This blog from the ground in Haiti is excellent, as well as very positive about the power of Haitians to build a better future for themselves.
Beverly Bell in Haiti — YES! Magazine
Thanks to Liz, a former student, for pointing this out to me.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
false economy: why the cuts are the wrong solution
An excellent illustration of how to challenge the perverse deflationary logic that now governs economic policy making in the developed capitalist countries.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Captain SKA's Liar Liar
The one good side of ConDemNation: the return of British political pop.
My thanks to my former colleague, Deborah Simpson, for showing me this.
My thanks to my former colleague, Deborah Simpson, for showing me this.
Hans Rosling's 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes
Swedish statistician Hans Rosling's latest graphical presentation of how the countries of the world are, slowly, getting wealthier and healthier. The trick: how to move all to the upper right hand side.
Thanks to my former student, Azra Abdul Cader, for bringing this to my attention.
Thanks to my former student, Azra Abdul Cader, for bringing this to my attention.
Friday, December 3, 2010
the rise of Canada's richest 1 per cent
This interesting paper from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives shows how over a 90 year period there have been cycles in inequality in Canada, and that the most recent cycle demonstrates a marked sharpening of income inequality.
The Rise of Canada's Richest 1% | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
The Rise of Canada's Richest 1% | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
message to the US – blame the wars, not China
An excellent post from my former colleague, Paul Kellogg, on the sources of US financial instability.
PolEconAnalysis: Message to the U.S. – Blame the Wars, not China: "There is a growing chorus of voices in the media and the academy singling out the actions of the Chinese state as central to the dilemmas of..."
PolEconAnalysis: Message to the U.S. – Blame the Wars, not China: "There is a growing chorus of voices in the media and the academy singling out the actions of the Chinese state as central to the dilemmas of..."
Thursday, November 4, 2010
the rage of the ignorant
Transiting through Dulles Airport in Washington, DC on my return from Dakar on Sunday, I was struck by the titles of the mass-market books on US politics in the bookstore. The shelves were full of books fulminating against US President Barack Obama; the rage was so palpably strong I could almost taste it.
That rage appears to be reflected in the results of the US mid-term elections on Tuesday. The media has been proclaiming the Republican triumph as the most dramatic mid-term swing since the 1930s, although the fact that only 37 per cent of the eligible electorate actually voted makes this result far less dramatic than the media would like. The mid-terms represent the rage of the white, socially conservative, Christian fundamentalist right, commonly called the Tea Party, which clearly represents a minority of the US electorate.
It seems to me that the rage of the Tea Party movement is the rage of the ignorant. While supporters of the Tea Party movement claim that they are interested in limited government and reduced regulation (although they love Federal entitlement programs that proffer largesse to their core constituency, such as Medicare) they seem to forget that in late 2008 US capitalism was in the midst of its worst crisis since the 1930s. Obama did not cause the crisis, which originated in the financial market de-regulation engineered by Alan Greenspan under Bill Clinton following Clinton's rightward tack after the 1994 mid-term elections. De-regulation was designed to address the dramatic rise in US social and economic inequality, and was predicated upon the type of policies the Tea Party supports, most notably the liberalization of US financial markets. True to his neoconservative ways, George Bush recognized that the crisis of US finance capital was turning into a crisis of US capitalism, which he and Hank Paulson therefore attempted to shore up by a massive injection of government spending designed to stabilize the US economy: at a cost of US$700 billion the Troubled Asset Relief Programme was enacted by Bush, in the face of Congressional hostility, a hostility that was only overcome in the wake of a stock market panic and a huge sell-off of equities as US financial markets plunged.
TARP was barely underway when Obama entered the White House, but to the 'right Keynesians' that populated his economic team following his inauguration, it was clear that TARP was, on its own, inadequate to sustain the resurgence of US capitalism. More was needed, especially as banks, fearful for their existence under the weight of so-called 'ninja' mortgages, has stopped lending. The Obama administration therefore enacted a second fiscal stimulus, the Recovery Act, worth some US$787 billion, within a month of his inauguration. The Recovery Act cut taxes, raised government spending and transferred money to cash-strapped states.
The Tea Party movement may not like government, but US finance capital knows that most of the 7800 banks in the US still exist because of the various liquidity interventions engineered by the Federal Reserve, along with guarantees, loans and outright bail-outs engineered by the US state. Obama did not take the banks into public ownership, as some were advising him to do. Drastic bank reform was off the table as the Federal Reserve embarked on a round of 'quantitative easing' to flood markets with cheap money designed to complement the Recovery Act. Instead, the Treasury designed 'stress tests' to increase the capital reserves of banks, with the result that US banks are now better capitalized –and financially healthier – than at any time in recent decades.
The companies that relied on those banks would have gone down if the financial system had collapsed. Instead, with cheap money, low interest rates, and rising unemployment not only have the companies, for the most part, remained in business, but profits after taxes in the US during the worst crisis in decades have actually increased by one-third. Consider the case of General Motors and Chrysler. The Obama administration brought GM in temporary public ownership under stringent conditions that allowed the company to rewrite its labour contracts, fire its ineffectual management, and quickly close its less efficient lines and activities. Placing GM in short order into such a favourable corporate environment allowed the company to quickly repay its government loans and rapidly return to profitability.
Strong profitability across the US corporate sector has produced a predictable result: equity prices in stock markets have boomed. From March 2009, some 7 weeks after Obama's inauguration, equity prices have nearly doubled. Booming profits and equity prices were not translated by the Obama administration into a tax grab: in the second quarter of 2010 total corporate taxes in the US were, at about US$442 billion, almost the same as during the peak of the credit boom in 2007, prior to the crisis; the US corporate sector is paying a lower share of its income in tax.
Of course, part of the discontent that the Tea Party has played to is high unemployment. Yet increased unemployment has been pivotal to the success of the US corporate sector since the depths of the crisis were breached. Unemployment disciplines the labour force and in so doing sustains the corporate profits that have restored the vigour of US capital. Indeed, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan body, far more would have been out of work without the stimulus and quantitative easing.
Claims that Obama is the first US president not to believe in the US Constitution, that Obama is committed to fundamentally rewriting the relationship between the US state and civil society, and that Obama is a socialist thus seem to brazenly ignore what Barack Obama has done since he became President. In the face of a crisis of US capitalism, under the advice of his 'right Keynesian' economic team Obama's actions have robustly restored the reign of capital – and particularly finance capital – in the US. Indeed, the new round of quantitative easing announced on the day of the US mid-terms is great for finance capital – it is good for equities, for bonds, as well as real assets, while at the same time cheap money will depress the US dollar, stimulate exports, and stimulate corporate profits in circumstances where labour has been fiercely disciplined by increased economic insecurity. The US has gone back to the future, facilitating the continued rise of the plutocrats that increasingly shape the operation of the US political economy, and in so doing directly shape the process of global development.
That rage appears to be reflected in the results of the US mid-term elections on Tuesday. The media has been proclaiming the Republican triumph as the most dramatic mid-term swing since the 1930s, although the fact that only 37 per cent of the eligible electorate actually voted makes this result far less dramatic than the media would like. The mid-terms represent the rage of the white, socially conservative, Christian fundamentalist right, commonly called the Tea Party, which clearly represents a minority of the US electorate.
It seems to me that the rage of the Tea Party movement is the rage of the ignorant. While supporters of the Tea Party movement claim that they are interested in limited government and reduced regulation (although they love Federal entitlement programs that proffer largesse to their core constituency, such as Medicare) they seem to forget that in late 2008 US capitalism was in the midst of its worst crisis since the 1930s. Obama did not cause the crisis, which originated in the financial market de-regulation engineered by Alan Greenspan under Bill Clinton following Clinton's rightward tack after the 1994 mid-term elections. De-regulation was designed to address the dramatic rise in US social and economic inequality, and was predicated upon the type of policies the Tea Party supports, most notably the liberalization of US financial markets. True to his neoconservative ways, George Bush recognized that the crisis of US finance capital was turning into a crisis of US capitalism, which he and Hank Paulson therefore attempted to shore up by a massive injection of government spending designed to stabilize the US economy: at a cost of US$700 billion the Troubled Asset Relief Programme was enacted by Bush, in the face of Congressional hostility, a hostility that was only overcome in the wake of a stock market panic and a huge sell-off of equities as US financial markets plunged.
TARP was barely underway when Obama entered the White House, but to the 'right Keynesians' that populated his economic team following his inauguration, it was clear that TARP was, on its own, inadequate to sustain the resurgence of US capitalism. More was needed, especially as banks, fearful for their existence under the weight of so-called 'ninja' mortgages, has stopped lending. The Obama administration therefore enacted a second fiscal stimulus, the Recovery Act, worth some US$787 billion, within a month of his inauguration. The Recovery Act cut taxes, raised government spending and transferred money to cash-strapped states.
The Tea Party movement may not like government, but US finance capital knows that most of the 7800 banks in the US still exist because of the various liquidity interventions engineered by the Federal Reserve, along with guarantees, loans and outright bail-outs engineered by the US state. Obama did not take the banks into public ownership, as some were advising him to do. Drastic bank reform was off the table as the Federal Reserve embarked on a round of 'quantitative easing' to flood markets with cheap money designed to complement the Recovery Act. Instead, the Treasury designed 'stress tests' to increase the capital reserves of banks, with the result that US banks are now better capitalized –and financially healthier – than at any time in recent decades.
The companies that relied on those banks would have gone down if the financial system had collapsed. Instead, with cheap money, low interest rates, and rising unemployment not only have the companies, for the most part, remained in business, but profits after taxes in the US during the worst crisis in decades have actually increased by one-third. Consider the case of General Motors and Chrysler. The Obama administration brought GM in temporary public ownership under stringent conditions that allowed the company to rewrite its labour contracts, fire its ineffectual management, and quickly close its less efficient lines and activities. Placing GM in short order into such a favourable corporate environment allowed the company to quickly repay its government loans and rapidly return to profitability.
Strong profitability across the US corporate sector has produced a predictable result: equity prices in stock markets have boomed. From March 2009, some 7 weeks after Obama's inauguration, equity prices have nearly doubled. Booming profits and equity prices were not translated by the Obama administration into a tax grab: in the second quarter of 2010 total corporate taxes in the US were, at about US$442 billion, almost the same as during the peak of the credit boom in 2007, prior to the crisis; the US corporate sector is paying a lower share of its income in tax.
Of course, part of the discontent that the Tea Party has played to is high unemployment. Yet increased unemployment has been pivotal to the success of the US corporate sector since the depths of the crisis were breached. Unemployment disciplines the labour force and in so doing sustains the corporate profits that have restored the vigour of US capital. Indeed, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan body, far more would have been out of work without the stimulus and quantitative easing.
Claims that Obama is the first US president not to believe in the US Constitution, that Obama is committed to fundamentally rewriting the relationship between the US state and civil society, and that Obama is a socialist thus seem to brazenly ignore what Barack Obama has done since he became President. In the face of a crisis of US capitalism, under the advice of his 'right Keynesian' economic team Obama's actions have robustly restored the reign of capital – and particularly finance capital – in the US. Indeed, the new round of quantitative easing announced on the day of the US mid-terms is great for finance capital – it is good for equities, for bonds, as well as real assets, while at the same time cheap money will depress the US dollar, stimulate exports, and stimulate corporate profits in circumstances where labour has been fiercely disciplined by increased economic insecurity. The US has gone back to the future, facilitating the continued rise of the plutocrats that increasingly shape the operation of the US political economy, and in so doing directly shape the process of global development.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Maoist insurgency in India
From Jairus Banaji, this is a typically astute and erudite analysis of the Maoist insurgency in central India, written partly in response to Arundhati Roy's “Walking With The Comrades”. It is, in my view, essential reading for those interested in India, but also in anti-capitalist political forces and factors more generally.
The Maoist insurgency in India: End of the road for Indian Stalinism?
The Maoist insurgency in India: End of the road for Indian Stalinism?
Saturday, August 28, 2010
What’s the new global source for fresh, shiny produce?
As people scramble to make a living, food is being exported so that European supermarkets are full of fresh produce in the off-season. There is a systemic injustice in our food system.
What’s the new global source for fresh, shiny produce? - World - Macleans.ca
What’s the new global source for fresh, shiny produce? - World - Macleans.ca
Rural India's communication divide and rural class differentiation
An excellent article from The Hindu on how social inequality in access to mobile telephones in rural India mirrors social inequality in access to land and other productive assets. Not surprising in the least, but having the evidence is extremely good.
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Rural India's communication divide
The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : Rural India's communication divide
Monday, July 26, 2010
the moment of truth in Afghanistan?
This morning saw the biggest leak of classified military files since the Pentagon Papers. In The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel, the true extent of the failed military 'strategy' in Afghanistan became apparent. Unreported incidents that have led to the deaths of many hundreds of civilians; 'black' units with instructions to kill or capture Afghan insurgents without any recourse to any kind of judicial process; the increasing use of Reaper drones to hunt and kill by remote control from Nevada; the acquisition by the insurgents of surface-to-air missiles.
Emerging from documents leaked by a 22 year old military intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning, who is now in prison facing court martial, the 'collateral damage' of the conflict has never been starker: French troops strafing a bus full of children in 2008; a US patrol machine-gunning a bus; Polish soldiers mortaring a village wedding party, apparently in reprisal for a previous attack, which constitutes a war crime--in all, the files document 144 unreported incidents. For example: British forces are identified as being involved in 21 unreported incidents resulting in at least 26 deaths; at least 16 children were killed or wounded. This is a brutal war against the Afghan population; no wonder the insurgents are growing stronger by the week. War crimes tend to do that.
Richard Norton-Taylor, writing in The Guardian, said this:
Every citizen concerned about this war should read these files, and decide for themselves:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-wikileaks
I have little doubt that these files will make an enormous contribution towards government leaders finally coming to say what the world has said for a long time: that this war is not only unwinnable, but quite fundamentally unjust.
Emerging from documents leaked by a 22 year old military intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning, who is now in prison facing court martial, the 'collateral damage' of the conflict has never been starker: French troops strafing a bus full of children in 2008; a US patrol machine-gunning a bus; Polish soldiers mortaring a village wedding party, apparently in reprisal for a previous attack, which constitutes a war crime--in all, the files document 144 unreported incidents. For example: British forces are identified as being involved in 21 unreported incidents resulting in at least 26 deaths; at least 16 children were killed or wounded. This is a brutal war against the Afghan population; no wonder the insurgents are growing stronger by the week. War crimes tend to do that.
Richard Norton-Taylor, writing in The Guardian, said this:
'The logs...provide unprecedented insight,...painting a picture...of brutality, cynicism, fear, panic, false alarms and the killing of a large number of civilians -- many more than of foreign troops or insurgents -- by all sides in the conflict. And, inevitably, "friendly fire". It is a story of deep-seated corruption by senior members of the Afghan police, of black operations by coalition special forces engaged in assassinations of dubious legality, of spies, and of unmanned but armed drones controlled by "pilots", including private contractors, sitting in front of computers thousands of miles away.'
Every citizen concerned about this war should read these files, and decide for themselves:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/jul/26/afghanistan-war-logs-wikileaks
I have little doubt that these files will make an enormous contribution towards government leaders finally coming to say what the world has said for a long time: that this war is not only unwinnable, but quite fundamentally unjust.
how not to solve an economic crisis
Thirty months ago the contours of the global economic crisis began to become apparent. Twenty-two months ago the developed capitalist countries came exceedingly close to a private sector financial collapse. The causes of the global economic crisis have been laid out, in full, in previous entries to this weblog. What is remarkable, however, is how little has been learnt by global economic policymakers.
Outside of the United States, where the fiscal stimulus designed to offset the worst possibilities of the crisis is gradually winding down but is nonetheless still having an impact, there has been a move to 'fiscal consolidation'. In Europe in particular--Germany, Britain under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, the Netherlands and elsewhere--economic policymakers seem to be blithely unaware of the grievous state of their economies. In an effort to cut government budgetary deficits sooner rather than later, European economies are slashing government spending and raising taxes as their attempt to steer their countries out of the crisis. I have seen economic incompetence amongst policymakers in the developed capitalist countries before: but never on this scale.
Consider: the current driver of global economic growth are the developing capitalist countries, and in particular China, India, Brazil. All of these countries have an economic model predicated upon producing goods and services for the developed capitalist countries that are comparatively cheap because of their lower unit labour costs. For these countries to continue to grow, and pull the world economy along with them, they need to be able to sell their products. Who are supposed to be buying these products? We are: the developed capitalist countries where we live.
However, the withdrawal of the fiscal stimulus and the shift to fiscal consolidation has to make one wonder how we are supposed to buy these products that the developing capitalist countries are supplying to us. As budget cuts hit Germany, Britain and elsewhere, this is a stark question. It is, however, most starkly posed by the most important developed capitalist country of all: the United States.
How are Americans going to buy the products of China, India and Brazil in the current economic climate? Consider these findings of a recent Pew survey on how the recession has affected Americans:
* more than 50% of all American workers have either experienced a period of unemployment, taken a cut in working hours or rates of pay, or have been forced to go part-time since the onset of the crisis
* an average unemployed worker in America has been out of work for almost 6 months
* collapsing share and household prices have destroyed 20% of the wealth of an average American household, making them effectively poorer than they were 35 years ago
* 60% of Americans have either cancelled their holidays or have cut back on their holidays, in a country with the shortest holidays in the developed capitalist countries
* 25% of those between 18 and 29 have had to move back in with their parents
* less than 50% of all American adults believe that their children will have a higher standard of living than theirs, and more than 25% believe that their children will have a lower standard of living
One does not have to be an unreconstructed Keynesian to see that the only way that this crisis will not be borne by those least capable of bearing the costs of the it is to maintain the purchasing power of households that have been hit hardest by the crisis. Chinese, Indian and Brazilian goods need people to buy them: but right now governments in the wealthiest parts of the world seem to be doing everything in their power to ensure that those that would most want to buy goods and services from the developing capitalist countries are not able to do so. Weak consumer demand for wage goods is no way to solve the crisis; it is a recipe for deepening the crisis.
Outside of the United States, where the fiscal stimulus designed to offset the worst possibilities of the crisis is gradually winding down but is nonetheless still having an impact, there has been a move to 'fiscal consolidation'. In Europe in particular--Germany, Britain under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, the Netherlands and elsewhere--economic policymakers seem to be blithely unaware of the grievous state of their economies. In an effort to cut government budgetary deficits sooner rather than later, European economies are slashing government spending and raising taxes as their attempt to steer their countries out of the crisis. I have seen economic incompetence amongst policymakers in the developed capitalist countries before: but never on this scale.
Consider: the current driver of global economic growth are the developing capitalist countries, and in particular China, India, Brazil. All of these countries have an economic model predicated upon producing goods and services for the developed capitalist countries that are comparatively cheap because of their lower unit labour costs. For these countries to continue to grow, and pull the world economy along with them, they need to be able to sell their products. Who are supposed to be buying these products? We are: the developed capitalist countries where we live.
However, the withdrawal of the fiscal stimulus and the shift to fiscal consolidation has to make one wonder how we are supposed to buy these products that the developing capitalist countries are supplying to us. As budget cuts hit Germany, Britain and elsewhere, this is a stark question. It is, however, most starkly posed by the most important developed capitalist country of all: the United States.
How are Americans going to buy the products of China, India and Brazil in the current economic climate? Consider these findings of a recent Pew survey on how the recession has affected Americans:
* more than 50% of all American workers have either experienced a period of unemployment, taken a cut in working hours or rates of pay, or have been forced to go part-time since the onset of the crisis
* an average unemployed worker in America has been out of work for almost 6 months
* collapsing share and household prices have destroyed 20% of the wealth of an average American household, making them effectively poorer than they were 35 years ago
* 60% of Americans have either cancelled their holidays or have cut back on their holidays, in a country with the shortest holidays in the developed capitalist countries
* 25% of those between 18 and 29 have had to move back in with their parents
* less than 50% of all American adults believe that their children will have a higher standard of living than theirs, and more than 25% believe that their children will have a lower standard of living
One does not have to be an unreconstructed Keynesian to see that the only way that this crisis will not be borne by those least capable of bearing the costs of the it is to maintain the purchasing power of households that have been hit hardest by the crisis. Chinese, Indian and Brazilian goods need people to buy them: but right now governments in the wealthiest parts of the world seem to be doing everything in their power to ensure that those that would most want to buy goods and services from the developing capitalist countries are not able to do so. Weak consumer demand for wage goods is no way to solve the crisis; it is a recipe for deepening the crisis.
current activities, spring 2010
Spring seems to always see me quite busy, and the spring of 2010 will be no different, even though my teaching responsibilities in the Department of International Development Studies take a holiday. The biggest delight I have this spring is attending the Convocation of the first international development studies cohort at the University that I have seen through from the beginning to the end. Even more pleasing, I will be handing out their diplomas.
The only teaching I will do in the spring will be to act as External Examiner at a PhD defence at Wageningen University in the Netherlands on 16 June, which will require my presence. Of course I will have to maintain my ongoing responsibilities as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies to students, staff and faculty. This will also involve, for the first time, attending the annual meetings of the Canadian Consortium of University Programs in International Development Studies.
In terms of my research, I will be revising the manuscript of my forthcoming book for Fernwood Publishers, Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis as well as my chapters in the forthcoming textbook An Introduction to Gender and Economics: Foundations, Theories and Policies. I will also be giving a paper at the Second Annual North American Historical Materialism conference in mid-May, while late May sees me at the annual meetings of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development.
Finally, a large amount of my time in the spring will be taken up undertaking some advisory work for the United Nations Development Programme New York, and possibly elsewhere if it is required.
I will find some time, though, to enjoy the new season.
The only teaching I will do in the spring will be to act as External Examiner at a PhD defence at Wageningen University in the Netherlands on 16 June, which will require my presence. Of course I will have to maintain my ongoing responsibilities as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies to students, staff and faculty. This will also involve, for the first time, attending the annual meetings of the Canadian Consortium of University Programs in International Development Studies.
In terms of my research, I will be revising the manuscript of my forthcoming book for Fernwood Publishers, Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis as well as my chapters in the forthcoming textbook An Introduction to Gender and Economics: Foundations, Theories and Policies. I will also be giving a paper at the Second Annual North American Historical Materialism conference in mid-May, while late May sees me at the annual meetings of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development.
Finally, a large amount of my time in the spring will be taken up undertaking some advisory work for the United Nations Development Programme New York, and possibly elsewhere if it is required.
I will find some time, though, to enjoy the new season.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Han Rosling's new insights on poverty
An excellent overview from 2007 that I have just seen, courtesy of Adam McCarty, of the improvements in the human condition over the 20th century. Development happens.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
who speaks for Africa?
I have admired Bob Geldof for a long time. Here, in answering why 2 white men should presume to speak for Africa, he offers a spot-on answer:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/video/who-speaks-for-africa/article1562615/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/video/who-speaks-for-africa/article1562615/
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
of volcanos and flowers
Sent to me by one of my students, this BBC posting provides a fascinating glimpse into the logic of the world food system, as thousands of farm workers in Kenya are laid off as a result of the eruption in Iceland:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8629079.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8629079.stm
Thursday, April 15, 2010
agribusiness in Brazil
An excellent video article from the Financial Times on agribusiness in Brazil, the superpower of the new agricultural countries.
http://www.ft.com/cms/1644d08e-f450-11dc-aaad-0000779fd2ac.html?_i_referralObject=16029375&fromSearch=n
http://www.ft.com/cms/1644d08e-f450-11dc-aaad-0000779fd2ac.html?_i_referralObject=16029375&fromSearch=n
Monday, April 12, 2010
a history of modern Sudan
An excellent piece of reportage to place this week's elections in Sudan in context has been produced by The Economist. Sudan is far too often thought of these days in the context of Darfur. Yet Sudan's history of conflict goes back 4 decades, and has seen at least 2 million deaths in addition to the 300000 dead in Darfur. More than 9 million Sudanese rely on food aid; and in the south of the country, an area twice the size of Italy, there are only 50 km of tarmac roads. We need to pay more attention to Africa's biggest country.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
the whirled bank
I have just come across a defunct site that I think was put up by the 50 Years is Enough campaign. The site mirrors the registered site of the World Bank, but tells a very, very different story. Check it out:
http://www.whirledbank.org/
I particularly liked the interactive banking game that lets you drag your country ever deeper into a debt quagmire.
http://www.whirledbank.org/
I particularly liked the interactive banking game that lets you drag your country ever deeper into a debt quagmire.
a short, recent history of Congo
More from The Economist's excellent videographics: in 5 minutes anyone can understand why the world's worst war since World War II in the Congo is ultimately about the control of resources for our cellphones.
global fertility
The Economist offers some remarkably accessible videographics that explains some of the key international development issues. This one, on global fertility patterns, demolishes the Reverend Thomas Malthus in 3:32, demonstrating how there is no 'population bomb'.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
walking with the comrades
I have just read an excellent article by Arundhati Roy, the famed Indian novelist, entitled 'Walking with the comrades', in which she tells of her visit to armed Maoist insurgents in eastern India this year. The full article can be read here:
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/22-walking-with-the-comrades-aj-07
The article has provoked an interesting debate on an excellent website called Run from big media. You can review the debate here:
http://kafila.org/2010/03/22/response-to-arundhati-roy-jairus-banaji/#comments
These resources give an interesting insight into what Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls 'the gravest security threat' facing India today.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/22-walking-with-the-comrades-aj-07
The article has provoked an interesting debate on an excellent website called Run from big media. You can review the debate here:
http://kafila.org/2010/03/22/response-to-arundhati-roy-jairus-banaji/#comments
These resources give an interesting insight into what Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls 'the gravest security threat' facing India today.
the 2nd annual David Morrison lecture in international development
I am very pleased to say that Trent University's excellent David Morrison Lecture in International Development is now on YouTube. Part 1 is below.
The rest of the lecture can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM8nqN4YZBE&feature=related
The rest of the lecture can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM8nqN4YZBE&feature=related
halt the cuts in IDST's budget
The students of international development at Trent University are an exceptional group of young people. The following article was published in the Arthur, the Trent University and Peterborough community newspaper, this week:
Halt the Cuts in IDST’s Budget: Shortsighted Decisions a Serious Blow to Trent’s Educational Experience
Written by Andrew Skinner and Christina Franklin
Monday, 22 March 2010 14:22
What would you do if your department were planning to cut its fourth year course offerings in half, attempt to stuff 40 fourth-year students into seminars meant for 15, and shrink the department faculty by one third? This is the current situation facing the Trent’s International Development Studies (IDST) Department. On the chopping block are:
- IDST 314: ‘Global Institutions and Development’
- IDST 411: ‘Capitalism’
- one section of IDST 424: ‘Canada, Globalization and Development’
- IDST 425: ‘Topics in Global Political Economy: Money and Finance’
- IDST 470: ‘Religion and Social Movements’
- IDST 476: ‘Family and Modernity’.
Gone also would be the Oshawa serial of IDST 100: ‘Human Inequality in Global Perspective,’ which effectively means there would no longer be an IDST program offered in Oshawa. So, if any of the 40 students currently enrolled in IDST 100 in Oshawa want to continue with an IDST degree, they will have to come to Peterborough.
Though it appears that cuts are being made in the ‘instructional budgetary allocation’ of all departments to help make up Trent University’s deficit, these cuts will negatively impact the IDST department in a particularly deep way. For those who may not be aware, the Trent IDST program – which examines the sources and consequences of global inequality from the economic, cultural, political, historical, gender, environmental, and social perspectives – is one of the best in all of North America, and certainly in Canada. Its year-abroad programs are unparalleled, and its small but dedicated faculty are second to none. The proposed cuts not only eliminate the growth of an outstanding program (particularly its expansion in the growing Oshawa market) at Trent, but cut deep into the core of what makes the program so great: its breadth and depth of courses, and the exceptional professors it attracts.
This decision seems to be a shortsighted one. On a primitive financial level, the IDST enrollment for the 2009-10 year is up by at least 15 per cent. As it is right now, the department is almost coming apart at the seams to accommodate this growth. Beyond simple accounting, the proponents of these cuts do not seem to realize that the net worth of an educational institution (or any business for that matter) cannot be captured on a spreadsheet. The long-term reputation of one of Trent’s image-defining departments is seriously jeopardized by the proposed cuts. As Trent IDST students return to their hometowns or graduate and move into socially-minded careers, they will tell the story of how Trent’s IDST program is declining. The most powerful marketing tool is still word of mouth.
While the situation of the IDST department is particularly bleak, it is certainly not unique. It is part of what we perceive to be a larger strategy to move away from the liberal arts foundation of the university towards the more grant-rich pastures of science programs. Don’t get us wrong: we have nothing against science or making money! But the reality is that Trent’s niche in the university market is as a smallish liberal arts university, and it needs to continue doing what it does best.
If you are a first, second, or third year student we encourage you to investigate the cuts in your department because they will directly impact the quality of your education in your remaining years at Trent, should you choose to stay. If you are a fourth year student, we also encourage you to investigate cuts in your department, because the value and reputation of your degree will be undermined by the loss of Trent’s prestige that these cuts necessarily entail.
To become more involved in this student-led campaign there is a Facebook group called ‘Petition to Halt Cuts in IDST Instructional Budgetary Allocation’ which you can join to find out about announcements regarding this important issue (you must be part of the ‘Trent network’ to join). Students from all departments are encouraged to join.
We call on President Steven Franklin and/or the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Mark Parnis, to make an official statement about the planned cuts, and to open a dialogue with students (who are also ‘consumers’ of education). We believe that the stunning breadth and depth of the proposed cuts compromises the future of Trent University’s long-term financial viability and its ability to deliver a top-quality education. The value of our education cannot be reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. If you would like to sign the petition please visit either the Seasoned Spoon or the TCSA Office, both in Champlain College.
President Franklin’s Office: sherrygosselin@trentu.ca
Vice President, Dr. Christine McKinnon: cmckinnon@trentu.ca
Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Mark Parnis: mparnis@trentu.ca
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Jocelyn Aubrey: jaubrey@trentu.ca
Postscript: Following the publication of this article, both the Dean and the President agreed to meet with a group of IDST students. Let's see what happens.
Halt the Cuts in IDST’s Budget: Shortsighted Decisions a Serious Blow to Trent’s Educational Experience
Written by Andrew Skinner and Christina Franklin
Monday, 22 March 2010 14:22
What would you do if your department were planning to cut its fourth year course offerings in half, attempt to stuff 40 fourth-year students into seminars meant for 15, and shrink the department faculty by one third? This is the current situation facing the Trent’s International Development Studies (IDST) Department. On the chopping block are:
- IDST 314: ‘Global Institutions and Development’
- IDST 411: ‘Capitalism’
- one section of IDST 424: ‘Canada, Globalization and Development’
- IDST 425: ‘Topics in Global Political Economy: Money and Finance’
- IDST 470: ‘Religion and Social Movements’
- IDST 476: ‘Family and Modernity’.
Gone also would be the Oshawa serial of IDST 100: ‘Human Inequality in Global Perspective,’ which effectively means there would no longer be an IDST program offered in Oshawa. So, if any of the 40 students currently enrolled in IDST 100 in Oshawa want to continue with an IDST degree, they will have to come to Peterborough.
Though it appears that cuts are being made in the ‘instructional budgetary allocation’ of all departments to help make up Trent University’s deficit, these cuts will negatively impact the IDST department in a particularly deep way. For those who may not be aware, the Trent IDST program – which examines the sources and consequences of global inequality from the economic, cultural, political, historical, gender, environmental, and social perspectives – is one of the best in all of North America, and certainly in Canada. Its year-abroad programs are unparalleled, and its small but dedicated faculty are second to none. The proposed cuts not only eliminate the growth of an outstanding program (particularly its expansion in the growing Oshawa market) at Trent, but cut deep into the core of what makes the program so great: its breadth and depth of courses, and the exceptional professors it attracts.
This decision seems to be a shortsighted one. On a primitive financial level, the IDST enrollment for the 2009-10 year is up by at least 15 per cent. As it is right now, the department is almost coming apart at the seams to accommodate this growth. Beyond simple accounting, the proponents of these cuts do not seem to realize that the net worth of an educational institution (or any business for that matter) cannot be captured on a spreadsheet. The long-term reputation of one of Trent’s image-defining departments is seriously jeopardized by the proposed cuts. As Trent IDST students return to their hometowns or graduate and move into socially-minded careers, they will tell the story of how Trent’s IDST program is declining. The most powerful marketing tool is still word of mouth.
While the situation of the IDST department is particularly bleak, it is certainly not unique. It is part of what we perceive to be a larger strategy to move away from the liberal arts foundation of the university towards the more grant-rich pastures of science programs. Don’t get us wrong: we have nothing against science or making money! But the reality is that Trent’s niche in the university market is as a smallish liberal arts university, and it needs to continue doing what it does best.
If you are a first, second, or third year student we encourage you to investigate the cuts in your department because they will directly impact the quality of your education in your remaining years at Trent, should you choose to stay. If you are a fourth year student, we also encourage you to investigate cuts in your department, because the value and reputation of your degree will be undermined by the loss of Trent’s prestige that these cuts necessarily entail.
To become more involved in this student-led campaign there is a Facebook group called ‘Petition to Halt Cuts in IDST Instructional Budgetary Allocation’ which you can join to find out about announcements regarding this important issue (you must be part of the ‘Trent network’ to join). Students from all departments are encouraged to join.
We call on President Steven Franklin and/or the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Mark Parnis, to make an official statement about the planned cuts, and to open a dialogue with students (who are also ‘consumers’ of education). We believe that the stunning breadth and depth of the proposed cuts compromises the future of Trent University’s long-term financial viability and its ability to deliver a top-quality education. The value of our education cannot be reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. If you would like to sign the petition please visit either the Seasoned Spoon or the TCSA Office, both in Champlain College.
President Franklin’s Office: sherrygosselin@trentu.ca
Vice President, Dr. Christine McKinnon: cmckinnon@trentu.ca
Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Mark Parnis: mparnis@trentu.ca
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Jocelyn Aubrey: jaubrey@trentu.ca
Postscript: Following the publication of this article, both the Dean and the President agreed to meet with a group of IDST students. Let's see what happens.
Monday, March 22, 2010
recent activities, winter 2010
As the winter of 2010 settles, it will be a busy period for me. In addition to my ongoing responsibilities to faculty, staff and students as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies, I will continue to teach IDST-ANTH 221, Agrarian Change and the Global Politics of Food. In terms of research, I will be revising the manuscript of my forthcoming book for Fernwood Publishers, Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis. My two-part survey article on the agrarian question for The Journal of Peasant Studies will be published and I hope to complete work on a review article for the Journal of Agrarian Change. I will also be revising my chapter in the forthcoming textbook An Introduction to Gender and Economics: Foundations, Theories and Policies. Finally, I am scheduled to give invited talks at the University of Western Ontario as well as Amnesty International.
Of course, it is likely that a number of unexpected activities will also occur: they always do!
Of course, it is likely that a number of unexpected activities will also occur: they always do!
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
rock & roll jihad
A lot of the people who offer their opinions about the global political economy really know very little about the realities of people's lives or their beliefs. This is especially true when you consider the way in which Islam is often depicted in the mainstream media. The dominant image is the burka, a head to toe covering worn by women that a majority of people in Europe apparently want to see banned--even though in France, the principle country pushing for a ban, women that wear the burka number in the few thousands. The burka is a symbol of the oppressive medieval mind-set that many uninformed people associate with Islam. The word that strikes me that best describes this viewpoint is: monolithic. For it to be true in other religions, all the Christians of the world would have to share the narrow fundamentalism of the US religious right.
Modern Islam is, despite 30 years of the Shia Iranian Revolution, remarkably diverse and indeed pluralist. This came back to me with force when over the weekend I read Salman Ahmad's autobiography, Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution. Salman Ahmand is the leader of Junoon (obsessive passion), Pakistan--and South Asia's--leading rock band. For many outsiders, the idea of a Pakistani believer wanting to play rock 'n roll would sound anathema. Not Ahmad. Born into an upper middle class family, Ahmad tells a compelling story of how his religious and social beliefs can be channelled through his electric guitar--much in the same way as U2's The Edge. More to the point, from his point of view, some of Junoon's music matches the best rock 'n roll the world has to offer, in its intensity and commitment.
Ahmad does not shy away from the contradictory politics of Pakistan, lambasting former dictator Zia-ul-Haq for attempting to impose his one-dimensional, Wahhabist vision on the country--a vision quite at odds with the views of the 'Pakistani street'. Ahmad continually reminded me of the tolerance and pluralism that pervades urban Pakistan, even as it is quite conservative--something that is too easy to forget in a world where caricatures are easier to depict in the mainstream media.
Ahmad's book shows how he creatively channels Sufism and the spirit of Faiz Ahmed Faiz into his music and his life, quoting at one point Faiz's poem 'Speak':
Speak, for your two lips are free
Speak, your tongue is still your own
This straight body still is yours
Speak, your life is still your own
Time enough is this brief hour
Until body and tongue lie dead
Speak, for truth is living yet
Speak whatever must be said
Speak
In reminding us of the need to speak the truth to power, Ahmad reminds us of our common humanity and the common challenges that we all confront. Read the book--it is a first-person account of a world that you will recognize, but which is not your own.
Modern Islam is, despite 30 years of the Shia Iranian Revolution, remarkably diverse and indeed pluralist. This came back to me with force when over the weekend I read Salman Ahmad's autobiography, Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star's Revolution. Salman Ahmand is the leader of Junoon (obsessive passion), Pakistan--and South Asia's--leading rock band. For many outsiders, the idea of a Pakistani believer wanting to play rock 'n roll would sound anathema. Not Ahmad. Born into an upper middle class family, Ahmad tells a compelling story of how his religious and social beliefs can be channelled through his electric guitar--much in the same way as U2's The Edge. More to the point, from his point of view, some of Junoon's music matches the best rock 'n roll the world has to offer, in its intensity and commitment.
Ahmad does not shy away from the contradictory politics of Pakistan, lambasting former dictator Zia-ul-Haq for attempting to impose his one-dimensional, Wahhabist vision on the country--a vision quite at odds with the views of the 'Pakistani street'. Ahmad continually reminded me of the tolerance and pluralism that pervades urban Pakistan, even as it is quite conservative--something that is too easy to forget in a world where caricatures are easier to depict in the mainstream media.
Ahmad's book shows how he creatively channels Sufism and the spirit of Faiz Ahmed Faiz into his music and his life, quoting at one point Faiz's poem 'Speak':
Speak, for your two lips are free
Speak, your tongue is still your own
This straight body still is yours
Speak, your life is still your own
Time enough is this brief hour
Until body and tongue lie dead
Speak, for truth is living yet
Speak whatever must be said
Speak
In reminding us of the need to speak the truth to power, Ahmad reminds us of our common humanity and the common challenges that we all confront. Read the book--it is a first-person account of a world that you will recognize, but which is not your own.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
of markets and men
As some readers of this weblog are aware, I believe that one of the ways that we can understand the prevailing social and economic system under which we live is to consistently read the voice of the social and economic system under which we live. Which is why I have read London's Financial Times for more than 25 years. To read it is to educate yourself, day in and day out, about the realities of our planet.
Yet despite reading the paper for such a long time, it is only in the past 3 months that I have started reading the columns of the FT's investments editor, John Authers. I am very sorry that it took me so long--for Authers' columns are an exemplary explanation of the intracies of contemporary global capitalism. Today's paper in this regard does not disappoint. In talking about the impact of bad weather on investing, this is what Authers has to say:
'The world's markets are driven by a few small tribes of investors working for large institutions, who tend to live close to each other in a few well-defined population centers. This propogates groupthink'.
If only all analysis of contemporary global capitalism was so lucid!
Yet despite reading the paper for such a long time, it is only in the past 3 months that I have started reading the columns of the FT's investments editor, John Authers. I am very sorry that it took me so long--for Authers' columns are an exemplary explanation of the intracies of contemporary global capitalism. Today's paper in this regard does not disappoint. In talking about the impact of bad weather on investing, this is what Authers has to say:
'The world's markets are driven by a few small tribes of investors working for large institutions, who tend to live close to each other in a few well-defined population centers. This propogates groupthink'.
If only all analysis of contemporary global capitalism was so lucid!
Friday, February 26, 2010
my home town
Although it is far too commonly ridiculed by Canadians that I have met, I feel that I am extremely fortunate to have been raised in Thunder Bay. In a very real sense, Thunder Bay--the people and the place--made me what I am today.
I have just come across a remarkable song by Jordan Burnell of Thunder Bay. It really captures the essence of a lot of what it is about. So here it is.
I have just come across a remarkable song by Jordan Burnell of Thunder Bay. It really captures the essence of a lot of what it is about. So here it is.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
Many people find the times that we live in to be profoundly disempowering. Despite the fact that the social and economic system under which we live is, at less than 300 years, relatively new, in human terms, too many people feel that the world is as it is and will never change--even though it needs to!
I have just come across a remarkable BBC/GlobeScan poll, conducted in the summer of last year, which shows that a large number of people around the world thinks that there is a need for fundamental change. Take a look at the chart above. It really is quite remarkable. It suggests that in the United States alone almost 40 million people think the social and economic system has to change. It suggests that in Canada 6 million people think that the social and economic system has to change. Around the world, millions want a different world--one that they think will be a better world.
Who would have thought. There are lots of folk out there that want to see the kinds of changes that you do!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
who is the enemy?
If this testimony impressed you, as it does me, learn more by visiting the website of Iraq Veterans Against the War: www.ivaw.org
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
death of a communist
Jyoti Basu, who was the longest-serving democratically-elected communist leader in the world, has died in Kolkata. For students of international development in the North in the 21st century, the name of Jyoti Basu is all but unknown. It should be known. First elected to the legislature in 1946, before India's independence, as leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) in West Bengal he turned a slogan into a reality: land to the tiller.
In 1977 Basu's CPM was first among equals in the newly-elected Left Front Government in West Bengal, and Basu became Chief Minister. The Left Front under Basu's leadership implemented Operation Barga: it broke the concentration of land in the hands of a few rural oligarchs, offering tenurial security for sharecroppers and small plots of land to the landless. In so doing, the Left Front halted the rapid de-peasantization that had been taking place in West Bengal. The Left Front also implemented a decentralization of elected governance down to the local, or panchayat, level, allowing the peasantry to bypass the rural oligarchy and the lower rungs of the state bureaucracy, which was controlled by the rural elite in any case, and take more effective, more direct control of their lives. In effect, Basu was able to build a rural redoubt for a political party that in theory was supposed to be the party of the urban working class. Basu's accomplishment lead to 5 consecutive election victories for the Left Front, and Basu retired, undefeated, in 2000.
A very fair obituary of Jyoti Basu has been posted on The Guardian's website. You can read it at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/17/jyoti-basu-obituary
Pragmatic but radical change is possible within the prevailing social and economic system: Jyoti Basu, 1914 - 2010, showed this to be so.
In 1977 Basu's CPM was first among equals in the newly-elected Left Front Government in West Bengal, and Basu became Chief Minister. The Left Front under Basu's leadership implemented Operation Barga: it broke the concentration of land in the hands of a few rural oligarchs, offering tenurial security for sharecroppers and small plots of land to the landless. In so doing, the Left Front halted the rapid de-peasantization that had been taking place in West Bengal. The Left Front also implemented a decentralization of elected governance down to the local, or panchayat, level, allowing the peasantry to bypass the rural oligarchy and the lower rungs of the state bureaucracy, which was controlled by the rural elite in any case, and take more effective, more direct control of their lives. In effect, Basu was able to build a rural redoubt for a political party that in theory was supposed to be the party of the urban working class. Basu's accomplishment lead to 5 consecutive election victories for the Left Front, and Basu retired, undefeated, in 2000.
A very fair obituary of Jyoti Basu has been posted on The Guardian's website. You can read it at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jan/17/jyoti-basu-obituary
Pragmatic but radical change is possible within the prevailing social and economic system: Jyoti Basu, 1914 - 2010, showed this to be so.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
how to help Haiti
I have just come across an excellent posting by Food First, giving a list of organizations that it is confident can both provide immediate emergency medical assistance, as well as engaging in fighting the looming hunger crisis in the country.
They are:
Partners in Health
Founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, this nonprofit health delivery program has served Haiti’s poor since 1987. To donate for earthquake relief, go to
https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake?source=earthquak...
In an urgent email from Port-au-Prince, Louise Ivers, Partners in Health clinical director in Haiti, appealed for assistance from her colleagues in the Central Plateau: "Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS... Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us."
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Doctors Without Borders was working in Haiti prior to the quake with a staff of 800. Here is a report on January 13, 2009 with a link to their donation page.
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=4148&cat=field-news
Haiti Action
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators, human rights activists, support committees for prisoners and agricultural cooperatives – will attempt to funnel needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. Grassroots organizers are doing what they can with the most limited of funds to make a difference. Please take this opportunity to lend them your support.
http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/1_12_10.html
Grassroots International
Long time Food First partner Grassroots International has a long history of working with organizations on the ground in Haiti. Grassroots has committed to the extent possible to, “provide cash to our partners to make local purchases of the items they most need and to obtain food from farmers not hit by the disaster.”
http://www.grassrootsonline.org/news/blog/all-hands-responding-haiti-eme...
As usual, Food First has provided excellent assistance to the international development activist community.
They are:
Partners in Health
Founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, this nonprofit health delivery program has served Haiti’s poor since 1987. To donate for earthquake relief, go to
https://donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake?source=earthquak...
In an urgent email from Port-au-Prince, Louise Ivers, Partners in Health clinical director in Haiti, appealed for assistance from her colleagues in the Central Plateau: "Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS... Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us."
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
Doctors Without Borders was working in Haiti prior to the quake with a staff of 800. Here is a report on January 13, 2009 with a link to their donation page.
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=4148&cat=field-news
Haiti Action
Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators, human rights activists, support committees for prisoners and agricultural cooperatives – will attempt to funnel needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. Grassroots organizers are doing what they can with the most limited of funds to make a difference. Please take this opportunity to lend them your support.
http://www.haitiaction.net/About/HERF/1_12_10.html
Grassroots International
Long time Food First partner Grassroots International has a long history of working with organizations on the ground in Haiti. Grassroots has committed to the extent possible to, “provide cash to our partners to make local purchases of the items they most need and to obtain food from farmers not hit by the disaster.”
http://www.grassrootsonline.org/news/blog/all-hands-responding-haiti-eme...
As usual, Food First has provided excellent assistance to the international development activist community.
the real cost of a hamburger
One of the most startling claims in Raj Patel's excellent new book, The Value of Nothing: Why Everything Costs So Much More Than We Think, is that the 'true' economic cost of a hamburger in the United States would be around $200. When I told my students this last week, they were flabbergasted, and, being my students, they wanted to know the basis of the calculation.
I went back to the book to find out. Raj says that it is based on a report done by the Center for Science and Environment (www.cseindia.org) in India, as quoted in the Financial Times. Unfortunately, the FT article is from 1994: and so both the article and the original report, being 15 years old, are not available on the web--yet!
Luckily, I have found Raj's own explanation in an interview with the NYC Independent Media Center (www.indypendent.org). Here it is:
'The Center for Science and Environment in India tried a few years ago to figure out the true cost of a hamburger. Assuming that it was raised on pasture that was once rainforest, the ecological services provided by that rainforest, the loss of diversity, carbon sequestration, water cycling, fuel and tropical product sources, among many other things, the cost would come to $200. The U.S. food industry has huge hidden costs, from the agricultural run-off that causes a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico to the cultural destruction wrought by the “Western” diet. There are also huge health costs associated with poor diet — in 2007, $174 billion was spent in the U.S. caring for people with diabetes — as well as the public funds that support the industrial food system.
Cheap food is “cheat food.” There are all kinds of costs that are externalized from the price we pay at the checkout. We pay those costs one way or another — but the food companies don’t. Merely having a system of free markets with accurate prices still doesn’t address the underlying issues of poverty and disenfranchisement.'
Incidentally, I have arranged for Raj Patel to deliver the 2011 David Morrison Lecture in International Development at Trent University.
I went back to the book to find out. Raj says that it is based on a report done by the Center for Science and Environment (www.cseindia.org) in India, as quoted in the Financial Times. Unfortunately, the FT article is from 1994: and so both the article and the original report, being 15 years old, are not available on the web--yet!
Luckily, I have found Raj's own explanation in an interview with the NYC Independent Media Center (www.indypendent.org). Here it is:
'The Center for Science and Environment in India tried a few years ago to figure out the true cost of a hamburger. Assuming that it was raised on pasture that was once rainforest, the ecological services provided by that rainforest, the loss of diversity, carbon sequestration, water cycling, fuel and tropical product sources, among many other things, the cost would come to $200. The U.S. food industry has huge hidden costs, from the agricultural run-off that causes a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico to the cultural destruction wrought by the “Western” diet. There are also huge health costs associated with poor diet — in 2007, $174 billion was spent in the U.S. caring for people with diabetes — as well as the public funds that support the industrial food system.
Cheap food is “cheat food.” There are all kinds of costs that are externalized from the price we pay at the checkout. We pay those costs one way or another — but the food companies don’t. Merely having a system of free markets with accurate prices still doesn’t address the underlying issues of poverty and disenfranchisement.'
Incidentally, I have arranged for Raj Patel to deliver the 2011 David Morrison Lecture in International Development at Trent University.
land grabbing in Africa
I have just been sent this excellent report from the NHK World Service on land grabbing in Africa. It is well worth the 9 minutes it takes to view. Note that the first 8 seconds the screen is blank.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
current activities, fall 2009
The fall of 2009 will be a very busy time, if for no other reason that I have become Chair of the Department of International Development Studies for the first time, and envisage a steep learning curve in administering the affairs of faculty, staff and students.
In addition to these administrative tasks, I will, as usual, be doing my regular teaching of IDST 100, Human Inequality in Global Perspective, and IDST-ANTH 221, Agrarian Change and the Global Politics of Food. Both courses have been substantially revised for the 2009 - 2010 academic session. I also will be externally examining two PhD theses, one from Australia and one from the United Kingdom.
In terms of my ongoing research activities, I will be revising my two-part survey article on the agrarian question for The Journal of Peasant Studies, my chapter in the forthcoming textbook An Introduction to Gender and Economics: Foundations, Theories and Policies, as well as revising my forthcoming monograph, Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis. I also have a number of smaller publishing commitments that I need to honour.
In short, it will be a busy few months.
In addition to these administrative tasks, I will, as usual, be doing my regular teaching of IDST 100, Human Inequality in Global Perspective, and IDST-ANTH 221, Agrarian Change and the Global Politics of Food. Both courses have been substantially revised for the 2009 - 2010 academic session. I also will be externally examining two PhD theses, one from Australia and one from the United Kingdom.
In terms of my ongoing research activities, I will be revising my two-part survey article on the agrarian question for The Journal of Peasant Studies, my chapter in the forthcoming textbook An Introduction to Gender and Economics: Foundations, Theories and Policies, as well as revising my forthcoming monograph, Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis. I also have a number of smaller publishing commitments that I need to honour.
In short, it will be a busy few months.
hypocrisy over Haiti
The horrific earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, on Tuesday has apparently destroyed large parts of the city and will result in tens of thousands of deaths: the Haitian Prime Minister is already saying at least 100,000 have died. As communications were restored, the world started to respond: the US, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Germany, China, Mexico and Venezuela all pledged immediate support in terms of personnel, cash and supplies, while the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations and the World Bank have all released money to be used for emergency relief.
No one should doubt the extent of Haiti's need in the face of the worst earthquake to rock the country in 200 years. But the reality is that the need has been present in Haiti for decades. The response of the global community to the calamity is necessary: but Haitians have been living in a calamity for years. More to the point, some of the very countries that are rushing to the aid of the country are the ones that are responsible for the systemic calamity that Haitians have had to endure. The hypocrisy in evidence over the Haitian earthquake is breathtaking: the countries and their corporations that have mired Haiti in poverty must now be seen to be 'doing something' because a global media event demands a response. They rush in, having created the very conditions that enabled the earthquake to be so deadly.
Haiti, the first country to overthrow colonial slavery and achieve independence, is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Two-thirds of its population of 10 million live on less than US$2 a day, and two-thirds of the population still live and work in the countryside. Yet Haiti is a prime example of the fact that poverty is not a naturally-occurring phenomena: it is created, and has been created in Haiti.
Between 1957 and 1986 Haiti was brutally ruled by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude, or "Baby Doc". Their private militia, the Tontons Macoutes, killed tens of thousands as the country lived in fear. As was common during this period, the United States, which had occupied the country between 1915 and 1934, turned a blind eye to the terror in its backyard, as the Duvaliers were fiercely anti-communist. But there was more to the support of the US than just political ideology: there was also an economic interest at stake, because during the reign of the Duvaliers Haiti set up two tax-free export-processing zones in Port-au-Prince, with, at their peak, 180 factories assembling light manufactures for US transnationals exporting into the US market. So Haiti had a classic 'dual' economy: a small enclave of a manufacturing sector owned and operated by US capital that generated dollars for the Haitian elite, surrounded by a vast agrarian hinterland; beyond the small number of jobs that were generated in the export-processing zone, the linkages between the enclave and the hinterland were minimal. This economic structure became the modern foundation of the extreme inequality that has characterized Haiti since independence and which continues to do so: within the French-speaking minority that constitutes Haiti's ruling class, 1 per cent of the population own nearly half the country's wealth even as the Creole-speaking black majority remains impoverished.
The political instability that has rocked Haiti since the overthrow of the Duvaliers in a military coup in 1986 has its origins in this profound inequality. A vibrant civil society fought it; it was from civil society that Lavalas, a popular movement for social change, emerged, and their candidate, the Roman Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected President in 1990. Yet when Aristide's government started proposing radical reforms that challenged the interests of Haiti's dominant class, the military intervened again in support of the status quo. It was only a US-led intervention that forced a return to constitutional government in 1994, and that intervention came with a price: the restored government of Aristide had to implement an IMF-led structural adjustment program. Radical reform was overthrown, along with the military, by the US intervention. Aristide was de-fanged--he now lives in exile in South Africa--and the former radicals that had confronted the Duvaliers and the military starting scrambling for the crumbs of elected office as the boundaries between political parties and urban gangs faded and the state became increasingly dysfunctional.
One aspect of the structural adjustment program was particularly pernicious: the country had to dramatically reduce import tariffs on rice, the staple food of Haitians. To an uninformed outsider, this might seem sensible--why not import rice that was cheaper than Haitian rice? But the impact of this reform for the bulk of the Haitian population, who were peasant farmers, was nothing short of catastrophic. Even in the late 1980s Haiti was self-sufficient in rice, which meant that Haitian peasants could make a rudimentary living selling their surpluses for urban consumption. Cheap imports undermined Haitian rice farming, and hence peasant livelihoods, and now 2 out of every 3 spoonfuls of rice that are eaten in Haiti are imported.
The wanton destruction of Haitian farming massively contributed to the deforestation that plagues the country and, through the latter's impact on flooding, severely aggravates the destructive impact of the tropical storms that periodically sweep Hispaniola. It forced hundreds of thousands to leave the land to search for non-existant jobs in the cities: a lucky few were able to migrate to the US or Canada, but most ended up unemployed and living in squalid shanties such as Cite Soleil, in wooden or tin shacks, with no running water, no sewage systems, and no electricity. Cite Soleil, the outcome of an economic policy foisted on the country by outsiders, was at the epicenter of the destruction on Tuesday.
Cheap rice imports sustained the perverse inequalities of wealth, power and privilege that define Haiti's ruined political economy. Where did those rice imports come from? The United States. From which countries did the rice trading companies originate? The United States. Structural adjustment may have been a disaster for Haiti's agrarian economy, but, as I argue at length in a chapter in my forthcoming book Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis, it was a boon for Louisana's rice farmers and trading companies.
That the United States and other advanced capitalist countries, which propped up the Duvaliers in return for cheap manufactures and then not only neutered radical reform but indeed destroyed the livelihoods of Haiti's peasantry, should now express dismay at the destruction of Port-au-Prince compounds the depth of the tragedy on Tuesday: to the social wreckage wrought by decades of foreign tutelage and about which we did very little there now lies physical wreckage, to which we will respond.
No one should doubt the extent of Haiti's need in the face of the worst earthquake to rock the country in 200 years. But the reality is that the need has been present in Haiti for decades. The response of the global community to the calamity is necessary: but Haitians have been living in a calamity for years. More to the point, some of the very countries that are rushing to the aid of the country are the ones that are responsible for the systemic calamity that Haitians have had to endure. The hypocrisy in evidence over the Haitian earthquake is breathtaking: the countries and their corporations that have mired Haiti in poverty must now be seen to be 'doing something' because a global media event demands a response. They rush in, having created the very conditions that enabled the earthquake to be so deadly.
Haiti, the first country to overthrow colonial slavery and achieve independence, is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Two-thirds of its population of 10 million live on less than US$2 a day, and two-thirds of the population still live and work in the countryside. Yet Haiti is a prime example of the fact that poverty is not a naturally-occurring phenomena: it is created, and has been created in Haiti.
Between 1957 and 1986 Haiti was brutally ruled by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude, or "Baby Doc". Their private militia, the Tontons Macoutes, killed tens of thousands as the country lived in fear. As was common during this period, the United States, which had occupied the country between 1915 and 1934, turned a blind eye to the terror in its backyard, as the Duvaliers were fiercely anti-communist. But there was more to the support of the US than just political ideology: there was also an economic interest at stake, because during the reign of the Duvaliers Haiti set up two tax-free export-processing zones in Port-au-Prince, with, at their peak, 180 factories assembling light manufactures for US transnationals exporting into the US market. So Haiti had a classic 'dual' economy: a small enclave of a manufacturing sector owned and operated by US capital that generated dollars for the Haitian elite, surrounded by a vast agrarian hinterland; beyond the small number of jobs that were generated in the export-processing zone, the linkages between the enclave and the hinterland were minimal. This economic structure became the modern foundation of the extreme inequality that has characterized Haiti since independence and which continues to do so: within the French-speaking minority that constitutes Haiti's ruling class, 1 per cent of the population own nearly half the country's wealth even as the Creole-speaking black majority remains impoverished.
The political instability that has rocked Haiti since the overthrow of the Duvaliers in a military coup in 1986 has its origins in this profound inequality. A vibrant civil society fought it; it was from civil society that Lavalas, a popular movement for social change, emerged, and their candidate, the Roman Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected President in 1990. Yet when Aristide's government started proposing radical reforms that challenged the interests of Haiti's dominant class, the military intervened again in support of the status quo. It was only a US-led intervention that forced a return to constitutional government in 1994, and that intervention came with a price: the restored government of Aristide had to implement an IMF-led structural adjustment program. Radical reform was overthrown, along with the military, by the US intervention. Aristide was de-fanged--he now lives in exile in South Africa--and the former radicals that had confronted the Duvaliers and the military starting scrambling for the crumbs of elected office as the boundaries between political parties and urban gangs faded and the state became increasingly dysfunctional.
One aspect of the structural adjustment program was particularly pernicious: the country had to dramatically reduce import tariffs on rice, the staple food of Haitians. To an uninformed outsider, this might seem sensible--why not import rice that was cheaper than Haitian rice? But the impact of this reform for the bulk of the Haitian population, who were peasant farmers, was nothing short of catastrophic. Even in the late 1980s Haiti was self-sufficient in rice, which meant that Haitian peasants could make a rudimentary living selling their surpluses for urban consumption. Cheap imports undermined Haitian rice farming, and hence peasant livelihoods, and now 2 out of every 3 spoonfuls of rice that are eaten in Haiti are imported.
The wanton destruction of Haitian farming massively contributed to the deforestation that plagues the country and, through the latter's impact on flooding, severely aggravates the destructive impact of the tropical storms that periodically sweep Hispaniola. It forced hundreds of thousands to leave the land to search for non-existant jobs in the cities: a lucky few were able to migrate to the US or Canada, but most ended up unemployed and living in squalid shanties such as Cite Soleil, in wooden or tin shacks, with no running water, no sewage systems, and no electricity. Cite Soleil, the outcome of an economic policy foisted on the country by outsiders, was at the epicenter of the destruction on Tuesday.
Cheap rice imports sustained the perverse inequalities of wealth, power and privilege that define Haiti's ruined political economy. Where did those rice imports come from? The United States. From which countries did the rice trading companies originate? The United States. Structural adjustment may have been a disaster for Haiti's agrarian economy, but, as I argue at length in a chapter in my forthcoming book Hungry for Change? Farmers, Agrarian Questions and the Global Food Crisis, it was a boon for Louisana's rice farmers and trading companies.
That the United States and other advanced capitalist countries, which propped up the Duvaliers in return for cheap manufactures and then not only neutered radical reform but indeed destroyed the livelihoods of Haiti's peasantry, should now express dismay at the destruction of Port-au-Prince compounds the depth of the tragedy on Tuesday: to the social wreckage wrought by decades of foreign tutelage and about which we did very little there now lies physical wreckage, to which we will respond.
Un atomiste iranien assassiné
From La Presse, 13 January 2010:
Un atomiste iranien assassiné
Judith Lachapelle
La Presse
Le nucléaire iranien a fait une autre victime, et ce n'est pas la faute aux radiations. Massoud Ali Mohammadi, professeur de physique nucléaire à l'Université de Téhéran âgé de 50 ans, a été tué hier par l'explosion commandée à distance d'une moto piégée alors qu'il quittait son domicile à Téhéran, selon le correspondant d'AFP sur place.
Le gouvernement iranien a attribué l'attentat à Israël et aux États-Unis. «Les premiers éléments de l'enquête montrent des signes de l'action maléfique du triangle États-Unis, régime sioniste et leurs mercenaires», a accusé le porte-parole des Affaires étrangères iraniennes, Ramin Mehmanparast.
«Ces actions terroristes et l'élimination de savants nucléaires du pays n'empêcheront certainement pas le programme nucléaire de l'Iran mais vont l'accélérer bien au contraire», a-t-il ajouté.
Les États-Unis ont été prompts à démentir toute implication. «Absurde», ont répondu les porte-parole de la diplomatie américaine à Washington et celui de la Maison Blanche.
Second à disparaître
M. Ali Mohammadi est le second scientifique nucléaire iranien à disparaître en un an. L'an dernier, un autre physicien nucléaire, Shahram Amiri, a disparu lors d'un pélerinage en Arabie Saoudite.
L'Iran est menacé de nouvelles sanctions internationales pour son programme nucléaire. Le régime affirme qu'il utilise le nucléaire à des fins pacifiques, mais l'Occident craint plutôt qu'il ne cherche à se doter de l'arme atomique.
Qui pouvait bien vouloir la peau de Massoud Ali Mohammadi? Hier, les activités du scientifique dans le domaine nucléaire n'étaient pas confirmées. Selon des étudiants interrogés par l'AFP, l'homme était spécialiste en physique des particules. Il avait travaillé avec le Corps de Gardiens de la Révolution et a été présenté comme «un professeur bassidji», ou membre de la milice islamique.
Mais selon un porte-parole de l'Agence atomique iranienne, cité par AP, le scientifique n'était pas lié à l'agence.
Certaines sources officielles ont désigné des groupes d'opposition au régime, appuyés par Israël, tandis que des sites d'opposition ont affirmé que le scientifique avait appuyé Mir Hossein Moussavi, le candidat rival d'Ahmadinejad aux dernières élections.
Les Israéliens ou le régime?
Pour le professeur Haroon Akram-Lodhi, de l'Université Trent, une implication américaine est à écarter d'emblée. Les services secrets israéliens, par contre, pourraient y avoir trouvé un intérêt. Les installations nucléaires iraniennes sont bien protégées, note-t-il.
«Ce serait extrêmement difficile de les détruire, dit M. Akram-Lodhi, joint hier par La Presse. C'est donc possible que le Mossad ait pu être impliqué parce qu'éliminer un des dirigeants du programme nucléaire serait une méthode plus efficace que détruire les installations. Mais en ne sachant pas si le scientifique était impliqué ou non dans le nucléaire, c'est difficile à dire.»
L'auteur le plus plausible serait le régime lui-même, croit Haroon Akram-Lodhi. «Son appui à l'opposition est documenté et sa mort envoie un message au mouvement vert, dit-il. Sa mort n'aura aucun impact sur le programme nucléaire, puisque le professeur travaillait dans une autre discipline de la physique.»
Un atomiste iranien assassiné
Judith Lachapelle
La Presse
Le nucléaire iranien a fait une autre victime, et ce n'est pas la faute aux radiations. Massoud Ali Mohammadi, professeur de physique nucléaire à l'Université de Téhéran âgé de 50 ans, a été tué hier par l'explosion commandée à distance d'une moto piégée alors qu'il quittait son domicile à Téhéran, selon le correspondant d'AFP sur place.
Le gouvernement iranien a attribué l'attentat à Israël et aux États-Unis. «Les premiers éléments de l'enquête montrent des signes de l'action maléfique du triangle États-Unis, régime sioniste et leurs mercenaires», a accusé le porte-parole des Affaires étrangères iraniennes, Ramin Mehmanparast.
«Ces actions terroristes et l'élimination de savants nucléaires du pays n'empêcheront certainement pas le programme nucléaire de l'Iran mais vont l'accélérer bien au contraire», a-t-il ajouté.
Les États-Unis ont été prompts à démentir toute implication. «Absurde», ont répondu les porte-parole de la diplomatie américaine à Washington et celui de la Maison Blanche.
Second à disparaître
M. Ali Mohammadi est le second scientifique nucléaire iranien à disparaître en un an. L'an dernier, un autre physicien nucléaire, Shahram Amiri, a disparu lors d'un pélerinage en Arabie Saoudite.
L'Iran est menacé de nouvelles sanctions internationales pour son programme nucléaire. Le régime affirme qu'il utilise le nucléaire à des fins pacifiques, mais l'Occident craint plutôt qu'il ne cherche à se doter de l'arme atomique.
Qui pouvait bien vouloir la peau de Massoud Ali Mohammadi? Hier, les activités du scientifique dans le domaine nucléaire n'étaient pas confirmées. Selon des étudiants interrogés par l'AFP, l'homme était spécialiste en physique des particules. Il avait travaillé avec le Corps de Gardiens de la Révolution et a été présenté comme «un professeur bassidji», ou membre de la milice islamique.
Mais selon un porte-parole de l'Agence atomique iranienne, cité par AP, le scientifique n'était pas lié à l'agence.
Certaines sources officielles ont désigné des groupes d'opposition au régime, appuyés par Israël, tandis que des sites d'opposition ont affirmé que le scientifique avait appuyé Mir Hossein Moussavi, le candidat rival d'Ahmadinejad aux dernières élections.
Les Israéliens ou le régime?
Pour le professeur Haroon Akram-Lodhi, de l'Université Trent, une implication américaine est à écarter d'emblée. Les services secrets israéliens, par contre, pourraient y avoir trouvé un intérêt. Les installations nucléaires iraniennes sont bien protégées, note-t-il.
«Ce serait extrêmement difficile de les détruire, dit M. Akram-Lodhi, joint hier par La Presse. C'est donc possible que le Mossad ait pu être impliqué parce qu'éliminer un des dirigeants du programme nucléaire serait une méthode plus efficace que détruire les installations. Mais en ne sachant pas si le scientifique était impliqué ou non dans le nucléaire, c'est difficile à dire.»
L'auteur le plus plausible serait le régime lui-même, croit Haroon Akram-Lodhi. «Son appui à l'opposition est documenté et sa mort envoie un message au mouvement vert, dit-il. Sa mort n'aura aucun impact sur le programme nucléaire, puisque le professeur travaillait dans une autre discipline de la physique.»
Thursday, January 7, 2010
what's happening in Yemen
The international community has turned its full attention to Yemen in the wake of the attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound aircraft on Christmas day. This is not only because Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting the attack, appears to have been radicalized while living in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. Ever since the attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in October of 2000, US security advisors have been aware of the potential of Yemen to become a focal point for Islamist radicalism on the Arabian peninsula. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since the assassination of the previous president in 1978, was swift to visit Washington and pledge support for US actions following the September 11 2001 attacks, fearing that Yemen might be a target in the aftermath of those attacks, and Yemen has received significant US military aid since 2001. Indeed, the US Administration has doubled its military aid to Yemen since the attempted attack on Christmas day. Yet the events of the past two weeks betrays the extent to which the US and its allies are, as in Afghanistan, getting involved in a place that they know remarkably little about and understand even less.
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world: half of the population of 23 million lives on less than US$2 a day. It is also a deeply unequal country. The country is plagued by a dwindling supply of oil, its principle export, and high unemployment in urban centers. But first and foremost Yemen is an agricultural country: the agriculture of Yemen is perhaps facing the most acute water shortage of any farming country in the world, and it is in the rural economy that the causes of openness to militancy can be found.
As I demonstrated in a paper for the United Nations Development Programme in Yemen in the early 2000s, following the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 the country drifted towards a civil war that erupted in 1994. It was during this time that President Saleh expanded the use of the state’s coffers to maintain the system of patronage over powerful tribal leaders that he had established in order to sustain his political supremacy and the concentration of power around his family. A pivotal act in the creation of this system of governance was land redistribution towards the already powerful during the 1990s. With the redistribution of land came the redistribution of water, which was pumped out of the ground by the powerful in pursuit of money-generating agricultural exports; and the livelihoods of Yemen’s vast number of smallholding peasants quickly became unsustainable. The result was that President Saleh presided over a remarkably rapid rise in rural poverty and inequality, an economic malaise that the state failed to address because of the patronage network around the President and his family. As the state all but disappeared in rural Yemen, basic services—education and health care—failed to be delivered, the secessionist movement in the south grew, and a political rebellion in the north arose, making the country even more ungovernable.
It is poverty combined with the absence of the state that has allowed Islamist militants to establish a foothold within Yemen. In 2003 and 2004 a number of Saudi Islamists fled the kingdom following a crackdown by the authorities. In 2006 a number of Yemeni militants escaped from a high-security prison in Sana’a. Last year militants began to shift from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border to Yemen. Yet what allows the militants to establish support in the ungoverned regions of rural Yemen is not fealty to a vision of the meaning of Islam but rather money: the money that can buy the loyalty of deeply impoverished people by providing jobs, education, health care and the smallest modicum of social protection. In other words: the outcomes of the very mechanisms that President Saleh has used to sustain his power are the basis by which militant Islamism flourishes.
In this light, the attempt to shore up the position of President Saleh by increasing military aid is precisely the wrong thing to do if al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is to be challenged. As Yemeni reformers know, the problems in Yemen are economic and political: problems of poverty and power that need to be addressed if the foundations of Islamic radicalism are to be undermined. As I argued in the last decade, a decisive step in this direction would be pro-poor redistributive land reform; but given the current alignment of political forces and factors in Yemen, this is, as yet, still remote. Yet it nonetheless remains the case that helping a political leader complicit in the system does not even constitute offering a band-aid; it constitutes supporting militancy. As in Afghanistan, this is the likely outcome of the current course of action being pursued by the US and its allies in Yemen.
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world: half of the population of 23 million lives on less than US$2 a day. It is also a deeply unequal country. The country is plagued by a dwindling supply of oil, its principle export, and high unemployment in urban centers. But first and foremost Yemen is an agricultural country: the agriculture of Yemen is perhaps facing the most acute water shortage of any farming country in the world, and it is in the rural economy that the causes of openness to militancy can be found.
As I demonstrated in a paper for the United Nations Development Programme in Yemen in the early 2000s, following the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 the country drifted towards a civil war that erupted in 1994. It was during this time that President Saleh expanded the use of the state’s coffers to maintain the system of patronage over powerful tribal leaders that he had established in order to sustain his political supremacy and the concentration of power around his family. A pivotal act in the creation of this system of governance was land redistribution towards the already powerful during the 1990s. With the redistribution of land came the redistribution of water, which was pumped out of the ground by the powerful in pursuit of money-generating agricultural exports; and the livelihoods of Yemen’s vast number of smallholding peasants quickly became unsustainable. The result was that President Saleh presided over a remarkably rapid rise in rural poverty and inequality, an economic malaise that the state failed to address because of the patronage network around the President and his family. As the state all but disappeared in rural Yemen, basic services—education and health care—failed to be delivered, the secessionist movement in the south grew, and a political rebellion in the north arose, making the country even more ungovernable.
It is poverty combined with the absence of the state that has allowed Islamist militants to establish a foothold within Yemen. In 2003 and 2004 a number of Saudi Islamists fled the kingdom following a crackdown by the authorities. In 2006 a number of Yemeni militants escaped from a high-security prison in Sana’a. Last year militants began to shift from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border to Yemen. Yet what allows the militants to establish support in the ungoverned regions of rural Yemen is not fealty to a vision of the meaning of Islam but rather money: the money that can buy the loyalty of deeply impoverished people by providing jobs, education, health care and the smallest modicum of social protection. In other words: the outcomes of the very mechanisms that President Saleh has used to sustain his power are the basis by which militant Islamism flourishes.
In this light, the attempt to shore up the position of President Saleh by increasing military aid is precisely the wrong thing to do if al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is to be challenged. As Yemeni reformers know, the problems in Yemen are economic and political: problems of poverty and power that need to be addressed if the foundations of Islamic radicalism are to be undermined. As I argued in the last decade, a decisive step in this direction would be pro-poor redistributive land reform; but given the current alignment of political forces and factors in Yemen, this is, as yet, still remote. Yet it nonetheless remains the case that helping a political leader complicit in the system does not even constitute offering a band-aid; it constitutes supporting militancy. As in Afghanistan, this is the likely outcome of the current course of action being pursued by the US and its allies in Yemen.
what's happening in Yemen
The international community has turned its full attention to Yemen in the wake of the attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound aircraft on Christmas day. This is not only because Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting the attack, appears to have been radicalized while living in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. Ever since the attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in October of 2000, US security advisors have been aware of the potential of Yemen to become a focal point for Islamist radicalism on the Arabian peninsula. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in power since the assassination of the previous president in 1978, was swift to visit Washington and pledge support for US actions following the September 11 2001 attacks, fearing that Yemen might be a target in the aftermath of those attacks, and Yemen has received significant US military aid since 2001. Indeed, the US Administration has doubled its military aid to Yemen since the attempted attack on Christmas day. Yet the events of the past two weeks betrays the extent to which the US and its allies are, as in Afghanistan, getting involved in a place that they know remarkably little about and understand even less.
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world: half of the population of 23 million lives on less than US$2 a day. It is also a deeply unequal country. The country is plagued by a dwindling supply of oil, its principle export, and high unemployment in urban centers. But first and foremost Yemen is an agricultural country: the agriculture of Yemen is perhaps facing the most acute water shortage of any farming country in the world, and it is in the rural economy that the causes of openness to militancy can be found.
As I demonstrated in a paper for the United Nations Development Programme in Yemen in the early 2000s, following the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 the country drifted towards a civil war that erupted in 1994. It was during this time that President Saleh expanded the use of the state’s coffers to maintain the system of patronage over powerful tribal leaders that he had established in order to sustain his political supremacy and the concentration of power around his family. A pivotal act in the creation of this system of governance was land redistribution towards the already powerful during the 1990s. With the redistribution of land came the redistribution of water, which was pumped out of the ground by the powerful in pursuit of money-generating agricultural exports; and the livelihoods of Yemen’s vast number of smallholding peasants quickly became unsustainable. The result was that President Saleh presided over a remarkably rapid rise in rural poverty and inequality, an economic malaise that the state failed to address because of the patronage network around the President and his family. As the state all but disappeared in rural Yemen, basic services—education and health care—failed to be delivered, the secessionist movement in the south grew, and a political rebellion in the north arose, making the country even more ungovernable.
It is poverty combined with the absence of the state that has allowed Islamist militants to establish a foothold within Yemen. In 2003 and 2004 a number of Saudi Islamists fled the kingdom following a crackdown by the authorities. In 2006 a number of Yemeni militants escaped from a high-security prison in Sana’a. Last year militants began to shift from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border to Yemen. Yet what allows the militants to establish support in the ungoverned regions of rural Yemen is not fealty to a vision of the meaning of Islam but rather money: the money that can buy the loyalty of deeply impoverished people by providing jobs, education, health care and the smallest modicum of social protection. In other words: the outcomes of the very mechanisms that President Saleh has used to sustain his power are the basis by which militant Islamism flourishes.
In this light, the attempt to shore up the position of President Saleh by increasing military aid is precisely the wrong thing to do if al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is to be challenged. As Yemeni reformers know, the problems in Yemen are economic and political: problems of poverty and power that need to be addressed if the foundations of Islamic radicalism are to be undermined. As I argued in the last decade, a decisive step in this direction would be pro-poor redistributive land reform; but given the current alignment of political forces and factors in Yemen, this is, as yet, still remote. Yet it nonetheless remains the case that helping a political leader complicit in the system does not even constitute offering a band-aid; it constitutes supporting militancy. As in Afghanistan, this is the likely outcome of the current course of action being pursued by the US and its allies in Yemen.
Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world: half of the population of 23 million lives on less than US$2 a day. It is also a deeply unequal country. The country is plagued by a dwindling supply of oil, its principle export, and high unemployment in urban centers. But first and foremost Yemen is an agricultural country: the agriculture of Yemen is perhaps facing the most acute water shortage of any farming country in the world, and it is in the rural economy that the causes of openness to militancy can be found.
As I demonstrated in a paper for the United Nations Development Programme in Yemen in the early 2000s, following the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990 the country drifted towards a civil war that erupted in 1994. It was during this time that President Saleh expanded the use of the state’s coffers to maintain the system of patronage over powerful tribal leaders that he had established in order to sustain his political supremacy and the concentration of power around his family. A pivotal act in the creation of this system of governance was land redistribution towards the already powerful during the 1990s. With the redistribution of land came the redistribution of water, which was pumped out of the ground by the powerful in pursuit of money-generating agricultural exports; and the livelihoods of Yemen’s vast number of smallholding peasants quickly became unsustainable. The result was that President Saleh presided over a remarkably rapid rise in rural poverty and inequality, an economic malaise that the state failed to address because of the patronage network around the President and his family. As the state all but disappeared in rural Yemen, basic services—education and health care—failed to be delivered, the secessionist movement in the south grew, and a political rebellion in the north arose, making the country even more ungovernable.
It is poverty combined with the absence of the state that has allowed Islamist militants to establish a foothold within Yemen. In 2003 and 2004 a number of Saudi Islamists fled the kingdom following a crackdown by the authorities. In 2006 a number of Yemeni militants escaped from a high-security prison in Sana’a. Last year militants began to shift from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border to Yemen. Yet what allows the militants to establish support in the ungoverned regions of rural Yemen is not fealty to a vision of the meaning of Islam but rather money: the money that can buy the loyalty of deeply impoverished people by providing jobs, education, health care and the smallest modicum of social protection. In other words: the outcomes of the very mechanisms that President Saleh has used to sustain his power are the basis by which militant Islamism flourishes.
In this light, the attempt to shore up the position of President Saleh by increasing military aid is precisely the wrong thing to do if al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is to be challenged. As Yemeni reformers know, the problems in Yemen are economic and political: problems of poverty and power that need to be addressed if the foundations of Islamic radicalism are to be undermined. As I argued in the last decade, a decisive step in this direction would be pro-poor redistributive land reform; but given the current alignment of political forces and factors in Yemen, this is, as yet, still remote. Yet it nonetheless remains the case that helping a political leader complicit in the system does not even constitute offering a band-aid; it constitutes supporting militancy. As in Afghanistan, this is the likely outcome of the current course of action being pursued by the US and its allies in Yemen.
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