doing it too late and he is falling into the trap of reason, of believing that Neoconservatism was too idealistic and that what is needed is the return of the more grownup principles of realism. However, the problem is idealism; the problem is ethnocentrism, the incapacity to see things from the perspective of the other. I believe that Africa exemplify the fact that letting injustice fester to achieve short terms goals of stability is dangerous, because it only delays the inevitable chaos that will follow, but it makes it more lethal, more violent and more sectarian because one side is always seen as responsible for the unjust status quo.

Is freedom the only thing worth dying for?

I watched President Bush give a speech yesterday about terrorism in which he talked about a “forward strategy for freedom.” It made me wonder whether freedom is everything, the only thing worth dying for and if for that matter it was the most important human value, the one that should define this new century. I thought about the most important news of the last few days, about the violence in Iraq and in Nigeria, about the situation in the Philippines and about even about Bird flu. I realized that “cry for freedom” was the slogan of the last century and that in this new century,  what the people are craving for is not freedom, but rather the possibility to use this freedom to build a future for themselves and their country. There is no doubt that freedom is an essential value, but that point the end of the cold war and the victory of the United States made that point. Thus, the challenge of this century is not about bringing freedom to people, but rather about building a world in which they can live free without having to live in poverty. Whether people live in the slums of Addis-Abeba, Cairo, Port-au Prince, or of Rio de Janeiro, they dream of prosperity. They dream of being able to have a piece no matter how small of the American dream because after all that dream is primarily about getting recognition from society and the world and about being able to feel proud of who we are. Freedom is always going to remain an empty slogan as long as it does not incorporate the possibility that it will lead to a better life, to a more meaningful life. President Bush has to realize that he talks about freedom; people from the South, the East, and the Middle East do not get the same fuzzy feeling that he does and feel the same determination to fight for it. There is a saying that says that empty stomachs do not listen. To make people once again believe in freedom and to motivate them to fight for it, it is necessary to make it mean something bigger than to have choices, and to be able to do what one wants. Freedom has to mean is necessary to make it mean having access to a decent life, to prosperity and to the American dream, which they do not necessarily have to live in American. In many central Africans such as Cameroon, people have a saying to let you know that their stomachs is the most important to them, that is whether or not they are able to eat well, and that expression is “Est ce que c’est ce que je mange? (Is it something which I can eat?)” Hungry free people are dangerous for they always become violent by using their freedom to steal something to eat.

Is it all about foreign-ownership or about a futile resistance to change and to globalization?

Reading different articles and listening to commentators and politicians talk about outsourcing and foreign ownership, I keep asking myself a simple question that nobody seems to be able to answer: how is foreign ownership bad? I do not understand how can politicians and commentators can without swallowing their tongues talk about foreign ownership and outsourcing as when the United States is a country, which is the driving force behind free markets and behind the idea that what matters in not the nationality of a company but rather its competence. I do not understand all of this fear about foreign ownership and outsourcing for I believe that it is based upon feelings, which are un-American, the fear of competition and pessimism about the ability of Americans to compete in a free market economy. David Ignatius writes in today’s (February 24) Washington Post: "The real absurdity here is that Congress does not seem to realize that an Arab-owned company's management of America's ports is just a taste of what is coming. Greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets is an inevitable consequence of the reckless tax-cutting, deficit-ballooning fiscal policies that Congress and the White House have pursued. By encouraging the United States to consume more than it produces, these fiscal policies have sucked in imports so fast that the nation is nearing a trillion-dollar annual trade deficit. Those are IOUs on America's future, issued by a spendthrift Congress." Charles Krauthammer writes that, “The greater and more immediate danger is that as soon as the Dubai company takes over operations, it will necessarily become privy to information about security provisions at crucial U.S. ports. That would mean a transfer of information about our security operations -- and perhaps even worse, about the holes in our security operations -- to a company in an Arab state in which there might be employees who, for reasons of corruption or ideology, would pass this invaluable knowledge on to al-Qaeda types.”

I can’t believe that I am hearing American commentators argue seriousl against  what the United States has been preaching to the world for the last century, that openness was the greatest value when it comes to economics. My question is simple: why should that value be questioned when foreign firms are finally able to make the same thrives in this country as the United States have been making all over the world? Are we really going to say to the world that oops, we were wrong, capitalism is only good when American firms are the best, but not when it enables foreign ownership to own key American assets? America cannot suddenly change the beliefs that were so strong that it led it to a cold confrontation with the Soviet Union and it motivates it promote liberal policies to open the world markets. Either the United Statesbelieves in free trade and in capitalism or it does not. There cannot be double talk because I believe that all of this talk about outsourcing and foreign ownership as being a bad thing is in fact a form of defeatism based on the paranoid belief that America is losing its competing edge because other countries are cheating and are not playing fair. It would be better to put all of this negative feeling in efforts to make America more competitive by investing in education and in research and development with the same passion that countries such as China and India are doing. I refuse to believe American companies cannot compete in the world as it is today and to believe that the sky has fallen because foreign firms have gotten better at playing the best. What the US should do is to better equip present and future generations of future entrepreneurs to live in the globalized world for the marketplace has changed for good and it will not going back to the good all days when things were simple and competition was one-sided. Besides all of those who fear a foreign invasion of Us-economy or a lost of American jobs to foreigners should be reassured by the fact that the world economy is integrating and that the United States is benefiting more from outsourcing than it is being hurt by it. Again, the key is to adapt and to be more competitive.

                                                                                                                               

When everything else fails, blame the press

I read the opinion piece of Bill Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz in the Washington Post. Although it was on a very serious topic, the freedom of the press, I must admit that I was amused by how they framed their argument. I believe that those two brilliant people are too narcissistic to accept that they share some of the responsibility for the state of the press today. The reason why the press is not as strong or as informative as we will all like it to be is in part due to the fact that those two, as too many other opinion makers. played a role in polarizing American and indeed world public opinion. Mr. Bennett and Mr. Dershowitz decry the fact that only free papers in the United States choose to publish the cartoons that have caused so much fury in the Islamic world. They write, “Since the war on terrorism began, the mainstream press has had no problem printing stories and pictures that challenged the administration and, in the view of some, compromised our war and peace efforts.” Apparently, they must be living in another galaxy for I will argue that the press has been too deferential to power. The press chooses to believe that in a time of war, it had to be less hawkish in order to be patriotic and to participate in the war effort. I believe that what those two gentlemen are asking to be the press is not to be more aggressive and to be fairer but rather to have a point of view and to never forget that it is before everything else American or westerner before independent and investigative. They want an ideological press, which is deferential to power and chooses to take a side in what they believe to be a clash of civilizations and that chooses to be on the good side. I find it appalling that they compare the publication of caricatures to the one of pictures of Abu Ghraib. I wonder what criteria they used to come to that equation. Bennett and Dershowitz argue that the mainstream media has a new twin policy that places at the bottom of everything else “an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.” However, in my opinion, they are framing the issue narrowly just to win the argument. The American media is made of Christians, some Jews, and very few Muslims and it is because that we tend to expect more of ourselves, of our own kind that they are expecting more from the West because after all it is the West who believes in democracy and in important values such freedom and equality. Journalists can only judge what they know and the truth is very few of them know about the Muslim world, but they do know about Christianity and to a less extent about Judaism even though I do not think that it is less about religion than about democratic values based in part on a Judea-Christian Tradition. Anyway, I think the problem with Bill Bennett and Alan Dershowitz is that they are losing their power of persuasion and that for that reason they have to argue that the  reason why they can no longer convince is because the press is biased. The problem is not the press; the problem is the force of their arguments. My response to them would be to stop whining and to convince people by finding new arguments that take into consideration the fact that the world has changed since they were once able to make brilliantly their points and to convert people to their point of view. As a lawyer, I know that when you lose a case, you should never place the blame on the judge or on the jury but on yourself and on your ability to defend your client because after all, there are no bad juries, they are just bad lawyers. The press has surrendered its obligation to inform the citizenry mainly because of the atmosphere created by the words and the deeds of the political, academic, and other elites that made it impossible or very difficult for them to do so. They decided that a viewpoint was only worth fighting if it expresses the right point or rather the point of view of the good side.             

When oversimplification wins, reason loses because powerful images can lie

  I wanted to take more time to comment on the Dubai Port Issue because I wanted to avoid having my judgment clouded by all the commotion and the hysteria around this issue. I wanted also to figure out what I thought by knowing more and by doing something other than a cheap and shallow analysis. I believe that this issue and the way the media and politicians discuss it show how difficult it has become to report complex issues and to talk about them by doing something other than oversimplifying them. I believe that in this case what scare Congress are images that are untruthful, but powerful and scary: the image of Arabs in control of American ports and the image of them letting terrorists attack the United States. Even though, everything shows that if a terrorist act happens through American ports, it will not be because an Arab company (Dubai Ports World) is in charge of them but because less than 5 percent of cargoes coming in the United States are inspected. Congress has images and oversimplification on its side and those are sadly omnipotent weapons in today’s discourse. All that members of congress need to do to justify their opposition is to say that the US cannot have a country that supported the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan control major US port. Logic, reason, and truth cannot win arguments because in a complicated and unstable world fear, (fear of the unknown, fear of the other, and fear of difference) and oversimplification trumps everything else. The President is right. This deal has to go through because there is nothing wrong with it. However, I fear that the amateurish and stupid way, its administration handled this whole issue and especially its history itself with congress will not withstand the strength of the images. Their simplicity has been able to oversimplify the issue by making it easy to understand for common folk and by creating fear within their heart.

If only connectedness was as good for the soul as it was for our world

David Ignatius has an opinion piece in the Washington Post in which he argues that connectedness causes conflict and that the fact that the world is flat undermines political stability. However, he misses the point. The problem is not connectedness; the problem is political and social vacuum. No institutions exist to insure that connectedness leads to fairness and to equal opportunity for everybody. What is happening is happening without effective governance and this means that although we are connected, we are not yet together. Connectedness does not yet mean togetherness because people are resisting it because they either are scared of it or dislike the fact that they might be tied to someone who is too different from them. The two world forums that happened a month ago prove this point. One part of the world met in Davos to talk about the world as they saw and the other part met in Caracas when it would have been more helpful to have both parts meet. Instead of having Davos and Caracas, we should have Davacas because I think the world would have benefited tremendously to have Bill Gates meet José Bové. Furthermore, I will argue that although the world might be flat, some parts of the worlds are flatter than others are and are more able to deal with the chaos that connectedness and its openness can bring. It is not the fact that we are connected that causes the world to be less secure but rather the fact that everything is in flux and when things are in flux they cannot be stable. Connectedness is not the final stage of the transformation that our world is undergoing since the end of the cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is just a wave, a tectonic plate not the whole process or the whole phenomenon. Chaos, violence, political stability are most intense and more present because we do not know where we are going and we are not even sure any more that we can control our own destiny and that our values fit with the new realities. I argue that connectedness is a great thing because it leads to openness and although openness is not a good thing in itself, it has the potential to do so much good for our world. So again, the problem is precisely that some people misses the old world, the times when elites ruled and has the fate of the world in their hands and they are resisting connectedness by throwing around words like chaos, instability, evil,…etc. Yet, I believe we are living in an exciting time because precisely anything and everything is possible. Our problem is not the present and the uncertainty of the future, but rather the nostalgia of the past and the fear of the world, of our world.  

Google, China, and Blah-blah

The Chinese government is apparently investigating Google for operating without a license. After the appearance last week by Google in front of the Congress to discuss China and Human rights issues, I am suspecting that the Chinese just want to remind Google that while they are in China, they have to obey Chinese laws. I think that this whole affair with Google, yahoo, Microsoft, and their operations is a lot of noise for nothing because the central issue isn’t really human rights or even ethics. The central issue is that record trade deficit that the United Stateshas with China and the feeling that it is occurring because the Chinese are using practices that may be unfair such as undervaluing their currency. I am not trying to say that companies such as Yahoo should be able to help the Chinese government to prosecute dissidents. I am however saying that the majority of American companies are operating in countries that do not have the same standards as the United Statesand yet, the Congress doesn’t seem that interest in those companies or in getting them to follow basic American principles and not to put profit about everything else. I am for consistency and against the attempt to make China a nation that we must all fear and with which we will not be able to compete. I may be naïve but I believe that America does not have to fear China but only has to fear to be misguided by its own fears. Instead of beating up on Google and others for doing what precisely American companies have always done and which has being at the core of their success that is finding new markets, the US must find other ways to compete and to deal with China. It is hypocritical for congress and its members to beat on American companies what it is the one who chose to give China permanent trade status (which was the right thing to do). My point is simple. China does not have to be a foe or a rival of the United States. I will argue that if we want to change things in China, we must make it a friend and understand its culture and its beliefs in order to be able to influence its behavior. It is saying great but empty works about human rights that the situation will improve. If congress is that serious about human rights, what it needs to do is to support more fair trade and to encourage the government to put more emphasis on fairness when it signs trade agreements with other countries.

Is Nigeria the next Congo?

Nigeria seems to be on the verge of losing the relative stability that has enjoyed since its independence from Great Britain. Today, because it is an oil producing country and because it is the most populated African Nation (1 African out of 4 is Nigerian), Nigeria is a “superpower” in Africa.  However, it has recently been shaken not only by the violent manifestations against the publication of the cartoons of the prophet Mohamed but also by attacks on oil tankers by a separatist group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend).  Those attacks are symptoms of a deeper crisis in Nigeria, which is common to almost all African countries especially those who are big and rich in natural resources. At the center of this crisis is the means to keep together a country badly patched up by a colonial power, that is culturally and religiously diverse, and whose resources are not distributed equally across its territory.  The ex Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) is a country, which is as big as Nigeriaand as full of natural resources.  It was stable while it was under the dictatorial rule of Mobutu who held the country together with the support Western power. When he got old and sick, the country fell apart and has been in a permanent state of war ever since with neighboring countries (Rwanda,Uganda,and Zimbabwe) taking advantage of the weakness or the lack there of a central government to rob its natural resources. Nigeria has been able, so far, to avoid the fate of Congo because it has a federation meaning that regions have some powers even though the central government remains strong. This explains, for example, the fact that Sharia law is applied in some parts of the North but not in regions where the majority of the population is Christian. The Nigerian military has also played an important role in its stability since it has been at different times taken power to “restore” order. What is worrisome in Nigeria is the fact that in spite of the fact that it is a “rich” country, it is not governed well in the sense that the wealth is not redistributed but remains in the hands of few people and of few regions. One of the demands of the Mend is that the oil of delta be used to support the local population who have received very few benefits from the presence of American and international Multinationals (Shell, Exxon Mobil) on their land. They are accusing the federal government of colonizing them and are in fact seeking the independence of the delta to control the oil.  I am not sure that the Mend could destabilize Nigeria and unglue a country that it took years to make one.  However, I am wondering if the federal government is going to take this crisis seriously and realize that inequality and corruption may plunge the country into chaos and then put in at the mercy of predatory neighbors and corporations.

Evo, Coca, Latin America, Che Guevara and Pax Americana

  The United States has rightly softened his stance on Bolivia after the election of the Socialist Evo Morales.  I think it is important for the United States to remain open to Bolivia’s new government for two important reasons.  The first reason is that it sends the message in the Latin American that to the contrary to what Castro and Chavez say, the United States repsects democratic institutions and is willing to work with governments who held views on key issues that are different from its own.  The second reason is that it avoids dividing Latin American in two camps, those who are pro-Americans and those who are anti-Americans.  The goal of leaders such Hugo Chavez is to avoid resolving deep and much need reforms by blaming the United States for all his country's problems and for Latin American problems.  The only reason why Hugo Chavez is still in power is that the United Statesprecipitately gave tacit support to the coup d’etat of 2002, which sought to depose him.  At that time, he was widely unpopular and his own people were trying to gather support for a petition to force him out of power.  What the United States did by showing clear signs that it would not mind seeing Hugo Chavez gone was to give him an opening and a new enemy that has help him stayed in power. Mister Chavez has found the way to strengthen and to prolong his hold on to the oil rich country of Venezuela, he is presenting as the only man in Latin American who is opposing George Bush and his neo-imperialist policies. His message to his people is the same as the one of Castro in Cuba: “I may be a dictator, but I have to be a dictator to protect you against the greater enemy the United States”  By being open to good relations with Bolivia, the United States is increasing the chance that Evo Morales, even though, he might be attracted to the ideas of Chavez and Castro, will not join their club.  He might be more like Lula (Luiz Da Silva), the president of Brazil willing to deal with the United States so long that he is allowed to be who is and that is a socialist.  Socialism no longer means confrontation with the United States and with free market because the end of the cold war showed that the failures of state-controlled economies.  Socialism is changing, the change may not be happening at a quick pace, but it is occurring.  It is because it is no longer possible to argue reasonably that free markets are evil, that Chavez has found a new target to use the old divisive rhetoric, but again, in my opinion, Chavez is not a socialist, he is an opportunist. Evo Morales so far seems focused on changing the lives of his people for the better by doing what the policies of the World Bank and of the IMF have failed to do, that is provide more equality and reduce poverty.  The United Statescan only gain by not closing the door to him.

Update on David Irving

David Irving just got condemned to 3 years in prison for denying the Shoah. I predict that this verdict will give him another opportunity to express himself and to make himself known and his views heard. I don't think it is worth it for he will never spend 3 years in jail and yet he will be able to gain as much publicity as he craved and as much attention for his spiteful and despicable ideas as he needs. Is it worth it?

When censorship becomes counterproductive

    The British “historian” David Irving is now on trial on Austria for violating its laws against the denial of the Holocaust in a 1989 interview he gave in that country.  Holocaust denial is a crime in many European countries and Mr. Irving who is a racist and anti-Semite is famous for statements where he not only denies that the Shoah ever happens but where he talks about Jewish conspiracies and although hateful ideas.  Right in order to defend himself and to play the role of martyr, Mr. Irvin is saying that he changed his mind on the Holocaust because he encountered new evidence that showed that it indeed happened and that it is ludicrous for him to be tried for something that happened form that 17 years ago.  My point is this, I believe that the laws that there is in numerous European countries against hate speech and against the denial of the Holocaust are not only counterproductive, but are on the contrary helping those with hateful and anti-Semitic view to attract attention and to find a bigger arena on which to try to diffuse their hatred.  I understand the noble sentiment behind having laws that forbid people to deny history especially one as significant as the Shoah, but I believe that by making hatred speech the forbidden fruit they make it more attractive instead of making it less so.  David Irving and people such as him are able to attract media attention and thus to reach many people when they open their filthy mouths to revise history and to talk about groups of people as being inferior.  Having such media attention is an excellent means to not only achieve fame, but to make a living out of the idea that they are being victimized by governments who cannot tolerate free speech when it express an unacceptable idea.  I think that what we should do with people like David Irving is to deny them what they crave the most, that is public attention.  We must ignore them because then, they will understand that they cannot gain attention with hate and that they will only encounter silence when they attempt to whip our collective memory with venomous speech.  Silence would not mean approval, appeasement, or surrender.  Silence would mean delegitimation and it would stop the perception that they are victims by making them invisible.    

Silvio Berlusconi and Alessandra Mussolini: Judah’s kiss

I never thought much of Silvio Berlusconi.  He leaves me cold.  I have stopped (sadly) to be outraged by the fact that so much power can be in the hands of one person in a democratic country such as Italy precisely when I realized that Italians voted for him twice and that precisely because they are choosing him, it is necessary to respect their choice.  However, I have suddenly understood that I must force myself to pay attention to what is happening in Italy for two reasons.  The first reason is that it is an important country since it has troops in Iraq and since it is a member of both the European Union and of NATO.  The second reason is that what Silvio Berlusconi is doing is redefining the boundaries of what is acceptable in politics.  Silvio Berlusconi made an alliance with the neo-fascist party of Italy headed by the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini in order to win the election of early April against Romano Prodi.  They are running neck and neck and Berlusconi feels he needs every vote to sneak in a victory.  What is striking about that is that Silvio Berlusconi is somebody who likes to call other people fascists as he did when he called in 2003 a German member of the European parliament a “Kapo” who is a Nazi guard in a concentration camp.  Mr. Berlusconi is somebody who believes that Islam is in the dark ages and who constantly uses a clash of civilization language by talking of terrorism in terms of West versus East and Christianity versus Europeans.  What saddens me about this is that in spite of the fact that Mr. Berlusconi hands are becoming dirtier in an attempt to keep power, he remains an ally of the United States and of Great Britain.  My question is simple.  Is it acceptable to betray what modernity stands for or what it should stand for in order to win, in order to remain in power?  I do not like the term Islamo-fascists because I believe that radical Islam is different that fascism in the sense that in radical Islam purity, goodness is not defined by blood as in fascism but by belief, by faith.  The fascists say, “We think with our blood.”  Islamists say, “We do not have to think, we believe.”  Anyway, my point is simple.  Berlusconi is allying himself with fascists while he is fervently combating what he believes to be Islamo-fascists.  Isn’t there a contradiction there somewhere?  Or is the origin of radicalism, of totalitarianism makes all the difference?  Are neo-fascist Europeans parties less scary or acceptable because they are western?  Or should we equally fear people who preach hate, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and who deny history no matter where they are front, no matter if they came form the West or from the East and the South? Clashes occur when there is hypocrisy, inconstancy and most of all when values changes or rather stop to matter whenever it is convenient to forget them or to remember them.  Somebody should remind Mr. Berlusconi that he cannot pretend to defend the world against terror if he associates with people in his own country whose own history and values embody it.

We are not all Danes, we are all ignorant, scared, and incredibly self-absorbed

Since I haven’t had the chance to comment on the cartoons controversy, I thought I should start by commenting about the Boston Globe opinion piece written by Jeff Jacoby in which he asserts that we are all Danes as Le Monde, the French newspaper wrote after 9/11 that “Nous sommes tous Américains (we were all Americans).”  My problem with the assertion that we are all Danes is that once again it is an attempt to divide the world into two sides, the side who has the truth and morality on its side, and the one who is just wrong and should join the good side.  I do not believe that the Danish flag deserves to be burn and that Danish products deserve to be boycotted by Muslims who have been offended by the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper. 

Denmark

is a fine country, but it is not the world.  I do believe in the freedom of the Press and even more, I believe in the freedom to provoke, to insult, and to disrespect.  However, I cannot approve need that so many have to oversimplify complicate issues by making it seem as though there is one unique way to see things.  We can’t be all Danes because that would mean that we are all the same, that be something other than Dane is not only wrong, but also illegitimate, and that there is just one culture and one good side.

In an article, in today’s Washington Post, Flemming Rose, the culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that publishes the cartoons explains why he made the decision to do so.  He writes that, “The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world.  Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.” He attempts to place the publication of the cartons in the Danish context and although he says his newspaper has apologized for the fact that Muslims have felt insulted, he insists that he and his newspaper cannot apologize for the right to public the newspaper.  He ends his article by stating that, “As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult.  This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders…The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow.  The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.” Mr. Rose does not get it.  The central issue of this debate is freedom of expression or freedom of the press. I believe that the central issue is one of commiseration and of empathy, and more importantly of failure to communicate because of fear and of absolute beliefs. Mr. Rose is right not to apologize for the publication of the cartoons but he misses the point when he combines totalitarianism, freedom of speech, religion and everything else.  He fails to understand that what is doing in his article is precisely the problem because he is saying it isn’t the cartoon, it is them stupid. He is saying the problem isn’t with me or with my newspaper; the problem is over there, with all of those people who cannot stand the fact that we are free.  The belief that Mr. Rose that he is fighting a war against totalitarianism is not only problematic but a source of conflict because it shows that he lives in a bubble and that he needs not to get out of his little world and to learn more about other people’s realities.  I do not think that all of those who are offended are Islamists nor are people who do not believe in freedom.  I believe that a lot of people are offended precisely because Mr. Rose as his view point demonstrates has put them in the wrong side of the world and has said in fact that dialogue, communication, exchange of ideas are impossible because one side has more than God in its side, it has the truth.  That is not only wrong but it dangerous.  As I said, I believe in more than freedom of expression, I believe in the right to provoke, but once you do provoke, you have to be willing to listen and to view with open eyes the results of your provocation.  The argument is not for self-censorship, but it is to level the playing field of the debate by asking those who are on this pedestal of rightness to get off it to listen, to stop acting like children or immature adults, and to understand that the issue is  not right, freedom, about what is permissible or not. The issue is about how we communicate with each other.  We do not have to agree, but we have to challenge each other to do better than to provoke just for the sake of provocation, we have to challenge each other to know more, to do more, and to try harder to understand each other to avoid violence and clashes.  I fear for a world where the only means of communication is provocation and where dialogue becomes impossible because of absolutes.  Mr. Rose believes religiously that he is on the right side.  So are the ones who are asking for the head of his cartoonists.  If those are the only two sides available then we are in trouble and the gap of nothingness will never be filled.  Again the choice isn’t between appeasement or surrender.  The choice is between communication, understanding, chaos, and endless confrontations.  From what I understood, Mr. Rose wanted to provoke a confrontation, he succeeded, what we must now do is to open our eyes, our ears, and our minds to understand.  We do not have to change who we are and our values but we have to understand that no everybody is like who are and likes our values.  The goal should be to communicate, to exchange ideas, and to attempt to convince one another not through provocation or violence but through the logic and the soundness of our arguments.  It is precisely because those who believe in freedom of express have the most powerful arguments that they must avoid the temptation to use solely provocation because it will only close minds to the force of their arguments.  We all have to live in the same world and for that reason and because it is no longer possible to isolate ourselves and to ignore one another, we have one world means consensus and that consensus building requires the end of extremisms.

First post

The goal of my blog is simple even though ambitious, to give information, perspective, and example of human experiences to avoid a clash of civilizations. I will not promise not be bias for I do have my biases.  I do not believe in a clash of civilizations.  I do not believe that the world is divided into two sides and that there is on one side the west and modernity and the other side, everybody and traditionalism or rather indigenous belief.  I believe that the world more than it has ever been is becoming one and this coming together of different cultures and different religions explain in great parts why the situation seems so tense, volatile and hopeless. Time, space, geography, distance are no longer able to separate human beings from one another.  Globalization, as Anthony Giddens would say, has compressed time and space and it is forcing us to live with one another whether we are ready or not.  It is precisely because we have to find a way to live with one another and to communicate with one another that we have to avoid clashes and to avoid oversimplifying complex reality in order to create the false dichotomies such good versus evil, west versus east, north versus south, black versus south and religion versus secularism.  Because I believe that we live in a world where context is everything, my blog will attempt to explain the context to enable us to communicate better and especially to avoid insulting each other with misunderstanding and ignorance.