European Stereotypes

I had seen one of these maps before. A colleague last year had one of Hungary. They are interesting because they hit home at the simplistic ways people think of countries. The American one is pretty classic:

Hits our Cold War way of thinking about the world, how racial stereotypes of other places get projected upon the wrong nations, and how consumerism fundamentally defines our popular relationships with nations. It's not too different with the Germans either:

That Russia is basically Gazprom for most of Europe is pretty right on and all the more so after they cut off gas supplies a couple of winters ago, letting Europe freeze.

Obviously this kind of thing has limitations, but there's real value here too.

An Ugly Development in the Economics of Soccer in Brazil

As bad as the story about Dominican baseball players was, this story about a private company in Brazil buying soccer players' contracts and reaping a profit if they make it big really makes me uncomfortable. Basically, Traffic, a private company, is buying up the contracts of young, promising soccer players, and then making deals with Brazilian teams to let these young men pay. The teams pay the salaries, and by playing on big teams in Brazil, they have the chance to get the attention of European clubs and maybe get signed there. It may sound good at first, but I have a lot of problems with what Traffic is doing.

Firstly, as the article points out, buying players' contracts and then reaping the rewards of the transfer to Europe (something required in soccer) really pushes FIFA's rules banning third parties in soccer (in an effort to effectively prevent what is happening in the Dominican Republic). However, what really makes my skin crawl is this: "Instead of investing in the stock market or real estate,” Julio Mariz, Traffic’s president, said, “these people are investing in buying the economic rights to football players.”

I'm not so naive as to pretend that there is no sport where players aren't used to make a private profit, and many sports probably privately view atheletes as these types of "economic investments;" indeed, the notion behind signing a Lebron James or an Alex Rodriguez is certainly in part the hope that the name will bring fans to the games, thereby helping the private ownership to turn a profit. But the money remains in the hands of those who are nominally the owners; it behooves them to try to invest in the team. Ceratinly, not all owners will use the money they make to improve the team (the Pohlads come to mind here), but by and large, the system seems to work for the most part (though admittedly because organizations like MLB, the NFL, and the NBA put into effect things like the luxury tax or the salary cap to help self-regulation). But by letting a third party enter into the equation, this simply kicks up to another level the ideological exploitation of players for the hopes of personal profit for a private company.

And this leads into my third problem with this setup - it takes the profit out of the hands of the clubs. The Times treats this like a new form of free agency, but that isn't really accurate. When European clubs want to sign Brazilian players from other clubs, they have to pay the player's previous club the "transferral fee." Therefore, if a player does great but decides to go on to play in Europe, his club is financially rewarded for its loss. This is huge, because soccer clubs aren't like baseball or football or basketball teams in the U.S. Each club is literally that - a club open to public, where your kids can learn to play soccer, basketball, learn gymnastics, learn to swim, and any number of other physical activities, as well as social events. These transferral fees in part help the clubs keep those activities going. Certainly, soccer gets the bulk of the money from these deals, but it doesn't just go there. And while you do have corruption among many of the clubs' boards where personal gain may be happening, at least some of the money has to go to the clubs. When an organization like Traffic becomes involved, that's no longer the case, and the club loses a major source of income for its programs. And of course, because soccer is first, that means lesser (but still important) activities like swim lessons, basketball, and all the others, will be cut first. And of course, previously, if a club was selling a lot of tickets to games and making money for the club due to a popular player, and that player then went to Europe, the transferral fee would help cover what might be an initial drop-off in game attendance. But with tactics like Traffic's, that's no longer an option, either.

Botafogo's president says there is no other way, given the rising economy and the growing difficulty of getting good young players to stay in Brazil long enough, but I can't believe this. He's absolutely right that it is increasingly rare to see young players in Brazil staying very long (when a young star of 17 years old or less emerges, the question is never "if" he'll go to Europe, but "when," "Where," and "for how much), but Traffic's operations do nothing to stem that flow from Brazil for bigger money. I really don't know what else can be done, either, because the clubs in Europe and in other parts of the world just make more money, and can offer more, than Brazil can; in some ways, the sporting world is one of the final arenas where old imperialist relations still play out regularly.

The article closes with Brazil's Football Agents president claiming that, while Traffic's approach is flawed, this could help gain investment for Brazilian clubs. To put it lightly, I'm not convinced. Rabello's partisanship as head of Football Agents should be clear enough, but additionally, agents and third-part groups simply will not make the clubs any money. They will poach young players, lease them only until they can make the maximum profit, and then send them to Europe, reaping the rewards while Brazilian football clubs suffer even further and witness a greater decline. Brazilians are the greatest soccer players in the world, but issues like this make the prospect of Brazil's national football league dim indeed.

European Colonialism in the 21st Century

Late in 2006, it was announced that, given the current fishing practices, eating fish would become an impossibility by 2050. I don't like fish (I'm weird that way), but the environmental effects of these practices and their tragic consequences are undeniable.

However, this article shows that the practice of mass-fishing has more than just environmental effects. Many coastal Africans are no longer able to make their living as fishers, as the fishing populations have plummeted due to European companies over-fishing the areas. In response, they seek to immigrate to Europe, where they are not welcomed, even as the Europeans eat the Africans' livelihood.

As the article points out, having fished-out their own waters, the Europeans are now turning towards Africa, leading not just to an acceleration in the environmental degradation of the area in terms of fish populations, but to what can be called no less than a continuation of the colonialist practices Europe employed for centuries in Africa. Having none of their own "material resources" (in this case, fish, instead of diamonds, ivory, slave labor, minerals, etc.), they turn to Africa, violating UN agreements without repercussions to their own industries and practices. Meanwhile, the Africans are driven to desperation, yet cannot gain access to the continent that is stealing from them.

Obviously, the environmental implications of these practices are distressing, to put it mildly. But the fact that they affect everyday Africans so severely and so immediately should not and cannot be overlooked. I really don't know how to stop the Europeans and their companies in this way. Suggesting they stop eating fish, while ideal, is about as realistic as telling the Japanese to cool it with the sushi. The UN treaties obviously have no effect, as there is no way to punish the Europeans for violating them. The African nations have neither the unified political strength nor the geopolitical presence of the EU. Unless some unforeseeable miracle happens, the Africans will continue to be exploited and screwed in their home countries and shut out from all attempts to make a better life in Europe, and there will still be no fish by 2050. Colonialism didn't die after the end of WWII. It just took on a strictly economic face in the guise of "globalization". And the fish will continue to disappear.

Lula and Biofuels at the UN General Assembly

I'm a little late in getting to this, but there is a great article from the Guardian about Lula's address to the UN during the general assembly. The main foci of Lula's address were biofuels, both in Brazil and in a global economic context, and economic systems. He was very right to criticize the one-sided agrigultural protectionism Northern Hemisphere, pointing out it was part of a broader system that "perpetuates dependency and underdevelopment".

However, what was really important in his speech was the material relating to biofuels. He was both defensive of the production of biofuels in Brazil, and criticized the North and other countries that remain uninformed about how Brazil produces biofuels. He took on both critiques from the "developed world" ("His speech reflects strong irritation in Brazil that many of the critics of the country's biofuel programme are using arguments about environmental protection and food shortages either as an excuse for northern protectionism or simply to defend their own oil and gas industries") and critiques from countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, who want biofuel programs curbed and agriculture to focus on the hunger question instead. As Lula pointed out, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, and it isn't an either/or proposition in Brazil, where "only a fifth of Brazil's arable land is currently under cultivation and of this less than 4% is used for ethanol". With criticisms like these coming from both the North and the governments furthest left in Latin America, no wonder Lula was a little defensive.

And he was totally justified, too. The article points out the "crocodile's tears" of Europe and the U.S., who claim to be concerned about social conditions in Latin America. Where in the hell do Europe and the U.S. have room to criticize Latin America for social conditions, given centuries of colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, and extremely punitive trade and economic relations, be it via one-sided tariffs, privatization, or the IMF and World Bank?

And of course, Chavez, Morales, and Cuba don't get off hook here. It's fine to be concerned with hunger, and far more consistent of them than the Northern Hemisphere to be worried about social justice, but trying to nail Brazilian industry and tie it to U.S. inefficiency here is irresponsible. Plus, both Bolivia and Venezuela rely so heavily on petroleum for their national incomes, they of course would have a less-than-altruistic concern if petroleum consumption fell and biofuel consumption rose globally. And let's not forget that, while it isn't a strained relationship, Chavez has occasionally struggled rhetorically and ideologically with Brazil as the two compete to increase their presence in South America.

That said, hats off to Lula. While his speech was in no way without its own political agendas and concerns, his points were fair and accurate, and I hope he continues defending Brazil and Brazilian interests that could actually help the globe (you know - the whole "non-fossil fuels" thing) as well as he did at the UN General Assembly.

The Increasing Historical Importance of the Pinochet Arrest of 1998

I think this article really does a great job in showing how increasingly important the 1998 arrest of Augusto Pinochet is becoming, not just in Chile (where, just this week, his wife and children had arrests issued for their roles in laundering money Pinochet embezzled during his 17-year dictatorship, a great sign that, despite his death, justice seems to be marching on), but around the hemisphere and the world. The article points to Chile's extradition of Alberto Fujimori to Peru last month as a possible watershed in bringing (self-) exiled dictators and human rights abusers to trial, but I think we can really look at the decision in London as the watershed moment here. That decision at the time was huge, simply because somebody was finally saying to Pinochet, "You're no longer immune", and while he never faced trial for the crimes in Spain, he did continuously fight a losing battle in the Chilean courts for 9 years. Of course, the Chilean justice system, the human rights organizations that kept the cases going, and the families who lost loved ones are responsible for that battle as much as anything, but without the catalyst of the decision in London, it's unclear all of that would have happened.

Why does all this matter? The article makes that pretty clear - since Pinochet, human rights violators have been increasingly susceptible to charges of the crimes they committed as leaders of countries. There is no more easy, peaceful, quiet exile for these men. Fujimori is the most recent example of this, and Milosevic was perhaps more notorious in the West, but it doesn't end with these two men. Jorge Videla remains under house arrest in Argentina; other Argentine military men are increasingly scrutinized and even prosecuted for their role in Argentina's dirty war; even in Colombia, Álvaro Uribe has had to answer tough questions as cabinet members around him fall for their ties to the paramilitaries.

I think there are really two factors that explain this change since the late-1990s. First, there is the recent shift in international law and policy that the article mentions, in which international courts no longer are impotent to let mass-murderers and dictators go free. Secondly, and just as important to my view, there is the increasingly mobilized, interconnected, and fearless human rights movement. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and hundreds of other international, national, and local groups, have been able to push their quest for justice in the last 10 years, aided in no small part by the technological revolution of the internet, where they can communicate between groups via e-mail and get their message out easily to a broad audience via webpages, thus keeping somebody in Australia up to date with what is going on in Peru, or somebody in the U.S. updated on the current crises in Africa.

While all of this is good news, there is still a long way to go. Unfortunately, our notions of "human-rights violations", particularly in the United States and in Western Europe, are still too strongly framed in the imperialist worldview in which only the so-called "third-world" countries and leaders who (if not openly hostile to one's nation-state) are on less-than-friendly terms can be guilty of such crimes. Our own leaders who openly support repressive regimes or who ignore the inhumane conditions in our own countries are not and (to many eyes) cannot be guilty of crimes against their people. We still operate under the notion (defined by the U.S. and Europe in the wake of World War II) that, to be guilty of such crimes, you have to wage a campaign of "mass murder", again with the dominant hegemons defining "mass" in such a way to exclude them from inclusion of these crimes. Thus, while we can condemn Jorge Videla, Henry Kissinger, who not only openly supported Videla but, in papers released last year, explicitly told the Argentine junta in 1976 that they could do whatever they wanted carte blanche and the U.S. would support it, is still making tens of thousands of dollars offering his "wisdom" on the lecture circuit. As the article says, "some atrocities against civilians offended not just the laws of a country, but also international standards of human rights."

The emphasis here should fall on some. Until we redefine our notion of crimes against "human rights" to include actions that our own governments, past, present, and future, have perpetrated, the quest for justice in international human rights will be one-sided, punishing only those of the "developing" world, while leaders of the "developed" world will remain able to act in any way they wish with no worries of paying the consequences someday, relying on their impugnity for their actions.