Skøre Økonom

(vía 1993-2012-deactivated20120314)

(vía 1993-2012-deactivated20120314)

elguindilla:

El congreso español vota la reforma constitucional

(vía originalmaja)

Hessel: Hay que inventar una nueva democracia

Este señor que está a punto de cumplir 94 años, que ha pasado por campos de concentración, que ha sido torturado y que ha combatido clandestinamente contra los nazis, cree en el futuro. Por la larga vida de Stéphane Hessel ha pasado la apisonadora de la historia del XX. Y ya sabemos que fue un siglo pródigo en espantos totalitarios. Quizá para compensarlo fue asimismo un siglo memorable por sus conquistas. Hessel, también aquí en primera fila, asistió a la gestación de algo extremadamente vital: la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos.

Este señor al que le sobran razones para odiar o llorar ha decidido sonreír todo el rato, como reiteró de nuevo esta mañana en Madrid. “Lo que caracteriza mi vida es la suerte. He sido sumamente afortunado. He pasado por cosas que han salido mal y he logrado salir indemne”. He aquí a un optimista irredento, que decidió abrazar la esperanza y no dejarse arrastrar por la oscuridad que acabó con un gran amigo de su padre y gran pensador europeo, Walter Benjamin, el filósofo que acabó suicidándose en 1940, mientras huía del nazismo, y que creía que el progreso era un huracán destructor.

Este señor que escribió un panfleto (¡Indignaos!), al que luego siguió otro (¡Comprometeos!) y al que sucederá un tercero en breve, al alimón con el filósofo Edgar Morin -publicados en España por Destino-, ha dado cauce teórico a un descontento que ya ha vivido alguna crecida. Le toman en serio porque antes de la teoría se dedicó a dar lecciones prácticas.

Este señor está hoy en Madrid para dar respuestas. No tiene todas las respuestas, claro. Hessel, doblemente sabio por diplomático y mayor, avisa que desconoce realidades con la concreción que se necesita para posicionarse. Pero en la expectante rueda de prensa que ha dado esta mañana en Círculo de Lectores no elude ninguna pregunta. Desgrana sus recetas universales: hay que despedirse de la era Reagan y Thatcher en la que vivimos, hay que apoyar nuevos movimientos democráticos y votar por los partidos que más se acerquen a la defensa de la democracia y la igualdad social. “Hay que empezar por usar las fuerzas que ya existen en las próximas elecciones en Francia, España y Alemania, no vale decir que todos son iguales y me abstengo, y luego hay que apoyar a los nuevos movimientos”, apeló antes de explicar que, en su país, respalda al partido socialista. Tampoco tuvo empacho en confesar sus simpatías por el presidente José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero -y por mostrar esperanza ante Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, “quizás sea otro gran líder”- y en recomendar que se combata activamente a los partidos que van en dirección contraria al refuerzo de la democracia y la solidaridad. ¿Cómo? Con el voto. Al 15-M, el movimiento español que enarboló su manifiesto como un estandarte, le augura larga vida. Dos de sus representantes, Óscar Rivas y Fabio Gándara, se sentaron hoy en primera fila para escucharle y preguntarle. Le veían por primera vez. Gándara leyó el texto recomendado en las redes sociales cuando ya se preparaba el 15-M: “Me sirvió para saber que había gente con un bagaje vital enorme, que ha vivido el siglo XX, y que defiende lo mismo que nosotros”. Rivas lo hizo unos meses antes, asaltado por el panfleto en una librería: “No fue un libro de descubrimiento, pero sí de confirmación”.

Este señor que ha pertenecido al status quo (fue diplomático) se atreve a decir cosas contra el sistema: “Hay que inventar una nueva democracia”, “No podemos aceptar este FMI incapaz de resolver el problema de la deuda”, “Cuando la legalidad democrática choca contra la legitimidad democrática es válido recurrir a la desobediencia civil”, “La excesiva presión de los mercados y el poder financiero han hecho que los gobiernos actúen de espaldas a su pueblo”.

Este señor de manos grandes y ojos diminutos no cree que merezca ser candidato al premio Nobel de la Paz, por mucho que le halague la propuesta. Probablemente se compare con Franklin D. Rooselvet, a quien le agradece cada vez que puede la Declaración de los Derechos Humanos, y piense que sus opúsculos son poca cosa.

http://goo.gl/pVMZU

Huracán Irene

(vía sacatraca-deactivated20120324)

(vía elguindilla)

(vía sacatraca-deactivated20120324)

Después de un mes de agosto apático y sin pasarme por la magnífica Pro-Syn me quito el sombrero ante el artículo del gran Jeffrey D. Sachs

Famine and Hope in the Horn of Africa

Yet again, famine stalks the Horn of Africa. More than ten million people are fighting for survival, mainly pastoralist communities in the hyper-arid regions of Somalia, Ethiopia, and northern Kenya. Every day brings news of more deaths and massive inflows of starving people into refugee camps in Kenya, across the border from Somalia.

The immediate cause of this disaster is clear: the rains have failed for two years running in the dry regions of East Africa. These are places where water is so scarce year after year that crop production is marginal at best. Millions of households, with tens of millions of nomadic or semi-nomadic people, tend camels, sheep, goats, and other livestock, which they move large distances to reach rain-fed pasturelands. When the rains fail, the grasses shrivel, the livestock die, and communities face starvation.

Pastoralism has long been a harrowing existence in the Horn of Africa. The location of life-supporting pasturelands is determined by the unstable and largely unpredictable rains, rather than by political boundaries. Yet we live in an era when political boundaries, not the lives of nomadic pastoralists, are sacrosanct. These boundaries, together with growing populations of sedentary farmers, have hemmed in pastoralist communities.

The political boundaries exist as a legacy of the colonial era, not as the result of cultural realities and economic needs. Somalia, for example, contains only a part of the Somali-speaking pastoralist population, with large numbers living across the border in Kenya and Ethiopia. As a result, the Ethiopian-Somalia border has been war-torn for decades. 

A massive drought this year was not exactly predictable, but the risk of famine was easily foreseeable. Indeed, two years ago, in a meeting with US President Barack Obama, I described the vulnerability of the African drylands. When the rains fail there, wars begin. I showed Obama a map from my book Common Wealth, which depicts the overlap of dryland climates and conflict zones. I noted to him that the region urgently requires a development strategy, not a military approach.

Obama responded that the US Congress would not support a major development effort for the drylands. “Find me another 100 votes in Congress,” he said.

I don’t know whether Obama’s leadership might have found those votes, but I do know that the US has not mustered the national effort to respond effectively to the Horn of Africa’s needs. The US is far too focused on expensive and failed military approaches in the drylands – whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia – to pay heed to long-term economic development strategies aimed at addressing the root causes of these countries’ ongoing crises.

This year’s drought came at a time of political and economic turmoil in both the US and Europe. America’s distorted political system gives the rich everything they want in the form of tax cuts, while slashing programs for the poor. There is no interest in Washington, DC, in addressing the needs of America’s poor, much less the needs of the world’s poor.

In Europe, the global financial crisis of 2008 left a legacy of deep political and economic crisis in the weaker economies of Southern Europe. This crisis absorbed almost all of the European Union’s political attention this summer, even as famine in Africa has worsened.

The unfolding disaster in the Horn of Africa will not solve itself, and four factors make the situation potentially explosive. First, long-term human-induced climate change seems to be bringing more droughts and climate instability. The US and Europe are not only failing to respond to the African drought; they have probably contributed to it through their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Second, fertility rates and population growth in the Horn of Africa continue to be extremely high, even as children perish in the famine. Unless and until widespread family planning and modern contraceptive services are established, expanding populations in the Horn of Africa will crash against a harsher future climate. Third, the region is already living in extreme poverty, so adverse shocks push it toward calamity. And, finally, regional politics is highly unstable, leaving the Horn extremely vulnerable to conflict.

But there is still realistic hope. The Millennium Villages Project, which I have the honor of helping to lead, has demonstrated that pastoralist communities can be empowered through targeted investments in livestock management, veterinary care, business development, mobile health clinics, boarding schools, and local infrastructure such as safe water points, off-grid electricity, and mobile telephony. Cutting-edge technologies, together with strong community leadership, can unlock long-term sustainable development.

The countries of the Horn of Africa are now stepping forward to help themselves through this approach. Six countries in the region with large dryland zones – Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, and South Sudan – have joined together in a Drylands Initiative to use best practices and cutting-edge technologies to support their pastoralist communities’ effort to escape the scourges of extreme poverty and famine. Many companies, such as Ericsson, Airtel, Novartis, and Sumitomo Chemical, are participating in this effort by making their technologies available to impoverished pastoralist communities.

A new regional partnership is starting to take hold, beginning with the affected communities and their national governments. Several countries in the Arabian Peninsula, just across the Red Sea from the Horn, are also showing an encouraging readiness to deploy their oil earnings for emergency relief and long-term development. The Islamic Development Bank, representing the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is also showing leadership. Through this new partnership of communities, governments, businesses, and academia, the current crisis could yet mark the start of regional recovery and development.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs180/English