Sheng: Cultural Globalization and New Languages in Africa

April 17, 2015 / Africa, cultural globalization, language / , ,

With cultural globalization comes cultural change. I have been on the Rio Negro in the Amazon rainforest, only to hear a canoe approach with someone playing Madonna. Hip hop has become a global phenomenon. Many people decry what they see as the emergence of a new global culture: shallow, celebrity-focused and American dominated. Part of this critique focuses on the danger not only to local cultures, but also to languages, thousands of which are endangered globally. The Enduring Voices project of National Geographic is currently seeking to record some of these tongues before they disappear forever, not only to document them for history, but also to facilitate efforts to revitalize them. I have thought about indigenous language based on my field work in Oaxaca around HIV/AIDS. How do you do HIV prevention work in a region that may have more than 16 different indigenous languages, each of which has many different dialects? Zapotec itself has more than twenty dialects, each of which has its own name, such as Lhej, Xan, Xhon and Xidza. The diversity of these languages is amazing. Mazotec is a tonal language, which has a whistled form, so that people can communicate across the valleys through whistles. But while we focus on language loss, and indigenous languages, it is interesting to also remember that new languages are also being born. …

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The Lord’s Resistance Army and the Power of NGOs

April 17, 2015 / Africa, security / ,

The Lord’s Resistance Army is an armed group that first appeared in Northern Uganda in 1987-8, but later spread to Southern Sudan and Central Africa. Over the last 25 years it has become infamous for kidnapping children to serve in its ranks, as well as for using violence against civilians. Although the group’s power largely comes from military force, its leader Joseph Kony also tries to claim legitimacy as a religious leader, who blends Christianity with local beliefs, such as spirit possession. Because of the group’s brutality (mutilating people, sexually abusing children) the LRA creates such great fear that after one attack in Northern Uganda in 1997, perhaps 100,000 people became refugees, who fled the region to escape the violence. According to the website Global Security, in 1998 the LRA kidnapped 6000 children into its ranks, although most of them ultimately managed to escape. Because of this long history of violence and brutality, in October 2011 President Obama chose to send 100 troops to Africa, to help regional armed forces track down the Lord’s Resistance Army. …

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Oscar Niemeyer, New Cities, and the future of Global Aging

April 17, 2015 / aging, demography, global health /

There seem to be a plethora of new capitals emerging around the globe. South Sudan is planning a new

bangkok at night, courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at freedigitalphotos.net

capital in Ramciel, even as it suffers from ethnic conflict, and the myriad challenges of creating a new state. In 2005 Myanmar (Burma) created a new capital called Naypidaw, which already has nearly a million people. Although there are many explanations for the rationale behind the move (one involving an astrologer) the most likely was that this was intended to increase the military’s control. In 1997 Kazahkstan moved its capital to Astana, 600 miles away on the steppe, although few besides President Nazarbayev were enthusiastic about the idea. Angola, now one of the world’s fastest growing economies, faces problems with its capital, Luanda, which is the most expensive city in the world. As Africa’s largest oil exporter, it also has the resources to fund dreams, one of which has been the idea of creating a new capital.

…

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Narco Blogs: Following Mexico’s Drug War

April 17, 2015 / drugs, security / , , , ,

In an earlier post, I talked about Mexico’s drug war. Because the cartels have murdered journalists, and infiltrated news organizations, it can be difficult to follow the conflict using the main-stream Mexican press. For this reason, Mexicans themselves have increasingly turned to blogs that cover the conflict -so called Narco blogs- to gain information that may be difficult for conventional reporters to print. At the same time, some of these blogs clearly play to people’s interest in sensationalism, and most sometimes contain videos or photos that are disturbing and violent, or even have been filmed by the cartels themselves. The bloggers are also facing pressure, although sometimes it is unclear from whom the threats are coming.  In particular, Mexico’s Blog del Narco has had trouble remaining accessible, which has attracted media coverage in the United States. Still, for students interested in Latin America, and what is happening in Mexico, these blogs are a useful resource, particularly if they speak Spanish, so I wanted to list a few here. …

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Totally Drug Resistant Tuberculosis

April 17, 2015 / Asia, global health, indigenous peoples / ,

In our book and this blog we give considerable attention to the threat posed by avian influenza, which also attracts a great deal of media coverage. But there is another, and older, threat that also deserves attention. Tuberculosis has been a growing problem. As Paul Farmer’s work has described, it flourished in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and drug resistant tuberculosis has been a growing threat from Peru to Haiti. The challenge is that if patients are not properly diagnosed, or if they fail to take a long course (a minimum of six months) of medication, the disease becomes resistant.

"Bacteria" by ddpavumba at freedigitalphotos.net

This problem has combined with the spread of HIV/AIDS, which decreases people’s resistance to TB. This led to a terrifying outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, where an epidemic of extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis (TB) began spreading in 2006. From South Africa, the disease was moved into neighboring countries, such as Lesotho.

A recent news article in South Africa gives some insight into why TB was so difficult to treat. After a woman was diagnosed with XDR TB, she required intensive, inpatient care. Her family had to conduct a (successful) fund-raising campaign before she could be admitted to a hospital, where she is finally receiving the care she needs. In this case, the woman’s family rose to the challenge, and obtained care for her. But what if she had not been so fortunate? …

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Canada’s Northern Gateway Pipeline

April 17, 2015 / environment, indigenous peoples, Oil Sands / , , , ,

An article by Edward Welsch in the Wall Street Journal today today talks about upcoming

Photo “Two Oils of Alberta” by Rosemary Ratcliff, courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

hearings regarding Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, which would bring oil from Alberta to Kitimat on the British Columbia coast. As I discussed in an earlier blog post, Canada views this pipeline as an alternative to the Keystone XL pipeline, which would move oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Legally, the Obama administration must make a decision on this Keystone XL pipeline by the end of February. Because production from the Oil Sands is increasing so rapidly, Canada badly needs to find an additional means to bring petroleum to market. From the perspective of the Canadian government, therefore, the Northern Gateway pipeline allows it to hedge its bets, by allowing to sell oil to the Asian market, in particular China. Even if President Obama’s administration approves the Keystone XL, the Canadian government badly wants this other pipeline to the Pacific to increase its market options. …

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Language and Maps in Global Studies

April 17, 2015 / language / ,

I’ve mentioned my favorite website, Strange Maps, in an earlier post. Part of the reason I enjoy it is that it’s filled with visual information, which makes it fun to examine after a long day of reading or writing. But I just came upon one post with images so striking that they made my jaw drop. Frank Jacobs recently came across a map created by a team (Mike McCandless and Eric Fischer) who found a way to use Google Chrome’s tracking feature to analyze language use in Twitter, and to display it on a map. The resulting images are as informative as they are beautiful. They not only show where people are using twitter around the globe, but also the language that they are using it in.

As Jacobs notes, what’s fascinating about these images is that they allow us to contrast official language regions with how language is actually being used. For example, as he points out, Catalan emerges as a major voice on Twitter. Some aspects of the map are to be expected. For example, North Korea disappears into blackness. But other aspects are surprising. Who knew that the Dutch were addicted to Twitter? One of the most interesting aspects of this map has been the comments that it has attracted, both on Jacobs’ site, as well as on the original posting by Eric Fischer. A lot of the discussion seems to focus on language anomolies. Why do so few people twitter in Ukrainian or Belorussian? Why aren’t Celtic languages such as Welsh apparent on the map? Are most tweets in India really in English? And is that really Dutch being spoken is southern France, or Occitan?

A key topic in Global and International Studies is language. We even wrote an additional chapter on language, which we couldn’t include in the textbook for reasons of length, but which is available on this webpage here. This chapter might form the basis for a class lecture. And this particular map would be a great tool afterwards to begin a class discussion about minority languages, technology and cultural globalization.

Shawn Smallman, Portland State University

Mexico’s Military and the Drug War

April 17, 2015 / drugs, security / , , ,

I already discussed the drug war in Mexico in an earlier blog posting on the UNC website. But it’s worth returning to this topic, because of many new developments since last February. At this point, over 45,000 people have been killed in the drug war since President Calderon began it in December 2006. The toll of this carnage has been described in detail by the Los Angeles Times, which has had the best coverage of this conflict from its inception. Sadly, its very difficult for Mexican reporters to cover this conflict, because the drug cartels have infiltrated the major media organizations, and are killing reporters who cover the war. For this reason, Mexicans have turned to twitter and blogsfor information. While these sources provide a great deal of information,  one topic, in particular, seems to me to be under-covered: the struggle’s impact upon Mexico’s armed forces.

Photo of army truck by Stuart Miles

Hillary Clinton was widely denounced within Mexico in September 2010 for declaring that the conflict had taken on the appearance of an insurgency. But the reality is that Mexico is no longer primarily engaged in law enforcement, but rather a war between the government and the cartels. Mexico has become a frequent topic in the Small Wars Journal, which is devoted to low-intensity warfare (the British term) and counter-insurgency operations (COIN, the American term). Consider a recent communique from the Zeta’s drug cartel, as described on a blog covering the war:”A communique from the special forces of the Zetas. Message to the nation, the government, and all of Mexico and to public opinion. The special forces of Los Zetas challenges the government and its federal forces. Not the Army, not the marines nor the security and anti-drug agencies of the U.S. government can resist us. Mexico lives and will continue to live under the regime of Los Zetas. Let it be clear that we are in control here and although the federal government controls other cartels, they cannot take our plazas. You want proof? Look at what happened in Sinaloa and Guadalajara. If we can get all the way into their kitchen we are not going to lose control of our territory. Sincerely, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, Z-40.” Such statements leave little question how the cartels themselves view the contest. …

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Canada’s Oil Sands, Pipelines and Atomic Bombs

April 17, 2015 / environment, Oil Sands / , , ,

I am a Canadian, born and raised in Southern Ontario. I founded a Canadian Studies program at my university. I was happy to see our first student recently graduate with a Canadian Studies certificate, and I am currently writing a book on a Canadian topic. So, it has been very painful for me to watch Canada’s recent foreign policy decisions related to global warming and the Oil Sands, particularly this last week in South Africa. My frustration has been magnified by the fact that I myself wrote an article about the Oil Sands years ago that -in retrospect- failed to examine the environmental costs of this resource.

Photo by puttsk at freedigitalphotos.net

Recent technical breakthroughs  have led to a current giddy sense of optimism about energy production, and the promise that the Western hemisphere rather than the Middle East may be the future of oil and gas production. As Daniel Yergin noted in a recent newspaper column: “U.S. petroleum imports, on a net basis, reached their peak -60%- of domestic consumption in 2005. Since then, they have been going in the other direction. They are now down to 46%.” Yergin pointed to the technological changes that made this possible: “The reason is the sudden appearance of `tight oil,’ which is extracted from dense rocks.” The spread of shale oil production has reversed the decline of domestic oil production. But there are costs to this development, and choices to be made. For a long time, the Canadian government has said that it would meet the targets set by the Kyoto Protocol, but that it would do so without restricting Oil Sands development. But in Durban, South Africa last week Canada set this position aside for an all-out attack on Kyoto. …

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Egypt’s military and the Latin American experience

April 17, 2015 / civil-military relations, Egypt / ,

On Friday, November 18, 2011, thousands of Egyptians rallied in Tahrir square to protest the military’s efforts to retain power. The military had recently suggested language for the constitutional convention, which would have made the military the guardian of “constitutional legitimacy.” The military has also suggested that it should choose 80% of the members of the Constitutional committee. The protest seems to have captured the growing civilian concern about emergency laws, and the Egyptian military’s influence over society. When Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, people gave credit to the military, which ultimately decided not to repress the uprising. In their current state of disillusionment with the military, Egypt’s people are not in a position dissimilar to that of many Latin Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. For this reason, it’s worth placing what is happening in Egypt now in a broader context. …

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