Link Banana

There’s been friction between the oil-rich areas of Bolivia and the poor mountainous provinces for a while, but this surprised me.

President Evo Morales is facing the most acute crisis of his presidency as deaths from violence in rebellious northern Bolivia increased to almost 30 over the weekend after several days of fierce clashes between antigovernment protestors and supporters of Mr. Morales.

Seeking refuge in the Dutch embassy, he’s ended his campaign to defeat Mugabe. For those wondering why, this gallery — absolutely not for the faint of heart — gives some indication of the reasons.

While discussing the broad decline of the practice, The Economist made a point I’d never known:

Countries where teachers still use force include the United States, where a Supreme Court ruling in 1977 (concerning two pupils whose beatings with a wooden paddle caused medical harm) found that a constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” applied only to judicial proceedings. That left individual states to decide; in 22 of them, corporal correction in schools occurs in at least some districts.

Perhaps more glaringly:

Indeed, [the United States] is the only country, along with Somalia, which has failed to ratify a United Nations convention on children’s rights, which since 1990 has protected children from “all forms of physical or mental violence”. American officials helped draft the document, but it faces stiff opposition in some quarters of the United States.

I was struck by an article in the New York Times Book Review because, well, I’d never heard of the Colfax Massacre. Or perhaps I’d forgotten. In any case, it’s interesting reading about an important — and shameful — American event.

In the middle of the Colfax, La., cemetery stands a 12-foot-high obelisk. It’s weathered now. But in its day it must have been a grand sight, towering over the rows of gravestones, its marble glinting in the Southern sun. The monument was built as a tribute to three local white men, “the heroes,” according to its inscription, “who fell in the Colfax riot fighting for white supremacy” on April 13, 1873 — Easter Sunday. There is no mention of the estimated 81 black people who were murdered that day.

Alex Kotlowitz has a fascinating article in today’s New York Times Magazine about CeaseFire, a group that hires “violence interrupers” to stop one spat of violence leading to others. A converted doubter:

“My eyes rolled immediately when I heard what the model was,” says Webster of Johns Hopkins, who is studying the Baltimore project. Webster knew the forces the interrupters were up against and considered it wishful thinking that they could effectively mediate disputes. “But when I looked closer at the data,” Webster continues, “and got to know more about who these people were and what they were doing, I became far less skeptical and more hopeful. We’re going to learn from it. And it will evolve.” George Kelling, a Rutgers professor of criminal justice who is helping to establish an effort in Newark to reduce homicide, helped develop the “broken window” theory of fighting crime: addressing small issues quickly. He says a public-health model will be fully effective only if coupled with other efforts, including more creative policing and efforts to get gang members back to school or to work. But he sees promise in the CeaseFire model. “I had to overcome resistance,” Kelling told me, referring to the introduction of a similar program in Newark. “But I think Slutkin’s on to something.”

I feel like I’m becoming a purveyor of junk stastics… in any case, this made me laugh.

The results of the unscientific poll showed that respondents were almost equally disturbed by the idea of a “graphically severed human head” as they were by “two men kissing” in a video game. Respondents were actually far more offended by a man and a woman having sex, which received 37% of the vote, while dropping the F-bomb only received 10%.

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Inspired to find the words Robert Kennedy spoke in Indianapolis that night by Ron Klain’s account of the events, I’ve presented them on Frozen Toothpaste. Much of the speech is available on YouTube (if you don’t mind Italian subtitles). An excerpt:

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we’ve had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate to ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Daniel Miessler’s mildly arrogant “What Every American Should Know About the Middle East” got a lot of attention recently. Sounding more intellectual but covering roughly the same ground, John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed make this point:

What about Muslim sympathy for terrorism? Many charge that Islam encourages violence more than other faiths, but studies show that Muslims around the world are at least as likely as Americans to condemn attacks on civilians. Polls show that 6% of the American public thinks attacks in which civilians are targets are “completely justified.” In Saudi Arabia, this figure is 4%. In Lebanon and Iran, it’s 2%.

While the Dalai Lama has gotten a lot of flack for urging moderation and nonviolence, another Buddhist monk embraces violence as necessary to defend the people against Sri Lanka’s rebels.

“Am I an extremist? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not,” Rathana said over green tea, when asked about reports from foreign human rights groups that accuse his party of hindering peace talks. “The point is that we need to end this war. And we are forced into a military solution.”

(via Passport)

In last weekend’s New York Times Magazine Paul Wachter has an interesting history of mixed martial arts fighting and one such fighter.

I asked Smith why he spent so much of his youth looking for trouble. I expected some sort of clichéd, though possibly true, explanation — a difficult childhood or a Napoleon complex. What I didn’t expect him to say was, “You know, bro, the sexual-preference thing.”

Smith is gay, and I know of no other professional fighter who is openly so. “I was always scared that my mom and dad would find out and wouldn’t like me, and my brothers wouldn’t like me,” he said. “I was petrified, because I didn’t want anyone to find out. And I would try to be the toughest person around. That way, no one would suspect, no one would ever say it, no one would think it.”

Foreign Policy’s Passport examines the recent violence in Chechnya.

Russia has maintained order in Chechnya largely by arming [Chechnyan President Ramzan] Kadyrov and his fellow ex-rebels, an approach not unlike the U.S.’s “Anbar awakening” strategy in Iraq. According to Reuters, Russian military analysts now worry that they may have created a force they can’t control if Kadyrov’s loyalties shift. Kadyrov is a staunch Putinist (he even delivered a dubious 99.5 percent voter turnout for the ruling party in parliamentary elections), but could he turn against his bosses in Moscow with Medvedev in power? Bernstein doesn’t see this as likely. In fact, Kadyrov is probably quite satisfied with Putin’s choic.

A interesting/troubling study:

A new study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that three-strikes laws like California’s, while discouraging criminals from doing things like smoking pot or shoplifting, may push those who do continue in a life of crime to commit more violent offenses. The study’s author, Radha Iyengar, argues that this is because under such laws, felons with a pair of strikes against them have little to lose (and often much to gain) by committing serious crimes rather than minor offenses.

I don’t know how I missed this. Apparently the LA Times ran a story this morning that said, essentially, they’ve got more evidence that Sean ‘P Diddy’ Colmes knew in advance about the 1994 shooting and assault of Tupac Shakur. I didn’t see it ‘til this story showed up on my radar. Whether the Times is right or not, it’s interesting to see the story coming up again 14 years later. And it’s a reminder of this fact:

On Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Six months later, the Notorious B.I.G. was shot dead in Los Angeles, also in a drive-by. No one has been charged in either slaying.

EDIT (3/26/2008): The Smoking Gun is calling the “new documents” forgeries. The Times promises to investigate. (via DF)

James Fallows, who happens to be living in China, has an interesting piece about how the Chinese press has handled the Tibetan violence. This bit was especially useful for me:

In judging popular reaction in China to this episode, bear in that mind few ordinary Chinese people have even been exposed to the idea that Tibet’s place within their country is controversial in any way. In the ordinary course of going to school and reading newspapers or watching TV, they would hear that Tibet, much like the largely Islamic Xinjiang region and other frontier parts of China, is an ancient, inseparable, happily integrated part of the motherland, whose tranquility is threatened from time to time by hooligans or even terrorists. History books, TV series, museum displays, and of course newspaper articles like this one convey the message.

I’ve rather ignored this story. A protest by Tibetan monks wasn’t that surprising to me, and that China would do it’s best to suppress it certainly wasn’t. This morning, I woke up — both literally and figuratively — and began paying attention. Says Reuters:

Protesters in Tibet’s capital Lhasa burnt shops and vehicles and yelled for independence on Friday as the region was hit by protests, prompting the Dalai Lama to urge Beijing to stop “brute force.”

Peaceful street marches by Tibetan Buddhist monks over past days gave way to the biggest and angriest demonstrations the remote, mountainous region has seen in nearly two decades, with anti-riot police patrolling the streets just months before the Beijing Olympics.

“Now it’s very chaotic outside,” an ethnic Tibetan resident said by telephone. “People have been burning cars and motorbikes and buses. There is smoke everywhere and they have been throwing rocks and breaking windows. We’re scared.”

This seems to have an eerie similarity to Burma, I do hope it ends differently. Also, I should note that it’s Mr. Fallows who made me really wake up, saying this:

But as you follow the news, be aware that this is something that could matter a great deal in many ways. More later.

The Christian Science Monitor tells of increasing vigilante violence in Mozambique. It all seems to share some similarities with the just-resolved conflict in Kenya.

Rising crime and vigilante justice are quickly becoming serious problems for this donor darling, long considered a stable, postconflict African success story.

The violence reflects growing inequality and increasing mistrust of authorities, observers say – sentiments often hidden beneath widely praised macroeconomic figures showing consistent growth.

“When people do not have trust in the system, when people do not feel that they are part and parcel of problem-solving, they organize themselves,” says Themba Masuku, a senior researcher at the Centre for Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg, South Africa, who has studied vigilante justice. “And they take the law into their own hands.”

More bad news:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday suspended peace talks with Israel following a spasm of violence in the Gaza Strip that has left more than 100 Palestinians dead since Wednesday as Hamas has continued its campaign of rocket strikes.

The Economist’s Charlemagne column has a fun way to judge Europe and understand it in contrast to the rest of the world. It’s an entertaining thought, even if sometimes feels like a stretch.

In the hunt for a distinctive European identity, consider toy brands, such as Denmark’s Lego or Germany’s Playmobil.

These firms may be dwarfed in America by titans like Mattel, but in Europe they are cultural giants, vying for top spots in markets such as France and Germany. In their designs, business models and philosophies, they offer a striking snapshot of European aspirations, anxieties and foibles. (Tellingly, toy bosses see Britain as a case apart, closer to the American market in taste, and showing what they call an “Anglo-Saxon” fondness for heavily marketed novelties tied to films or television.)

Last week’s New York magazine had an interesting story examining what it would take to reduce New York’s murder rate — currently lower than it’s ever been — all the way to zero.

There is ultimately no such thing as an irreducible level of violence in the city—violent crime can always go lower. It’s a matter of deciding what costs we’re willing to incur, how much Big Brother we’re willing to let into our lives, how much faith we put in science to curb the excesses of human behavior. Trying nothing new would be the easiest way forward. Surprisingly, that’s a strategy worth deeper consideration.

The BBC is reporting:

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki says he is ready to form a government of national unity, an official statement said. […]

But opposition leader Raila Odinga says Mr Kibaki must step down as president and that his preferred option remains for new elections to be held.

I have no doubt that this comes after at least some outside pressure. And though it’s clearly not the best outcome (which would be a truly fair election), it could certainly be better than continued violence and ethnic conflict.