Thinking Citizen Blog — Is It Genocide, Again, In Darfur? Is One Party Rule Back In Mexico? Is Milei’s “Chainsaw” Doing Its Job In Argentina?
Thinking Citizen Blog — Monday is Foreign Policy Day
Today’s Topic: Is it genocide, again, in Darfur? Is one party rule back in Mexico? Is Milei’s “chainsaw” doing its job in Argentina?
So much news. So little time. How much attention does Darfur merit? Mexico? Argentina?
How should our attention to world affairs be rationed? Do you have an algorithm?
Today, excerpts from three articles. One on Darfur from Nicolas Kristof of the New York Times, one on Argentina from Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe, one on Mexico, from the magazine Foreign Affairs.
Founded in 1968, “Concern Worldwide” is Ireland’s largest humanitarian and aid organization.
At year end 2023, its US affiliate published a list of the the world’s 8 worst humanitarian crises.
In order: Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen, Ukraine, and South Sudan. Do you know of a better list? How much attention does each deserve?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
IT LOOKS LIKE A REPRISE OF GENOCIDE IN DARFUR (Kristof, New York Times)
1. “The inaction pales in comparison to the situation 20 years ago, when global leaders felt morally and legally obligated to act on Darfur.”
2. “Some of the same Arab forces responsible for the genocide in the 2000s are picking up where they left off.”
3. “There’s a racist element: Arab militias mock their victims as slaves and taunt them with racial epithets — the non-Arabs are often darker skinned. The militias seem to be trying to systematically eliminate non-Arab tribes from the area.”
NB: 600,000 refugees have fled to Chad in the last year. The population of Darfur is estimated to be 9 million.
Any experts on South Sudan (population 11 million) and the ethnic violence there? An estimated 400,000 were killed there between 2013 and 2018.
HAS AMLO (Andres Manual Lopez Obrador) BASICALLY RETURNED MEXICO TO ONE PARTY RULE?
1. “Mexico’s democracy, like many others, is being destroyed by a freely elected and popular president who has manipulated democratic institutions and seeks to change not just the rules of the electoral game ut also the entire political system so that his party remains in power.”
2. “Lopez Obrador’s party, the Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), is mobilising its supporters to vote for a refurbished autocracy disguised as a democracy. Many Mexicans have succumbed to its allure. The president’s daily press conferences portray his party as concerned for the poor, combating the rapacious elites, and defending national sovereignty against internal and external threats, including opposition parties and foreign influence.”
3. “Lopez Obrador himself governs through polarization. He divides the population into two camps: “the people” versus the “enemies of hte people” the dispossessed versus those who disdain them, the popular movement shat seeks change versus the conservative opposition that wants to maintain a status quo that works only for the elites.” Sound familiar?
NB: “Under Lopez Obrador’s plan, Supreme Court justices and members of the autonomous election agency would be elected by popular vote, effectively handing control of both parties to Morena and putting an end to incipient checks and balances. The militarization of Mexican politics would also become permanent, as the president intends to remove the constitutional provision that prevenets the government from extending the army’s expanded mandate past 2028.”
“Lopez Obrador also revived “dedazo,” an infamous practice associated with the PRI (that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000) whereby the outgoing president handpicked his successor. His modern twist was to choose a woman — all past Mexican presidents have been men — and to simulate a primary process to led his personal selection an air of legitimacy.”
“At least 24 candidates for local congress and mayorships have been killed so far in 2024.”
IS MILEI’S “CHAINSAW” REVOLUTION ANOTHER DISASTER (Uki Goni, New York Times) OR IS IT WORKING? (Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)
1. “The new president is turning his country’s economy around by shrinking the state and championing free markets.” (Jacoby, Boston Globe)
2. Or is Milei just another “archetypical South American caudillo” (strongman)? (Goni, New York Times)
3. Can Milei return Argentina to the glory days of old when Argentina was one of the top ten richest countries in the world? or were those glory days in fact a myth?
NB: “Underneath his brash style he promotes serious economic and philosophical ideas — ideas about free markets, individual liberty, and a smaller state. Like the economics professor he was for 20 years, he wants people to understand the case he makes for the efficacy of competition and the harms caused by overbearing governments. Everywhere politicians are addicted to subsidies, price controls, deficit spending, and corporate welfare. It is exhilarating to see a national leader who has a a radically different vision and champions it unapologetically.” (Jacoby) Agree? Disagree?
South Sudanese Civil War — Wikipedia
Ethnic violence in South Sudan — Wikipedia
The world’s worst humanitarian crises: 8 to know in 2024
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/mexico/mexicos-vote-autocracy
In Argentina, Milei’s exhilarating chainsaw revolution is underway — The Boston Globe
Opinion | 100 Days of Javier Milei
QUOTE OF THE MONTH — Have you made your own Bible yet?
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
Here is a link to the last four years of posts organized by theme: (including the book on foreign policy)
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest or most important thing you learned in the last week, month, or year related to foreign policy.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in our life related to foreign policy.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. And to consolidate in your memory something important you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is the key to depth of thought.
The prospect of imminent publication, like hanging and final exams, concentrates the mind. A useful life long habit.
