China in Africa

Having just written that Geneva is a wasteland on the brain fodder front, I must confess that actually I went to a very interesting lecture at the Graduate Institute here t'other day. Given by Deborah Brautigam, it was a revisionist take on the role of China in Africa - very different from the usual Western interpretation of Chinese aid and investment to Africa as exploitative, neo-colonialist, part of a power struggle with the West, etc. She's just published a new book on the subject, The Dragon's Gift, and her very interesting blog is here.  Although I think she sometimes allows herself to be carried away with her role as professional critic of the conventional wisdom, is was certainly enlightening and refreshing. Some tid-bits:

• Chinese official development assistance (ODA) to Africa is actually smaller than that of the US or UK - it's just that we (or rather, the Western media) often misinterpret Chinese loans, credit lines or private investment from China as 'aid'.  
• What's for sure is that Chinese investment in trade with [see correction from the speaker below, thanks you!] Africa is huge, having grown from $5billion in 2002 to $50billion in 2008. But Brautigam was at pains to point out that although the West may have an image of 'China Inc', this is coming from private enterprise.

She seemed to suggest that the Western donor-states could learn from China in terms of promoting and encouraging development in Africa.  I'm all for more of a role for entrepeunership and enterprise in development rather than promoting a reliance on aid, but a short-term model of growth/profit at all costs is not sustainable (in an economic, social or environmental sense). There must be a happy medium...?

The Rights' Future

My old LSE professor Conor Gearty is running an interesting collaborative web-publishing project, exploring the development and future of human rights.  Conor posts a 'chapter' every Monday, invites comments and criticisms, to which he responds in a 'round-up post' on the Friday. This will all feed into a book, to be launched next year...
I've had my say on the first post, do add your thoughts too:
http://therightsfuture.com/t1-coming-out/

Also, you can listen to a recording of the launch of the project here. You'll have to scroll down the page a bit. Incidentally, this site is full of recordings of LSE events - some real gems there. I miss the LSE Events programme - despite its huge diplomatic, academic, civil society and political community, Geneva has rather a dearth on the brain fodder front...

Clegg, conference and climate change

Jonathan Porritt's blog points out the worrying fact (and one that I have not seen mentioned in other analyses) that Nick Clegg's speech to the Lib Dem party conference did not mention climate change. Not once.

I haven’t done my homework, but my hunch is that this is the first Conference speech from a major Party Leader that will have completely ignored climate change in recent times. Ever since Tony Blair used his conference speech as Prime Minister in 1997, to raise the whole profile of climate negotiations, it’s been up there as a ‘must mention’ by all Party Leaders – however superficial and meaningless some of those mentions may have been.

I rather doubt David Cameron, let alone the new Labour Leader will make such a fundamental error.

Amnesty on burqa bans

Following my previous post on burqa bans, it caught my attention that Amnesty International has urged the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina to reject a draft law that would ban "the wearing in public of clothes which prevent identification" - including full-face veils.

I wasn't aware of AI's position on this previously; their statement is worth reading in full.

'Honour' killings

The Independent has, to its immense credit, had a series of excellent articles focusing on so-called 'honour' killings recently, mostly the work of Robert Fisk.

It's all worth a read, but here is his conclusion.

His views on what 'we' can do are somewhat dispiriting:

[T]he grim truth is that Westerners can no more change this – can no more persuade village elders in Afghanistan of the benefits of gender equality and an end to "honour" killings – than we could have persuaded Henry VIII of the benefits of parliamentary democracy or Cromwell of the laws of war. The height of such pomposity came the other day from Navi Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Violent 'honour' attacks," she pontificated, "are crimes that violate the right to life, liberty, bodily integrity, the prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, the prohibition on slavery, the right to freedom from gender-based discrimination and sexual abuse or exploitation, the right to privacy, the obligation to denounce discriminatory laws and harmful practices against women." Phew. I can see how they'll be shaking in their shoes after that in Baluchistan and Helmand province. 

I agree to an extent, although I do think that 'outsiders' can play an important role in supporting (financially, politically, logistically) those brave 'insiders' who are trying to foment change.

The paranoid style in American politics

I spoke to my friend Chloe last night who covered the Glenn Beck rally in Washington DC for Al-Jazeera. We discussed how the existence and prominence of lunatics like Beck genuinely mystifies us. Why is it that American politics (not exclusively, but in particular among democratic countries I think) is such a breeding ground for ignorance and intolerance and hyperbole and blatant scaremongering (Obama is a Muslim etc etc)?

It reminded me of this classic article by Richard Hofstadter (which Nick Kristof gently alluded to in his column which I posted below re. the 'Ground Zero Mosque').  It's well worth a read, and I think his theory has held up since he wrote in 1964. 

Michael Tomasky has also written an insightful piece on the mentality of the Beck movement.

The way it should be

From the Washington Post, a refreshing counter-balance to the 'Ground Zero Mosque' madness lamented in my last post. Yes, "At Pentagon 9/11 site, Muslims pray without objection".

The fantasy of the 'Ground Zero Mosque'

One long-running story is illustrating perfectly how frighteningly good certain sections of the American media and (mainly) right-wing interest groups are at bending the truth for their own purposes.

This infuriates me.  The so-called 'Ground Zero mosque' is not a mosque, rather an Islamic cultural centre designed to promote inter-faith understanding no less, and it is not 'at' Ground Zero at all but two blocks away. 

For voices of sanity, read Nick Kristof here ("Today’s crusaders against the Islamic community center are promoting a...paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it") and Howard Kurtz on the mindless media stampede here.

I also liked a reader comment in the Economist last week "In all fairness, we've been building ground zeros near Mosques in Iraq since March 2003."(Via liebejessy on Twitter, thanks.)

It's classic Adam Curtis 'Power of Nightmares' stuff, and almost as crazy as the recent poll which shows that nearly 20% of Americans think President Obama is a Muslim. Comedian Andy Borowitz has a funny take on this, but really, its pretty damn depressing...

The civilising force at a stag do

Jonathan Freedland has a good piece in the Guardian today marking 100 days of the coalition government.

I particularly like this quote, from Tory Rick Nye, on the role/influence of the Lib Dems:

"It's like inviting your fiancee's brother to your stag weekend: it's inherently civilising. You're not going to have the strippers, you're not going to get blind drunk." To Nye, the Lib Dems are the fiancee's brother, forcing the Tories to be polite and behave themselves.

No one really wants to be that fiancee's brother, spoiling all the wildest fun, but for the bride's sake it's probably a good thing he's there...