Of Cultural Globalization and Uniqueness by Pedro F Marcelino

Can a small city in a West African country not feel African at all?
Mindelo, in the tiny Republic of Cape Verde, can.

The small archipelago located about 400 miles west of the Senegalese coast was only discovered in 1420, by Genovese navigator António di Noli, serving the Portuguese Crown. The first settlement took place in Vila da Ribeira Grande that was to become the earliest European colonial capital in Africa, and one of some importance. For centuries, the town develops and grows in number of inhabitants, prospering as a slave-trade hub, until the Crown decides that slaves are to be taken directly from the Guinean Coast. This marks the decline of what is nowadays known as Cidade Velha (Old Town), a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Without the profits of slavery, pestered by years of droughts and attacked by English, French and Dutch pirates, the islands decline steeply, and an early Capeverdian emigration process takes place. If in a first moment the islands (mostly Santiago, where the capital was located) were exposed to African influences, and those of Brazil and Europe, everything would change in a second moment. Emigration, albeit the fact that Cape Verde was a mere colony, gave the native people – by then, already mostly mulatto or creole – a chance to contribute with different inputs. Constituted mostly by free citizens, many sailed to North and South America, others to Europe, and a big number of them would actually return, along bringing cultural influences that slowly started to change the islands.

In the 19th century, Capeverdian, along with Azorean men, were said to be the strongest, sturdiest and most reliable hands on whalers. Boston, Cape Cod and other communities in New England quickly become one of the major reference points for the islanders, now in the center of a cross that that region with Lisbon, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro. Growing in each generation, the numbers of Capeverdians in America reached a ceiling of an estimated 300.000 in our days.

The same century, however, would bring something more to the islands: the English. Having been colonized mostly by Azorean and southern Portuguese from the mainland, as well as West African and Bantu slaves, the islands had seen only a residual number of European from other origins. When the English Crown forces the Portuguese to allow a coal supply outpost in the deserted island of São Vicente, a major step in the europeization of Cape Verde is given. Over the following two centuries, the harbour would grow to become the city of Mindelo, famed for its warm weather, warm girls and warm music. As a major port, Mindelo attracted Capeverdians from all other islands, with their different habits and ethnic origins, but attracted also sailors from all over Europe. Most influential were the Portuguese and English settlers, but also Brazil started to leave a mark in the islands.

These multiple inputs are visible today in the local vocabulary, that includes many English, French, and Brazilian words, and even in the accent, from a certain fashion of imitation of English mispronunciations. But it is mostly visible in music. Mindelo developed as a posher, more cosmopolitan city than most of the colony, and very early was awarded the first high school in the islands. Its existence would prompt the formation of a well-educated population, whose critic mass would eventually lead to the modernist movement of Claridade (Clarity). The claridosos, as they were known, were painters, writers, poets, bards, and enjoyed the sophistication of knowledge coming from four different continents to rest in their city. The height of the movement took place in the 1920s-30s, in par with the early fascist dictatorship of the colonial metropolis (Estado Novo, or “New State”). Many of the local intellectuals would spend years in political imprisionement, but the change of times could not be prevented. Amílcar Cabral, the independence leader, was born to politics out of Mindelo’s High school and Lisbon’s Technical University, and would unite Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau in a war to achieve freedom. He died before that objective could be reached, in 1975, after the fall of Salazar and his fascist regime.

Throughout the 20th century, despite all the economic and intellectual boom, the bulk of the population, particularly rural inhabitants, was left with little or nothing to live on, facing drought after drought. Again, the only resource was emigration, that scattered Capeverdians all over Europe (mostly Italy, Holland, France and Portugal), USA and Brazil. Along with the high numbers of forced deportations to Angola and São Tomé, the amount of Capeverdians living abroad would quickly double the amount of those staying home.

The eternal dilemma of the islands echoes in its music and poetry in the form of a popular sentence: wanting to leave but having to stay, wanting to stay but having to leave. It marks the true uniqueness of a country that, albeit having one of the highest human development indexes in Africa, has few resources to match.

Walking the streets of Mindelo, one perceives both the cosmopolitan past, and the scarce African influences (that the island received in a limited way, given its late colonization), both the cultured atmosphere and the near desperate poverty of those who had no chance for an education. It does not feel like Africa. It feels like Cape Verde.

Being Susanne Osthoff by Arnild Van de Velde

Being Susanne Osthoff

The news of Susanne Osthoff's kidnapping last November 2005 had already shocked the German public, as the abudction of 43-year-old archeologist Osthoff represented the first direct attack of modern terrorism against the country. But few weeks later, after Osthoff was released from captivity somewhere near the German Embassy in Baghdad her compatriots were again surprised, as Mrs Osthoff, speaking on television, declared her love for Iraq despite the ordeal that could have cost her life. Since then, she has been having a hard time regaining sympathy in her homecountry, where diplomats, politicians and other negociators have played a key role for her libertation on December 18th.

Murphy's Law

Until her first interview (after three weeks as a hostage in Iraq), Susanne Osthoff was being regarded as a frail and humiliated victim of islamic terrorists. All over the country people signed plea lists claiming for her life, and her family - to which she has almost no contact - kept appealing to the kidnappers to set her free. At the beginning of all misunderstandings, she disappointed her fellow Germans by presenting herself as a "friend of Iraq", on Arab TV Channel Al-Jhazeera. As a matter of fact, German journalists never really understood why she preferred to speak to Al-Jhazeera, instead of giving to Germany's press the chance to release those "breaking news" .

Days later, Susanne Osthoff manage to make worse what was already bad enough. Speaking live from Katar to journalist Margaretha Slomka, from German public Channel ZDF, she sounded extremely confused. But nothing she'd say would be more "disgusting" than the Burka she wore during the interview. From that point on, Mrs. Osthoff was a kind of "fallen hero". "The woman must be nuts", thought a great number of Germans. At the same time the press developed a theory she might be 'mentally disturbed'. Also a local psychologist, known for his work with victims of kidnapping , stated she could have been a" willing party to her own abduction ". Since then, the archaeologist's pleas for compassion have been rejected.

A chronology of facts is necessary to explain the transformation of Susanne Osthoff. From hostage of a not yet officially identified group with links to terror in the Arab world, to a person "whose rights to come and go should be suspended" or "who should have her German passport withdrawn", as suggested by outraged readers of the daily "Bild", misled by a fatal translation error during Osthoff's interview to Al-Jazheera. Speaking to the Arab TV channel, the archaeologist was said to have mentioned her will to go back to Iraq "as soon as possible". As she spoke Arabic, German translators just messed up her words, and their correction afterwords came just too late for her reputation.

Osthoff , who had been working in Iraq for the past 13 years, recovering archeological treasures all over the country, explained later that, as a Muslim, she had to attest publicly that her kidnappers have been respectful to her during those three weeks. "This is a question of honour. Arabs understand this well, and I had to do it", she told, to justify her interview to Al-Jhazeera, as part of the negociation of her freedom. Besides work and faith, Susanne Osthoff also found passion in the Middle East, where the father of her 12-year-old daughter comes from. "I belong to the desert", she keeps saying. The more she tries, Susanne Osthoff can't hardly control her anxiety. She gesticulates wildly, smokes one cigarette after the other, seems about to cry but instead of of having a public nervous breakdown she just manages to say: "I think Germany hates me". She was under intolerable mental strain, being moved from a place to another in a car trunk, with a gun pointed to her head, with no idea what was coming next.

The dream's over

Since former chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced Germany's opposition to America's war on Iraq, Germans have assumed they, as well as their country, would be safe from terrorism. This assumption seems to follow the typical German way of thinking, in which facts and the consequences they might bring stay in a causal relationship to each other. "If we have been kind to them, they will be kind to us", they thought - and felt reasonably good about it. The abduction of Susanne Osthoff put an end to their dreams of safety, despite all the warnings pointing out to the contrary. The behaviour of Susanne Osthoff, who dreams of a life in a tent in the desert, scratched the national pride, for she never showed any homesickness, as she's sure can have it better somewhere else.

On day 12 of her kidnapping, Susanne Osthoff was told she would be submitted to a trial, accused of betraying Islam. Weakened and afraid to die - she was under suspicion of being a spy working for Israel – she challenged her "brother in faith" and told him that she, as himself, had no judgement to face but Allah. He then got the message. On day 24, she was released, probably after payment and secret negotiations. Osthoff, now accused of having served German secret service, is thus sentenced for being herself.

Race Difference by Felix Schürmann

Fantastic Films and “Race”

Albeit every feature film is a fictional piece, there are qualitatively different levels of claiming to be fictional. In this regard the genres horror film, fantasy film, and science-fiction film – the so-called fantastic film – share an interesting characteristic: While they are more obviously notional on the narrative level than other genres, these films nearly always operate with the conventional cinematic techniques for constructing the impression of depicting reality on the formal level. Within this area of tension between turning away from and turning towards realism, the category “race” gets negotiated in fantastic films, among other things.

Interestingly, nearly all milestones of the genres within the spectrum of fantastic film are full of “racial” metaphors and allegories. To begin with a well-known example, the 1933 box office record King Kong is not least an expression of Western discourses on “race”. James Snead sums up his widely recognized analysis of King Kong and its follow-ups as follows: (Snead 1994: p. 35f.)

“The Kong trilogy remains a perhaps unequaled dissection of the various layers and strains of Western racial and sexual fantasy, and serves up a perhaps endless menu of contradictions, compromises, and subterfuges, all in service of what the films of the thirties did best: the glorification and mythification of archetypal white male and female types, and the canonization of their typically lopsided alliances.”

A new version of King Kong has recently been shot by Peter Jackson, one of the most prominent directors in fantastic film at present. Interestingly enough, Jackson initially earned his reputation with a Zombie film, Braindead (1992). This is interestingly therefore, that the Zombie film has its origins in a representation of “race issues”, too. The initial film for this genre, Night of the Living Dead (1968), confronts a black hero with a crowd of white enemies, wherein it makes hardly a difference between living and dead whites, male and female whites, or white families and police squads. In his seminal essay “White”, Richard Dyer analyzed Night of the Living Dead and its follow-ups in-depth and dwelt on “the explicitness of their political allegory” (Dyer 1988: p. 59). Basically, Dyer reads the film as a multi-layered metaphor for “white loss of control” (ibid. p. 63), be that in terms of control over the US or of control over the white body:

“’The fear of one’s own body, of how one controls it and relates to it’ and the fear of not being able to control other bodies, those bodies whose exploitation is so fundamental to capitalist economy, are both at the heart of whiteness. Never has this horror been more deliriously evoked than in these films of the Dead.” (ibid.)

In Braindead, Peter Jackson didn’t pluck up the racial allegories of Night of the Living Dead, but he strongly referred to King Kong in the opening sequence. There a monster got snatched by white adventurers on an island inhabited by black “savages”, and – likewise in King Kong – this island is depicted as a natural space without a history, whereas the urban space is populated solely by whites. “Race” is also a major explanatory category in Jackson’s biggest success so far, the triple-feature Lord of the Rings (2001-2003). In 2002, the British newspaper The Guardian published a poignant polemic on the films and the underlying novel, which got straight to the heart of the subject as follows:

“The Lord of the Rings is racist. It is soaked in the logic that race determines behaviour. Orcs are bred to be bad, they have no choice. The evil wizard Saruman even tells us that they are screwed-up elves. Elves made bad by a kind of devilish genetic modification programme. They deserve no mercy.

To cap it all, the races that Tolkien has put on the side of evil are then given a rag-bag of non-white characteristics that could have been copied straight from a BNP leaflet. Dark, slant-eyed, swarthy, broad-faced – it's amazing he doesn't go the whole hog and give them a natural sense of rhythm.” (Yatt 2002)

Science Fiction and the “Extraterrestrialization” of the Other

But out of wide and intriguing area of representations of “race” in fantastic films, I want to focus the science fiction genre, in particular two films of the science fiction boom in the 1980s, Blade Runner (1982) and Brother From Another Planet (1984). Among others, a major feature of science fiction stories is the presence of non-human creatures, these can be human-made “cybernetic organisms” (“cyborgs”, hybrid-beings constructed of organic and synthetic components, e.g. like in Metropolis/1927) or extraterrestrial “Aliens” (most-known example might be Alien/1979). Several film scholars read the cyborgs/Aliens in science fiction films as a metaphor for immigrants. Charles Ramírez Berg for example interprets that like the monsters in German expressionist films in the 1910s and 1920s (e.g. in Der Golem/1914 or Homunculus/1916) have been “projections of a socially unconscious dread of the Jew” (Berg 1989: 16), Aliens in science fiction films can be read as “symbols for immigrants” (Berg 1989: 4):

“As we know, since the days of silent cinema not just Hispanics but all ethnics have been dealt with in American movies mainly by stereotyping. Now an interesting distortion has occurred: Hispanics and other ethnics have become Creatures from Another Planet, Aliens that must be eliminated – either lovingly, or by returning them to their native environments (…) or violently, by destroying them.” (Berg 1989: p. 5)

Albeit I think Berg overestimates his point a bit, his analysis leads to the fruitful idea of an interpretation of the boom of the science fiction genre after World War 2 as a displacement of xenophobic fears out of the real-life sphere into outerspace – as an “extraterristrialization” of “the Other” –, with regard to the discrediting of explicitly xenophobic representations of immigration issues in Hollywood (e.g. like in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Cheat/1915) by the experience of the consequences of Nazi racism.

In this respect it is an interesting question why two films out of a further boom of the science fiction genre in the 1980s, Blade Runner and Brother From Another Planet, attack the borders that mark-off the difference between the humans and the cyborgs/Aliens. In both films, the cyborgs/Aliens are visually indistinguishable from humans – from white humans in Blade Runner, and from black humans in The Brother From Another Planet. For Blade Runner, Berg himself gathers from this fact that the film supports a quiet progressive claim:

“By seeing the Alien Other in human terms, it once again forces consideration of how the long-range aims of immigration reform in this country conflict with the nation’s cherished humanitarian ideals. True to one side of its generic roots, the film noir, in the end Blade Runner ruminates on the existentially inexplicable, raising more questions than its futuristic private investigator – or we as a society – are able to answer.” (Berg 1989: 14)

Blade Runner

It is part of the great reputation of Blade Runner that it allows a wide range of possible and plausible readings. For example, not only the replicant’s dilemma of deceasing in a few years – but not knowing exactly when –, but also the lifetime shortening disease of J. F. Sebastian could be read as a footnote on AIDS, what came up in the time when Blade Runner has been shot. Furthermore, there is also a wide religious imagery on the formal as well as on the narrative level: The head of the replicants, Roy Batty, leads them out of slavery like the prophet Moses did with the Jews, he spikes his hand like the hands Jesus Christ have been spiked, and in his dialogue with Tyrell, who lives in a Babel-like mega building and is represented as the big creator, he depicts himself as the lost son.

As I mentioned before, in respect to the topic “race” the cyborg characters are a key element for the analysis. As in other science fiction films not only but especially of the 1980s, the cyborgs in Blade Runner cannot be visually distinguished from humans. In James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), which obviously got strong impulses from Blade Runner, the human cyborg hunter Kyle Reese mentions: “They look human: sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot.” In Blade Runner, cyborg hunter Deckard makes a similar experience, the replicants are invisible. They embody the old racist fear of the blurring of visual “racial” boundaries. Deckard’s special ability is to make the boundaries visible again by identifying the replicants with the so-called “Voight-Kampff-Test”, which gets used to provoke emotions (allegedly) only humans can feel. In contrast with Charles Ramírez Berg, my argument is that the metaphorical imagery of Blade Runner in respect to “race” is reaching far beyond American migration issues and among others is also strongly referring to anti-Semitism.

The sharp contrast between the film noir-like hardboiledness of the human characters and the emotionalism of the replicants – especially of Roy Batty in the final sequences –, discredits the “Voight-Kampff-Test” as absurd. Not only that the German-sounding name of the test is evocative of the history of fascism (at least for American audiences), but also it is one of many hints in the film illustrating the brutality and arbitrariness of the rule. A lot of significant science fiction films project elements of fascism onto their imaginations of future social order, for example Metropolis (1927), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), A Clockwork Orange (1971) or Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). But in none of these films the references to anti-Semitism are as distinct as they are in Blade Runner. Besides the ominous “Voight-Kampff-Test” with its questions for origin, there are the Hebrew-originated names of the replicants Rachael and Zhora which evoke associations to the Nazi practices of identifying Jews.

In Fact, Deckard’s problem to identify an “invisible race” among whites is comparable with the problem of the “Aryan” characters of Jud Süß (1940), the most notorious anti-Semitic feature film shot in Nazi Germany. Both films use the conflict of identifying an “invisible race” for their major objective, what is to construct difference in the case of Jud Süß and to deconstruct difference in the case of Blade Runner. In Jud Süß it is the Jews and in Blade Runner it is the replicants, who are causing the film’s major conflict by leaving the place assigned to them and irrupt with an emancipatory intention into an urban sphere where they are not allowed to be. A further interesting similarity is the confusing inconclusiveness in both films when it comes to the intelligence of the “racial Other”. In Jud Süß, when the young “Aryan role model” Faber is frustrated and states: “We’ll never be as clever as the Jews”, his old counterpart Sturm answers encouraging: “The Jews aren’t clever. They are just more cunning.” A likewise woolly logic is expressed in the opening crawl of Blade Runner, which says replicants are “at least equal in intelligence” to humans. But while Blade Runner intensifies this insecurity and eventually leaves open if replicants are more intelligent than humans, as it doesn’t make a hundred per cent clear if Rachael is a replicant or if Deckard is a human, Jud Süß turns to highlight difference and lets the Jewish project fail at the end.


The Brother from Another Planet

Two years after Blade Runner premiered, another science fiction film with a strong and at first sight even more obvious racial metaphoric hit the cinemas: In John Sayles The Brother from Another Planet (1984) an Alien (the “Brother”), which is physically (nearly) identical with a black human, crash-lands in Harlem. Like many science fiction films of the 1980s, the whole story takes place in the urban space of a metropolis. The continuous symbolism of the film is announced right in the beginning, when the spaceship of the Alien is crashing just in front of an “immigration center”. Like Blade Runner, The Brother From Another Planet is full of references to the sphere of fantastic film (for example, a white computer gamer is compared with a Zombie) as well as to the sphere of religion (the “Brother” is able to heal by laying on of hands – machines as well as human bodies, what is also interestingly indeed). Furthermore, black heritage and identity is an omnipresent issue in the film, be that dialogues on slavery, the “Brother”’s visit of an exhibition on Afro-American history, or the characters representing different parts of black history in the US.

An important difference between these films is that Blade Runner uses the cyborg Other while The Brother From Another Planet works with the Alien Other, and that Blade Runner‘s characters are solely white, while The Brother From Another Planet works mainly with black characters. The latter features an Alien Other which is visually indistinguishable from the Black Other. But in contrast to Blade Runner and other science fiction films of the 1980s, the Alien is widely passive. The “Brother” gets treated by humans, he doesn’t make nearly no decisions by himself. Depicting different kinds of treatments, the film unfolds how the Other gets constructed in the American society. In particular the film highlights the attempts of black humans to integrate the “Brother” into their identity concepts. In The Brother From Another Planet, the major factor for the process of constructing the Other is inclusion, not exclusion. Even though a symbolic black community eventually drives away the white bounty hunters who are chasing the “Brother” (and, by the way, introduce themselves as “immigration officers” in the pub), the film unmistakably deals out criticism on black identity politics. Besides, the black pub patrons are not free from xenophobic fears, when they talk about Haitians and Polynesians.

However, the most astonishing element in this process seems to be that the construction of the Other doesn’t need no communication. While Blade Runner is negotiating “race” mainly within the sphere of the visual, The Brother From Another Planet centers the hearing-related sphere of communication. Because he can’t speak (at least the language of the humans), the communication between the “Brother” and the humans is limited and always single-edged. This one-sidedness works up to a derisive climax when it comes to the dialogues between the “Brother” and white characters. While communicating with black humans is very difficult for the “Brother”, communicating with white humans is nearly impossible. The white women who cares for the “Brother” as well as the lost students in the pub give endless monologues. Contrary to the black humans in the film, they even hardly recognize the one-sidedness of their communication. Like in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, for the Alien a real communication is only possible with a child. However, unlike in Steven Spielberg’s box office record, in this case “going home” is no way out for the Alien in the end. Rather it seems that the film is suggesting that there is no home for the Other.

Conclusion

Blade Runner and The Brother From Another Planet unfold and discredit the process of constructing difference. Following this objective, Blade Runner uses the cyborg Other while The Brother From Another Planet works with the Alien Other. Per definitionem, cyborgs are artificially constructed while Aliens are “naturally different”. Blade Runner questions the artificiality of the cyborg, and The Brother From Another Planet unfolds that “natural difference” is socially constructed. In this regard, both films break with the narrative tradition of science fiction film. A further major contradiction to the conventions of the genre is the ending in both films: The objective of classic science fiction narratives featuring heroes fighting against cyborgs/Aliens is no less than restoration. LeiLani Nishime notes that

“Within the generic logic of horror and science fiction, these Others must be expelled or destroyed to restore the status quo. It follows that films in these genres can also be read as simple expressions of racism or xenophobia as they seek to reinforce and solidify differences.” (Nishime 2005: p. 35)

However, in Blade Runner as well as in The Brother From Another Planet restoration is impossible in the end. In Blade Runner, Deckard has become the Other, while in The Brother From Another Planet the Alien Other has merged in the human Others. But even though both films let come true a lot of racist nightmares, they end not too optimistic: The hero gets confronted with a dangerous future without a perspective for home and identity.

Read more on this in Dirk Salowsky's article Excuse Me, Do You Match This Stereotype?

Realism and Utopia by M.J.Ferreira

As a research area, International Relations is still in its youth. The evolution of a scientific field is often judged by the development of methodologies, theories and concepts. The autonomous construction of concepts by an academic field demands a thorough reasoning about epistemological and ontological questions. This degree of intellectual maturity is only attainable with the constitution of a scientific research community willing to underpin such efforts. The autonomization of a scientific area entails, frequently, a walk in a tortuous path, for the academic locus is one of the most fearful terrains for power and knowledge competition.

The scientific study of International Relations emerged from the ashes of World War I. Academics were asked to study the causes of conflict and war so that politicians could learn how to avoid and prevent them. Hence, it is fair to say that, since its inception, International Relations was related and compromised with reality. The founding fathers’ mission was to discover ways to improve the international society. A normative framework was always present, being truly seriously upheld by the first generation of International Relations’ investigators. Thus, they were politically and socially empowered not to describe reality but to work, think and be engaged on it. Later, and for that reason, they were accused of being idealists. Utopia became synonymous of thinking beyond existing reality.

This critic was built and reified by International Relations’ second-generation scholars, among which Edward Carr was one of the most significant personalities. Calling themselves realists, this second generation set a distinction between two types of internationalist thinkers: those who wrote about the so-called international reality and those who worked on normative hypothesis, meaning what international relations should be. The science evolved, framed by this distinction.
After World War II, realism gained a hegemonic status. Its theoretical beliefs became epistemologically and ontologically engrained in the form International Relations were thought and explained. The bipolar international system that followed contributed to empower such a vision.
Realism can be described through three simple words: states, anarchy and conflict. This kind of trilogy was perpetuated and is still present in the late 1970’s version of realism: Kenneth Waltz’s neo-realism.

The theoretical assumptions of the realist school constituted the framework for concepts construction (the proper word is, indeed, construction, for all science is a construction) in International Relations almost until the end of the century. One good example is the concept of power. Realism framed the concept of power in materialist terms. Power became identical to strength. Strength, measured by the possession of military instruments, was understood as the main attribute of states in their endless struggle to survive in a self-help international system. The immaterial dimension of power was considered extraneous. To construct concept, academic set aside factors considered irrelevant. In a positivist framework, to make science investigators must have independent analytical variables, along with causal mechanical relations and established truths.

When we analyse the realist framework for power we are led to assume that the purpose (the proper word is purpose, for all science has a purpose) is to reproduce the existence of a security dilemma among states as well as the quality of states as the main actors in international relations. Studies about the origins of war state that one of its most probable causes lies in the existence of a war industry that needs markets for its products. States are portrayed as consumers ready to be convinced about the goodness of a certain product. The persuasion process entails the subsistence of an aggressive environment, conveniently fed by private economic actors. Wars are often staged dramas, thrillers or comedies with a proper combination of puppets, fiction and reality. However, constructing international power from a materialist framework serves another purpose: depolitising the immaterial nature of power.

Power is fundamentally linked with obtaining results. Actors only get results if they are able to shape the environment that surrounds them. For that they need to have the capacity to determine how such environment thinks and acts. That kind of capacity is immaterial and is all about knowledge and asserting values. Power in different social fields cannot be understood without its normative content.
This normative dimension of power is especially important in International Relations, for its environment is devoid of state-like structures capable of imposing a social order to prevent anarchy. The inexistence of a super state turns international anomy a more credible image. An image easily presented by realists and neo-realists as the truth. Therefore, normative power is a way to construct order patterns on the international scene. However, realist scholars converse this argument, stating that it is precisely the inexistence of a social international order that empties norms of its relevancy. International values become the Utopia. International reality becomes depolitised, for it can only be managed and staged, and never modified.

Several authors, especially from the 1970’s forward, have tried to frame International Relations on new grounds. They claim that the international arena and the domestic environments are connected by what James Rosenau calls “linkage politics”. The increase of transnational flows among several kinds of actors is the background for the image of international interdependence. Following Alexander Wendt, international society is understood not as a given structure of relations but as a social construction open to change and evolution.

The transnationalist school of thought understands the concept of power as a product of material and immaterial elements. Special importance is given to the difference between power and influence. Power is to impose behaviour through control. Influence is to lead behaviour through persuasion.

To state that there is a linkage between international and domestic environments, and that both systems are socially constructed through coercion and persuasion equals to assert that order in the international scene cannot be maintained through international power balances or occasional international agreements. International order is assured through the existence of a normative hegemony. Such hegemony needs to be understood, exposed and questioned.

As an academic research area, International Relations is still in its youth. Its tortuous path towards scientific maturity is showing how norms do make a difference.

The Democratic Value of Lobbying by Dirk Salowsky

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -Mark Twain

January 4, 2006. Jack Abramoff is in the newspapers. A lobbyist out of thousands (actually tens of thousands!) who will unveil his professional secrets and pleads guilty to charges of tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy. In a very cynical way one might ask: So, isn’t this what lobbyism is all about? Arguing with the first amendment to the U.S. constitution, lobbyism officially is only a more sophisticated kind of petitioning. Sounds honorable indeed.

I will not deny that lobbyism, as such, is a democratic way of advertising public interests – by U.S. law, anyone can send out a lobbyist and have him registered, as provided in the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (the most recent modification of a lobbying regulation). And as J.W.Baran pointed out in the Washington Post on January 8, “there are now more than 27,000 registered lobbyists petitioning“. Lobbyism is regulated, usually well documented and said to not usually be prone to fraud and conspiracy. Very well. In favor of honorable lobbyists I have to admit that with so many “grievance petitioners” around it is hard to see why Members of Congress would require overly extravagant tokens of sympathy at all – they should already be drowning in a regular flood of all kinds of support-enhancing commodities. And even though the value of a gift (this includes invitations, dinners etc.) must not exceed certain limits, the abundance of donors will certainly not have any member of the House suffer from a shortage of little somethings. Of course there are not only the gifts, but also profitable contacts. Those tend to last longer than a gourmet dinner.

Indeed, who will ever be able to tell which decision in favor of a lobby was legally influenced by righteous lobbyists and supported by righteous politicians? Who knows whether all gifts, invitations, donations are acknowledged by uninvolved eyes? Who knows what remains hidden or happens “in private”? Secrecy is a useful ingredient in all kinds of influencing – albeit to keep other parties from counteracting. And obviously also a considerable number of elected legislators is pretty well aware of the benefits of secrecy. It is only useful that their circles are exclusive – in several meanings of that word.

Exclusiveness is, when not a matter of status (and if so even the more) connected to money. You pay money to your lobbyist or rather to your lobbying firm. You do need money to prepare and undermine the petition. And you will need money to get attention and indebt someone to favors. In order to achieve anything you simply can’t be “anyone” hiring a lobbyist. This is the first drawback as far as democracy is concerned. It is a democracy of the rich. Well-known drawback number two: many lobbyists are hired by companies and associations. (Let anyone trying to argue that companies feed and feed on working citizens be reminded of the terms “globalization” and “outsourcing”.) But I am not aiming at the (dis)advantages of a liberal economy for the people. My point is influence.

The original democratic idea of grievance petitioners was certainly not to enable affluent persons or entities to ensure that their assets be protected and more easily amounted, as seen in the most prominent cases of lobbying. There is another drawback: let’s call it the “Halliburton Factor”. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO, and after the second invasion to Iraq in 2003 his former company benefited from several contracts related to the war (troop’s food supply, restoration of infrastructure). If we allow common sense to draw the obvious conclusions from officially still unproven implications, in this case a lobbyist wasn’t even needed to influence decisions in favor of a legal entity. The best lobbyist is definitely someone from inside the system. But not only a former CEO is a useful lobbyist. According to Public Citizen there has been a clear trend among former lawmakers, i.e. former members of Congress, to enter the lobbying business. The advantages for a former member are too obvious to be recounted.

So where are the people in this rule of theirs – democracy? You do not need an Abramoff to find that influence on legislation is hardly where it belongs, that it is hardly with the people. But even without lobbyism as it is, in a country of over 200 million a truly representative democracy is an illusion. Europe could face a similar fate in a globalizing Union. I caught myself asking: if citizens are underrepresented anyway, why do I care for politics at all?

January 8, 2006. Tom DeLay steps down as House majority leader due to connections with Jack Abramoff. No doubt it would have been better if this whole affair had never happened. But would it ever have become a scandal if citizens didn’t care?

News we should be ashamed of in 2005 by Andréa Medrado

A new year is just beginning. Browsing the magazines, I read about the most important events in 2005. I see the shocking pictures of a flooded New Orleans, the smiling face of Condoleezza during her world travels, and the not-so-smiling face of Benedict XVI, the new pope. I am also drawn to the eye-candy Hollywood couple, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, find out about the hottest celebrities of the year and, surprise, learn that Ronaldo, the Brazilian soccer player, is dating another model.

Following the examples of the magazines’ and TV shows’ end of the year specials, I decided to blog about the news that caught my attention in 2005. The difference is that I will not simply list the events (and, hopefully, they will not be as shallow). The stories I chose indicate that our society has not evolved beyond the prejudices and brutality that still take place up until the present day. Although only two in zillions of news that can make us angry, they illustrate a world of cruelty, injustice, and inequality we should all be embarrassed about.

Story 1) The US carried out its 1000th execution.

On December 2, 2005, the 1000th person was put to death in North Carolina. Kenneth Boyd, a convicted killer, was executed for the murder of his wife and her father. Boyd spent 11 years on death row after being convicted of stalking and shooting his wife, Julie, and her father, Thomas. According to BBC, he never denied his guilt, though he has claimed that his experiences in Vietnam contributed to his state of mind on the day of the killings.

There is no doubt about the grievousness of the crime Boyd committed. I can definitely understand that an outraged victim of crime seeks extreme punitive measures for the murderer. The history of mankind is filled with war, violence and revenge. However, I cannot help but notice the irony of this incident. Boyd was a Vietnam veteran, which leads me to the conclusion that the state played the following roles in this case: it taught a man how to kill, by training him for war, it annihilated his mental health, by sending him to war, and finally, it literally killed him, by applying the lethal injection.

The question is: how legitimate is it for the state to kill its citizens? In the midst of the 21st century, capital punishment is immoral, cruel and inhumane.

Recent pools do, however, indicate support for death penalty is starting to wane. Courts have been less inclined to use it.

Story 2) Another school barrier for girls in Africa: no toilet.

Written by Sharon LaFraniere, the article ran on the New York Times on December 23, 2005. It talks about schoolgirls struggle for an education in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Balizenda, a rural community in Ethiopia, Fatimah Bamun is the only girl of the 23 students in her class. In fact, she is one of the three girls in the school who have made it past third grade. In a school where there is no latrine and no water, the onset of puberty makes it very difficult for girls to keep attending school.

According to LaFraniere’s story, “in a region where poverty, tradition and ignorance deprive an estimated 24 million girls of even an elementary school education, the impact of nonexistent school toilets and water on girls' attendance was until recently unfit for discussion”.

That impact of the lack of hygiene and privacy is substantial. “Researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa have documented that lack of sanitary pads, a clean, girls-only latrine and water for hand-washing drives a significant number of girls out of school. The United Nations Children's Fund, for example, estimates that one in 10 school-age African girls either skip school during menstruation or drop out entirely because of lack of sanitation”.

International organizations, African education ministries and women’s rights movements are increasingly rallying behind the notion of a "girl-friendly" school, one that is more secure and closer to home, with a healthy share of female teachers and a clean toilet with a door and water for hand-washing.

On the positive side, the article points out that Unicef is building latrines and bringing clean water to 300 Ethiopian schools. Still, more than half of the nation's 13,181 primary schools lack water, more than half lack latrines and some lack both. Moreover, those with latrines may have just one for 300 students, according to Therese Dooley, Unicef's sanitation project officer.

Final Words

Stem cell research, the Women’s Liberation Movement, the Internet. There is no denying of the advancements we have made in the past century. However, reading about the Ethiopian girls’ battle for something as essential as a toilet, and that the world’s most industrialized nation’s way of punishing its wrong-doers does not differ much from that of the medieval times, I realize that our society still has a long way to go.

How Werner Herzog Sank In Loch Ness by Pedro F Marcelino

It’s the year 1999 – last century, to be exact. It seems so far away today, the time when we actually wrote years not starting with the number 2. The Internet was finally thiving as high-speed connections gave the first steps, after six years of very-slow-to-moderate growth. The Blair Witch Project’s media-savvy, show-making producers had the whole of the western world drooling in anticipation for their soon-to-be-biggest-story-flop-of-the-year, despite their clever manipulation of this new communication medium.

Scotland is on the edge. One night, at the fall of darkness, there is a boat party in Loch Linnhe. I attend, as do a score of Swedes, a score of French, a small wedding party of eight and a few more Scots. The barge sets off to the middle of a foggy and somewhat creepy loch. There is fiddle playing, highland dancing, drunken singing. I wear a kilt as tradition orders, and feel my lowlands freezing in the cold lake temperature. It should be close to midnight when we feel a strong bump on the rowdy boat. Sure, some of us are innebriated, but we all feel the bump. With a few yelps, everyone climbs up on deck within seconds and looks out into the quiet night. Someone drops a bottle of beer into the depths of the loch. The surface ripples mildly, the moon shines in one spot of the black water. Nobody understands what has happened. And then, the reflection of the moon blackens with what appears to be the shape of an animal. We are in Fort William, front door to the Western Highlands and gateway between the North Sea via Firth of Lorn and the Loch Ness via Loch Lochy.

Time ellapses: 2005. The Blair Witch Project isn’t but a sad memory in the history of thriller movies. The world without Internet is now unimaginable. I am sitting in my living room – zapping away – and land in IFC (where all the cool movies go). A close up of director Werner Herzog fills the screen, as he speaks straight to the camera. His wrinkles are trustworthy, his strong accent gives him that small edge that makes him eccentric rather than mad. I remember watching documentaries about him, remember watching his movies – serious, heavy works of cinematic art, for the most (The Wild Blue Yonder, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde, Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Nosferatu The Vampyre, My Best Friend), many of them made masterpieces by the genious acting and vicious off-camera stories of Klaus Kinski.

It takes me the better of twenty minutes to quite gather what Werner Herzog is doing on my screen. He had apparently accepted a proposition to follow the story of the comings and goings of mythical Nessie. For most, a silly legend, Nessie is a true obsession for many, and a perfectly feasible story for those who allow themselves to be lost in Scottish folk culture. How much of it is true and how much is a product of imagination, is a difficult question. But if you ever were bumped upon on a barge in Loch Linnhe, you certainly will want to see the movie. Yet, why would a man like Herzog risk his reputation for a story such as this? On the other hand, he actually had a reputation for risky stories, wherever in the world there was story to be told. The movie, a making-of documentary on the Enigma at Loch Ness, suggested a methodic approach by the director, and explored the decision making process for the production. My television set’s information sheet informed me the movie was actually called Incident at Loch Ness (IMDb). And this was when things started to grow stranger: the events on Werner’s barge were uncommon, it was not clear how did he expect to track Nessie in a loch that spans 80 km in width, and the tone of the whole production kept me aback. I was glued to my seat as the last minutes of the movie evolve. And then I ran to surf the web, something we can all easily do in these days of the twenty-first century. I cannot really say more without being a spoiler. Werner Herzog did something the Blair-Witch-junkies only dreamt of: he created fear, awe and confusion – at least in my limited mind. And the public loved him for that (yet again).

Scotland, back in those dark days of 1999. From the window of my Fort William flat, looking straight into Loch Linnhe, I can see the shores on most days, and with any luck, the fog will actually clear for a few minutes every day and allow me to look on to Camosnagaul, across the waters. It is in one such day that I take off to Glasgow on a very old fashioned train. The ride crosses Glencoe, leaves the mighty Ben Nevis behind and crosses sceneries of lush beauty, serious imponence and scattered highland cows. On the way back, the weather has predictably changed. I take the bus this time, and as it leaves Glasgow and ventures into the winding roads around Loch Lomond, it starts raining. Or actually pouring – the window acts as a waterfall. But as far as Scotland goes, the weather is ever elusive. As fast as it started, the rain stops, the fog lifts and reveals the calm gray waters. Simultaneously, a dash of sunlight pierces a low, heavy cloud, and shines near the bank, shedding a gorgeous golden light on the mossy munros across the lake. The bus halts, as if to allow a better view. A small, soaked Japanese lad boards, and addresses the butch driver in a flimsy English – ‘I would like a ticket to Loch Ness, please’, I made out of his broken sentence. The man laughs out loudly and places a friendly, tattooed arm on the lad’s shoulder: ‘Which part of it, mate…!?’
Everyone, all over the world, wants to meet Nessie. Not me.

The expected tune plays on the radio.

Oh, ye'll tak the high road, and I'll tak the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye;
But me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond

[You can read more on Scotland’s Western Highlands in Dirk Salowsky’s article here]

Making Choices by Daiana Vasquez

The amount of books being published every year is amazing and practically always on the increase (unfortunately, the number of readers does not increase in the same proportion). We can barely have an overview of all the books available, and a harder task than knowing what is out there is separating the good from the bad. Nevertheless, for those who want to read, a choice must be made, regardless of the effort. Actually, even not wanting to read implies that we must choose not to do it. We are not free not to choose (Sartre).

We can find nowadays on the web tools that help us choose a good book, for instance looking for awarded books or for book reviews in respected newspapers. Or, if you are lucky, your mother-in-law might recommend you one. Luck has played its role for my choice, but it was me who finally chose to read Disgrace. Not at all a bad choice.

John M. Coetzee is a South African writer born on February 9^th, 1940, in Cape Town. He is the awarded author of the outstanding Disgrace. Written in 1999, my book of choice has won the Booker Prize in that year, when the awardee deliberately chose not to go to London to receive it, although (or maybe exactly because of that) he would probably be very celebrated, since he was the first author to win this Prize twice (on the first time, he was awarded for his book The Life and Times of Michael K, in 1983). Among other awards throughout his career, Coetzee’s writing masteries were highly accredited with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.

Disgrace. Outstanding not only for the writing, but particularly for the deepness of the topics it deals with, the novel is about a middle-aged professor of romantic poetry, David, whose only pleasure in life seems to be his meetings with prostitutes. After the last one drops him, he begins a relationship with one of his students, Melanie. When this relationship goes public, he falls in disgrace and from there on disgrace does not want to leave him. Refusing to compromise with the university, he pleads guilty of all charges and gets himself fired. It is then that he seems to remember that he has a daughter living on a farm in Eastern Cape, Lucy, and moves there to supposedly finally begin to work on an old project on Byron’s last years. When it seems that he is getting used to the rural “rather simple and boring” life, they are surprised by an attack, in which he is injured and his daughter raped.

The story with all its implications goes further revealing Disgrace as a very intense book to read and although it is “only” a story of an middle-aged man, it brilliantly deals with several complicated issues, such as animal euthanasia, relationship between black and white communities after the end of the apartheid, hate, sexual harassment, rape, abortion, trust and betrayal, dignity, anarchy, power, and among other issues, choices. Picking one issue to discuss is not easy, but it must be done in order to avoid superficiality. As David chose not to fight for his job and Lucy chose to stay on the farm after the rape, though disgrace surrounded her: “Perhaps that is what I must learn to accept”, she told her father, “To start at ground level. …With nothing. No cards, no weapons, no property, no rights, no dignity. ... Like a dog”, we must also choose.

The relationship between David and his student Melanie began when he invited her for a drink at his apartment, and she said yes. They do not only drink but also eat (he cooks for her) and talk. She, curious. He, avid. As he makes clear to her what he wants, by the way, asking directly if she wants to spend the night with him, she hesitates and says no. They say good-bye to each other. He embraces her passionately; she passively waits. He asks her if he should bring her home; she says no and leaves.

After this first encounter (could we call it a date?), David is enraptured, magnetized with Melanie’s beauty and youth. Later, he will say to his judges at the university, on his feelings towards Melanie: “I was no longer a fifty-year-old divorcée at a loose end. I became a servant of Eros.”

He can not let it go. He calls her; she answers. He invites her to eat something; she agrees. He picks her up; she is hungry. They go to a restaurant and eat. He asks her to go to his apartment; she says yes. They sleep with each other on his carpet.

Their third meeting is questionable, to say the least. He goes uninvited to her flat; she is surprised. He wants to come in; she is afraid her cousin would arrive at any moment. He desires her; she does not want it now and says it. He thrusts upon her; she lets it be. Later on, he convinces himself that it was “not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core”. The question is: what was it?

No matter what definition we prefer to choose, rape presupposes a non-will of the victim. Moreover, it presupposes clearness, meaning that this non-will must be absolutely clear to the other. But it also presupposes violence. It is the (ab)use of force towards the other, submitting the person who can not defend herself (or himself) to sexual intercourse. Indeed, sometimes the use of force is not to be understood literally. You can rape someone by threatening to kill one’s parents. The person would thus “agree” to have sex, and this would still be rape.

Therefore, it seems that what characterizes rape best is the perpetration of a sexual act with someone, who was freely capable to express its will at the time of the act and has explicitly rejected it, being psychically and/or physically forced to do it or someone who was not capable of expressing a will at all.

This rather spontaneous definition of rape does not match the Melanie-David case under appreciation. She has indeed said no, but as he insisted, she lets it happen. The clue is in letting it happen. Could she really have not avoided having sex with him? This is not the impression the book gives. She was rather willing to make him leave as fast as possible and has agreed to have sex with him so that he would be out before her cousin arrived. She did not want to have sex with him, but she let it happen. Undesired but allowed (not rejected). Is it rape?

This position is not at all uncontroversial, for instance for Andrew O’Hehir, who wrote: “Readers may well be repelled by David's arrogance, and his conduct with Melanie has fallen only a little short of rape”. But, if she was so unwilling, why had she not even tried to ask him a second time to leave? Following his latest behavior towards her (see first meeting), he would probably have left without forcing her to have sex. It seems more that after a “no” came a “whatever” - a very indifferent yes. This reminds me of some wives who have sex with their husbands so that they will not “bother” them anymore. They could think at this moment: “Ok, I will do it, because I cannot stand you anymore beside me, insisting all the time”. Is this rape?

Indeed the whole event is misbegotten. No matter how we judge Melanie’s choices, his attitude towards her is disrespectful, egoistic and inexcusable, but not rape.

What about their relationship? He seduced her in the first place. But did he do it cruelly as The New Yorker published? Is it a crime or even immoral in our days to seduce a woman who is more than 18 years old? Was it sexual harassment?

Once again it is essential to analyze the meaning of the word. One dictionary gave me the following definition of sexual harassment: “The making of unwanted and offensive sexual advances or of sexually offensive remarks or acts, especially by one in a superior or supervisory position or when acquiescence to such behavior is a condition of continued employment, promotion, or satisfactory evaluation”. Once again the remarkable characteristic lays in “unwanted”. Besides, relevant is also the position of power one may have towards the other in order to submit the person to one’s will against their own.

These points being made, the most important question to be raised is: was she free to choose to go into this “relationship” with him? He is white, she, black; he is the professor, she, the student; he is old, she, young. All this in the historical context in which the story happens suggests the relationship between a wolf and a lamb. However, being an old white professor does not necessarily make him a wolf. Not if he does not somehow use these characteristics to force her to do something she does not want to. And how did this old white professor force her to enter into his car, eat in a restaurant, go to his apartment, undress alone and have sex with him on his carpet? He did not.

Melanie had a choice. She freely went into this relationship. She could have put an end to it at anytime. But for reasons the book does not really reveal, she chose not to put an end to it but to denunciate her professor on accounts of sexual harassment.

While guessing how controversial this article will become, one question still remains on my mind: should we choose to be blindly feminist and always defend women, even if it is not just anymore?

Bad Spirits Lying In The Trees by M.J. Ferreira

On December 26^th 2004 a tsunami, resulting from an ocean-based hearthquake, hit Southeast Asia. The consequences were devastating: 283,100 people were killed; 14,100 are yet missing; and 1,126,900 people have been displaced from their land. The origins of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami were located north of the Simeulue Island and affected the coasts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, South India and other countries as far as South Africa, 8000 km away from the earthquake’s epicentre.

Due to the impressing devastation caused by the waves, anthropologists feared for the very survival of several peoples from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The geographical localization of these islands presented a serious possibility that entire communities of human beings would have been destroyed. The concern was justified, since some of the local population, namely the Andamenese (Great Andamenese, Jarawa, Jangli (*), Sentinelese and Onge), are one of the most primitive cultures still remaining in the planet. They are hunter-gatherer communities, with almost no contact with the outside world, which has allowed them to maintain their cultural features for about 14000 years. This extremely long period of isolation has, perhaps, no parallel. Until the 19^th century, the Andamenese knew nothing about fire or agriculture and had the habit of killing all foreigners that decided to stop by. In the same century, the British established penal colonies on these Islands, which resulted in the settling of other cultures, specifically the Indian and the Burmese, and in the consequent loss of Andamenese territory and population. Several communities were extinct, so today only Sentinelese and Jarawa have been able to remain separated from outside contact.

The concern from the academic community took several researchers to go to the islands in the weeks following the tsunami. Surprisingly, they found no casualties among the natives. Some non-indigenous settlers were affected but no Andamenese was killed by the waves. The researchers were astonished and asked the aboriginal inhabitants for the reasons of their survival. The answer was straightforward and it follows.

The natives were in the beach when they felt the earthquake. They saw the trees moving and so they knew.

They knew that the evil spirits that live in the trees were preparing some evil event, for trees only move when bad spirits are disturbed.

They knew that, from time to time, the sea and the earth dispute their borders. It is a natural event. The sea and the earth have divided the planet between themselves, but the borderline is not stable and so, occasionally, the sea or the earth try to gain more territory, invading its opponent’s domains.

They knew that when this happens, all human beings should run for the mountains, once they are nature’s weakest link. Both the sea and the earth are much more powerful forces. Forces against which all men are powerless. Forces whose confrontations are not men’s business, even if they greatly affect the existence of human beings (as the tsunami did).

They knew that they had to conduct their women and children off the beach and to some high place and just wait. Wait for the moment when the border between the sea and the earth was stable once again. Until then, no one would know what could happen.

They knew that if they did so, they would survive, for they had listened to the sounds of the bad spirits in the trees and they had felt that the earth and the sea were about to measure their strength against one another.

And so they lived to tell their story to the world. They told tales of being quite surprised with the numbers of the tragedy. They claimed that modern Man does not understand, or does not want to understand, that he is indeed nature’s weakest link. That nature should be respected, along with the evil spirits that live in the trees.

They knew they were right. They knew what to do. They survived.

So, who is primitive? Who is modern? Who is efficient? Who is wise? Who is rational? If rationality can be measured by the holding of a purpose, is not survival our most wanted gold? If rationality is knowledge, how come did primitive, indigenous people, isolated from the outside world for 14000 years, know what to do in order to survive, and how come did modern Man, capable of cloning itself, not know?

(*) The Jangli people were extinct by the 1920s.

One Year Smogasbord by Pedro F Marcelino

Globalization has brought upon us several unpleasant consequences. Quite certainly, the advantages are greater. Finding the right balance between a global liberal economy and a fair social stand, a fair opportunity for development, is the challenge of a new century, and although it is easy to be pessimistic, considering the terrible statistics that flood our information society, statistics are in fact just numbers – cold, albeit effective.

To understand the new paths open to the world, some idealistic optimism is required. A naïve, simple-minded observation of what the world has to offer. An observation of human kindness, cultural exchange or peaceful locations that make you wonder when did the world get it wrong Never is there a better chance to wish for peace than a fresh year: thus, here is a celebration of friendship and peace, an open arms welcome to 2006, a plea for more contact, more understanding, more happy moments and less human tragedy. An innocent premise, perhaps, but could it happen if we all wished enough? Imagine all the people wishing the same. John Lennon‘s words reverberate today and many of us want to believe. Having completed one year of age on the exact day this song first played on the airwaves, I feel as if it greeted my life through rough times in the world. Nearly 30 years of profound change have gone by, ever more fast paced, ever more brutal. Yet, stand at the arrivals terminal of an airport. All you see is love all around. There is hope.

December 2004: Flying to Boston and back to Toronto. Christmas spirit all over the place. Family all over the place. Blizzard all over the place. Eight hours stuck in Logan Airport. Arrive to the coldest night of the year in Canada (-35 with wind chill). No taxis at the airport, but I still love taxi drivers (not). Shock hits me (and everyone) when a tsunami washes half of Asia away. Days of sadness and acts of bravery swarm the news. Not being religious at all, I plea with all gods for mercy and aid. New Year’s Eve is another cold night, so I stay at home, eat my twelve raisins by the window and wash them away with Veuve Clicquot. Had twelve good wishes for the year ahead, including world peace, goes without saying.

January 2005: Young Thai boy is found in the aftermath of the tsunami, wearing the number 10 jersey of the Portuguese football team – the father is alive and recognizes the t-shirt on television. Even tragedy proves that the Lusitanian soccer team is the best thing that ever happened to the world. I am leaving behind Canadian snow. A flight to Brussels Airport leads me into the middle of a strike. Stuck at the terminal for hours. They have good beer in Belgium, so I drink Hoegaarden and terrible coffee until my replacement flight can take off. Lyon, France: 10^th anniversary of environmental organization. The chair of the Rhônes-Alpes region hosts the event and refuses to speak in English to a crowd that does not understand French. As she later pays for dinner in a very fancy chateau, everyone is cool with it. Norwegian, Turkish and Moroccan table neighbours, heated discussion on the roots and consequences of colonialism. Later that week, I venture with a French family high in snowy Pays du Büech on a quest for the perfect cheese for raclette. We find it in a road-side fromagerie, and it really stinks (as it should). Then higher to a crumbling chateau inhabited by a gentle giant who tends for ducks, geese, peacocks, chicken and horses. We buy a rooster and drive the 2000 metres back down. With the stomach swollen by far too much raclette, I climb Montagne de Ceüze with a Fransaskois friend at midnight. It’s full moon, the snow glares with light, and my creepy shadow stretches over the valley. I lick a pole at the summit and my tongue freezes. Auch. The beauty of the moment promises great things for 2005. Paris: one week talking to well-dressed locals, scouting the Marais, rambling Île Saint-Louis. I later set off with three German expatriates to experience Dieppe, 60 years after the end of the war. French road signs get us lost just outside Rouen, and we find ourselves driving to Normandy instead. We end up in the Canadian Sector of the D-Day beaches. Calvados in Honfleur, Ricard in Caen, wine evening in Étretat. World War II bunkers are close by, and so are the lights of Le Havre.

February: High-profile meetings in the City of London. Exhibits. Interviews. Raindrops are falling on my head. Sneak with friends into a Greek pub with an early happy hour in Southwark and down four Mai Tais to warm up to substandard (read: wet) London weather. Laugh it off over Bombay Sapphire with tonic in the Soho, later that day. Dine at a fancy Italian one evening, at a Chinese joint the following – raw chicken is served and I fear for bird flu. Celebrate Chinese New Year in Trafalgar Square, near London’s Chinatown. Meet up with English, Irish, Brazilian and Kiwi friends in a Vietnamese restaurant that serves Thai food. Everyone laughs at my attempts to eat soup with chopsticks. I proudly leave the bowl full, instead of using a spoon. In Spitalfields, bump on Gilbert and George outside their home on Fournier Street. Lunch in Banglatown, literary saloon with old-fascist-basher-cum-writer-and-essayist (whose name I forgot). Amsterdam: boring shopping spree, Dutch seem to be an endangered species in the city. Düsseldorf: teach German to Korean travellers that insist they are not Chinese (duh!).

March: Pagan appeal. Germany flourishes, birds sing, fresias swarm the riverside. Spring makes me smile. Inland incursions to explore small dorfs and the whole spiel. Visit the Kestner Gesellschaft for a new exhibit, and bump on Gilbert and George again. The strangest things always happen to me.

April: Back to Canada for a second spring celebration. After two weeks, it does not feel any warmer. Retreat back to France and mingle with the locals again, glad that I am not an American in Paris. Spring is full on in the city of love. Watch The Downfall and like it, even though half of Germany seems to think it’s a piece of s**t.

May: Photograph the Masala Weltbeat Festival in Hannover. Performers from all over the tropical world make Germans dance as they know best: not-so-good. Everyone is happy anyway. Drink lots of Paulaner and eat loads of Bratwurst because the Chancellor likes it. Susana Baca, Chico César and Terezinha Araújo rock the city. Later in the month, as Latin Americans invade Hannover’s fair to do business, I bring Argentinians together with Italian, Uruguayan together with Portuguese, Chilean together with English and Brazilian together with Swedish. Make a few valuable acquaintances in the process and make my first genuine (and rare) Costa Rican friend.

June: Move back and forth in the German countryside, dive in the North Sea, bike along a canal halfway to Holland. Attend an Orishas concert in Germany, and the Cuban stars have the crowd hopping. Hop my way to an Angolan friend that I had lost track of five years ago, in a different latitude. Small world, indeed. We eat the best pretzels on Earth together. Fly to Toronto via Frankfurt, to find out that I could buy a swiss army knife, take it on board the 747, and no one would ever know. Security sucks. Really! Attend my very first Ukrainian Catholic ceremony of the Byzantine Rite. It’s less boring than Roman Catholic, but still slow, as I don’t understand Ukrainian. The father walks his share and opens/closes gates on the altar over and over again.

July: Danish friends return from six-month Asia and Pacific big overseas adventure. They are tanned and tired. Meet South-African-friend-who-plays-the-piano for breakfast at Tiffany’s. Head for Chicago and face 20 armed US custom officers in the Windsor-Detroit border. Hate the US at that moment and promise not to go back while GWB is in the White House. Have a blast in Chicago and my principles go down the drain: must go back soon. Return to a moist European summer.

August: A Ukrainian-Canadian friend tells me she wants to quit her job in gun-clad Kosovo, where an iffy African administrator honours local murkiness. She moves to less problematic Georgia, falls in love with Norwegian lawyer who works in Moldova. She announces the world sucks; I, instead, believe the dodgy areas of Europe are all about love and finding your karma in a weird kind of way. Brazilian friend visits from Holland, only to find Hannover sieged by 1000 police officers and not many punks on the 10^th anniversary of the Days of Chaos. Fly to London later in the month to sip some more gin and tonic and enjoy the Barbican. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans and brings my hopes of seeing the home of jazz and blues to shatters. Television shows the best and the worse of human nature. The feeling of helplessness is painful.

September: Kiwi friend announces he’s off to Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, then sends cards from Syria and Lebanon. I am confused about geography. I set off for a short cruise in a warm and summerly North Sea to buy tax-free perfume in Helgoland. Later, in Hannover, attend Serbian-Orthodox ceremony with singing children. The small chapel is the cutest I have ever seen, and that explains why the Greek with the big stony church across the road were annoyed. Still don’t understand a word, but there is a groove to it. Photographed for the Montréal Conference on Climate Change with a poster message for George W. Bush. A friend from London comes by and we hit the night, ending up in a Jamie Gray concert, the hottest star in town. Dine fine Burgundy food cooked by chef born in proletary Linden quarter. Later in the month travel long hours to northern Denmark to spend some days in the sun. Eat Viking food, brush up on my Danish, enjoy a smorgasbord, matjes herring and Aquavit in a cottage in Helganæs and lounge in rural Jutland. Denmark comes across as the quietest and cleverest country on earth – yet again. Later in the month, swap short German days for Portuguese sun. Eat lavishly for two weeks, travel to the Transmontan mountains and find out Spain is right on the horizon. Later in the month, pack up my books and send them to Canada, fly to Toronto, via Montréal. Germany is in the rear window.

October: Guinean friend weds handsome Swedish man. Brazilian friend leaves to East Timor, the up-and-coming new capital of rural-chic. He joins a plethora of others that make it very inviting. Business with Korea and China have me awake at odd hours of the night.

November: Still out of sleep. Wake up at 5 am to call Israel. Go to bed at 2 am to talk to China. Wake up at 6 am to call Spain, only to find out everyone is in their siesta. Cross the border to mysterious Pennsylvania. US Customs officers in Niagara Falls interrogate candid Amish girl, and act weirdly when I claim I want to sightsee, because apparently all the leaves were gone in Pennsylvania – what sights could I want to see? Visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and decide I need a similar piece of property. On the way back, a deluge is extinguished in the border, proving that at least one God must not like America too much, but Canada yes.

December: Cross the border yet again. Enjoy exciting Buffalo and (not) thriving Derby, in Western New York. Find out that a lake side mansion on Lake Erie will cost less than a bungalow in Toronto. Hang out at a stylish coffee house in Rochester and end up in an early Christmas party with international piano students from the Eastman School of Music. Travel further up back to Canada and cross the border at Thousand Islands. On the way, buy a New York State lottery ticket. The saleswoman tells me that, if she wins the 33 million, she’ll travel: there are at least four American states she has not yet seen. Drive up to Ottawa to meet an Irish architect at the Canadian War Museum, and then drive across the river for dinner in Québec, strange accents and different driving rules. The fact that everyone speaks Québecquois makes me uneasy, and I feel the urge to seek refuge back in cosy Ontario. The highways of the province soon vanish under a snow storm and I drive using only instinct and panic. Invite friends for more Danish matjes, Japanese tuna steak, Italian carpaccio and Australian cheese. Sir Elton John gets married and has not invited me. I will complain next time I’m in town. Ice skating on New Year’s Eve, practicing for a January attempt at London’s Somerset House. Pack my rucksack for Africa. Drink Baileys at Christmas and make a toast to the world. It’s not all bad, after all.

Happy New Year from everyone at Think Blogal Essay Weblog!!