Prying Apart the Jaws of That Crocodile Phrase: Globalization

Definitions are limiting, and for good reason. After all, when a word comes to mean everything, the truth is that it actually means nothing.

Globalization is the latest victim. Everywhere you turn, it's globalization. Trade policy? Globalization puts Americans out of work. Ecological disaster? Globalization.

This happens for two reasons. First, it's easy. Do you have an idea, are you trying to explain something going on in the world around you? You can either blame it on the terrorists, or sound more civilized and appeal to the catch-all: globalization.

The second reason is that nobody really has any clue as to what's going on. And caught in a torrential downpour of uncertainty—sad wars without end like Darfur and the Congo, two billion people around the world living on less than two bucks a day—otherwise intelligent minds reach for the nearest, biggest, umbrella they can grab: globalization.

Here, then, is a proclamation that we either start spending the time to pry apart the jaws of that crocodile phrase and begin to explain exactly what is going on, or, even better, we come up with original ways to look at the world. Some will be insightful, some will be wrong. But propagating an ambiguous, cloudy term that means so little (another, is the oft-remarked 'international community,' because what in the world is that, other than a cheap generalization?) spits out vapid thoughts, empty ideas, if any at all, and if there's anything the world desperately lacks is just an inkling of which way is up.

Because globalization is really just a synonym for the Internet.

[Photo of protester in downtown Mexico City, 2007, taken by Ana Bast.]

The French in Chad as Rebels Overrun Ndjamena

Sunday nights at the United Nations Security Council aren't known for four-hour blowout negotiating sessions. Violence in central Africa, however, summoned the fair arbiters of 21st century international peace and security to the horseshoed table yesterday. The region faces nightmarish mahem.

France conquered Chad in 1920, relinquished control in 1960, and yesterday French military swept in to evacuate Westerners as rebels overran the capital city of Ndjamena. Reports now are unclear; it seems as if Chadian president Idriss Déby has fought them off, though, according to the Associated Press, in the city "casualties were believed to be high." After taking fire, the US embassy now stands evacuated and abandoned.

Bloodshed in Ndjamena threatens to bring a bloody cauldron of fighting and murder to a boil. Three different Chadian rebel groups have banded together. As recently as 2006, rebels attempted to topple Déby's government in Ndjamena; since, Deby has gone against the country's constitution and taken a third term as president. Now, the banded rebels, which swear allegiances to distinct clans, charge Deby with corruption and stacking his parliament with his own Zagawa clan. (Zagawas make up less than three percent of Chad's population.)
 
Eastern Chad today houses hundreds of thousands of displaced Darfuris on its border, a remote region that has for years been home to varying forms of unrest. A force of more than 20,000 UN peacekeepers had been scheduled to land in Darfur by the end of 2007, but that didn't happen. Officials have since said that deploying a force by the end of 2008 would be a goal, and more importantly, any effort to calm the situation in Chad first depends on the pacification of Darfur. On Friday Reuters reported that Chad wrote to the Council, "Faced with the aggression orchestrated and strongly supported by Sudan, the Chadian government intends to use its legitimate right of defense by all means at its disposal, including pursing the aggressors into Sudanese territory."

In effect, the border between the two countries is entirely imagined. Roads are dirt, crossings are controlled by rebel groups, not state-paid customs and border control officials. That said, the more this border widens, the more a severe conflict could not only spread but also challenge the sovereignty of Ndjamena and Khartoum, and as it all goes down, put into question the postcolonial borders of both nations.

The wildcard is France. In the past, Paris has come to Chad's rescue, in the strange custom of a former kidnapper protecting out of obligation. Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly-married French president, this time instead offered President Déby a ride out of town. The Chadian president refused. French officials have said that Sudan is backing the Chadian rebels.

The Council released a statement this morning support the government in Ndjamena. Interpretations were being made as to what kind of support the statement authorizes, but French military support could soon be on the table.

UPDATE: France appears to have stepped on on Déby's behalf, and violence in the capital has quieted.

Internet Lights Out in Myanmar

The repressive regime in Myanmar has a lock on the country's media outlets, and when columns of monks led massive street protests last week, traditional media outlets were stifled. Photo credits from inside the South Asian nation in the New York Times, for instance, lack names, presumably to protect the identity of any staff inside. Few, if any, Western journalists are reporting from Yangon.

Instead, news filtered out through nontraditional channels like YouTube. The Journal put it this way, "Citizen witnesses are using cellphones and the Internet to beam out images of bloodied monks and street fires, subverting the Myanmar government's effort to control media coverage and present a sanitized version of the uprising."

Now, the government has reportedly turned off the Internet. (What, exactly, are the logistics of a feat like that?) At first, Internet cafes were shuttered, but apparently for the last three days the e-mail service has been down, and now the Times is reporting that faking "technical problems" has become a widespread tactic of silencing flows of information.

The brief disruptions are known as “just in time” filtering, said Ronald J. Deibert of OpenNet. They are designed to quiet opponents while maintaining an appearance of technical difficulties, thus avoiding criticism from abroad.

Journalists inside the country have been transmitting information out of the country via text message; they have communicated developments by updating Wikipedia pages. Curiously, the "Burma" page (the former name of the country), has been closed to editing by unregistered users due to vandalism. See the page here.

In old-fashioned styles of repression, a Japanese photographer was shot dead in the street. Japan is threatening to withhold aid.

Diplomacy has proved so difficult that it took days for a special UN envoy to even gain access to the country's leadership, and just tonight UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said, "You cannot call it a success."

(Satellite image of Myanmar from Google Earth.)