Inflation and Rising Food Prices Lead to Riots in Haiti, Cairo, Next, Revolution?

There is no faster way to make someone angry than to reach into their wallet. To add fuel to the fire, steal the money that would have paid for their dinner, and catastrophe ensues.

A downright frightening facet of the global economic downturn is rising inflation. Some people—wealthy, the middle class in industrialized countries—can deal with the spike in the price, say, of rice. However, most of the world, lest it be forgotten that more than ten billion live on less than $2 a day, cannot simply buy a 36-inch instead of a 42-inch flatscreen television to balance the budget. The proof?

Food riots.

In the streets of Haiti, the most destitute state in the Americas, exactly such a disaster is taking place right now. In Cairo, where corruption had already mangled the bread industry, rising food prices have set off unrest there as well. Both countries are desperately poor; while there are nice hotels in Cairo, more than 74 million Egyptians live on less than $1 a day. People have also gone from wits end to violence in Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire. Protests have hit Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia.

The venerable World Food Programme of the United Nations, which feeds more than 70 million people every day, is now starved for cash and suppliers. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, after asking rich countries to go above and beyond for another $500 for WFP, said, "While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs."

Remember that unreasonable bread prices was an instigator of the French Revolution. From "A Popular History of France," by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, "We could see the French flying over the roads, across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the sight must have been seen to be believed.  There were in the outskirts of our town and in the neighboring villages, so vast a multitude of knights and men-at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible to see. They gave their arms to get bread."

A riot of desperation may unsettle Port-au-Prince, and Haitians are targeting President René Préval. From the Associated Press, "We heard the speech, but the speech is empty," said student protest organizer Herve Saintiles, 37. "We are going to hold the president responsible for all these problems." Holding officials responsible is one thing, revolution is quite another.

Perhaps the scarcity of resources, as a Malthusian demand of people around the world, has now become one of the defining characteristics of this globalized planet, one that stands in stark contrast to the French aristocracy two centuries ago.

And if revolution came in Cairo, in Port-au-Prince, or in Yaoundé, would we even want to see where it was headed?

UPDATE: Hait's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis has resigned; Zoellick has said that 33 countries are at risk; Wall Street Journal front page: biofuels "appalling."

[Photo of the 18th-Century France from Gutenberg.]

Africa: US, In; China, In; France, Out.

No continent suffers violence today on the level of Africa. Nor is there a land so massive and so poor. In the past few years, superpowers have ramped up strategies to exploit the land's resources and angle for military superiority. China has been building infrastructure in the south, to be paid in future oil deliveries. At the same time, the US has launched AFRICOM, a centralized military command.

One would think that the European Union would follow suit. Lest we forget that the most powerful nations in Europe a hundred years ago colonized all of Africa, divided the spoils, and left it in tatters after World War II. However, the EU seems to be turning the other way.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy, midway through a trip through the continent has announced sweeping changes in his country's military power in Africa. Lately he's come under fire for France's recent involvement in the Chadian crisis. (Chad is a former French colony.) He said, "Defense agreements must reflect the Africa of today and not yesterday."

France has four bases throughout Africa, some of which are now rumored to be shut down. "It is unthinkable that the French Army should be drawn into domestic conflicts," Sarkozy said.

Western involvement on the continent, even when done with the best intentions, so often seems to be a refashioned colonialism, minus the guns, plus the paternalism. Only, France's move presents the quandary: naming quickly five massive conflicts -- Darfur, Southern Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, and Kenya -- would the continent fare better left to its own devices?

 

The thought exercise may be a worthy one as France retreats, but neither China, nor the US, are going anywhere anytime soon.

[Image: movie poster for L'Afrance, 2001.]

From European Supranational Unions to Asian Food Sovereignty

To elucidate the network of interdependence that governs today's globalized planet, once a week the Inquirer highlights three international organizations, usually one quite popular, one unsurprising, and one obscure.

European Union |The European Union (EU) is a sui generis supranational union, made up of twenty-seven member states. It was established as the European Economic Community in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome and has undergone many changes since, most notably in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty. Since 1957 new accessions have raised the number of member states, and powers have expanded. As a result, the EU can be described as both a supranational and an intergovernmental body.

The combined economy of the EU is the largest in the world with a nominal GDP of €11.6 (US$15.7) trillion in 2007. The EU has a single market between member states with a common trade policy, a Common Agricultural/Fisheries Policy, and a regional development policy. It introduced a common currency, the euro, which has been adopted by thirteen member states. Since 1993, the EU has developed a limited Common Foreign and Security Policy, and co-operation in police and judicial matters. (Wikipedia)

World Organization Against Torture | The World Organization Against Torture (Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture, OMCT) is the world’s largest coalition of non-governmental organizations fighting against arbitrary detention, torture, summary and extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances and other forms of violence. The global network consists of almost 300 local, national and regional organizations, all of which share a common goal of eradicating torture and fostering respect of human rights for all. (Wikipedia)

Asia Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty | APNFS is a regional network of social movements, farmers' organizations, women's organizations and NGOs established to address the issues of increasing trade liberalization in agriculture, worsening food insecurity, massive dislocation of peasants, landlessness, erosion of agricultural biodiversity, and the suppression of peasants' democratic rights common to many countries in the region. (Oxfam America)

 

Racist Crimes on the Rise in Germany

Ill-informed Americans, especially those of a liberal bend, will often refer to Europe as the pinnacle of refined civilization. "Oh, the BBC is so much better than our sensationalist, biased media," I've heard plenty of times. Also, "Europeans recycle so much more!" I usually forgo a retort to these kinds of assertions, knowing that many times in my travels to Europe I have been struck by explicit, unapologetic racism. So much for civilized.

Anecdotes aside, according to a new report out in Germany, racist violence and crime increased 15% from 2005 to 2006. Der Spiegel reports on the phenomenon (there were 17,597 incidents in 2006) and follows up with an interview with a "racism expert" explaining that the problem is getting worse, and it's not so easy to write off increased numbers as shaded reporting.

Though, as it is very clear in the US, hate crimes may be terrible, but the systemic, tacit racism that keeps people out of jobs can be far more devastating. Remember those French ghettos?

Nicolas Sarkozy, What a Guy, Well, Wait, What Kind of Guy?

The French are aflutter with their newly-elected leader, Nicolas Sarkozy. A prominent writer has penned a "lucid, maternal . . . caustic, and at times, cruel . . . and always savory," biography of the man who has already decided to vacation in New Hampshire and has now called for the US withdrawal from Iraq. The French are reading the book, and at the same time, the usual French-correspondent suspects are writing up what they expect in the coming months and years. What follows is a roundup of reports from major publications on the coming age of Sarkozy.

(And for what it's worth, it's pronounced: zar-ko-ZEE.)

Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune: Cohen reports that Sarkozy has been compared to Napoleon and, disdaining the regal nature of the French presidency, "once compared his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, to an out-of-touch French monarch on the Revolution's eve." Cohen argues that ruptures in the "trans-Atlantic bond" render the world less stable, and with the noxious Bush-Chirac mix now halfway remedied, and a neophyte French president, "more at ease in the world, attuned to globalization," brighter days could lie ahead. That is, unless the US heeds the pattern of its short-lived dynastic legacy, "as if all we had were Tudors and Stuarts."

Elaine Sciolino, New York Times: Sciolino wrote of Sarkozy's fondness for the US, "He is unabashedly pro-American, a man who openly proclaims his love of Ernest Hemingway, Steve McQueen and Sylvester Stallone and his admiration for America's strong work ethic and its belief in upward mobility." A few weeks later she compared the Sakozy family, in the paper's style pages, to the Kennedys. "Gone are the much older and more formal Chiracs, with their discretion, impeccable manners, old-fashioned style and easy slow motion." Reportedly, Sarkozy will make activism the "leitmotif of his presidency," and with colleagues and journalists (ahem!) opts for the more colloquial second-person tu instead of the more formal vous.

George F. Will, Washington Post: Will gets a quote calling Sarkozy a, "Keynesian who doesn't know who Keynes was," but then points out, "Sarkozy does know of Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek," and calls him, "A fountain of suspiciously opaque formulations (he advocates 'regulated liberalism' and 'humane globalization'), he is pleased that the word 'protection' is no longer taboo." Will rails against France's leftism as "perfectly reactionary," and concludes, "American conservatives should seek happy harbingers elsewhere."

Adam Gopnik, New Yorker: Gopnik recalls the simply astonishing story of Sarkozy, then mayor of Neuilly, talking a psychotic suicide bomber out of a nursery school (the piece is entitled, "The Human Bomb"). His heroism, it took place in 1993, was how the country came to learn about the man who, "likes risks, enjoys risks, revels in risks." Gopnik sizes him up: Sarkozy's mother is a family of Greek Jews and his father were Hungarian. Lastly, he gets at economic policy, "Some suspect that Sarkozy's secret strength in resolving the French economic 'crisis' may be that there is no crisis."

Merkel's German Elbowing France to get to London

New British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German leader Angela Merkel are hitting it off, according to the Financial Times. The two recently met at 10 Downing Street and then headed out for a football match. (The Germans topped the Brits, 2-1.)

FT goes on to size up the strengthened ties between the two, and where the new French leader, Nicolas Sarkozy, might fit, or how he might simply be elbowed out of the picture. Reportedly, Merkel is countering Sarkozy's protectionist industrial policies by hamming it up with Brown.

Only, just how much distance can Merkel put between Germany and France, and how will Sarkozy respond?

Notre Histoire? Je Ne Me Souviens Pas! Alors! Tout Va Bien!

Oh, France. What a beautiful place, that is, unless you're going to make some absurd assertions at the outset of an unprovoked war against a secular Muslim country in the heart of the Middle East! Well, in that case, Americans will decide to hate you and go so far as to sacrifice the name of one of the country's finest delicacies, thereby ripping your country's name from the deep-fried dish so that the US can make war and chow down on freedom fries.

But now, it's almost as if those terrible, terrible days simply never happened.

Nicolas Sarkozy has taken over France and is vacationing on a lake in the US? Who could have ever imagined. And this is far from the days, as Molly Moore explains in a Washington Post piece, when "until recent months, official Washington has been discouraged form visiting France."

Discouraged from visiting France!? If there is anything Americans need to do more, it is travel overseas, and if we can't head for France, where are we supposed to go?

Regardless, it's good to see that we're all happy Westerners again. Enjoy your decadence!