An Extraordinary Human Drama

Lapedusa/NormanEinstein-CreativeCommons

The debate about immigration to Europe has heated up since the tragedy earlier this month, when 340  migrants traveling from north Africa to southern Europe drowned in the Mediterranean waters close to Lampedusa, the southernmost Italian island. Over the last two decades over 17,000 immigrants have died crossing the Mediterranean trying to reach the shores of the European Union in unsafe boats, and among more and more Europeans it becomes clear an unacceptable situation has been reached.


Even before this tragedy, immigration has been increasingly a controversial issue in Europe. Last June, the Transatlantic Trends Survey found that 58 per cent of Europeans found their governments were doing a bad job managing immigration: Italy was the highest with 83%, followed by Spain (74%), the United Kingdom (72%), Sweden (64%), France (59%), and the Netherlands (54%.)

The BBC's Newsnight program just broadcasted a poignant video (with a cartoon to mimic the voyage of a surviving Palestinian family escaping Syria, first to Egypt and Libya, and then trying to get to Lampedusa.) In a nutshell, it shows......

The Godfather, Italian Stereotyping & Mario Cuomo

Il Duomo di Firenze

True or exaggerated? Former governor of New York, Mario Cuomo finally watched "The Godfather", according to The New York Times, after having refused for four decades to see any of the movies or to even read Mario Puzo’s book.

What is going on here? For all those years, Cuomo has maintained that "Italians (and blacks) were typically singled out for abuse in American movies and that those stereotypes had spilled over into politics." When Cuomo was first running for office, he recalled, “only 16 percent said they knew me. “And 14 percent said they wouldn’t vote for me because of my relationship to bad criminals,” he said.

"In 1985, when Paul Castellano, the mob boss, was executed in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan, Mr. Cuomo urged reporters to refrain from invoking the word Mafia in reference to the hit. “Every time you say it, you suggest to people that organized crime is Italian,” he said. “It’s an ugly stereotype.”

Is Cuomo exaggerating? Let's look at some facts and figures from a study about Italian Culture on Film between 1928-2001, conducted by the Italic Institute of America:

U.S. Shutdown: Ambulance Chasing by the Well-Connected

NYC Ambulance/by Eyeone Wikimedia Commons

While the insane U.S. government shutdown is still ongoing, and pundits, journalists, citizens, investors, and Wall Street are concerned what will happen to the economy if no agreement is reached by coming Thursday, I'm reminded of a time when I was involved with ambulance chasing. What do I mean? Years ago, I had joined a new business, in a new office and new environment, where after a while I found out our business was based on chasing deals. Rather than coming up with a longterm strategy on how we could truly build and expand our business, we were following the media, newspapers and online news.  As soon as we saw a business transaction mentioned with one of our customers involved, we would contact the customer and try to become part of the transaction. I was not impressed and when I talked to a colleague of mine, he explained that this is what they called 'ambulance chasing", which at that time was a new term to me.  According to Wikipedia, ambulance chasing "refers to a lawyer using an event as a way to find legal clients. The term ambulance chasing comes from the stereotype of lawyers that follow ambulances to the emergency room to find clients."

Well, that's what we did then in my office - even though we were not a law firm - and what bothered me was that it gave us all the impression that we were very productive - because we were so busy - and that we were doing something useful - which I wasn't sure about - and that we were expanding our business towards an increasingly successful future - which I strongly doubted -.

What I see now, especially in the U.S.shutdown debate - also to a lesser extent in other Western countries- is that

Holland on its Way to World Cup in Brazil

Dutch Football Team/2011 Jimmy Baikovicius Flickr

The Dutch football team - or soccer in American parlance - trashed the generally quite strong Hungarians 8-1. Watch and enjoy the multitude of goals scored. Holland on its way to the World Cup in Brazil next summer!

Political Lessons from The Netherlands for the U.S.

"As the clock ticked down, talks over a budget deal were deadlocked. A government lacking a majority in one house of the legislature faced unprecedented resistance, with the opposition employing obstructionary measures that had previously been considered off-limits. Approval ratings for all the parties suffered, the government risked lame-duck status, political uncertainty threatened to kill off the green shoots in the economy and fears grew of the rise of a populist rightwing faction.........." Does this describe the situation in the U.S.? No, this is from an article, Dutch budget deal offers lessons to the U.S. in The Financial Times by Matt Steinglass, where he described the political situation last week in the Netherlands. The Netherlands, too, is experiencing a difficult economic situation with a recession going on and austerity measures demanded by the European Union. At the same time the political situation isn't stable either, where a centre-right Liberal and left-wing Labor government coalition has a majority in the so-called Second Chamber of parliament, but a minority in the First Chamber (or Senate.)  The article continues:

"Normally that would not matter; the Senate is a traditionally weak body, rejecting legislation only if it is unconstitutional or impossible to carry out. But just as Republicans in the US have recently used filibusters and the debt ceiling in unprecedented ways, Dutch opposition parties under pressure of popular anger have this year begun voting down legislation in the Senate. That forced prime minister Mr Rutte and his Labour finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, into negotiations with centrist opposition parties.....................

American Exceptionalism....Not

(Great Seal of the U.S./Wikimedia Commons)

A few weeks ago President Obama in his speech about Syria - does anyone remember Syria or Egypt for that matter ? - made his case for intervention in large part based on America's exceptional role in the world.  

"But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.  That’s what makes America different.  That’s what makes us exceptional."

So what about this term "exceptionalism"? It has been used since a long time: the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville used it in 1835 in his book Democracy in America. He based this term on the unique position of the U.S. as founded by Europeans but different in its approach to democracy, religion, practical matters,  and its geography. In the 1920s, the American Communist Party used this term, again because they believed the  U.S. was different, for example, due to its lack of class distinctions.  Politicians like John F. Kennedy in 1961 and especially Ronald Reagan, in his Farewell Address to the Nation on January 11, 1989,  referred to the related phrase 'this city upon a hill":

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still."

Since the Reagan's references, many conservatives have taken on the "city on the hill" and "American exceptionalism" to mean not only that the U.S.  has

Greenpeace, Climate Change and the Future of Humanity

The Day After Tomorrow/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.

In my recent post, Climate Change and Tipping Points, I referred to organizations and individuals who step up to the plate to protect the planet  from climate change - as governments are dragging their feet and many business have apparent opposing interests -. One such an organization is Greenpeace and one such an individual is its International Executive Director, South African Kumi Naidoo.

Naido was recently interviewed by Bill Moyers on his TV program Moyers & Company. In this wide ranging interview, Naidoo talks about the Greenpeace ship, the Dutch registered Arctic Sunrise, which last month, while taking action against the Prirazlomnaya oil rig - where Gazprom intends to become the first company to pump oil from icy Arctic waters - was stopped by Russian special forces. They arrested the 30 people on board of that ship, who are now being charged with piracy, and face potentially many years in prison.

Naidoo also discusses the "insanity" of drilling in the Arctic; how history will judge the current leadership of governments and big businesses harshly due to their lack of action towards climate change; the question whether it's too late to counter climate change; that the world is playing political poker with the future of our planet; that we should write-off 80% of the current fossil fuel reserves and start an energy revolution; Greenpeace's partnership with Facebook and how internet companies will see a fourfold increase of their energy use in the coming years; and how....

Climate Change & Tipping Points

Terschelling, the Netherlands

Last Friday several prominent speakers on climate developments presented their case on the Springtij festival in Terschelling. This was the same day that the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was going to present its long awaited report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.

The morning session moderated by Jan Paul van Soest, a Dutch sustainability expert involved in a multitude of projects dealing with sustainability and the environment (he is also one of the co-authors of Earth Fever, Living Consciously with Climate Change published by undersigned's publishing company) and started with a presentation by Bernice Notenboom, climate journalist, author and explorer, who is well-known in the Netherlands for her television show Klimaat Jagers (i.e. "Climate Hunters") in which she travels around the world from Africa to Alaska and from South-America to Greenland, to show the effects of climate change on the environment and on its inhabitants, humans and wildlife. In the most recent episode Bernice Notenboom travels to Greenland, a crucial place for climate research as that's where the impact of  climate change is most visible. In this episode you will see how ice covering Greenland is retreating in great volume and how the local Inuit population, mostly hunters, tell us how they have witnessed firsthand this ice retreat over the last decade. You can view the Dutch episode here.  
 

Klimaatjagers

For those of you in the U.S., the Weather Channel will broadcast this series under the name Tipping Points starting on October 19. During the Greenland episode, Bernice Notenboom is joined by Tim Lenton, Professor of Climate Change at the University of Exeter.  He is well-known for his research