The Global Sociology Blog

I guess I’ll never run out of sexist posts (and I didn’t even blog the Democratic primary! for no other reason than other people do that better than I could). So, Malaysia it is and it’s a two-fer, first, this lovely item (to file under the general hypocrisy that Islam is not sexist and veiling women is for their protection):

“Women’s groups in Malaysia have reacted angrily to proposed government restrictions on women travelling abroad on their own. State media say the plan would require women to obtain written consent from their families or employers. The Malaysian foreign minister said the move would prevent single women being used by gangs to smuggle drugs.”

See? It’s not repressive at all. It’s just to protect single women. Because the proper and safe state for a woman is to be married and under the protection of her husband. Now, of course, the damn women’s groups have criticized the proposal as oppressive and regressive. They also argue, foolishly, that women can make their own decisions. Obviously, these groups hate women. [/snark]

If that weren’t enough, we get the second item from the BBC as well, it is both sad and encouraging:

“A religious court in Malaysia has allowed a Muslim convert to leave the Islamic faith, in what is being hailed as a landmark ruling. Penang’s Sharia court ruled that Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah was free to return to Buddhism, following the collapse of her marriage to a Muslim man. It was decided she had not had proper counselling during her conversion. Malaysians are rarely allowed to renounce the faith - those who do can be prosecuted under stringent laws. Religious rights are a sensitive issue in Malaysia - which is 60% Muslim.”

The sad thing is that Malaysia uses Sharia law, a reactionary body of religious law. The encouraging thing is the ruling in itself. But I really like the BBC’s last sentence here. It turns euphemization into an art form: look, Malaysia is a religious country where Sharia law applies, meaning, widespread sexism and religious privilege as well as stratification.

The ruling itself looks very much like the Muslim version of the Catholic annulment: she’s allowed to leave Islam because she never really was a Muslim in the first place. Had she received more counseling and guidance (my translation: more indoctrination), she’d be stuck with that religion.

That’s unusual, but, I have to confess that it cracked me up (via the BBC):

“A South African woman divorcing her husband has tried to publicly shame him into paying her maintenance. She has plastered posters on her car detailing his infidelities. Passers-by in George, Western Cape, who stopped to read them, took out their phones to take pictures of the captions, Die Burger newspaper reports. “I decided to make a peaceful point for women everywhere who struggle to get their maintenance,” the woman, whose case is still in court, told the paper. A poster on the boot of her car read:

“If my soon-to-be-ex-husband thinks he can:
bed down cheap women,
buy them underwear,
wine and dine them in the best restaurants,
take them on five-star holidays,
take ‘excite’ tablets for erectile dysfunction,

go out boozing each night AND not pay me my maintenance as ordered by court,
and think I will take no action, he has another thing coming.”

Standing by her car, the woman explained that she had discovered her husband had been cheating on her after 36 years of marriage.”

Yeah, that sucks. That also means that this woman has to put herself through what Harold Garfinkel used to call a degradation ceremony in order to shame her husband into pay his alimony. Unfortunately, that is something not uncommon in a patriarchal context.

Via the BBC,

“The leader of Nepal’s Maoists has said that his party’s recent election victory is a sign of the global resurgence of communism. But Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, stressed his party believed in retaining multi-party competition. Prachanda has made it clear that he wants to become the first president of a Nepalese republic. The Maoists won twice as many seats as their nearest rivals in last month’s polls for a constitutional assembly.”

Prachanda hopes to start a revolutionary chain reaction in developing countries (well, the Mercosur countries certainly have taken a left turn which I blogged about here a while back). This is also communism 2.0 in that Prachanda believes multi-partyism is an acceptable political format and that competition in political ideas is healthy for society (that’s certainly new… can he tell that to Kim Jong-il?) and that it was the lack thereof that had been fatal to previously communist countries. More than that, these communists believe in private foreign investments (so, how are they communist, again?). Anyhoo, at least, we know they’ll abolish the monarchy once the Assembly is seated. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Communism 2.0. Hmm… should be interesting.

Photo Source: Wikipedia Commons.

This is truly a disgusting and scary story because of its ramifications, via Le Monde.

“Injustice et impunité” autour de scandales de pédophilie dans l’Etat mexicain d’Oaxaca
LE MONDE | 26.04.08

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So what’s the story here? Hugo Constantino et Adan Perez are wanted by the police. They are accused of having repeatedly raped a 4-year old boy, in a wealthy private school and to have filmed their sadistic acts for a network of pornographic and pedophiliac videos. What is making everything worse (can it get worse than the sadistic rape of a 4-year old?) is that the State of Oaxaca is trying to cover it up and to stall the investigation by all means necessary. It has been over a year since the legal proceedings started and the 2 men are still at large.

On April 3rd, federal agents have discovered where Hugo Constantino - the husband of the school owner, the San Felipe Institute - was hiding in Oaxaca. But member of the state police intervened and stalled them for several hours to give him time to disappear again.

The victim’s mother, Leticia Valdes, has stated that the state is trying to hide the existence of a global network. After filing a complaint for the rape, she has received death threats by telephone, unidentified men are constantly watching her house, her car has been vandalized. She has been offered hush money. The little boy is in therapy but is still much traumatized by what he has been through (yeah, no shit). The suspicion of a global network of pedophiliac pornography has emerged because the director of the Institute (the wife of Constantino) has done a lot of unexplained travel to Spain. Mexico is the world’s third producer of pornographic pedophilia.

Ms Valdes also has a hard time finding an attorney to represent her and her son in Oaxaca. She has had four already, and they all resigned under pressure and because of the potential implications of the complaint. The second man on the run, Adan Perez, teaches computer sciences at the Institute, is also the nephew of the director (Constantino’s wife again). This woman is heavily connected to the state branch of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI - Mexico long dominant political party), especially, the governor’s wife.

And while Ms Valdes has problems finding legal representation, the Institute has no such difficulties. All the attorneys representing it are influential members of the state PRI, former senators, former state prosecutor, former state secretary of interior. This legal powerhouse is led by a legal mind who defended the members of the military involved in the “disappearances” during the 1970s “dirty war”.

This is not the first time that the Institute has been accused of something like that. And following the example of Ms Valdes, three other mothers have filed complaints for the same crime against other private institutes (what the hell is going on in these places?). Public opinion in the state is divided over this and only one newspaper has dared reporting on it.

Why is it that power and sexuality are always so intimately intertwined? Well, feminists have answered that one over and over (often to deaf ears). So, just go read Feminism 101.

Via the BBC, the latest side effects of the food price crisis:

“India’s agriculture minister has rejected calls for additional debt cancellation for millions of farmers. In February, the government agreed a $15bn scheme to write off the debts of millions of small farmers - those with less than two hectares of land. But there have been demands from opposition and some governing coalition parties to extend the loan waiver to farmers who own more land. Farm activists say debts have been driving many farmers to suicide.

At least 10,000 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide in India each year over the last decade - and activists say hundreds more have done so in recent months, despite the aid package. Rejecting the demand, the federal agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar, said the government was not in a position to take on new responsibilities. Drought, a fall in crop prices and an increase in the cost of cultivation are cited as reasons for the farmers’ plight. Many farmers have been forced to take out loans to buy necessary supplies, but these have left them heavily in debt. Some turn to moneylenders, who charge much higher rates of interest than banks.”

It is not a new issue, just one made worse by the current crisis. I have blogged enough on microcredit to underline how much access to credit is central to survival in many poor areas. Without access to legitimate credit, poor peasants in Asia have no other option than to use moneylenders who charge them usury interest rates. One of the major persistent forms of slavery in India is debt bondage, which can be passed from generation to generation.

The European Union has already abolished the death penalty. If a death penalty country wants to become a member, it has to abolish it. Now, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is reviewing life sentences (via Le Monde):

La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme réexamine la question des peines de perpétuité
LE MONDE | 02.05.08

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The case before the ECHR is that of a Frenchman who spent 41 years in prison and was paroled after several unsuccessful parole hearings. He sued the French government for arbitrary detention. A ECHR panel had rejected the case, but the full court decided to hear it again (ECHR press release). The current position of the court is that life sentences do not violate human rights if it is possible for a lifer to be paroled at some point. It is the withdrawal of possible parole that would constitute inhuman treatment. Should not only de jure but de facto life sentences be imposed, they would violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights which states “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

It seems that the most likely outcome of this case and decision of the court will be that life sentences are acceptable as long as a parole system is in place and is not arbitrary (that is, potential parolees get hearings on a regular basis but everyone knows it’s for show).

Via Liberation, the rich Bolivian region of Santa Cruz has declared its autonomy after a successful - but illegal - referendum. The “yes” obtained around 82% of the votes with 30 to 40% abstention. This autonomy gives the region expanded powers in political and economic matters, at the expense of the central government. In particular, the new status gives Santa Cruz increased power over administration of land policy and the sale of natural resources, especially natural gas. For the government, this is a ploy by the local oligarchy and wealthy landowners to enrich themselves and protect their exclusive interests. However this issue is resolved institutionally, Santa Cruz started a chain reaction: 3 out of 9 regions have now planned to hold their own autonomy referenda.

According to Le Monde, things started with constitutional disputes between the central government and the opposition right-winged prefects of 6 of the 9 provinces.

Un référendum sur l’autonomie à Santa Cruz divise les Boliviens
LE MONDE | 03.05.08

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But as nationalist leader Andres Soliz Rada states, both parties are liquidating the national state: the right-wingers by getting regional autonomy because they do not like governmental policies, and the central government by giving way to extreme multiculturalism with three flags and 36 languages.

But at the heart of this is land policy: the government-sponsored constitutional reform would limit the size of latifundia to 5,000 to 10,000 hectares whereas Santa Cruz lands largely belongs to 40 families. The largest plantations might be redistributed to peasants, something, of course, unacceptable to the local landowning oligarchy (via Le Nouvel Observateur). This result of the referendum is a blow to the government since Santa Cruz generates 30% of the GDP of Bolivia. The bottom line is economic, as stated in the Independent,

“The new constitution is at the source of the regional discontent with the central government. Its strong pro-indigenous and socialist content and the controversial way in which it was approved – inside an army barracks – have made it a rallying point for opposition forces across the country. (…) The reason for the opposition is economic more than anything else, although racist smears have tainted the arguments of both camps. In recent years Santa Cruz has grown from an outback region into Bolivia’s economic powerhouse, responsible for a third of the national GDP. The region boasts 40 per cent of the country’s arable land and one fifth of its gas reserves.

The Morales government is pushing for more control over those resources, claiming the benefits should go to the country’s poor as a whole. The Santa Cruz government says it deserves a larger slice of the profits from fossil fuels.”

And the Bolivian ethnic divisions are very clear: the “white” elite in Santa Cruz was very much in favor and the instigator of the referendum whereas the indigenous populations opposed it. And it can get pretty ugly (via the Guardian):

“The vote also expressed hostility to the government’s championing of indigenous communities which scrabble for survival in the highlands, a very different Bolivia to Santa Cruz and the relatively prosperous eastern lowlands. (…) “My family is voting for autonomy because the Indians want to dominate us,” said Olga Tordolla, a woman in a largely indigenous quarter of Santa Cruz city known as Plan Tres Mil. “They are racist, they hate white people.”"

Ah yes, the Americas’ beleaguered white people, always oppressed, always hated. But in this case, this is truly the revolt of the white elite against an elected president whose policies are too redistributive for their taste. There is reason for the rich ranchers and right-wing militias to be worried after the “pink tide” that is sweeping South America (via another Guardian article).

“Ecuador and Paraguay elected radical outsiders as Presidents, Venezuela continued espousing socialist revolution, and Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay retained left-wing governments.”

The big question now is whether this vote is going to be the first step in stopping Evo Morales’s policies. The answer is not clear. After all, his government just nationalized four oil companies.

La Bolivie nationalise quatre entreprises pétrolières
LEMONDE.FR | 01.05.08

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This includes three oil companies with foreign capital. The government also has plans to nationalize telecommunications companies.

There is now a stand-off as to which policies will prevail: the quasi-apartheid system that favors white ranchers and right-wing militias, or the socialist mixed with indigenous identity politics of Evo Morales.

To be continued.

Photo Source: Leo La Valle/EPA, in the Guardian.

Bolivia is quite an interesting country, politically, these days. It seemed to have been at the forefront of some major struggles relating to the globalization of capitalism. First, there were the water wars, so brilliantly presentes by a PBS Now report (back in the days where the show was an hour long, hosted by Bill Moyers) in partnership with Frontline World, the best TV program available in the US on world affairs, IMNSHO.

What were the water wars? In many ways, Bolivia’s economic situation at the beginning of the 21st century was comparable to that of a lot of peripheral countries. So, when Bolivia elected a former IBM executive for president, he decided to modernize the country, strengthen the currency and reduce debt levels, as well as open the country to foreign investment. To do so, he called on to the World Bank for help and received the same one-size-fit-all list of requirements to make Bolivia part of the global economy and attractive to foreign investments. One such recommendation was the privatization of water in Cochabamba, a city in the Andes with 800,000 inhabitants, largely poor and indigenous.

The problems started when only one company bid for the water distribution system, Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of corporate giant Bechtel. It was a sweet deal for Aguas del Tunari as the government guaranteed them a 15 to 17% profit margin (so much for liberalization and letting the market set prices). Immediately, Aguas del Tunari jacked up the price of water so that a lot of peasants could no longer afford it. More than that, privately dug wells were by law to be controlled by Aguas del Tunari. Finally, once private, water distribution decreased and shortages started. Unsurprisingly, unrest and riots ensued, followed by government repression. Ultimately, the executives of Aguas del Tunari fled the country, but sued the Bolivian government for 25 million dollars (the lawsuit was withdrawn in 2006). In Cochabamba, indigenous and labor leaders decided to take over water distribution but no one, neither the government not the World Bank, offered to help them. (Liberation’s Autour du Monde blog has a good summary of the issue here and here)

The victory of the peasants and indigenous peoples over the corporate giant opened the way for the election of Evo Morales in 2005, the first indigenous president. It is not a surprise that one of his first decisions was to create a Ministry of Water headed by one of the leaders of the demonstrations. The public company that now manages water distribution in Cochabamba can boast that it has extended the grid and kept prices low based on a sliding scale. In the absence of support from the government or the World Bank, most financing for infrastructure comes from European foreign aid and non-governmental organization. There are still problems, though: about half the city receives no water and has to rely on water cisterns and individually-dug wells. The infrastructure is aging and the public company has produced only deficit.

This struggle seems to be a catalyst of all the issues related to economic globalization: the role of international institutions such as the World Bank, the power of Transnational Corporations such as Bechtel, the reduction in power of national government used only as conduits to liberalization, the winners and losers of structural adjustment programs, the plight of indigenous peoples, and the difficulties involved in trying to forge an alternative model for the delivery of basic services, conceived as rights rather than commodities. All these issues zeroed in on Cochabamba and there does not seem to be an easy or just solution to all this.

What is very clear, however, is that the global economic system is not a fair one. It is heavily biased in favor of investors and large corporations, and stacks the deck against peasants, indigenous peoples and labor. So far, attempts at correcting such gross imbalances have been unsuccessful and the current riots related to the food situation are a global extension of the conflict that exploded in Cochabamba in 2000. Unless the issues of the inequalities and loss of quality of life are addressed, it is a fair assessment to say that the global economic system will generate more chaos and instability in the world.

Via Jonathan Turley, who himself got it from the BBC,

“Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth. Mecca is the direction all Muslims face when they perform their daily prayers. The call was issued at a conference held in the Gulf state of Qatar under the title: Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice. One geologist argued that unlike other longitudes, Mecca’s was in perfect alignment to magnetic north. He said the English had imposed GMT on the rest of the world by force when Britain was a big colonial power, and it was about time that changed.”

Ok, fine, yes, a lot of things have been established by evil Western people, but really, this one is harmless and is pretty much institutionalized by now, so, who cares? That’s not what will reconcile Islam with modernity. But wait, there’s more: behold the Mecca watch!

“The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim. The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.”

Are you kidding me? Isn’t there any common sense left in that community?

“The underlying belief is that scientific truths were also revealed in the Muslim holy book, and it is the work of scholars to unearth and publicise the textual evidence. But the movement is not without its critics, who say that the notion that modern science was revealed in the Koran confuses spiritual truth, which is constant, and empirical truth, which depends on the state of science at any given point in time.”

This need to find proof in religious texts of scientific discoveries is a very annoying - to put it mildly - trend, not just in Islam, but in all fundamentalist movements. Richard Dawkins has disposed of such nonsense repeatedly, so, just go read him.

Bottom line: science and religion do NOT mix, so, any attempt is a disguised to hijack science in the name of religion.

Who better to interview than Muhammad Yunus on the current crisis of the global financial system? That’s what Le Monde did.

Muhammad Yunus : “Le système est aveugle à toute autre considération que le profit”
LE MONDE 2 | 25.04.08

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How does he explain the credit crisis? For him, this crisis is not a bug, it’s a feature of the normal functioning of the global financial and banking system. The very principles of credit - the guarantees that are demanded, the bonus based on risk funded on the backs of the least solvent people - have revealed that this system does not know how to lend to the poor. And it’s the banks’ fault. They loaned a lot of money, all the while making false promises with great offers, teaser rates, and a guarantee to be able to reimburse over long periods of time. In reality, the poor were put under extreme pressure to reimburse since this is where large profits come from. This is the logic of the financial system. Which is, of course, the opposite of what Grameen Bank does.

The only logic of this system is the maximization of profits. There is no other logic here. That’s what led to subprimes and hedge funds. In this sense, according to Yunus, this system is blind to anything else. He is stricken by the focus on the enormous sums of money lost by banks and the little focus on how low-income people were duped by maladapted offers from the banks and whose homes are repossessed or simply abandoned, if only to blame them for their greed or irresponsibility whereas bank losses are explained in structural terms.

For Yunus, the system that is collapsing today is one based on a faulty economic principle: loans cannot be granted without collateral, especially to poor people. This is a principle that has the strength of dogma. With Grameen Bank, he has proven that this is not true. This principle prevents half of the world’s population from participating into the global economic system, and not just in the Global South, but in the US and Europe as well. Traditional banks, as the saying goes, only loan to the rich. But for Yunus, what’s the point of such banks if they do not contribute to creating value or helping people getting out of poverty through their own labor? This is a major blind spot in the current system: banks and financial institutions do not understand the importance of independent economic activities as well as households as productive units. The informal sector, as it is called, must be recognized as legitimate productive activity, as a source of employment, and should be encouraged through credit.

However, orthodox economic literature ignores it. Only salaried employment in busisnesses is considered. Therefore, economic prescriptions are based on enterprises employing people, or resulting in unemployment if they do not. That is the current logic of capitalism. It seems absurd, to Yunus, to limit economic activity to this narrow definition. Why should the poor of the Global South wait for large corporations to hire them? Why not let them create their own employment through access to credit? This is this narrow conception of employment and denying credit to the alternative that is a form of slavery, for Yunus. For him, the overworked, salaried American, employed by large companies, is slave to the rigidities and instabilities of the system.

This is where Yunus sees the real danger of current economic structures: a unidimensional man (Herbert Marcuse, anyone?). Salaried life should be one option among many other opportunities. The denial of such possibilities, especially in the Global South, clearly is described by Yunus as a form of alienation (in the Marxian sense).

The other major blind spot of the current financial system is its sexism. Grameen’s focus on women is well-known by now. The reason for it is that women are more productive and more solvent than men and this gendered economic productivity generates greater communal benefits. Men spend on themselves. Women spend on their families and communities. There is greater general welfare achieved by women rather than men. And this aspect, for Yunus, holds true everywhere in the world.

But overall, Yunus argues that we are seeing the collapse of a faulty financial system and that it is time for something different: social capitalism.

Since the initial articles and my initial post on this story, there has been a flurry of articles as more details have emerged. Nothing that invalidates my patriarchal interpretation, though.

The first questions that emerged regarded who knew what? Did F.’s wife know? His children? His tenants? The neighbors? In particular, according to Der Spiegel, the police considered the probability of accomplices, since the dungeon setup is so complex, with electronic locks of different types and a steel door so heavy that no one man could have installed it alone. But so far, this is only speculation since the old guy ain’t talking while he is in protective custody.

Then comes the question of collective guilt.

“More than 200 people came to Amstetten’s main square on Tuesday evening and lit candles for the victims of the family tragedy. The event was organized by a spontaneously founded citizens’ initiative. Earlier the town’s mayor had said: “We want to show that this is not a town of criminals and to counteract the impression of Amstetten which has arisen.”

“We have been surrounded by shock, sadness, anger, perhaps even hate in the last few days,” says local priest Peter Bösendorfer. “We were forced to recognize that there is something in our town that we cannot comprehend.” The town’s residents now had to “help and show solidarity so that a life is possible for the children and women.”

That will not be easy, because in a town of 23,000 like Amstetten, “everyone constantly runs into each other,” says Lina Angermeier. “None of the (F.) family can really ever live here again — if they want to be free, not only from fear, but also from allegations.”“

And this is particularly interesting because of the history of this town (hat tip to commenter Joe), as stated in the Ground Report:

“Now it has come to light that the sleepy town of Amstetten, where the horrifying tragedy took place, has a dark past. Amstetten was the site of two subcamps of the Mauthausen-Gusen NaziMauthausen-Gusen complex camps were the last concentration camps to close in as Hitler’s Nazi army was defeated in World War II.” concentration camp complex named Frauenlager and Mannerlager. The

On of the camps was especially for women and unspeakable horrors were committed there. The camps were staffed by local people and were still open when F. was 10 years old. How much impact does this collective past have on socialization in this town? It is impossible to know and it is clear that the authorities and the government are trying very hard to individualize this crime, that is, to avoid any notion of collective responsibility or collective guilt in this (via Liberation).

What is embarrassing though, is that the man had already been found guilty of rape and attempted rape in the 1960s and was sentenced to 18 months in prison (18 months for rape??). The police is also investigating a possible connection with a 1986 murder. With all this, one has to wonder why he was allowed to adopt and foster three of his daughter’s children (which he fathered but no one knew that at the time).

What is more appalling, of course, is the information that has emerged on the man himself: the omnipotent patriarch he tried to become. First, he raped his daughter regularly in front of their children (how can this not be seen as the ultimate representation of power?). Second, he threatened his prisoners with gas poisoning if something happened to him (gas poisoning… one cannot help but think that this evokes the concentration camps), if they tried to harm him or escape.

According to testimonies, F. behaved like a tyrant and ran his households (both of them) like a military unit (big surprise that this guy would be a control freak). Via Le Nouvel Observateur, F.’s sister-in-law stated that he never tolerated being contradicted and that everyone was afraid of him, which is why her sister (F’s wife) never went against him.

“Christine [the sister-in-law] said: “He behaved like a drill instructor with his children. They had to stop whatever they were doing and stand still when he would enter the room — even if they were in the middle of playing some game.”" (The Guardian)

The product of this monster is a deeply traumatized, and financially ruined, family as the old bastard is leaving them only millions in debt and enormous health problems (the Guardian):

“Then there is the ‘downstairs family’ - Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and Felix, five - who remained in the tiny prison, never once seeing daylight and knowing only four other faces in their whole lives. Kerstin is comatose in hospital, suffering from renal failure. It was her life-threatening illness that would eventually betray Fritzl’s monstrous secret.

Her two brothers are stooped, anaemic and barely able to communicate in anything other than their own peculiar growling language. A seventh child, Alexander’s twin, died three days after birth, his body incinerated by Fritzl in the house’s furnace.

Perhaps the worst fears are for Elisabeth. She is said to be ‘deeply distressed’, agreeing to talk to doctors and detectives only on the promise that she will have no further contact with her father. At the age of only 42, her crudely cut hair is completely white, her lips are shrunken around toothless gums, her face is deeply lined, her body painfully thin, her skin almost transparent. According to a forensic psychiatrist, Dr Guntram Knecht, she has been ‘destroyed by all means’. Of all those Fritzl damaged, she was the only one to know she was a victim. If she can live with her children again, ‘it will be because of her desire to be a mother,’ he said.” (…)

Today the family is slowly acclimatising in a special area set aside for them at the clinic. Elisabeth and her mother are said to have have wept for hours together, with Rosemarie saying over and over: ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’

After their initial delights at seeing the sun for the first time, and riding in cars, Stefan and Felix can clamber back into the dark confines of a special container set up in the clinic to help them adjust to life outside.

Felix often crawls in there, and sits humming an unknown melody to himself. Police believe his mother used it to soothe him to sleep.

‘It can’t be called a good-night song really, as there was never any night in the cellar,’ said Chief Inspector Etz.”"

All the while, F.s would take vacations with male friends to Thailand (sexual tourism, anyone?) and buy lingerie obviously too small for his wife that even his friends noticed.

Monster.

Via the UN News Center,

“Marking the annual World Press Freedom Day, top United Nations officials have stressed the role of a secure and independent media, and access to information, in empowering individuals and advancing development. (…) Mr. Ban stressed that a free, secure and independent media is one of the foundations of peace and democracy. Attacks on freedom of the press are attacks against international law, humanity, and freedom itself – everything the UN stands for, he said.”

The UN Secretary General also noticed the fact that journalists have been more and more targeted by combatants in current conflicts (and Iraq, with the case of Bilal Hussein, to name only one, certainly is a perfect illustration of that trend) along with the failures to investigate crimes against journalists.

The theme for this year’s WPF Day is “Access to Information and the Empowerment of People”, so, it is no surprise that UNESCO would be involved as well.

““This empowerment supports participatory democracy by giving citizens the capacity to engage in public debate and to hold governments and others accountable,” said UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura. Access to information is primordial to the exercise of the basic human right of freedom of expression, Mr. Matsuura added. To be free, the media need to have access to information. Such access is also indispensable in fighting corruption, which has been defined as the primary obstacle to development.”

And I guess this is as close as you can get to a dressing-down of several governments, from Louise Arbour, High Commissioner on Human Rights,

“The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights marked the Day by noting that harassment and secrecy laws are weakening press freedom. “It is a sad fact that many governments across the world persist in undermining the freedom of the press to report facts and opinions and, by extension, the right of people in general to be informed about events and policies that are shaping our world,” Louise Arbour said. Ms. Arbour noted that governments are becoming more secretive and offering propaganda disguised as objective information – especially when alleged security-related issues are on the table.”

However, freedom of the press on paper looks really nice. However, in practice, things can get a lot messier. As the years of Bush administration and the current electoral campaign have shown is that the so-called free US media has become part of a corporate and political elite (or a power elite, as classical sociologist C.W. Mills would say) with a political agenda of its own (NOT reporting and informing). See the complicity of the Telecoms companies in domestic surveillance.

Also, what has been made blatantly clear is that the US media stands alongside the political structures of power not as a watchdog but as a member of the Village. Do not expect accountability from there. If I had thought that the progressive blogosphere would step up and play the role of watchdog where the traditional media failed to do so, I have been severely disillusioned.

So, when we think of a free press as a press free from censorship and governmental pressure, we should also remember that pressure can come from other powerful sources: the corporate world, powerful interest groups, or the military establishment. It should also be mentioned that media actors represent a specific slide of the social class structure that places their interest firmly up on the social ladder, as such, they carry specific social class biases that should not be ignored.

Another great cartoon by Michel Cambon, with permission.

Let’s celebrate it, with permissions for all materials (cartoons from Michel Cambon):

“May 3 Background

In dozens of countries around the world, journalists, editors and publishers are murdered, assaulted, detained and harassed simply for telling the truth. Their publications are censored, fined, suspended and closed down for daring to voice opinions contrary to those of their governments.

World Press Freedom Day exists to recognise the sacrifices made in the struggle for freedom of the press and to put pressure on governments that continue to deny their citizens this basic human right. The 3 May message is that journalists everywhere must be granted the right to report freely and without fear.

The date marks the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of principles drawn up by African journalists in 1991, calling for a free, independent and pluralistic media on that continent and throughout the world. The Declaration afirms that a free press is essential to the existence of democracy and a fundamental human goal. The Declaration is a milestone in the struggle for a free press in all regions of the world.

At a time when human rights and democratic development hang in the balance in so many countries, no one can be complacent. 3 May is the day on which the media can remind governments and the public of the importance of freedom of the press and of how the global battle to attain it, continues.”

Fountains of Wayne, “Someone to Love”, from their album, Traffic and Weather.

Via Le Monde,

Commerce équitable : l’âge de raison
LE MONDE 2 | 25.04.08

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Twenty years after the creation of the label “fair trade” (”commerce equitable” in French) created by Max Havelaar, it is time to reflect on the impact of fair trade practices and their relevance. There are currently multiple events in France to do just that. For two weeks, a variety of workshops and conferences will take stock of the fair trade movement. Numerous cooperatives, such as the Uciri cooperative, from the Oaxaca state in Mexico, which produces coffee or the Brazilian Coagrosol, specialized in organic fruit juice.

Both cooperatives have been certified as fair trade by the Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International (FLO). FLO is a network of 23 organizations that establish fair trade standards and certifications. The certification itself is delivered by an independent certification company, FLO-CERT. The blue and green logo is proof of a certified fair trade product. As its mission statement makes clear:

“FLO-CERT GmbH is an independent International Certification Company offering Fairtrade Certification services to clients in more than 70 countries. As such a company we assist in the socio-economic Development of producers in the Global South and help to foster long-term relationships and good practice with traders of Certified Fairtrade products. Our Certification provides a guarantee to consumers of Certified Fairtrade products that they are contributing to the Social-Economic Development of people through their purchases.”

The Max Havelaar label was developed in 1988 by Franz van der Hoff, a Dutch missionary, and Nico Roozen, from the NGO Solidaridad. The two men wanted to guarantee a fair wage and decent working conditions for small producers, largely poor and isolated, and to promote sustainable development. And in the past 20 years, the rules have not changed much:

• Sales prices that are higher than world market prices (to cover the costs of production)
• The development of cooperative through financial incentives to pool equipment and technology
• The pre-financing of crops (so the producers do not have to borrow and be in debt)
• The establishment of long-term commercial ties, with defined prices, to avoid speculation

Today, success is undeniable for coffee, fruits (especially bananas) and organic cotton. This system is designed to benefit small producers from the Global South. And fair trade is now a big business as the demand increases, especially in the European Union. European consumers include more and more an ethical dimension to their consumption practices.

And, of course, fair trade goods taste better.