Hallyu - Korean Wave Stays South

By Cyndi Poon | February 25, 2010

Korean pop culture has taken the world by a storm. Hallyu, Korean term for the Korean wave or Korean fever, aptly describes the recent mass exportation of television dramas, films, and music coming out of South Korea. Originally a term coined for the influence of South Korea on goods in China, the Korean wave has been revived by the facilitation of the Internet, which has allowed the South Korea media to reach a wide audience stretching from all across Asia and even to North America. Examples of such: Korean actor Rain starring in the movie “Ninja Assassin”, Wondergirls, a Korean girl group, in concert with the Jonas Brothers, and massive amounts of Korean videos on YouTube, just to name a few.
Note that the Korean exportation is restricted entirely to South Korea. The North Korean government continues to uphold its title for having the most controlled media. Last month, an American missionary was detained for illegal entrance into North Korea. Last year, Bill Clinton had to personally make a visit to North Korea to bring back two Korean-American journalists. The North Korea government prohibits listening to foreign media broadcasts and all external media is highly restricted within Korea. South Korea is a presidential republic while North Korea remains a socialist republic. All that separates the two is a “DMZ”, de-militarized zone, a heavily guarded border. It is shocking how these two neighboring countries sharing the name Korea differ so widely in control of media.
http://countrystudies.us/north-korea/64.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/27/nkorea.us/index.html
http://www.koreasociety.org/culture_policy_society/culture_policy_society/hallyu_korean_pop_culture_sweeps_across_asia.html

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Who said organic farming is better?

By Anna Garcia Gomozova | February 11, 2010

Organic agriculture is one of the fastest growing segments of the food industry in the United States. People prefer organic food because it is healthier and safer. The organic label we see on the product package makes us feel confident that the food was grown under appropriate environmental standards. It does not ensure, however, that it was produced with sustainable agricultural practice.

Worker abuse is widespread in organic farms. There is a common misperception that because organic agriculture forbids the use of toxic pesticides, it is better for farmworkers than conventional agriculture. In fact, organic agriculture is an industry where 30 percent of all farmworker families earn less than $10,000 a year, 24 percent live below the poverty line and 70 percent do not have health insurance (California Institute for Rural Studies). According to researchers at UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, a majority of 188 California organic farms do not pay a living wage or provide medical or retirement plans (http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/).

“The exploitative conditions that farmworkers face in the U.S. are abysmal - it’s a human-rights crisis,” says Richard Mandelbaum, policy analyst at the Farmworker Support Committee. “In terms of wages and labor rights, there’s really no difference between organic and conventional” (Herro).

The organic farming movement started in 1960 with good intentions. The pioneers of organic farming had a broad vision of sustainable agriculture, where not only land had to be treated well, but also the workers and animals on that land. Things changed over time. Giant food-processing corporations arose, seeking for profit and expansion, and all attention was directed towards the benefits of organic farming to consumers (chemical-free foods) and to farmers (price premiums). There has been very little attention given to the backbone of the organic agriculture – farmworkers. Organic farming is now a $14 billion industry in the U.S, but the profits go to retailers and wholesalers higher up the food chain (Grow).

Irv Hershenbaum, a United Farm Workers (UFW) leader, devoted much of his life to the farm labor movement. While workers on organic farms are not exposed to toxic pesticides, he argues, they, like their counterparts on conventional farms, work without the basic protections. “They are working in the 21st century with 19th century working conditions,” he asserts (Newman).

The Domestic Fair Trade Working Group is now developing a single set of labor standards for farmworkers, to include a living wage for farmworkers, fair prices for farmers, transparent business practices, and family farm ownership (www.foodforthought.com). They are also working on a seal that consumers can trust to ensure that workers are treated right.

Herro, Alana. “U.S. Organic Farmers Feeling the Squeeze at Both Ends.”

Labor Center. 22 Nov. 2009 <http://laborcenter.evergreen.edu/docs/Readers’%20Corner/Farm%20Workers/U.S.%20Organic%20Farmers%20Feeling%20the%20Squeeze%20at%20Both%20Ends.doc>.

Grow, Shelley and Catherine Greene. “Impact of international organic markets on small U.S. producers.” EAAE. 10 Nov. 2009 <http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/7862/1/cp070014.pdf>.

Newman, Sarah. “Ugly Truth behind Organic Food.” AlterNet. 11 Nov. 2009 <http://www.alternet.org/environment/140001/the_ugly_truth_behind_organic_food/>.

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Media Coverage of the Earthquake in Haiti

By Adrienne DiTommaso |

Hours after the7.0 earthquake ravaged the Haitian city of Port au Prince, footage of the carnage and devastation flooded American television. For more than five straight days, it was impossible to turn to a major news station to hear about the troubled healthcare reform bill or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan; all eyes were on Haiti. Images of crushed bodies and weeping mothers mourning for lost children streamed into living rooms across the nation. We were shown every demolished building, every ruined livelihood, every iota of destruction that could be filmed, and then some. A natural disaster of such size had not been recorded in the region in over 200 years. The magnitude of the disaster, in concert with the country’s tenuous infrastructure and lack of comprehensive disaster plan, created a situation that placed global communications in unorthodox, and at times, controversial roles.

The media coverage of the earthquake in Haiti exemplified the dilemmas of reporting on natural disaster. Though television and newspaper coverage serves a traditional informative role that facilitates empathy and altruism, news networks and reporters walk a tenuous line between sensationalistic exploitation and responsible, well rounded coverage of critical situations. Of course, there was no dearth of reporting focused on the chaos of bereavement. The fecund supply of attention grabbing video and sound bites that resulted from the sheer shock and horror of such a disaster surely increased viewership (and thus network profits). An example of such reporting was the ethnocentric focus of some networks on U.S. rescue efforts, which minimized the critical role of international response and worldwide relief efforts. Understandably, the images and words flowing from Haiti struck a nerve in an American public who had only recently suffered the ravages of Hurricane Katrina: monetary aid, medical assistance, rescue teams, and mission workers flooded the country from empathetic Americans. However, less heralded were similar efforts that poured in from countries such as Iceland, who sent some of the first rescue teams to Port au Prince, and from Qatar, Syria and Turkey, whose rescue efforts were largely ignored by mainstream media.

Beyond the responsibilities of communicating need for aid, the role of the reporter and journalist is thrown into critical question during such times of intense upheaval. Ethnic news organization New America Media explains one interpretation of the issue: “A journalist is first and foremost a human being; a physician-journalist is a doctor first,” CNN’s Sanjay Gupta noted after his network aired a four-minute segment in which the neurologist and commentator treated 15-day-old infant for a head injury. The problem that some experts in journalism have pointed out is that this, when it becomes commonplace, seems not only to blur the journalist’s task of independent observation, but also becomes a marketing weapon,”. A similar scene occurred with renowned journalist Anderson Cooper, who aided a disoriented child who had been struck in the head with a rock thrown by a looter. “We don’t know what happened to that little boy,” Cooper says solemnly. “All we know now is, there’s blood in the streets,”. Such poetic, overly dramatic statements not only critically impact perception of life post-disaster, but mutate the role of the reporter into half aid worker, half journalist. The problem here is that the level of disinterestedness and objectivity required by reporters is fundamentally at odds with the level of involvement of aid workers. Yet many reporters balk at the idea of abandoning what seems to be a moral obligation to assist people in need. The role of journalists and reporters in such situations is sure to be a source of debate well into the future.

Another consideration, perennially a hot topic in discussions of media responsibility, is that of the two-dimensionality that results when sensationalist stories of death and destruction are the main focus of reporting. As journalism professor Robert Jensen of University of Texas at Austin explains, “This is great television, but it’s not great journalism. In fact, it’s irresponsible journalism…the absence of crucial historical and political context …the facts, analysis, and opinion that U.S. citizens need to understand these events are rarely provided. For example, in the past week we’ve heard journalists repeat endlessly the observation that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Did it ever occur to editors to assign reporters to ask why?”. In fact, UN personnel in Haiti said they were “demoralized” by the media’s limited scope of reporting. UN Spokesman for Haiti David Wimhurst iterates the point; “news is all about conflict, but some people come looking for a conflict. We need stronger solidarity in the media and to stop these unfair attacks in newspapers… when working through this exhaustion, the UN is trying to help, and staff see nothing but criticism in newspapers. The media need to try and look at this (crisis) in a holistic way”.

Clearly, natural disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti call for a departure from the typical modus operandi of reporting and journalism as these are not every day events. In order to effectively articulate a complete picture of such situations, reporters and journalists are positioned in situations that often force them to push the accepted boundaries of their discipline. In combination with the ambivalence-inducing mixture of emotionalism and reality being reported from the ground, it’s no wonder that so many critics decry the media coverage of natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti.

“Haiti Earthquake Calls Role Of Journalists Into Question”, http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=fb49866bd56f9265e759db402cbd1a3d

“Haiti Earthquake Calls Role Of Journalists Into Question”, http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=fb49866bd56f9265e759db402cbd1a3d

OpEdNews.com, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Great-television-bad-journ-by-Robert-Jensen-100125-939.html

OpEdNews.com, http://www.opednews.com/articles/Great-television-bad-journ-by-Robert-Jensen-100125-939.html

“UN Staff Say Media Irresponsible In Their Reports On Haiti”, http://talkradionews.com/2010/01/un-staff-say-media-irresponsible-in-their-reports-on-haiti/

“UN Staff Say Media Irresponsible In Their Reports On Haiti”, http://talkradionews.com/2010/01/un-staff-say-media-irresponsible-in-their-reports-on-haiti/

Other sources:

“Haiti Reporting Controversy”, http://multimedia.play.it/m/audio/28435584/haiti-s-controversial-coverage.htm

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A Women’s Right to Choose (Education, Career, Politicians, Food, Religion…)

By Caitlin Augustin |

The informal slogan of the Decade of Women became “Women do two-thirds of the world’s work, receive 10 percent of the world’s income and own 1 percent of the means of production” (1). A global indicator of economic advancement and growth is women’s rights. The oppression of women worldwide is “the paramount moral challenge” of the present era, much as the fight against slavery was in the past. There has been a significant lack of progress in women’s rights during the past century–women still do more work, live deeper in poverty, are victimized in more sex crimes, and suffer greater health risks.

Women have more potential for employment today than in history–overall, women occupy almost 40% of all paid jobs outside agriculture, a growth of over 5% since 1990. Worldwide, women are disproportionately represented in part-time, seasonal, and short-term jobs that lack security, pension, and medical benefits. Additionally, nearly 2/3 of women in the developing world work in vulnerable or unpaid family jobs where funds are scarce, and in parts of Asia and Africa, this accounts for 80% of all jobs for women. (2)

Worldwide, women have been subjected to systematic oppression of poverty. It has influenced women’s lives more than any other factor over the last decade. In a study carried out over 20 years up to 1990, the number of rural women in poverty has increased by 50 per cent, reaching an awesome 565 million, while that of men has grown by 30 per cent to about 400 million (3). This is not limited to developing nations, but indeed to poor, or low income families across the globe. Within the United States, nearly 50% of all poor families are supported by women with no spouse present, and their average income is 23 per cent below the official poverty line. This poverty is cyclical due to the lack of education for females.

In countries where low retention rates are common, it is female students that fail to stay in school. Key problems are lack of separate restroom facilities, private restroom and changing facilities, required labor at home, and high incidences of teenage marriage and pregnancy. While problems such as food shortages, armed conflict, lack of birth certificates and diseases such as HIV/AIDS have a devastating affect on both male and female students, it is girls who are hardest hit.

Education also plays a key role in the internationally unmet need to provide family planning – the gap between women’s stated desires to delay or avoid having children and their actual use of contraception. This lack of family planning directly contributes to the continuing high fertility rate in the majority world and has undermined related goals, such as reducing child mortality, hunger and malnutrition, and increasing primary education enrollment. In all regions, this unmet need is highest among the poorest households. This is most pronounced in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 27% of the poorest households have an unmet need for family planning compared to 12 % of the wealthiest households (4). A dangerous side affect of this is that women who are trafficked in the sex industry or are victims of sexual crimes do not have the vital recourses and options that we in the developed world are offered.

Progress has been made in some areas–microfinance is a positive example of the impact of investing in women. Noeleen Heyzer, executive director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) stated “We have learned that when women gain economic autonomy, the health, nutrition and education of other members of the household, especially children, improve at the same time” (5). A second area of progress arose in politics, where women occupy at least 30 per cent of parliamentary seats in 20 countries, although none of these countries are in Asia.

Women are a disenfranchised minoriy, and though progress has been made, we who have the voice and means to champion their cause must accept the call to arms, and awaken this enormous humanitarian issue.

(1) Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999), p. 354
(2) Rosemarie Tong, Long-Term Care for the Elderly Worldwide: Whose Responsibility is It? International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics - Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2009, pp. 5-30
(3) ‘On women and poverty in developing countries’ - a paper by Dr Idriss Jazairy of ACORD, 1995.
(4) The Millenium Development Goals Report, http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2008/MDG_Report_2008_En.pdf
(5) The Millenium Development Goals Report

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When Temps Become Permanent: The Turkish Labor Migrants Who Stayed in Germany

By Adam Weinstein |

Germany like many central European countries is an ethnically homogenous country by American standards, with over 90% of its population being comprised of ethnic Germans. However, its single largest minority is not from a bordering nation, but rather from one over a thousand miles away, Turkey. Turks make up roughly 2.4% of the German population and while this is a small percentage, much of it is concentrated in Berlin where a Turkish presence is very much felt. Turks first began mass immigration to Germany in the 1960s to flee a Turkey with few employment prospects. This immigration was at first welcomed in Germany which had a shortage of workers in part do the restrictive flow on labor the Berlin Wall caused. Studies have shown that the number of Turkish workers in Germany have risen and fallen with cycles of recessions and booms in the economy. Foreign workers such as Turks have been more efficient because they produce far more goods than they consume. However, with these cycles have also come discrimination. For example, in 1973 when German nationals themselves were out of work, businesses had to prove they weren’t able to hire a German national before hiring a foreign worker.

Besides resentment from domestic workers, another large obstacle in front of all foreign workers is how their children, who become the first generation of their new country, join the workforce. As with many Latino immigrants groups in America, the dropout rate for Turks in Germany from secondary education is higher than the country’s average. Unlike America, where very few high school dropouts or graduates attend any type of job training, around 75% of high school dropouts and non degree-seeking high school graduates receive job training in Germany. However, in Germany young Turkish men in particular continue to seek job training in menial low-skilled labor as opposed to more technical training or higher education and their participation in apprenticeships has consistently been lower than the other main immigrant groups in Germany, with the exception of the Greeks (however this is partly due to the fact that Greek youths in Germany are more likely to participate in a family enterprise).

Among Turkish students who do make it past the cyclical patter of menial labor and go to universities in Germany, there is a serious interest in science and engineering. Engineering is the single most popular field of study for Turkish students in Germany. While German primary and high schools are praised for producing better scores than their American counterparts, they are criticized for pre-classifying their students based on ethnicity. German high schools known as gymnasiums send a student on a path towards college. While in American high schools classes of various levels are offered, in Germany, students who are destined to be laborers are sent to an entirely different high school altogether known as a hauptschule. In the past, and to some extent to this day, it has been claimed that Turkish students are disproportionately sent to lower quality high schools. Interviews conducted with university professors in Germany have also found that many faculty members feel the Turkish students are not capable of competing at the university level yet.

While Turks who began primarily as migratory workers in the 1960s have become permanent residents of Germany, integration remains in the distance. In the United States the majority of Turks study in universities and work in scientific fields, however they are also much less a permanent community than they are in Germany, with only a few enclaves existing in places like Chicago. According to a poll conducted by the Liljeberg Research Institute, 45% of Turks feel that Germany does not want them.

Faist, Thomas. “States, Markets, and Immigrant Minorities: Second-Generation Turks in Germany and Mexican-Americans in the United States in the 1980s.” Comparative Politics 26.4 (1994): 439-60. Print.

“Germany.” CIA World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency, 19 Jan. 2010. Web.

James, Kyle. “Survey finds many Turks in Germany feel ‘unwanted’” Deutche Welle. 11 Nov. 2009. Web.

Kahn, Patricia. “Germany’s Turks Struggle into Science.” American Association for the Advancement of Science 262.5136 (1993): 1103-105. Print.

White, Jenny. “Turks in the New Germany.” American Anthropologist 99.4 (1997): 754-69. Print.

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Refugees: Protection Of and Protection Against

By Cyndi Poon | February 10, 2010

What do you do when refugees come knocking on your doors? Would you treat them the same as illegal immigrants? According to the United Nations, refugees are people “who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership or a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it…”[1] This means that they can not simply be turned back around. They no longer have homes or a country to go back to.

Accepting refugees requires more than donations and sympathy. These people will need new homes, jobs and federal aid to help get them back on their feet. The United States’ controversial policy towards Haitian illegal immigrants, which consisted of quicker deportation than other similar illegal immigrant groups, has been suspended due to the 7.0 earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, January 12th in Haiti. In addition, a Temporary Protected Status has been granted to the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 illegal Haitians in the United States which would allow them to work in the United States for the next 18 months. [2]

Prior to the earthquake, Haitians fled the island of civil instability and economic catastrophe. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is separated from Florida by 600 mile of shark-infested waters.[3] The earthquake sparks fear of a wave of refugees heading for the United States.

Homeland Security encourages efforts to help Haitians stay and rebuild their island and discourages Haitians from attempting to leave the island. 300,000 people have been left homeless from the earthquake. [4]

Environmental refugees, those displaced because of environmental problems such as Haiti’s earthquake, are not considered as “refugee” in international law. Due to the fear of illegal immigrants, refugees have a harder timer finding aid from the international community. Although many sympathize, nothing prevents refugees from representing the same problem as illegal immigrants afterwards, and despite good intentions, this obstacle hinders welcoming refugees with open arms.

[1] Achiron, Marilyn. “A Timeless Treaty UnderAttack.” Refugees 2.123 (2001): 6. Web. <http://www.unhcr.se/SE/Protect_refugees/pdf/magazine.pdf>.

[2] Gentile, Carmen. “Earthquake Leads U.S. to Relax Policy on Haitian Refugees.” Time 15 Jan 2010: n. pag. Web. <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_1953494_1954262,00.html>.

[3] Hsu, Spencer S. “Officials try to prevent Haitian earthquake refugees from coming to U.S..” Washington Post 18 Jan 2010, Print. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/17/AR2010011701893.html>

[4] Reitz, Sebastian. “Protection against refugees vs. refugee protection.” Eurosduvillage.eu 6 JAN 2010: n. pag. Web. <http://www.theeuros.eu/Protection-against-refugees-vs,3296>.

[5] Schlein, Lisa. “Haiti Earthquake Displaces 300,000.” Voice of America 15 Jan 2010: n. pag. Web. <http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/americas/Haiti-Earthquake-Displaces-300000-81723677.html>.

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African Immigrants in Italy

By Adrienne DiTommaso | February 7, 2010

On January 7th, years of tension and resentment between southern Italians and African immigrants boiled over into what Reuters calls, “The worst racial violence in Italy since WWII”. The popular world image of Italy, that of la dolce vita, had been shattered when locals of the Calabrian city of Rosarno purportedly attacked a group of African immigrants, who responded with violent riots that injured 71. Over 1,000 African immigrants were subsequently evacuated from the town, apparently to prevent further violence. Though the exposure of the xenophobia in Rosarno is disheartening at best, it is unfortunately symptomatic of larger tensions between African immigrants, who flock to Italy looking for work, and Italians, who are uneasy about the affect of such a large influx of immigrants on their culture.

According to the International Organization for Migration, foreign workers account for 9% of Italy’s GDP. Predominantly emigrating from African and East European nations in search of stable income to support loved ones back home, these migrant workers perform menial tasks such as fruit picking, waiting tables, and factory work. With wages averaging around $30US a day, accommodations are substandard, ranging from tent villages to converted factories, and sanitation is poor. Complicating the situation is the involvement of the Mafia through a chain gang-like system called caporolato. “It’s a military system,” says author and Mafia informant Roberto Saviano, “The farm and factory owners employ the Mafia caporali to bring the workers. The immigrants wait on the roads, the caporali pick them up and take them to the work. If they complain, they get killed,”. Despite the threats from the Mafia and disgruntled locals, the Italian government has adopted a hands-off approach. “It’s obvious they have let the Mafia freely do with the immigrants as they wish,” Saviano says. It seems that it will require more than riots to get the government involved, especially when that government is made up of politicians such as Minister of Reform and Northern League founder Umberto Bossi, who is on record as referring to African migrants as “bingo-bongos”.

Thus, Italy finds itself in an uncomfortable state of ambivalence, a predicament which countries such as Spain are also facing. Without these dependable sources of cheap labor, says IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo, “the Italian economic system would collapse,”. But the constant influx of African immigrants introduces a diversity that is unwelcome and chafing to the homogeneity of Italian culture. Though many Italians loathe the presence of the African immigrants and are not afraid to express this sentiment, these same Italians do not want to live without the services these immigrants provide. And from the immigrants’ side, though they cannot live without the jobs, the humiliation and discrimination is intolerable. “They are not like Italian workers, who will just leave if they don’t like it…these jobs are the best situation they can have,” says Saviano.

So what, if any, are possible solutions? Firstly, the Italian government must recognize the African immigrants as more than an economically necessary evil; the human rights of these people should become a number one priority. Furthermore, hegemonic and xenophobic policies and perceptions should be addressed from all angles and at all levels, in state and local governments, in schools, and in the media. More thorough attempts at integrating immigrants are essential for successful assimilation. Finally, dialogue between international entities facing this issue of explosive immigration should become a foreign policy priority. Possible solutions and strategies to use in dealing with this complex issue can no doubt be worked through discussion and diplomacy.

“Italy Race Riots Target African Immigrants”, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Italy-race-riots-target-African-immigrants–/articleshow/5434641.cms

“In Italy, Racial Tensions Explode into Violence”, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953064,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953064,00.html

“African Immigrants in Italy: A Shadow of Ethnic Cleansing?”, http://en.afrik.com/article16764.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953064,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953064,00.html

Other sources:

1. Caffentzis, George. Internationalizing the Struggle for Immigrant Rights: The Case of African Immigrants in Italy. Accessible at http://www.isanet.org

2. “Italy Repatriates African Immigrants”, http://www.euronews.net/2009/05/10/italy-repatriates-african-immigrants/

3. “Italy’s ‘Little Senegal’”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3622953.stm

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To Burqa Or Not To Burqa

By Kyle Fontaine |

On Tuesday, January 26th, a French Parliamentarian panel reported that Muslim women should not be allowed to wear Burqas in public [1]. This has been a contentious issue in France since 2004, when France outlawed the full body coverings in public schools. The possible new law is currently under intense debate in Parliament.

Nicolas Sarkozy made a strong stand against the Burqas in a speech before Parliament, the first such speech by a French president since the 19th century [2]. The reasons cited by Sarkozy and many others cover social as well as political concerns. The most contentious issue is that of women’s rights: many claim that the headdresses and covering garments supports the inferiority of women. Another common assertion made by other opponents of the Burqa say that it  is a security threat because it hinders facial recognition, making it easier to cover up bombs and other threats [3].

I understand these arguments, but I see a veil of ignorance and racism clouding issues of Muslim integration in France and concerns of security against the spike in fundamentalist terrorism in the past decade. In addressing social concerns, I have to ask, doesn’t telling a woman, especially one who chooses to dress in a Burqa for religious reasons, she can’t wear one infringe upon the rights of women? The French cannot claim that all 1,900 (.038 percent of France’s Muslim population) women who wear Burqas in France are forced to wear them, because it is, according to many translations of the Koran, a proscribed dress code for many Muslims. In fact, one respected translation says, “O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women to draw their outer garments around them when they go out or are among men.” [4]. This law would basically undermine the Islamic religion. It’s the same type of law that applies to the Sikh turban or Hasidic Jew’s garb [5]. The security constraint is also cast into doubt because logistically, how is a dress and a hoodie different from a Burqa? Along with that thought, most women who wore Burqas before they became illegal will either wear equally concealing clothes like a hoodie and dress or they will actually become imprisoned in their own homes (if they are being forced by fundamentalist men).

If France does pass this unfair law, it better be prepared to give money to women who regurlarly wear Burqas money for a new wardrobe and lots of sunscreen.

[1] Lauter, Devorah. “In France, Panel Recommends a Burka Ban.” The Los Angeles Times. 27 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. <http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/27/world/la-fg-france-veil27-2010jan27>.

[2] “Sarkozy Speaks Out Against Burka.” BBC NEWS. 22 June 2009. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8112821.stm>.

[3] Lauter

[4] “What the Koran Says.” Telegraph.co.uk. 6 Oct. 2006. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1530720/What-the-Koran-says.html>.

[5] “What’s Hiding Behind France’s Proposed Burqa Ban?” The Christian Science Monitor. 27 Jan. 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. <http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2010/0127/What-s-hiding-behind-France-s-proposed-burqa-ban>.

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The Unsweet Side of the Sugar Industry

By Adam Weinstein | February 2, 2010

Known by the Spanish names picadores and braceros, or by the name Kongos after an African tribe that was sent to the Caribbean as slaves, Haitian workers are the backbone of the sugar cane industry in the Dominican Republic. Sugar has been the traditional export of the area now known as the Dominican Republic and of the island of Hispaniola in general since the days of slavery. In the 1970’s sugar cane mills accounted for only 1.4% of the industrial complex but controlled 44% of the industrial sector’s capital. Sugarcane fields also use up nearly 40% of farmable land in the Dominican Republic. During the 1980s the Dominican Republic’s economy shifted towards a reliance on mining and tourism, but sugarcane is still the number one agriculture export.

The Dominican Republic has a high unemployment rate. As of 2008,14% of the country was unemployed. But this statistic doesn’t even account for underemployment which means that many Dominicans lack full-time work. However it has never been in the interest of the sugarcane “plantations” to employ native Dominicans if Haitians are available. One reason is simply that the sugarcane fields are in remote parts of the island where there is not a large population and the farmers who do exist there are usually subsistence farmers who are only interested in growing enough to feed their own families. But while that may account for some of the reliance on Haitians, the main reason is that the workers migrate, don’t form labor unions and are cheap. For example the Dominican Republic has a minimum wage of $4.00 per day for farm workers, but the average Haitian sugarcane worker makes $2.21.

Some Dominicans are employed in the sugarcane industry but they tend to have managerial positions in the field and usually make close to the minimum wage. The only real rise in cost for Haitian sugarcane workers is the sum of money to be paid to the government of Haiti. The Dominican Republic remains competitive in the international sugarcane market through keeping its workers rotating and paid a low rage to account for the low productivity in Dominican sugarcane fields. For example the average worker in Jamaica harvests seven tons a day and a Haitian worker in the Dominican Republic harvest a mere one and a half tons a day. But this is due to a lack of tools and technology not the quality of the workers.

The Haitian workers are employed in towns called bateyes that are analogous to the company-owned mining towns of 20th century Appalachia except with far more inhumane conditions. Many workers are paid in company vouchers which makes saving any capital impossible. The bateyes also have little infrastructure and don’t provide a humane quality of life. Most bateyes are state-run but some are private. The Dominican Republic and Haiti have made agreements since 1952 to send a specified number of Haitian workers to work the sugarcane fields seasonally, but many come illegally as well. It speaks volumes about the Haitian economy and life in general in Haiti that workers are willing to undergo slave-like conditions in Dominican bateyes in order to make slightly more money. In an article that was published in International Migration Review on the subject, Sherri Grasmuck wrote that it showed that there are “degrees in hell.”

 

Works Cited

Commission, Inter-American. Inter-American Yearbook on Human Rights. Anuario Interamericano de Derechos Humanos 1991. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1995. Print.

 

“Dominican Republic.” The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Web. 27 Nov. 2009.

 

Grasmuck, Sherri. “Migration within the Periphery: Haitian Labor in the Dominican Sugar and Coffee Industries.” International Migration Review 16.2 (1982): 365-77. Print.

 

Santana, Arismendi. “The Role of Haitian Braceros in Dominican Sugar Production.” Latin American Perspectives 3.1 (1976): 120-32. Print.

 

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Economic Hit Men

By Kyle Fontaine |

Economic hit men (EHMs) can be likened to the front lines of a battlefield. When an American corporation wants something from a country such as a resource or rights to a development project, it firsts enlists an economic hit man to try to secure its goal. They have several ways of accomplishing this means. The most common method involves inflating economic projections. An EHM will go into a country and use econometrics to show how investing a certain amount of money in infrastructure and similar projects would exponentially increase the state’s economy. The rate of increase could easily be made to show that it outpaces the debt incurred in order to guarantee a large loan from the IMF/World Bank/USAID. The conditions of the loan/contract would mean that the economic hit man’s home company would get the rights to the project and therefore make windfall profits. Then, the forecasts would turn out to be way too high and the borrowing country would be politically and economically indebted to America and the West. Another method of economic enslavement is to use these economic hit men to threaten leaders with guaranteed poverty versus development and U.S. political support. Of course, this tool was used very slyly, but nonetheless, even the most incorruptible leaders will give in to EHM demands when backed-up by the American government.

One case of successful economic manipulation exists within the scam of SAMA, or the Saudi Arabian Money-laundering Affair. After the oil embargo by OPEC and Saudi Arabia in the 1970’s, America’s mission was to ensure its oil supply, so that an embargo would never again be possible. So immediately after the embargo was lifted, the U.S. sent advisors and consultants into Saudi Arabia. Once there, their job was to show the Royal House of Saud how its country could use its oil wealth to help Saudi Arabia develop. Some high level diplomat or EHM negotiated a deal with the House of Saud that had basically four terms: 1) that Saudi Arabia would sell oil in only the U.S. dollar, thus guaranteeing the strength of the dollar. As long as oil existed as a sought after commodity, the dollar’s value would be tied to it and therefore be strong. 2) The interest on the dollars that the Saudis kept in U.S. banks also had to be used to pay either American or Saudi corporations to help develop Saudi Arabia. The interest on those billions of dollars guaranteed a rich source of income for firms like MAIN, Bechtel, and Halliburton for years to come. 3) American firms would be paid by the Saudis in an initial phase to jump-start the development of Saudi Arabia, bringing power and infrastructure to the entire country. 4) The U.S. would guarantee to support the Royal House of Saud in exchange of the promise to never put an oil embargo on the U.S. again. Whoever negotiated this deal with the House of Saud threatened the legitimacy of the House by the U.S. and promised to help orchestrate a coup if the plan was not agreed to. The U.S. helped convince the Saudis of the benefit of the deal, and they probably saw no other choice. Many EHMs were asked to come in and design thorough plans of what could be built. They wrote reports including garbage services, electricity, foreign labor, malls, schools, police stations, chemical plants, industrial parks, etc… Another huge goal of SAMA was to make industries with complex, technical, high-maintenance machinery. This promised even more profit for years to come because the Saudis would be unable to maintain the machinery MAIN would put in. This basically created a cycle of corporate exploitation and U.S. benefit.

“This empire, unlike any other in the history of the world, has been built primarily through economic manipulation, through cheating, through fraud, through seducing people into our way of life, through the economic hit men.” John Perkins, former EHM would know. The American corporatocracy prevails.

Works Cited:

Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco: Berrett Koehler, 2004. Print.

Perkins, John. The Secret History of the American Empire. New York: Dutton, 2007. Print.

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