Creating New States – By Philip Petraglia

There’s much talk these days of disintegrating states. By this I mean countries facing secessionist movements. A country like Syria that seems to be headed towards a total break up comes to mind. The idea that states are not etched in stone is not a new concept. There are currently 193 member states at the United Nations but expect new states to join. This does not mean that countries will completely disintegrate as happened in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Rather, expect regions to secede while leaving the remaining state viable as both a political and legal identity.

Most separatist groups represent minority groups within existing states searching for a more secure future. Minority groups can be based along racial, ethnic, tribal, religious, and linguistic lines. They tend to cluster in certain geographic locations within a state, often along border regions where ethnic kin dominate on the other side of the border. Very few pundits expect hundreds of new states to be created, but expect a certain number to emerge.

Whether the creation of new states is a good or bad thing is still open to debate. Minorities who become the majority have a nasty habit of mistreating their own minorities. Whether they become democratic or autocratic is also open to question. In the case of Eritrea, a new state founded in 1993 after seceding from Ethiopia, a one party autocratic state was eventually created. Other states like South Sudan, a country that seceded from Sudan in 2011, seem to be facing their own internal divisions based on ethnicity, religion, and tribalism. And finally, new states like Timor-Leste continue to suffer from poverty and high employment.

There are many ways to keep new states from emerging. One way is to do as the Russians did with regard to the Chechens who sought to secede from Russia in the 1990s. Moscow ruthlessly put down the uprising with thousands losing their lives. Not a good model to follow! Other states try a more democratic approach by granting minority groups some local autonomy as the Spanish are doing with the Catalonians and Basque people in Spain.

Here’s a quick survey of past and future states, starting with Europe. Czechoslovakia was a small Central European country that emerged from the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, declaring independence in 1918. It officially dissolved in 1993 with the Slovaks and Czechs going their own separate ways. More to the south, Montenegro seceded from Serbia in 2006, leaving Serbia a landlocked nation. These were peaceful farewells in contrast to what transpired in the former Yugoslavia. Formed in 1918 after the end of the First World War, this nation of south Slavs disintegrated in the 1990s into a half dozen states, but not before thousands were killed with millions more ethnically cleansed. So much for Slavic unity as the framers of the Treaty of Versailles had hoped for. But the biggest break up of them all was the USSR. Created in 1922, it emerged from the Russian Revolution and went on to massacre millions of poor souls while imprisoning millions more in Gulags. Thankfully it dissolved as a state in 1991, putting an end to the Cold War, and creating over a dozen new states in both Europe and Central Asia.

Asia and Africa is our next stop. South Vietnam was a country located in South East Asia that existed as a separate state from 1949-75. It was forcibly united with North Vietnam with the fall of Saigon in 1975 and is now part of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Meanwhile in Africa, South Sudan, a Christian and Animist country, seceded from the Muslim and Arab speaking north to form its own state. As mentioned, it now faces its own sectarian divisions. The Horn of Africa has its own separatist tendencies. Eritrea officially seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, making the later country the most populous landlocked country in the world with 93,000,000 people. Back in Asia, East Timor, a Christian country, seceded from largely Muslim Indonesia in 2002.

So where are future hot spots? They’re pretty much on every continent except in South America and Australia. Let’s start with Canada, one of America’s most important trading partners. Quebec, the only predominantly French speaking province in the country, came close to seceding in 1995 when the separatists led by Lucien Bouchard took 49.42% of the vote. Too close for comfort for committed federalists like myself! Things have quieted down but what if Quebecers elect a charismatic leader? Add a worsening economy, unnecessary meddling from the central government in Ottawa and a few incendiary incidents in the rest of the country, and you may get the perfect storm. Not likely but you never know! The United Kingdom like Canada is one of the most democratic and prosperous countries in the world. But like Canada, it too faces a separatist problem. In 2011 the Scottish National Party won overall majority in the Scottish Parliament and now intends to hold a referendum on independence in 2014. Meanwhile across the Channel we have Belgium, where the Flemish speakers in the north and French speaking Walloons in the south seem to have problems forming governments. Political parties are even formed along strictly linguistic lines. But countries with better weather also have their own separatist problems starting with Spain, where Catalonians and Basques continue to fight for independence despite Madrid’s transfer of powers to local Parliaments. It seems local autonomy is insufficient. So there you have it: prosperous (Spain excluded) and democratic states have their own separatist movements to deal with and no amount of power sharing seems to satisfy local nationalists.

The Middle East has its own separatist problems to deal with which is understandable considering the amount of massacres and violations in human rights that have taken place there since these countries were created after World War Two. Iraq is a classic example. Composed of three main groups, namely, Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias, the Kurds in the north have all but seceded. Who can blame them when you consider the persecution and mass murder they faced under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni dominated tyranny? Syria is exhibit two. With only 12% of the population, Alawites control the country’s military and political apparatus, and have never hesitated to remind the Sunni majority of this fact through massacres of unarmed Sunni civilians. Expect them to form their own state along the coast should the Sunni take power. Call it fear of retribution.

Some states however will remain intact no matter how brutal the majority treats its minorities. India, China, and Russia, the so-called brick countries, are a good example. With a population of only 143 million people, Russia is the world’s biggest country. 80% are ethnic Russian but the country has dozens of minority groups speaking some 27 officially recognized languages. To see how far Moscow will go to protect the country’s physical integrity, one only has to harp back to the Chechen war in the 1990s when Moscow used uncontrolled force to put down a secessionist rebellion that saw thousands lose their lives. A clear message no doubt for other regions in the Russian federation. Not to be outdone with regard to brutality, China is another nation that will do whatever it takes to keep regions with minority groups from seceding. With 1.3 billion people, 90% of whom are Han Chinese, minorities face both brutality and cultural assimilation as Tibetans can attest to. Many of these minorities are located in the northern part of China along the border regions with countries such as India and Russia. Geo- political considerations thus come into play at the expense of minority rights and aspirations. The Han Chinese are not even shy about pursuing a policy of cultural assimilation by imposing Mandarin in schools to the detriment of local languages. Lastly, India is the world’s second populous nation with 1.2 billion people and faces separatist movements from Kashmir in the north to Tamil Nadu in the south. Other regions with separatist movements include Punjab and Assam. India unlike China and Russia is a democratic country but this has not kept the Indian army from committing atrocities in Muslim dominated Kashmir. The problem in India could be alleviated by transferring certain powers to local Parliaments, but India will likely remain a state with a strong central government.

So as we watch events unfold in the Ukraine where Ukrainian speakers in the western and central areas of the country fight Russian speakers in the eastern and southern regions for political power, we should ask ourselves what needs to be done to keep countries from splintering into tiny states. We can start by insisting that states respect basic human rights. But more can be done through federalism by granting minorities local powers through regional Parliaments. Attempting to rule from the central government will only lead to more friction and efforts to secede. I may be biased as a Canadian, but the Canadian model as discussed in a previous blog may be a good way to protect minority rights within a federal system. Other examples include Switzerland where cantons are drawn along linguistic lines. There you have it: two prosperous and democratic countries. Not bad models to follow.

E.O. Wilson’s Social Conquest of Earth - By Philip Petraglia

Born and raised in Alabama some 84 years ago, E.O. Wilson’s reputation as one of the world’s great biologists was further cemented with the publication of “The Social Conquest of Earth” in 2012. But Professor Wilson is more than a retired Harvard biology professor which in and by itself is an achievement! There’s after all no greater endeavour than teaching students. He’s a great humanist keenly seeking to bring together science, religion, and the liberal arts in an attempt to preserve as many of the world’s species as possible. He is, in addition, a concerned citizen and in this book as with the publication of “Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge” (1998), and “The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth” (2006), we see his noble attempt to get the religious, social science, and scientific communities to cooperate on saving the planet while also understanding how human societies developed through the centuries.

Like most folks born in America’s bible-belt, Professor Wilson was raised a devout Christian but left Christianity decades ago, and now proudly calls himself a Darwinian. Wilson, nevertheless, retains respect for those who hold religious beliefs, unlike so many scientists and non-believers who merely write believers off as ignorant people following superstitious beliefs. Humility along with an open mind remains one of the professor’s good traits!

The Social Conquest of Earth asks three central questions which lies at the heart of both philosophy and religion: where do we come from; what are we; and where are we going. Wilson does not believe that religion will ever solve this great riddle. His belief is that religion is centered on the belief in the supernatural whereas science is based in trusting empirical research. Nor does he believe that philosophy can accomplish this noble task. His answer is to look to the sciences.

Wilson asks two key questions: the first is why advanced social life exists at all; and secondly, what is the identity of the driving forces that brought it into existence. Wilson starts his discussion with the emergence of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago which had the effect of increasing humanity’s food supply along with the density of people on the land. He explains how homo-sapiens left all other species behind in terms of intelligence, community living, and division of labour, much of which was built around early campsites. And most importantly, he explains that how well a group performs depends on how well its members work together, regardless of the degree by which each is individually favoured or disfavoured in the group. Lastly, he points out that there emerged a two part genetic code prescribing social behaviour. The first part prescribes traits that favour success of individuals within their group. The second part, in contrast, prescribes the traits that favor group success in competition with other groups.

This is one of the key factors in understanding Wilson’s view of the world. Evolution has created groups which we all belong to in one form or another, and while it’s true there’s a hierarchy that we’re all part of within these groups, the really significant competition is between groups. People divide into groups and then discriminate in favor of the one they belong to. Modern groups are thus psychologically the tribes of ancient history and prehistory, regardless of how much technology we have in our lives. Forming groups allows us to draw “visceral comfort” and pride which we then defend against other groups. And as Wilson further explains, the tendency to form groups and to favour in-group members has the earmarking of instinct. So here is the course of human development: human beings made the big leap when hunter-gathers invented agriculture and formed village life, then created chiefdoms and paramount chiefdoms, and finally, states and empires.

Wilson stresses that we should comprehend two important things: the first is that we understand the competition between groups and how this defines the world we live in. And secondly, he stresses that we should for both scientific and moral reasons promote human biological diversity for its own sake instead of using it to justify prejudice and conflict. This no doubt is a message directed at his colleagues in the scientific community, not to mention pharmaceutical companies and policy makers in government intent on pursuing eugenic manipulation.

Ever the optimist, Wilson does not believe that robotic intelligence will in the near future replace human intelligence. Thankfully, he describes the biological mind as being of our own “province”, with all its “quirks”, “irrationality” and “risky production”.

One can’t read Wilson’s book without thinking of the great German-American religious and social philosopher, Reinhold Niebuhr, and his influential book, “Moral Man and Immoral Society”, published in 1932. We see here the link in Wilson’s call for religion, the liberal arts and the sciences to come together. If it’s true as Wilson maintains that we are all instinctually part of groups, Niebuhr explains the consequences of group competition.

The essence of Niebuhr’s thesis is that individuals are more prone to ethical behaviour than groups are and that while it’s impossible to establish just relations between groups this is certainly not the case with individuals. In contrast, he sees competition between groups as unequal, whether in regard to whites and blacks in the U.S. or between nations. For Niebuhr, power and self-interest characterize all inter-group relations. Relations between groups are predominantly political rather than ethical. The question thus comes down to how much power each group possesses. Writing during the Great Depression, Niebuhr could not help but write about the imbalance in power between employers and employees. Lastly, Niebuhr argues that while individuals are able to treat one another in an ethical manner, the same is not true for groups and states as they fight over power and resources.

Examples of what Niebuhr is talking about can be seen today. As individuals we care about the environment but this is not necessarily true at the group level, whether in regard to labour unions or employers. There are limits to benevolent impulses and social co-operation requires a certain amount of coercion, hence the need for the Rule of Law.

As someone with degrees in Law, History, and Political Science, I approach this discussion from a Liberal Arts perspective. For starters, I agree with Niebuhr that there will always be unequal distribution of physical and cultural goods as he puts it. He also rightfully points out that human beings have not yet fully learned how to live together. And in a world where global warming is a reality, it also becomes clear that states have not lived to learn together either.

What kind of groups do people cluster around? They come in a multitude of forms. One thinks of women’s groups, labour groups, business groups, ethnic and racial groups, sexual orientation, professional, socio-economic; the list is endless. Let’s look at some of these group conflicts. In Syria today we have a civil war that largely pits Alawites against Sunnis for control of the national government. In the United States, African Americans and Hispanics largely vote for the Democratic Party while whites predominantly vote for the Republican Party. In Fiji the divisions are between the East Indian community and the native population. In India division is along ethnic, religious, and caste lines. In Canada division has traditionally been along linguistic lines. And then there are the gender divisions in the United States over the abortion issue with younger women more prone to support Roe v. Wade. The Middle East meanwhile is torn between those who would build society around religious values and those who seek to modernize along secular lines. Lastly, there’s the lifestyle category where people choose to live in neighbourhoods that reflect their interests in values, whether in regard to technology, food, social issues, concern for the environment, or even what type of coffee to drink.

Both books made me understand the need for political systems to respond to the needs of these competing groups. Intelligent policy making based on fairness becomes imperative, as does responsible government based on the Rule of Law, where all are equal regardless of what group one belongs to. Human beings stopped living in the primeval forest a very long time ago. States consequently require laws and regulation. The libertarian call for less government is unrealistic in a planet that has over 7 billion people. Groups and states will continue to fight over scarce resources not to mention power, whether political, social, or economic. No country can thrive if it fails to see the group conflict and competition existing within its borders. How this group conflict is handled will determine how well states perform, whether in regard to the harmony of its society and happiness of its citizens, or with regard to its competitiveness at the international level. In the end, the aim will be to somehow harmonize the interests of competing groups and to reduce conflict where possible. In other words, accepting and promoting diversity rather than attempting to demonize it as certain politicians sometimes successfully do.

This notion of inter-group competition and identity need not be seen as a negative phenomenon but rather as something that is instinctively natural. It’s part of what makes us human and also interesting as a species. Better to embrace and promote it than to seek division or just pretend it doesn’t exist. We’ll all be better off as a society and as individuals for it.

The Sad State of Global Sports – By Philip Petraglia

I have a confession to make. I use to be one of the world’s biggest sports fans. Then something happened. Part of it is personal. You get older and your priorities change. Suddenly it seems strange to see players praying on the field before an important play. What exactly are they praying for? Global peace? The end to world hunger? A cure for Aids? Does God really care who wins? The other issue with me is money. The salaries these pampered athletes receive is a metaphor for the times we live in where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Does anyone not working to find a cure to cancer really deserve ten million dollars in annual salary, not to mention millions more in endorsements? Of course the fans pay these salaries through outrageous ticket prices. Imagine what would happen if we all came to our senses and refused to pay more than $50.00 for a ticket! It may seem ludicrous but remember whose paying for all these subsidized sports stadiums: the taxpayers no less. Owners make money through ticket sales and television rights. Fans pay high ticket prices and subscribe to cable channels that charge them a pretty sum. Add the building of brand new stadiums with corporate box seats at the taxpayer’s expense and you get a win-lose situation.

A second reason I’ve soured on sports is because of cheating through steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Cheating seems to be rampant in both the United States and at the international level. Let’s start with what use to be America’s past time: baseball. For those of us who grew up loving this most pastoral of sports, statistics was everything whether in regard to Babe Ruth’s all- time homerun record or Roger Maris’s record for most homers in one season. What true baseball fan could forget the 1998 season when the Cardinals’ Mark McGuire and the Cubs’ Sammy Sosa battled for 162 games to see who would be the first to break Maris’s record? In the end it looks like both “athletes” were using performance enhancing drugs. Sammy Sosa even went on to hit more career home runs than Ernie Banks yet failed to make the Hall of Fame in 2013. Other record breaking players denied entry into Cooperstown include Barry Bonds who broke Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record. In fact, while most of these records have asterisks, they should be crossed out altogether. Other noteworthy scoundrels include Roger Clemens, one of the winningest pitchers of all times, and Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez, currently suspended by Major League Baseball. Rodriguez does however get to keep all the hundreds of millions of dollars acquired in salaries and endorsements.

Baseball of course is not the only sport where performance enhancing drugs is used. The Tour de France has its own gallery of rogues and scoundrels starting with Lance Armstrong, winner of seven consecutive tours who would be suspended by the United States Anti-Doping Agency in 2012. Add Floyd Landis, winner of the 2006 tour, and what you get is an international event that has no credibility as a clean sport. The tour operators might as well give the tour money to the pharmaceutical companies.

There are other reasons to be down on sports regardless of whether it’s at the North American or international level. Let’s start with the Olympics. The Russian town of Sochi is set to host the XXII Olympic Games and XI Paralympic Games in 2014. In addition, Sochi is scheduled to be one of the host cities for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and was in addition also awarded the Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix from 2014-2020. But there are many reasons for denying Russia international events. We can point to the absence of democracy, lack of respect for basic human rights, bullying of neighbours; the list is endless. Do we really want to reward a country where the Rule of Law is largely absent and where whistle blowing lawyers are tortured and left to die in their cell? Do we want to really support a country that supports despotic states like the Assad regime in Syria? Are there not more worthy nations that could host such events? Perhaps the International Community should demand that Russia build a more robust civil society based on the Rule of Law and respect for basic democratic values, before granting them prestigious international events. They might also throw in freedom of the press and protection for religious and ethnic minorities while they’re at it.

But FIFA just doesn’t seem to get it. In 2010 the FIFA tournament was awarded to South Africa, a country that should be spending it’s time, money, and energy building basic infrastructure for its black majority, rather than stadiums. South Africa also has an estimated 5.6 million people living with HIV, making it the most infected HIV country in the world. Where exactly is the ANC’s priorities? Millions of South Africans, mostly black, also lack clean sanitation and drinking water. And all they could think of is to build a bunch of stadiums?

The folks who run F1 probably take the cake. In fact, they make FIFA look like a benevolent organization dedicated to the betterment of humankind! In an attempt to make F1 racing more global, the brain trust that runs F1 gave Bahrain its own F1 race back in the seventies. Since then Bahrain has been ruled by the Al Khalifa Family as a sort personal kingdom where dissenters face arbitrary arrests and torture. This all came to the surface in 2011 with the Bahraini uprising. It got so bad Saudi Arabia was asked by the Royal family to come in and put down the Shia uprising. Shias are about two thirds of Bahrain’s population, but the Sunnis who make up the other one third, essentially run the country’s political, economic, and military institutions. The next F1 race is scheduled in 2014 despite the continued human rights abuses.

A major reason for promoting international sporting events like the Olympics is the belief that it somehow helps promote the local and national economy. But nothing could be further from the truth. San Francisco is a world class city despite never having hosted the Olympic Games. The same is true for other great American cities like Portland (Oregon), Pittsburgh and Boston. These are cities with dynamic economies based on science and technology. They’re cities people enjoy living in because they are socially inclusive and environmentally responsible. They also have excellent universities and a lively culture scene. Culture by the way brings in more money than sports while requiring less in taxpayers’ subsidies.

In the end countries that hosted the Olympic Games had already reached a certain level of democratic and economic development. Korea, Japan, and Norway all hosted the Olympic Games once economic and political development had already been successfully realized. This is something that Brazil’s political leaders should have taken into consideration before successfully lobbying to host the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the summer Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in 2016. Would the time, money, and energy not been better spent on health care, education, and basic infrastructure?

I’ve been trying to figure out why so many politicians are enamored by sports, whether at the local or international level. Two reasons come to mind. The first one is about looking for that quick fix. Why implement intelligent economic programs based on thoughtful policymaking when you can just hold an international event? The world will discover who you are and realize just how great your city or nation is. Economic development then just magically happens. Never mind putting your attention on education, especially if you’re running an economy based on natural resources and tourism. Arguments are made that sporting events lead to improved infrastructure like roads and public transportation. But shouldn’t infrastructure be built regardless of hosting these costly games? New York’s subway system was built despite never having hosted the Olympic Games. The same is true with regard to the infrastructure of every other great economy whether in Europe or North America.

The second reason has to do with gender. We men are still the overwhelming majority of politicians. I realize the current president of Brazil is a woman, but as a rule, I have to believe that most female politicians would rather spend big dollars on basic services like health and education. Perhaps this mania to host costly international events will only change once more left leaning politicians and women rise to power. Only time will tell.

Electing Better Politicians – By Philip Petraglia

We live in an age of political cynicism. While it’s true there are a multitude of political systems ranging from democracies to dictatorships, there’s plenty of cynicism to go around regardless of the political system in question. People across the world have lost faith in their government. To be called a politician has become a dirty word. Voters associate politicians with corruption, cronyism, and cynicism. It doesn’t help that many politicians serve the interests of special interest groups. Politicians can be perceived as serving the needs of a particular ethnic, tribal, linguistic, or religious group. The national interest is consequently set aside so that the interests of sectarian groups can better be served. Of course some politicians are simply perceived as serving their own political and monetary self-interests. Gangsters disguised as politicians. Other politicians are seen as carrying on the family tradition. Countries like India, Pakistan, Jordan, Syria and North Korea come to mind. They include dictators, monarchs, and even the democratically elected.

One might ask why we should care about the politicians we elect. The answer is simple. No political system will work effectively if it’s not operated by competent politicians. The best political theory is useless if not put into practice by intelligent men and women dedicated to pursuing the common good, or as John Stuart Mills emphasized, the greatest good for the greatest number. Qualified politicians are individuals who understand public policy in a deep and meaningful manner. They can think both short term and long term, and are able to put the needs of society before their own selfish needs, including the needs of whatever sectarian group they come from. One thinks immediately of a great man like Mahatma Gandhi, a devout Hindu, who sought to create an independent India that would unite Muslims and Hindus, not to mention the many castes. Closer to our times, one thinks of Nelson Mandela who was able to assure white South Africans there would be a place for them in a post-apartheid South Africa. A case can even be made for Franz Tito, the Yugoslavian leader who kept the Balkan country from descending into chaos. He would eventually be succeeded by Slobodan Milosevic, whose sectarian leanings would lead the many ethnic and religious groups to fight one another over territory, as one area after another seceded from Belgrade. The end result was a civil war that took tens of thousands of lives, not to mention ethnic cleansing throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Democracies also need leaders that unify rather than divide. Canada had Pierre Eliot Trudeau who as Prime Minister united the country’s two main linguistic groups. Churchill was able to unite Britons regardless of class so as to better deal with the war effort. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought the nation together through his New Deal and his valiant attempt to save the working man from starvation and despair. Even members of his own aristocratic class grudgingly accepted the need for the government to step in and keep a bad situation from getting worse. Contrast this with countries like Venezuela where Hugo Chavez succeeded successive right wing presidents perceived as serving the interests of the country’s upper classes. Hugo Chavez would go to the other extreme and take up the cause of the poor while trying to destroy the country’s civil and democratic institutions. Venezuelans can do better than to elect extremist politicians who seek to divide along class lines rather than to unite.

What all these leaders had in common was not only their brilliance but the belief on the part of citizens that they were not in it for their own selfish needs. They were also seen as honest and possessing of good character. Franz Tito was an autocrat, some might even say a dictator, but he was not perceived to have filled his pockets like Saddam Hussein did, nor serve the needs of his own ethnic group at the expense of the national interest. This is to be contrasted with Saddam Hussein who was seen by many as ruling on behalf of his own Sunni group at the expense of Shias and Kurds who make up the bulk of Iraq’s population.

So what kind of politicians are we electing? Here’s a world-wide list of politicians who fail to make the grade.

The ethically challenged. Canada for some reason has a host of ethically challenged mayors starting with Toronto’s Rob Ford who admitted to smoking crack cocaine during one of his drunken stupors. Quebec’s mayors are not however to be outdone. But their ethically challenged behaviour has more to do with ties to organized crime than with buffoonery.

Children following in their parents’ footsteps. We start with Indira Ghandi, prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977, whose father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India’s first prime minister. Indira Ghandi presided over a state of emergency from 1975-1977 and ruled by decree. She was also responsible for over centralizing the country while stifling the country’s entrepreneurial spirit. Meanwhile next door, Benazeer Bhutto, the eldest daughter of Prime Minster Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, ruled from 1988-90 and from 1993-96. Though a darling of the western media, many still accuse her and her husband of profiteering and cronyism. The United States is not immune from children succeeding their fathers. George W. Bush would eventually follow in his father’s footsteps as President and involve America in a bloody war in Iraq that has taken thousands of Iraqi and U.S. lives.

Old time dictators. These are old men, usually revolutionaries, who just refuse to go away. Two come to mind: Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Cuba’s Fidel Castro. None of these two revolutionaries turned dictators ever succeeded in bringing democracy or prosperity to their respective countries. Mugabe is still there while Castro was forced to step down due to ill health.

Rich men behaving badly. Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, the nation’s richest person, leads the way. President from 1994-1995, 2001-2006, and 2008-2011, he was convicted of tax fraud in August of 2013. He’s also currently facing trial for having sex with an under-aged woman who may or may not have been a prostitute. Asked by an unemployed woman how she might go about getting a job in a country with youth unemployment well over 25%, his only reply was to recommend she marry his son as an alternative to gainful employment. How can a country with such a profound culture ever vote for such an individual?

Spouses succeeding spouses. So far it’s women succeeding their husbands but that could change. Let’s start with Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina’s first democratically elected female president. She succeeded her husband Nestor Kirchner, president from 2003-2007. Their plan was to alternate the presidency between them until Nestor Kirchner’s unexpected death. The idea was to turn Argentina into a family fiefdom. The United States will likely enter this category once Hillary Clinton runs for office in 2014 or 2015 despite being a divisive person. But aren’t there other more qualified female candidates who are not as divisive? And who will the real president be once Hillary gets in?

The candidate with the name recognition. This is the inexperienced politician who comes with a recognizable name. Canada leads the way among democracies ever since Justin Trudeau became leader of the Federal Liberal Party in April 2013. He doesn’t by all indications have his father’s intellect or political astuteness, but that may not be important. He’s currently leading in the polls as the Conservatives self-destruct with the Senate scandal. As for the NDP, they can’t seem to poll more than 25% of the vote. Canada just isn’t that left of center. But is Justin Trudeau ready to rule? Isn’t one of the world’s oldest political parties capable of presenting a more qualified candidate? Aren’t Canadian voters more politically astute than to vote for a name?

Brotherly love. Or make that sisterly love. The current president of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra, president since 2012, is facing a near revolution in her country as demonstrators take to the streets by the thousands. She has in place an amnesty plan that would rescue her brother from arrest should he return to the Thailand. What are siblings for? Her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was prime minister from 2001-2006 and fled the country after being charged with fraud. But not to worry. He also happens to be Thailand’s richest person.

The silly brigade. Think Sarah Palin, Republican nominee for Vice President in the 2008 presidential. It was believed she would bring in both the female and evangelical vote. Think of it as a Hail Mary Pass on John McCain’s part in an attempt to defeat Barack Obama. She became instead a source of amusement. In the end, the only real victors were Obama and Saturday Night Live, not to mention Sarah Palin herself who went on to make millions in speaking engagements and one very lucrative book deal. Special mention should also go to Sharron Angle who ran unsuccessfully as the 2010 Republican nominee for a senate seat in Nevada. Her opponent was Harry Reid, Senate Majority leader and a prominent liberal. Reid went on to win by a comfortable majority. We should all be grateful, especially when you consider Ms. Angle pledged to take the United States out of the United Nations. She was also heard to state in one of her memorable speeches that she could not distinguish Hispanics from Asians. In short, she was a candidate from another time and scary place.

So there you have it: global mediocrity in our choice of politicians. But there’s no reason to despair. For starters, we have the Scandinavian countries as models of good governance. What they all have in common is an intelligent and well-informed electorate that understands policy issues. None of these countries elect politicians who lack seriousness, whether from the left or from the right. These countries also happen to be meritocracies where the gap between the rich and the poor hardily exists to the degree that it does in the rest of the world. They possess a vibrant middle class where citizens pay high taxes but receive the world’s best public services in return. These are not countries where political parties wage great ideological battles. They possess a national consensus of what citizens should receive from their governments. Perhaps these are points we can all learn from, whether in the West or the Emerging World.

The Hyphenated Citizen – By Philip Petraglia

I just finished reading Christopher Castellani’s excellent trilogy chronicling the life of a fictitious Italian American family. The first novel, A Kiss from Maddalena, published in 2003 takes place during the nineteen forties as World War Two rages on. The location is Santa Cecilia, one of those many small towns in Italy where opportunities were few to come by, except if one was lucky enough to leave for the “New World”, especially America. The main character is Maddalena, a beautiful blonde who forsakes marriage with her true love to marry Antonio, a fellow villager visiting from America, who persuades her to accompany him to Wilmington, Delaware. For those of us like myself born to immigrant parents, it’s a way for us to imagine what our parents must have been like as teenagers and young adults. We see the lack of social mobility, the poverty, and the importance of family, whether in regard to parents or siblings. Life was hard in these small villages, but there was romance and besides which our parents were young, healthy, and full of hope.

The second novel, The Saint of Lost Things, published in 2005, has the Grasso family settled in Wilmington’s Little Italy. Like other immigrants, whether in the U.S., Argentina, or Canada, the Italians attempted as best as they could to recreate a little piece of home within certain geographic limits. This allowed them to have their bakeries, grocery stores, and cafes, but it also meant a certain distrust of “the other”, those other people with strange and unfamiliar ways. Castellani describes the struggles and the blue collar jobs they occupied. But he also brings to life the card and bocce games, not to mention feasts and great dinners. These were communities where people knew their next door neighbours, and where most people travelled by bus. A car was a luxury and suburbia with its very private neighbourhoods was just getting started. The second novel has Antonio Grasso, the family patriarch, start the Al Di La restaurant with his brother Mario. He leaves a secure but dead end job to do so. The restaurant does well, and before you know it the family leaves for the leafy suburbs of Wilmington.

“All This Talk of Love”, published in 2013, has the Grasso family living in the suburbs, along with other hyphenated Americans, like the Irish and the Poles. For Antonio and his wife, Maddelena, suburbia is both comforting and somewhat strange. Gone are all the Italian institutions. So they drive back to the old neighbourhood for whatever Italian produce they need. But suddenly the old neighbourhood looks strangely unfamiliar to Antonio. The Italians are gone and replaced by “the other”. By this time, Prima, their only daughter, is happily married to Tom Buckley, whose Irish descendants have been in America since the early 19th century. But he’s Catholic and like many non-Italians who marry into our tribe he immediately becomes assimilated. What’s not to like? The In-Laws are totally dedicated to their grandchildren and they treat him like Royalty despite all the teasing. Prima and Tom have several children, and one of them, Ryan Buckley, is chosen by Antonio to be the future owner of the AL Di La restaurant. Like most grandchildren of Italian immigrants, Ryan doesn’t speak a word of Italian but he retains his grandparents’ better qualities. He understands the concept of “la bella figura” without really understanding it, and Antonio believes he’s the most qualified member of his family to honour the restaurant’s traditions and reputation.

But I’m jumping ahead. Antonio and Maria Grasso had three children: Tony, Prima, and Frankie. Tony we only know of from recollections, his misfortune having been to be born with a certain “condition” which his parents are not able to accept until it’s too late. Prima marries Tom Buckley and they go on to have a family of their own. All their boys are solidly All-American types. By this time the Italian fabric of the Grasso family has become almost totally Americanized, as happens to most grandchildren of immigrants. But by far the most interesting of the three is Frankie, whose valiantly attempting to finish his PHD at a Boston area University. Frankie is the most mysterious of the three to his parents. He’s in his late twenties and he’s not yet finished school, married or even dating. They’re proud of his inclination towards higher education, but they don’t really understand what he’s training for. Will he be assured of a job once he’s finished? Will he get a job in Wilmington and eventually get married? Is he eating and taking care of himself? Boston to the Grassos might as well be in another country. They communicate regularly by telephone, each conversation as if the first in months. It almost seems like a state affair! But hearing his voice assures his parents that all is well. Of course they’re not aware that he’s sleeping with the very Waspish Professor Birch who can at times come across as patronizing.

So why should this wonderful trilogy be read? We live in an age where millions of people around the world are emigrating in search, like the Grassos, of a better life. There’s no melodrama in these novels and the Mother country is treated for what it was: a beautiful place that had personal romance, mystery, and hardships. It reminds us of where so many of us come from without glorifying the Old Country. We see the choices that so many immigrants continue to make. Castellani gives these people context and in so doing renders them more human. These immigrants are seen for what they were and continue to be: naïve but incredibly brave with dreams and aspirations. Castellani does not go into outlining the great achievements immigrants have given their adopted countries. But we can with a little bit of imagination imagine them building the Brooklyn Bridge and New York’s subway system.

And lastly, there’s a selfish reason for reading this. For those of us like Frankie Grasso lucky enough to be born in two worlds, it allows us to reminisce about those great Sunday meals which seem like a million years ago. They bring to mind animated conversations where there was never even the remotest chance of some mutual understanding. But so what? Better to have a little bit of conflict and at least know where you come from. Total harmony can be both boring and uninspiring.

Of course no Hollywood Producer will ever likely bring these pages to the Silver Screen. There’s none of the violence so often associated with immigrant life. The stories are also complex and too real. Absent is any sense of persecution. Nor is this a rags to riches story. What you get instead is a moving story of simple people trying to make the best of it. This trilogy should be read by future generations seeking to attain a truer understanding of the immigrant experience.

North American Mayors Behaving Badly – By Philip Petraglia

In previous articles I discussed the growing importance of cities in human civilization. Not only is 50% of the planet’s population living in urban areas, but that rate is expected to rise to 75% by the end of this century. Cities are the engines of our economy, whether in the West or in much of the developing world, including China and India. So what are we to make of the current scandal in Toronto involving the city’s mayor, Rob Ford, accused of smoking crack cocaine? This is a charge he repeatedly denied until the police commissioner released film showing the mayor coming out of a known crack house. Ford’s defence was ingenious. He simply pushed it aside and informed his citizens that it probably occurred during one of his drunken stupors. Regardless of whether it’s the BBC or CNN, the foreign media is having a field day, all at the expense of Toronto’s reputation. The mayor of Canada’s largest city is single handily trying to destroy Canada’s reputation as a first rate country run by competent politicians.

Not to be outdone by its rival down from the 401, the City of Montreal has its own allegedly crooked mayors to deal with, starting with Gerald Tremblay, mayor of Canada’s second largest city from 2002-2012. It was revealed in October 2012 before a special commission appointed to study how City contracts are awarded that the mayor’s party received money from Mafia-linked interests in return for lucrative sewage contracts. Worse still, it’s alleged the mayor knew of these ties but simply chose to ignore them. And how did the mayor respond? He looked at the Fight or Flight option and decided to resign and disappear from the public view. His successor, Michael Applebaum, was then voted in by the city’s councillors (November 2012) on an interim basis, and would become the first Anglophone mayor since 1912. Interim is better than nothing, but this too was asking too much of the real estate developer. He was arrested on June 17, 2013 by police and now faces 14 charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption. Most of the charges stem from real estate dealings between 2006-2011 when Applebaum was borough major.

But big city mayors are not the only urbanites behaving badly. There’s the case of Gilles Vaillancourt, Mayor of Laval from 1989-2012, Canada’s thirteenth largest city with a population of slightly over 400,000, who was forced to resign on November 9, 2012 amid rumors and allegations of having ties to organized crime . He currently faces charges of gangsterism.

The U.S. of course has its own share of big city majors out of control, starting with Bob Filner, mayor of San Diego from December 2012 until August 2013. He would eventually resign over allegations of sexually harassing female employees in his office. Other notables include Kwame Kilpatrick, mayor of Detroit from 2002-2008, who resigned after being charged with eight felony counts that included perjury, misconduct in office, and obstruction of justice. He would go on to serve 120 days in jail and pay a heavy fine besides losing his pension.

So there you have it. We live in an age where mayors from both Canada and the United States are bringing dispute to their office. Why should this matter to citizens? For starters mayors are like ambassadors for their cities. This is especially important in an age of increasing competition between cities as trade and commerce goes global. The out-going mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, said so himself in regard to London. His fear is that London will one day supersede the Big Apple as the world’s financial capital. Think New York City, and competent mayors like Fiorello LaGuardia, Rudy Giuliani, and Michael Bloomberg come to mind. Bad ones like John Lindsay who almost bankrupted the city also come to mind.

A great mayor is like a lightening-rod serving to direct a city’s energy and policies in the right direction. Montreal today suffers from infrastructure problems. Pot holes, a week public transportation system, and rotting pipes underneath the city all go back to Mayor Jean Drapeau’s obsession with putting Montreal on the map. What citizens got was more than a billion dollars in debt. Drapeau’s obsession was not with doing the nuts and bolts of repairing and maintaining the city’s infrastructure, but with bringing glory to the city. Cities like San Francisco and Portland (Oregon) have managed to gain an international reputation without hosting costly events, but this is something mayors lacking in good sense don’t understand.

But probably our biggest concern should be with what this says about the future. Cities are growing at a rate where they are now overshadowing their rural areas. How cities are managed will have to change to keep up with this reality. Mayors must be given more power if cities are to be administered effectively. This means that both state (provincial) and federal governments must eventually transfer power to the cities, which could one day come to resemble city states minus armies and ambassadors. But this won’t happen if cities keep voting in office politicians who are either corrupt or morally challenged.

And this brings me to my next point. For some reason cities attract a certain type of candidate for mayor. Except for a few notables like Bloomberg and Giuliani in New York, they tend to attract intellectual lightweights and candidates lacking in vision and purpose. Perhaps this is because mayors are seen as being responsible for administering a city’s basic needs, like collecting the garbage and making sure police services are rendered efficiently and fairly. But providing basic needs are not to be sneered at, In addition, cities won’t be given more power if citizens keep voting in office politicians like Rob Ford.

In Canada we know that cities are created by the provinces. Over 50% of Canada’s population lives in the country’s ten largest urban areas. One can imagine the provinces transferring more taxation powers to these urban centers. For example, Canada’s cities may one day be permitted to keep a percentage of sales taxes collected in its territories, or even a percentage of income tax paid by its residents. But this won’t happen if mayors are seen as corrupt or ethically challenged politicians who can’t be taken seriously.

A Tale Of Two Cities – By Philip Petraglia

My wife and I moved from Montreal to Victoria about four years ago. People move for all sorts of reasons. It can be related to work, family, lifestyle; the reasons are endless. Our friends here in Victoria sometimes ask us whether we miss the city my wife and I were raised in. Of course we miss our friends and family. But to be perfectly honest, neither of us really miss a city we both outgrew.

Montreal is one of those places you should visit in the summer. From the International Jazz Festival to the Just for Laughs, there are plenty of free outdoor activities to take in. Plus there’s all the people watching that folks from Montreal are famous for. It seems like the city leads the world in gawking. I’m not sure that’s a good thing but it’s a reality that many visitors can attest to. Autumn is another great time to visit, what with the leaves changing colour and the smell of winter in the air. Mount-Royal is especially a great place to take in the colours. No need to head for the Laurentians or the Eastern Townships. You can even get there by bus if you don’t like to walk. As for winter, that’s something both my wife and I don’t miss. Minus 10 temperatures with lots of humidity can be pretty unbearable. It’s especially bad in the morning when you’re heading off to work. But as a child, winter was probably my favourite season. The more snow the better!

Montreal has as many people know some pretty good restaurants. But it’s not the French inspired restaurants that stand out for me. The Italian bakeries and cafes in the North End of the city, Portuguese restaurants on The Main (St-Laurent Boulevard) and Jewish Delis all attest to the city’s cosmopolitan vibrancy. Most hipsters and foodies probably prefer the Plateau Mont-Royal, a section of Montreal that was once home to much of the city’s French Canadian working class. But something happened a few decades ago, and now it’s become the hip place to live and be seen in. Call it gentrification run amok or of you like, the francophone version of Greenwich Village.

Like most cities, Montreal has its share of walkable neighbourhoods. One of my favourites is in the Jean-Talon Market area, adjacent to Little Italy, which these days is anything but Italian, as the old inhabitants fled to the suburbs starting in the late seventies. Why live in a walkable but congested neighbourhood when you buy a spacious bungalow in the suburbs? As for Little Italy, it’s become more ethnically diverse, with lots of young people crammed into small apartments, which get to think of it, is how lots of young people live in the Plateau. But this part of Montreal hasn’t lost its working class or ethnic flavour, and Jean-Talon market is a delight to visit on Saturdays. The prices have changed, and the farmers selling their produce don’t look like farmers, but it’s still a nice experience.

What stood out for me living there was the bilingual orientation of the city. Make no mistake of it, though. It remains a primarily French speaking city, as it should be, Canada is the richer for it, but geography is king, and no one can pretend the city is in France. Besides which, the cuisine is actually better and more interesting in Montreal than in Paris!

So what does Victoria having going for it? For starters, it usually takes 10 minutes by car to get from Point A to Point B. So we usually just walk. Montreal in contrast always seemed to take an hour either because of the bad traffic or the crater size potholes. And there’s the weather. We hardly see snow here, and as for the rain, it’s a lot more manageable than five feet of snow. But don’t confuse us with Vancouver where they get real rain. The great thing about Victoria is you really don’t need winter clothing, a sort of strange phenomenon for Canada. In fact, you don’t even need summer clothing! This city has two seasons: a variation of either autumn or spring depending on the time of year. This would probably depress a lot of people, and also helps explains why we have so many cafes in this city.

What Victoria doesn’t have are affordable restaurants. The city’s restaurants are good but missing are the small eateries where one can get a great falafel for 5 or 6 dollars. The complaint I sometimes hear from merchants are that commercial rents are high. Maybe what the city needs are more food carts. We can also take a page out of Portland’s (Oregon) food scene where a neighbourhood adjacent to downtown is home to small mini trailers transformed into restaurants. The prices and ethnic varieties make for an interesting culinary experience. There’s no place to sit so customers just take their food and walk around, taking in the sights. The city can also give out more permits for food trucks, one of Anthony Bourdain’s favourite ways of dining out! It’s a question of the city using more imagination in determining how food gets to the general public. I’m sure both Thomas Keller and Jamie Oliver would agree!

But we have great geography in this city. We can be in Vancouver in slightly less than four hours, and there’s a direct ferry link between Victoria harbour and Seattle harbour that connects these two contrasting cities in less than three hours. The other advantage is our location on Vancouver Island, one of North America’s gems, where you can be on a wonderful nature trail in 30 minutes. The Juan de Fuca Marine Trail is also about an hour away. Compare this with Montreal. One hour by car gets you to the Laurentians, a region taken over by the Velcro crowd a few decades ago. And the traffic coming back to Montreal Sunday evenings can be worse than rush hour traffic. In contrast, a drive back from Juan de Fuca is as pleasant as a Sunday drive in the country! And there’s one more nature tip you should all remember. The region around Victoria is dotted with countless hiking trails but the local citizenry isn’t anywhere to be seen! It seems like we have these magnificent trails to ourselves.

Montreal’s population if you include the metropolitan area is close to 4 million. Victoria’s population is around 350,000 if you include the suburbs. Each city is great in its own way. So maybe it’s not so much about the city as it is about ourselves and what we’re looking for at a particular time in our lives. I do know one thing though. Growing up in Montreal allowed me to learn three languages. And that’s something few cities offer.

The Future of International Relations – By Philip Petraglia

The current issue confronting the United States and its allies over spying raises some important issues for the future of international relations. Political Scientists and journalists alike are asking what propelled the U.S. to tap into the personal phone of a staunch ally like Angela Merkel. Not only is she staunchly pro- American, she also maintains great personal relations with President Obama. To make matters worse, the U.S. is also accused of spying on Presidents Francois Holland of France, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. All have expressed outrage and shock that a progressive president like Barrack Obama would ever permit something like this to go on. Why spy on allies you trade and maintain friendly relations with?

What’s worth noting is that no one is calling this an irreparable crisis. The general public doesn’t really care, and experts maintain that everyone does it, in one form or another. The Americans, they add, are just better at it owing to experience and greater resources. Besides which, we live in a POST 9/11 world and America’s goal in spying is primarily to defend itself against terrorism.

So what does this international espionage really tell us? What has the media missed? For starters, this is not so much a crisis as an indicator of things to come. No irreparable damage has been done, trade goes on, countries collaborate to fight international crime , NATO remains intact, and diplomatic relations go on. But there are serious changes taking place with regard to how the United States views relations with its allies.

These changes have been going on since the end of the cold war. The collapse of the Soviet Union means we no longer live in a world where countries feel obliged to ally themselves with one of two superpowers. A new reality has emerged with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Countries now feel free to pursue their national interests regardless of whether it offends their allies, especially the U.S. This no doubt is something the U.S. understands.

Of course there are many reasons for countries to cooperate, whether it be in regard to fighting global warming, international money laundering, terrorism, trade barriers, drug trafficking, or illegal immigration. The fact that countries spy on one another does not mean that countries will stop cooperating on these pressing issues. But countries do have interests and concerns that are not equally shared by allies. Disputes will arise, and countries, especially vulnerable ones, will likely have to re-evaluate their relations with one another.

The U.S. is a case in point. It feels in many ways vulnerable, especially since 9/11. Those two planes crashing into the World Trade Center took place on U.S. soil, in America’s biggest city. Europeans probably fail to understand how much this has affected American anxieties over more terrorist attacks. These attacks are something European nations don’t have to concern themselves with, at least not to the degree the U.S. does. But it doesn’t end there. Americans and Europeans don’t necessarily agree on a host of other issues, from global warming to whether genetically modified labels should be placed on food products. The U.S. is basically concerned that reliable allies may no longer tow the U.S. line on important issues. Fear breeds insecurity which in turn leads a powerful country like the U.S. to spy on its allies.

Expect U.S. relations to also change with non-European countries now that we’re living in a post 9/11 world. Saudi Arabia is a case in point. The US has always had special relations with the Gulf Kingdom. America needs its oil and the Saudis are happy to oblige so long as Washington does not raise human rights issues with regard to the treatment of women and religious minorities, like the Shias, who make up 15% of the Kingdom’s population. Lately however Saudi rulers have voiced their displeasure at America’s willingness to pursue friendlier relations with Iran, a predominantly Shia state. As Vali Nasr’s’s fine book “The Shia Revival” (published in 2007) illustrates, the most dangerous conflict in the Middle East is not between the Jewish state and its neighbours but between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam. We see this clearly in Syria, with Iran backing the Assad Regime (Alawites see themselves as an offshoot of the Shia branch), and Saudi Arabia, which is backing the Islamic rebels fighting the Alawite dominated regime in Damascus. The Saudis clearly do not appreciate its ally (U.S.) and major trading partner backing a religious foe, especially as Saudi Arabia and Iran fight to dominate the Middle East. The Saudis are also alarmed by what’s transpiring in Iraq, where the Shias were able to take control of the government once Iraq’s Sunni dictator, Saddam Hussein, was overturned and eventually killed with the help of U.S. intervention. The Saudis have, in addition, a Shia minority of its own to worry about, and the fear is Shia victories will embolden Saudi Shias to seek a state of their own, something the Saudis would never accept owing to the presence of Shia communities in Saudi Arabia’s oil regions.

Add to this the U.S. goal of becoming energy independent through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and development of its own gas reserves, and you have a worried Saudi Arabia asking itself how reliable an ally America is. Lastly, there’s America’s concern at the Kingdom’s spread of militant and conservative Islam (Whahhabism) to volatile regions of the world like Pakistan, which the US. believes fosters both terrorism against the West and the denial of basic human rights in regions where this ultra- conservative branch of Sunni Islam takes root. It should come as no surprise then if we eventually learn that the U.S. has also been spying on a staunch ally like Saudi Arabia.

Israel is another country that seems worried by America’s attitude towards a more open Iran. It’s no secret that Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Barrack Obama don’t get along. The Israelis are beginning to question America’s commitment to Israeli security, especially now that the Cold War is over and that the Russians are no longer a major player in the region like they were during the Cold War.

These are two classic examples of shifting changes in geopolitics. But countries also spy for other reasons. These include: determining how solid regimes are, whether allies can be trusted, and in the case of the U.S., trying to understand where allies stand with regard to specific U.S. policies. In the end, countries will continue to spy one another. The only question remains how far they are willing to go.

Does Journalism Still Matter? – By Philip Petraglia

The world is currently all abuzz over allegations the United States has been spying on its allies. The leaders of Argentina, Brazil, France, and Germany have all expressed their outrage. These allegations are probably true. Analysts even maintain everyone is doing it and that it’s been going on for a long time. And there’s talk the British may have been assisting the Americans. But here’s the point: Why did it take a former CIA employee and NSA contractor like Edward Snowden to bring this alleged espionage to the world’s attention? Snowden, a U.S. citizen, currently enjoys temporary asylum in Russia, of all places.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the western world enjoyed the benefits of a phenomenon known as investigative journalism. This seems to have become a dying art. Let’s look at some of the benefits of investigative journalism, starting with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. These two Washington Post reporters helped bring Richard Nixon down by investigating the Watergate scandal. How would Watergate have turned out had they not pursued this story with dogged determination? And then there’s the case of Daniel Ellsberg, a high ranking Pentagon official who leaked what would become known as the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. This great American institution then published these revealing papers despite opposition from the Nixon administration. The Pentagon Papers essentially revealed how badly the Vietnam War was going for the Americans and helped turn U.S. public opinion against further U.S. involvement. It did so by exposing the dishonesty of the government in its claim the war was being won. The media was courageous enough to take on the government and not cower behind the mantle of patriotism.

So here’s my point: The media has become so sterile and timid that it’s losing relevancy. Cynics might argue the media is only concerned with ratings and selling newspapers. This may or may not be true. But what is undoubtedly true is the media’s desire to maintain good relations with government officials at any price. When did this begin? Was it once independent newspapers were swallowed up by corporate chains? Was it once newspaper towns become one paper towns? Does lack of competition lead to sterility and lack of intellectual curiosity? Do the large corporate entities that run the media basically feel that most people don’t really care about policy issues or what’s really going?

Another point many make is that the media has become intellectually lazy. Isn’t investigating whether President Bill Clinton is sleeping with Monica Lewinsky easier to cover than the morality and effectiveness of Barack Obama’s increasing use of drone attacks in Pakistan? Perhaps the media feels people are just not concerned about policy matters, and that drone attacks are too serious to cover. Serious issues might force people to think about matters that might trouble them. Better to entertain!

The role of serious investigative journalism is to inform democratic societies about what’s really going on. It’s the search for the truth. It sounds idealistic but it’s the kind of idealism we need if we’re to preserve responsible government. How else are we going to keep governments and citizens honest? It’s questionable whether the rule of law can do it alone. The media is there to help promote the rule of law, among other things. It’s what forced Richard Nixon to realize he was not above the law.

Here’s what happens when journalists don’t do their jobs. It allows a highly respected war hero and cabinet secretary like Colin Powell to go before the U.S. public and make the case for invading Iraq on the premise Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found. But what if the media had questioned Powell’s assertion that the Iraqi dictator had these weapons? And what if the media had researched the repercussions of invading a volatile country divided by ethnicity, religion, and tribalism? Would not the American public have been better informed of the repercussions of invading such a tinder box?

Some will argue there was a conspiracy on the part of the media to support this invasion. But there’s a better assessment. The media seems to lack courage and intellectual curiosity. On the one hand there’s the fear of being perceived by the general public as unpatriotic. This fear likely goes back to the Vietnam era. Probably they fear losing ad revenue if seen as too controversial. Better to play it safe. But there’s a second reason. There seems to be a lack of serious intellectual curiosity about researching public issues in a deep and meaningful manner. What you get as a consequence is mediocrity and a system of reporting that can only be described as vacuous.

And then there’s the financial crisis of 2007-2008 which many economists call the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Looking back many economists see the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 as one of the essential causes of this near calamity, along with monetary policies pursued by Allan Greenspan, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve. What’s troubling is how the media covered de-regulation and Greenspan’s policy of letting the “invisible hand” of the market place take charge. The media stayed away from ever seriously questioning whether de-regulation had potential risks, and why it was necessary to repeal a law that helped keep the world’s largest economy from collapsing. The real estate market was also booming and few in the media questioned whether this could lead to a potential bubble with catastrophic consequences. The media also put Greenspan on a pedestal, raising him to the level of deity. As Greenspan later admitted, the admiration he received wasn’t always merited!

So what’s in store for the future? Are we to rely primarily on self-styled “whistle blowers” with a hidden agenda? Is breaking the law the only way for democratic societies to arrive at the truth? Is the role of the media simply to re- state everything said to them at press conferences? Since most of us are fairly intelligent, we can do without this type of journalism.

The media needs to decide if it’s still relevant. Perhaps the internet will create a new form of journalism that’s more daring and geared towards investigative journalism. But the problem with the internet is its reliability. Who are these providers of news? How reliable are they? Traditional media has to reassert itself, whether in print or online, and show those in power they have something to fear.

Citizens also have a part to play. No free and democratic society can exist without a vibrant media. Citizens should pressure the government to be more open, to answer serious questions regarding important policy issues, and to make itself available to the media for cross-examination. It should be unacceptable for governments like the Harper administration in Canada to ignore the press at every opportunity. Unfortunately most citizens are apathetic on the issue of press freedom and this serves the interests of those in government seeking to keep people ignorant of what’s really going on.

In the end citizens must insist that the media pursue investigative journalism or risk becoming irrelevant. But change won’t come unless the media believes the general public truly expects the media to act as an independent source of information, and that serious issues like espionage really matters to them.

Fukuyama & The Rule of Law - By Philip Petraglia

There are many ways for a country to develop both politically and economically. What is true for all societies, however, is the importance the rule of law plays in creating a democratic and prosperous society where all citizens are treated equally. No political theorist can ever deny that liberty and democracy can only be attained once the rule of law has firmly taken hold of society.

Some also make the argument that economic prosperity cannot be attained without the rule of law. Others maintain that countries like China prove otherwise and that the jury is still out on. While this is certainly an issue open to debate, the point remains that most free and prosperous societies are based on the rule of law. Canada, the United States, and the European Union are clear examples. Many academics argue that China will never be able to take its economic prosperity to the next level without first establishing the rule of law as it’s understood and practiced in the West. Others however point to states like Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea as examples where prosperity seems to be based more on cultural attributes like respect for hierarchy and authority than for the rule of law. And, they stress that states with the rule of law seem to suffer from income disparity, with the U.S. cited as a prime example.

Published in 2011, the “The Origins of Political Order” by Francis Fukuyama, the well-respected professor currently teaching International Relations at Stanford University, shows how the emergence of the rule of law in the West has given western civilization certain advantages over Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Born and raised in the United States and of Japanese heritage, Professor Fukuyama is neither a western imperialist enamored by western culture nor an Asian-American with an inferiority complex. But like his colleague, the late Samuel Huntington, he stresses the importance in understanding how societies with different cultures develop differently.

Professor Fukuyama starts out by illustrating how the rule of law as its understood today emerged from Europe. He points out that whereas pre-modern society fixed law on a higher authority such as divine authority, immemorial custom, or by nature, all these sources were eventually replaced by legislation or positive law. This included the notion that individuals holding power were also bound by the law, which many will argue, is the most central aspect of the rule of law. He points to the development of constitutional law as a vehicle for placing limits on the state’s power. And of course he looks at the emergence of the English Common Law which he describes as the cumulative decisions of countless judges trying to apply general rules to specific cases that brought before them. Lastly, he adds that the emergence of the rule of law was dependent on the enforcement of a strong central state seeking to apply the law across the realm at the expense of local customs.

Critical to the emergence of the rule of law in the West was the role that religion played. The Christian church created the notion of a universal community based on common faith rather than kin loyalties while the introduction of Christianity in Europe helped promote the rule of law by setting aside tribal customs. In the end, a system of courts was created across the land, along with a system of justice that required manpower, expertise, and an education system with legal specialists trained in precedent.

Fukuyama then moves on to discuss rule of law in civil law jurisdictions, especially in continental Europe, where the church made a crucial compromise with the state. In return for keeping jurisdiction and control over spiritual decisions, the church conceded to temporal rulers the right to exercise power in other more earthly matters. Each agreed to exercise powers in separate spheres, which would lead to the creation of the secular state and such notions as separation of church and state. As Fukuyama argues, the existence of a separate religious authority accustomed rulers to the idea that they were not the ultimate source of the law. And here he adds rests the problem for India and countries in the Middle East, where religious authorities have failed to extract themselves from the political order. In other words, unlike the situation in the West, Muslim societies were never able to separate church from state.

And what are we to make of China? China, he rightly points out, is not and never was a society based on the rule of law. The Chinese system was always about maintaining order which the state accomplished by keeping a monopoly over violence. And because it was such an enormous country, a strong central state was put in place to combat local Warlords intent on terrorizing local communities through violence and extortion. This is still the system in place as the Chinese Communist Party seeks to create and maintain a “high-quality” authoritarian system, run in a rational manner, with a complex bureaucracy capable of running the country while fighting corrupt local authorities.

Francis Fukuyama argues that the relative weakness of the rule of law is a challenge for many countries in modern times. The evidence is everywhere. It’s in authoritarian countries like Russia, democracies like India, emerging economies like China and Brazil, in third world countries (especially in Africa), and in new democracies, whether in Latin America or Eastern Europe.

The rule of law does not however, in and by itself promote justice and democracy if used to protect the interests of only a small minority as seems to be occurring in China and India. He gives as an example India where judicial appeals are used to protect the interests of the elites against the will of democratically elected governments. The absence of the rule of law can either be totally absent as in many African countries or watered down as in Russia, Asia, and the Middle East.

Legal institutions thus need to be seen as legitimate and authoritative and respected by both the people and the elites who rule over them. What happens then in established democracies like the United States when the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, renders a decision like Citizens United, which basically makes it possible for wealthy contributors to make unlimited donations to political campaigns? Respect for the rule of law cannot be taken for granted even in established democracies.

In the end, the rule of law is indispensable for every country regardless of whether it helps lead to economic prosperity. No people will ever trade prosperity for inequality especially as people’s education and expectations rise. Authoritarian rulers across the world should remember this, whether in Muslim Saudi Arabia, Christian Russia, or Buddhist Burma.