Author

Eden Ballard

Environmental Change Print Article Youth

Young Chileans and the Fate of a Nation

This article originally appeared in The Generation Spring 2020 print edition. The theme for this edition is “Youth Voices.” A link to our online version of the print publication can be found here: https://www.flipsnack.com/thegen/the-generation-spring-2020.html

“But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.” Young climate phenom Greta Thunberg delivered this line in a speech at a Climate Action Summit at the United Nations on September 23, 2019¹. While Greta wrote this about the climate catastrophe that young people are doomed to inherit, this statement reflects an awareness that is spreading like wildfire (I am so sorry Australian and Californian readers) among young activists around the world. While older generations have had the luxury and the privilege of making decisions rooted in more short term reasoning, young people are constantly burdened by long term and structural issues that are quickly propelling them towards a variety of intolerable and even unsurvivable circumstances. This can be observed first hand in Chile. Recently, Thunberg shared a photo of current protests in Chile on her Instagram with the caption, “A beautiful sight. 1 million people in the streets of Santiago. My thoughts are with the people of Chile…”¹²

Chile, a long narrow country that winds down the Western coast of Latin America, is a relatively new democracy and no stranger to corruption. When the transition to a democractic state began in 1989, marked by the presidency of Patricio Aylwin, he quickly created the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation. In February of 1991 the Commission released the Rettig Report² on human rights violations committed during the preceding military rule which counted no less than 2,279 proved and registered “disappearances,” which conveniently silenced dissenters and people who spoke out against the regime. In the decades since, Chile has seen several iterations of student led protests that illustrate that younger generations are not settling for old habits.

The March of the Penguins – 2006

In 2006, students took to the streets in response to an announcement outlining an increase in fees related to their schooling and a restriction in the use of their transportation passes. The Guardian³ reported that these protests, referred to as The March of the Penguins, drew their strength from the internet and cell phones. The students had been using this emerging technology to “[rewrite] the rules of dissent with their ability instantly to organise marches and make collective decisions.” They also noted that the organizers had an average age of 16, with the youngest being no older than eleven, and all of whom “organise forums and debate the right to a free education, turning their break into a civics lesson.” The movement became much larger and ended up calling for structural changes in the Chilean education system. The protests grew violent and over a thousand students were arrested or injured. Public opinion about how the government handled the protests was highly critical and this paved the way for the students to ultimately be invited to join a presidential advisory committee where more long term changes could be discussed. Although there were no sudden or drastic changes, these protests were the first insight into what Chilean Youth could do when they united behind an issue.

Chilean Winter – 2011 to 2013

In August of 2011, student led protests broke out once again. A mere 5 years after the March of the Penguins, students called for a radical overhaul of the education system. The Nation said numbers reached over 60,000 and similarly to the 2006 protests, “the root of current protests, at least in part, is Chile’s neoliberal economic model…”⁶ Neoliberalism is rooted in deregulation policies while de-emphasizing any kind of state welfare programs. In Chile, this led to a huge disparity in quality of education that was available to those who had access to wealth and those who did not. Student protestors were calling for more direct state participation in secondary education and an end to the existence of profit in higher education. The protests spread up and down the country but turned violent. On August 4th, more than 900 people were arrested and nearly 100 police officers were injured from the outbursts of violence. Ultimately, the government and the students were able to work out a deal that brought the protests to a close.

Unlike previous protests, this round depended on Facebook and Twitter to rally support. A legacy from the days of Pinochet, this younger generation, raised in a democracy, was watching policies that predated them create a future that they didn’t want. People across the country took to the streets for “cacerolazos”⁵, a form of protests in which pots and pans are banged together. This form of dissent hadn’t been used since Pinochet was President, and now was being revived for a new kind of protest. Ordinary Chileans have staged nightly cacerolazos, or “saucepan protests”⁴ which was especially interesting because it complements the underlying dependency on technology that is needed to both organize and report on these protests. These protests mark a bridge between historical approaches to voicing dissent while combining with new forms of technology and communication channels that allowed the movement to gain momentum.

2019 Chilean Protests

As of writing this, in November of 2019, protests focused on income inequality have been pervasive throughout the country for roughly two months. Similarly to proceeding protests, the inciting action that spurred the protest is a microcosm of what the larger trends and issues at stake. It all started with a 0.30 peso ($0.04) raise in the cost of metro fare but protestors’ list of grievances includes the poor quality of public health care and education, low wages and rising cost of living, and meager pensions that Chileans receive in old age.13 These are not new issues. The problems faced in Chile are the result of policies that have been in place for decades. Ali H. Soufa, chief executive of The Soufan Group, a security intelligence agency told the New York Times, “It’s young people who have had enough. This new generation are not buying into what they see as the corrupt order of the political and economic elite in their own countries. They want a change.”⁷

Students have resorted to mass fare evasion by jumping over metro turnstiles and sometimes even destroying them.⁸These protests have crippled a vulnerable vein of Chilean infrastructure. Some two million people have been prevented from going to school or work⁹ – the protest has been all consuming throughout Chile.

These protests mark a bridge between historical approaches to voicing dissent while combining with new forms of technology and communication channels

The protests are not confined to a particular socioeconomic group. Hugo Millacoy González, a father and a mechanical engineer, said he was protesting the hike “so my son sees that [the government] can’t mock the people.”¹⁰

On October 25th, protestors marched in Santiago, the nation’s capital. Karla Rubilar, Mayor of Santiago, said the official crowd estimate was one million, and added that the crowd seemed to be feeling a mixture of sadness and hope.¹¹ This feeling seems to be echoed by movements around the world.

Young people continue to step up to fight battles bestowed upon them by preceding generations. Chile had previously been hailed as “one of the most orderly and stable countries in South America.”⁴ More recently, the New York Times has noted that “prosperity has accumulated mostly in the hands of a lucky few. As a result, Chile has one of the highest levels of economic inequality in the developed world.” And therein lies the source of the conflict. The $0.04 was the final paper straw. Ultimately, the people in power continue to be more and more disconnected to the population at large and this has caused significant and lasting unrest among the disgruntled civilians.

The current president, Sebastián Piñera, is a billionaire who was elected in 2017. When the protests broke out, he initially declared that the government was “at war” with the people. Since then, he has revised his positioning and said that his administration and its predecessors had failed to address the protestors legitimate grievances.¹³

For older Chileans, these issues may lack urgency in comparison to how Pinochet had treated people under his regime. But the young people who have instigated this mass protest have never known anything but democracy in the country. As such, their metric for what is normal and the standards they hold their government to are different than citizens who matured in the time of Pinochet. While empowered by this newfound freedom, the protestors have also learned from the mistakes of those who came before them. Unlike in 2006 and 2011, these protests remain peaceful. Additionally, the force of technology is stronger than it has been in the years of previous protests and functions as a check on the actions of the government. Any misconduct would spread instantaneously on social media channels and only further exacerbate existing critiques and frustration. The world is watching. And young Chileans continue to spearhead a movement that functions to reform structural failures that existed long before they did.

E N D N O T E S :

Thunberg, Greta. “If World Leaders Choose to Fail Us, My Generation Will Never Forgive Them | Greta Thunberg.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, September 23, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/23/world-leaders-generation-climate-breakdown-greta-thunberg.
“Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation.” United States Institute of Peace. September 23, 2019. https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/collections/truth_commissions/Chile90-Report/Chile90-Report.pdf
Franklin, Jonathan. “Protests Paralyse Chile’s Education System.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, June 7, 2006. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jun/07/chile.schoolsworldwide.
Long, Gideon. “Chile Student Protests Point to Deep Discontent.” BBC, August 11, 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14487555.
Christoff, Stefan. “Tactic: Cacerolazo.” Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution, 2019. https://beautifultrouble.org/tactic/cacerolazo/.
Langman, Jimmy. “Chile’s Explosion of Protest.” The Nation, October 12, 2011. https://www.thenation.com/article/chiles-explosion-protest/.
Walsh, Declan, and Max Fisher. “From Chile to Lebanon, Protests Flare Over Wallet Issues.” The New York Times, October 23, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/world/middleeast/global-protests.html.
McGowan, Charis. “Chile Protests: What Prompted the Unrest?” Al Jazeera, October 30, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/chile-protests-prompted-unrest-191022160029869.html.
https://time.com/5706700/chile-protests-violence/
Vergara, Eva. “Chile’s President Rolls Back Subway Fare Hike amid Protests.” ABC News, October 19, 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/soldiers-patrol-chilean-capital-violent-protests-66394561.
“Chilean Protestors Say Government Concession Is Not Enough.” The Washington Post. Accessed November 4, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/chile-protesters-government-concessions-not-enough/2019/10/24/8588611a-f6d0-11e9-b2d2-1f37c9d82dbb_story.html.
Thunberg, Greta (@gretathunberg). 2019. “A beautiful sight. 1 million people in the streets of Santiago. My thoughts are with the people of Chile. Horrific to follow the recent days’ developments….” Instagram, October 25, 2019. https://www.instagram.com/p/B4EOv4pJFW-/.
“Chile Learns the Price of Economic Inequality .” The New York Times, October 22, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/opinion/chile-protests.html?fbclid=IwAR3kTIWeqMxPM3ClE034Y6A9fnlYBv5e6NkLQy3_lDNag7Ybb2U_uU8z-nk.
“Chile Is Ready for a New Constitution.” The New York Times, November 18, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/opinion/chile-protests.html.

June 14, 2020 0 comment

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Asia Economics Featured Print Article Religion

New Age Yogis and the Commodification of Spirituality

written by Eden Ballard

This article was published as part of our Spring 2019 print edition, the entirety of which may be found here.

One of the most basic human instincts is to search for a sense of belonging. Often, this is found through religion; believing in a higher power or powers not only facilitates a sense of purpose in life but also helps people connect to one another. However, religion and spirituality are not as cut and dry as they used to be. The global market has had a drastic and transformative impact on belief systems for people all over the world. With religion decoupled from place, sacred things have become commodities that can be traded and adapted to accommodate various cultural demands and ultimately reflect local politics. This effect can be traced by looking at the practice of yoga, a historically spiritual practice that has been processed and transformed into a sellable good that has comfortably integrated into the global market.

A Brief History of Yoga

Today, yoga is worth up upwards of $80 billion[1]the global market as a result of classes, retreats, equipment sales, and associated products. Although its status as a commodity is fairly recent, yoga began being practiced in modern day India around 3000 BCE as a way to achieve harmony between the heart and soul on the path to divine enlightenment and provided a basis for what would stem into Buddhism and Hinduism. As the centuries have passed, yoga has traveled and evolved to fit the demands of markets around the world and now has dozens of variations. In the past, yoga emphasized mindfulness and connection through the pillars of love, kindness, and compassion. In contrast, modern yoga typically prioritizes health benefits over spiritual benefits… although some people embrace the spirituality as well. Even though this ancient practice has a relatively clear history[2], the political and spiritual components of modern yoga are strained and complex and thus, impossible to generalize.

Because of its intimate ties to religion, yoga has caused extensive discourse. The physical benefits of yoga are universally appealing to those who decide to pursue it but for some, practicing spirituality outside of their normal beliefs is unacceptable. This conflict is circumvented in several different ways including prohibiting the mindfulness and spiritual practices of yoga and focusing on it as a sport or adapting the names of the poses relative to the local cultures. These maneuvers have allowed yoga to be adapted into various markets all over the world and made into a global commodity. Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher, called people like the ones engineering these changes “cultural specialists” and explained that they “ransack various traditions and cultures in order to produce new interpretations and uses that can be consumed.” And consumed it is. Yoga, in various forms and interpretations, is taking off around the world.

Qualifying the Spirituality of Modern Yoga Practices

In many secular places, there is an inverse relationship between the number of people practicing yoga and popularity of organized religion. People that otherwise feel disconnected from the religions they were brought up with find the filtered spirituality of western yoga to be appealing. Brigid Delaney, Senior Writer for the Guardian Australia, wrote about how “Australians are losing their religion but their craving for meaning and moral teaching appears stronger than ever.” This trend is clearly visible in North America as well where religion is on the decline[3] but the yoga industry is booming. One in five Americans[4] describe themselves as spiritual but not religious – partially due to the influence of yoga. Delaney also wrote an article[5] on her attempt at delving into the world of yoga in an effort to clear her mind and strengthen her body. She wrote, “In many respects, yoga is the perfect pastime for our age – the meditative elements give us the opportunity to find peace and stillness in a time of increasingly hectic and crowded information, the instructional bits give us moral lessons in the absence of traditional religion, while the stretchy, bendy, sweaty physical stuff is a great way of countering eight or more hours a day spent hunched over a computer.” Yoga, effectively, has helped meet the demand for connection coming from a generation of people who feel disconnected and disillusioned.

The power of modern yoga extends beyond flimsy spirituality found while stretching on plastic mats laid out on the hardwood floors of rec center classrooms. Yoga, in more secular places, tends to be a mechanism for creating community and connection, and helps people feel grounded in an incredibly turbulent world. Delaney talks about how, secretly, she wants to be one of the yoga mat toting, juice drinking, athleisure wearing yoga fanatics that “loiter in the aisles of the organic fruit and vegetable shop.” By donning leggings and slurping green drinks, these people are finding their “Neo-Tribe”[6] – which Z. Bauman explains “helps the individual gain a sense of identity and belonging through identification with a subcultural consumer group.” Basically, buying into this consumption pattern helps people feel less lonely.

Yoga Outside of the West

Although yoga is gaining popularity globally, its spiritual components don’t flourish everywhere the way they do in the west. In places that tend to have stronger conventional religious practices yoga is contentious; the spirituality of yoga is seen as incongruent with dominant religious values. In 2013 the BBC ran an article called, “Does doing yoga make you a Hindu?[7]” The underlying question being are non-Hindu religious followers being subversive by practicing yoga? Can the founding spirituality be successfully cleaved from its physical counterpart in order to make a secular activity that poses no threat to dominant local ideology? The answer is complicated. So much so that the question of whether or not yoga is religious a “vexed question[8]” in Indian politics. Orthodox Muslims believe that sun salutations go against Islamic Law as Muslims are not supposed to bend to anyone, or anything, but Allah. Alternately, the practice of yoga in Indian schools causes concern for some because the chanting “Om” during the practice is too connected to Hindu religion. As a result, many leaders have said they are okay with yoga as long as it is disassociated with religion.

Different countries have handled this question in different ways. Iran, where Sharia law is the rule of the land, yoga classes “make no overt reference to spirituality at all.[9]” To avoid what could be called “blasphemy” the emphasis is instead placed on the physical component by calling it “the sport of yoga.” Where teachers in the west tap into consumer spirituality, teachers in Iran are accredited by the Yoga Federation[10]which promotes “Unity through sport” and simply defines yoga as “a holistic health system with Indian roots stretching back 5,000 years.” Their homepage justifies their practice of yoga as a sport with a quote from B.K.S. Iyengar[11]who says that, “there is nothing wrong in holding a competition on the qualitative presentation of the yoga asanas.” He concludes by saying that yoga “should be competition on the artistic level and not on egoistic body cult.” By placing the emphasis on exhibitive competition, they deliberately neglect the spirituality that people cling to in so many other places. Simultaneously, Iyengar is bashing the imagined community that yoga is creating in the Australia and North America and thrusting it in its least flattering light as an egoistic body cult.

Some places chose to forgo working through the complexities of yoga and spirituality in favor of banning it completely. In 2008, a religious ruling in Malaysia banned the sport in five states. However, in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, physically practicing yoga is allowed as long as chanting and meditation are not. This partial acceptance is standard in other Islamic countries such as Indonesia as well. A profitable compromise that introduces a new commodity while preserving and protecting tradition.

Savasana – Wrapping It Up

Since its creation in 3000 BCE in what is now modern India, yoga has evolved and expanded to accommodate demand in cultures around the world. The religious roots of the practice have been the direct cause of discourse around the world and helped shape yoga into a variety of practices and consumable packages that are woven into the global market. The adaptation of yoga in more secular places has accommodated quasi-spiritual consumerism in places that are experiencing a sense of disconnectedness a result in the decline of religion. Alternately, yoga has been adapted as a sport with an emphasis purely on its physical components so as not to interfere with dominant religious ideology. Although modern practices typically bear little resemblance to ancient practices, the addition of spiritual or physical yoga practices have influenced consumers around the world.

[1] Technavio. “Yoga Is on the Upswing in North America.” December 4, 2015. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://blog.technavio.com/blog/yoga-upswing-north-america.

[2] Yoga Six. “A Quick Reference Guide to the History of Yoga.” March 12, 2018. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://yogasix.com/history-of-yoga/.

[3] Religion News Service. “Religion Declining in Importance for Many Americans, Especially for Millennials.” December 10, 2018. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://religionnews.com/2018/12/10/religion-declining-in-importance-for-many-americans-especially-for-millennials/.

[4] Tara Isabella Burton. “‘Spiritual but Not Religious’: Inside America’s Rapidly Growing Faith Group.” Vox, November 10, 2017. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/11/10/16630178/study-spiritual-but-not-religious.

[5] Brigid Delaney. “The Yoga Industry Is Booming – but Does It Make You a Better Person?” The Guardian, September 17, 2017. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/17/yoga-better-person-lifestyle-exercise.

[6] Russell Keat, Nigel Whiteley, and Nicholas Abercrombie. The Authority of the Consumer. Taylor & Francis, 1994.

[7] William Kremer. “Does Doing Yoga Make You a Hindu?” BBC, November 21, 2013. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25006926.

[8] Shefali Anand. “Is Yoga Religious? In India, It’s a Vexed Question.” WSJ, June 9, 2015. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/06/09/is-yoga-religious-in-india-its-a-vexed-question/.

[9] William Kremer. “Does Doing Yoga Make You a Hindu?” BBC, November 21, 2013. Accessed April 27, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25006926.

[10] “International Yoga Sports Federation – Directory,” Accessed April 27, 2019. https://www.iysf.org/directory/iran.

[11] “What Is Iyengar Yoga?,” Iyengar Yoga: National Association of the United States. Accessed April 27, 2019. https://iynaus.org/iyengar-yoga/about.

October 17, 2019 0 comment

Featured

Julian Assange – International Lightning Rod

written by Eden Ballard

On April 11, 2019, Julian Assange left the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for the first time in seven years. He didn’t leave of his own volition; he was dragged out by the Metropolitan Police for failure to surrender to court in 2012 in connection to sexual assault charges he was facing in Sweden. Although those charges allowed the authorities to apprehend Assange, they are just a sliver of the international attention he has drawn. Assange has described himself as “the heart and soul of [Wikileaks], its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier, and all the rest.”

His prominent role within Wikileaks seems to be the only thing on which people can agree. Some call him a whistleblower and request that his right to free speech be protected. Others condemn his actions, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who in 2017 called Wikileaks, “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” based on the belief that the release of classified documents by Wikileaks has repeatedly undermined US National Security. Assange made himself an enemy of the United States Government after releasing the “Collateral Murder” video that showed US soldiers fatally shooting 18 people, among them journalists and civilians, in Baghdad, Iraq. Assange identifies as an advocate of information transparency and market libertarianism. As difficult as it is to find an objective truth in these various understandings of Mr. Assange, his status in the international community is even more complex.

Born in Australia, Assange was hacking under the name “Mendax” by the age of 16. In 1996, he was charged with twenty five counts of hacking and related crimes, and faced up to a ten year sentence. However, the judge, pitying his highly volatile childhood, let him off with a $2100AUD fine and a good behavior bond. From there, his relationship with the Australian authorities only deteriorated. It wasn’t long until his hacking was of international consequence.

When Assange was seeking asylum in 2012, he turned to Ecuador because he felt abandoned by the Australian government. Most likely, this can be attributed to the fact that the Australian government did not want to cross the United States, who saw Assange as a security threat. Assange’s lawyers described a letter from then Attorney-General of Australia, Jennifer Robinson, as a “declaration of abandonment.” The letter had stated that Australia would not seek to involve itself in any international exchanges about Assange’s future. She also wrote, “Should Mr. Assange be convicted of any offence in the United States and a sentence of imprisonment imposed, he may apply for an international prisoner transfer to Australia.” Interestingly, on February 21st, less than two months prior to his arrest, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Assange had been issued a new Australian passport in September of 2018 under some unclear circumstances. Since the arrest, however, Australian leaders have ruled out intervention in a potential US extradition of Assange.

After seven years of Assange residing in the embassy, on April 11, 2019, President Moreno made a statement on Twitter: “Today, I announce that the discourteous and aggressive behavior of Mr. Julian Assange, the hostile and threatening declarations of its allied organization, against Ecuador, and especially, the transgression of international treaties have led the situation to a point where the asylum of Mr. Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable.” Cue international controversy.

Critics of the arrest are saying that President Moreno evicted Assange from the embassy for releasing photos of him eating lobster in a hotel bed – not ideal press while austerity measures are being introduced in Ecuador. The President told the press that those photos were taken on his birthday, and more importantly, Assange was removed because he had violated the terms of his asylum in the embassy. A lot of Assange’s behavior is reminiscent of a child acting out about being grounded; he was skateboarding inside, refusing to clean up after his cat, neglecting his personal hygiene, and even allegedly smeared his feces on the walls of the London embassy. Most flagrantly, he was using the embassy a “center for spying”- something that is expressly forbidden by international law to those granted asylum status.

It’s also important to note that President Moreno was not the one who originally granted asylum to Assange. Moreno inherited Assange’s residency from Ecuador’s previous president, Rafael Correa, who was dissatisfied with the United States and thus was a supporter of Julian Assange and his work with Wikileaks. Correa granted Assange asylum in 2012, under the pretext that there were “fears his human rights might be violated if he is extradited.”

All these years later, Correa remains a fan of Assange. After Assange was apprehended by the authorities, Correa tweeted, “The greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history, Lenin Moreno, allowed the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange. Moreno is a corrupt man, but what he has done is a crime that humanity will never forget.” The division within Ecuadorian elites reflects as shift in international politics and perception of Assange and his work. Russian media shared that they condemned the arrest. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said,“The hand of ‘democracy’ squeezes the throat of freedom,” implying that the political agenda of the West, and perhaps the military-industrial complex of the United States, is stifling dissent.

A conclusion on whether or not Assange should be revered or despised can’t even be reached within Ecuador, let alone the international community. Right now the debate is focused on which charges Assange will face and where he shall face them. Although the rape charge he faced in Sweden in 2012 has been dropped, an American indictment persists. Back in 2012, Assange’s decision to take asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy was heavily influenced by the fact that treason in the United States can warrant the death penalty. At the time, Assange believed that if he faced the sexual misconduct charges in Sweden, he would be extradited to the US, and potentially lose his life for releasing confidential documents publicly on Wikileaks. This fear has stuck with him to this day.

Interestingly, the United States has been fairly quiet on this issue. The indictment charging Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in 2010 was finally unsealed on the day of his arrest. President Trump, meanwhile, has resorted to claiming, “I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing. … I don’t really have any opinion,” which is an unusual stance for a man who typically resorts to hyperbole. His assumed ignorance of the issue is incongruent with the multiple investigations being led by U.S. authorities, including three congressional probes, and a federal criminal inquiry into Wikileaks and Assange, and their role in the 2016 election, including the release of Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.

Upon seeing the video of a very disheveled and aged-looking Assange being removed from the embassy, Pamela Anderson, “Baywatch” star and friend of Assange, tweeted, “…He looks very bad. How could you Equador [sic]? (Because he exposed you). How could you UK?” in reference to Britain agreeing that Assange should be extradited the the US – the only two places that seem to publicly agree on that.

Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech Privacy and Technology Project believes that prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public’s interest.

In an op-ed published in the Guardian, Jess Phillips provides a thoughtful critique of how the UK, whose leaders are divided on the issue, has responded to the arrest: “In the sparring match about the case between Diane Abbott and Sajid Javid, in parliament on Thursday, neither of them mentioned the fact that Assange has, for seven years, evaded accusations of sexual violence in Sweden.” She discusses how the agendas of the UK and the US neglected the interests of Sweden and consequently shows a lock of respect for women’s rights, as extradition to the US would mean that the charges in Sweden would go unaddressed. She writes that once again, “when big boys are playing toy soldiers no one cares how many lady figures are brushed off the table.”

It may be hard to grasp how one man has inspired so much debate – but really no one should be surprised. Assange, advocate of information transparency and market libertarianism, founder of Wikileaks, or non-state hostile intelligence service has managed to make waves in the international community, even while holed up in a single building for the last seven years. Whether you revere him or despise him, Assange his inspired a multitude of discourses tied to free-speech, human rights, as well as systemic marginalization of female-centric narratives. Based on the breadth of the issues at hand, it’s clear that this is far from the last of what we’ll hear about Julian Assange.

May 6, 2019 0 comment

Asia China Environmental Change Featured

Climate Change and Economic Hegemony

written by Eden Ballard

Since the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, the world has already warmed by one degree Celsius and human activity continues to raise average global temperatures. Every degree above pre-anthropocene levels has dire consequences that are felt around the world. A report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)¹ released in October of 2018, which corroborated 6,000 independent studies on the issue, confirmed that climate change demands immediate global attention. The scientific community agrees that left unchecked, the temperature will continue to rise and lead to increasingly frequent climate-related catastrophes. A special coverage article by The New York Times, “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change”², outlines the increasing levels of irreparable destruction prescribed with each degree the climate warms. An increase as small as two degrees means the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs, sea-level rise of several meters and the forced abandonment of the Persian Gulf due to uninhabitable temperatures. The consequences of each degree are increasingly severe until ultimately, at five degrees, scientists warn about the end of human civilization.

With so much at stake, it is vital that the international community take action. The Paris Agreement³, a multilateral agreement facilitated by the United Nations that focuses on actions that can be taken to mitigate the effects of climate change, was signed by 175 nations⁴ on Earth day in 2016. Although it is one of the most comprehensive attempts at combating climate change to date, the Paris Agreement was designed to function primarily through the promotion of voluntary action by individual nations. It is not difficult to imagine then, that some countries have chosen not to take action as their economies are closely tied with some of the practices that are most responsible for pollution. Among them is the United States. President Donald Trump justified abandoning the agreement⁵ because of the “draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country.” Part of Trump’s campaign platform was rooted in protecting the jobs in the coal industry and a buzzword for him became “clean coal”⁶meaning an effort to reduce pollution as a result of coal production. This short-sighted vision overlooks the fact that attempting to limit the environmental effects of coal is largely ineffective and equally as expensive as investing in alternative energy sources which would help the US be a leader in climate activism. The World Bank emphasizes that when it comes to climate change, “the costs of inaction are far higher”⁷ than those associated with investing in positive change.

Where the US is stepping down, China is stepping up. One reason China is motivated to take action when the US is not lies in the fact that China, infamous for its unbreathable air, has already paid dearly for its dependency on coal. The International Energy Agency in Paris reports that fossil fuel emissions in China have close to tripled since 2000. This is mainly a reflection of China’s large population as per person emissions are lower than those in the US. In 2009, 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities⁸ were in China. Today only the bottom four cities on the top 20 list are in China because the government has been investing in sustainable technology such as electric cars, wind and solar energy, as well as implementing emission reducing legislation.

In 2013 and 2014, the Chinese government encouraged several pilot cap and trade programs that generated close to $680 million in the 2017 fiscal year. In December of 2017 China announced a new plan⁹ for an even more comprehensive nationwide market focusing on their power generation sector to trade emissions credits that allow businesses to buy and sell the credits that allow them to emit planet-warming greenhouse gases. Cap and trade programs¹⁰ are one of the most talked about ways to combat climate change using the free market. They incentivize business that use clean energy by limiting the total amount of emissions allowed to all companies and then allowing those that have not used all of the emissions they are allotted to sell them to companies that continue to pollute. Hypothetically, this incentivizes companies to go green by ensuring that eco-friendly policies save them money. The challenge with a cap and trade program is closing the loopholes so that heavy polluters cannot skirt around the issue and do, in fact, take initiative to limit emissions. Though there is room for some refinement, the existing measures are indicative of China’s awareness and sense of urgency around the issue of climate change.

China’s shift away from coal is not only environmentally responsible, it is also economically shrewd as they are setting themselves up for financial success for decades to come and effectively leaving the United States to wallow in what remains of their 20^th century glory. The World Health Organization has acknowledged China’s efforts in curbing pollution and hopes that other nations will take a cue from their actions. In order to stay economically relevant, nations need to invest in sustainable energy sources. The Visual Capitalist cites the “the Green Revolution” as one of the 8 major forces shaping the future¹¹ of the global economy as well as the fact that by 2040, a total of $10.2 trillion will be invested in new power generation capacity worldwide. Nations that chose to live in denial of their impact on climate change are also in denial of the fact that they are simultaneously becoming relics from a pre-climate change era.

It’s time for nations around the world to follow China’s lead and start thinking about negative externalities regardless of the scale of the project; inaction only exacerbates the issue. Each day is an opportunity for nations to redefine themselves and prepare for the future. As there are no binding international climate treaties already in existence, we don’t have the privilege of taking the time to reach a global agreement on what actions should be taken. Individual nation states must act rapidly and prudently to lead the charge by investing in sustainable practices by being practical and responsible inhabitants of Earth in order to both prevent further environmental damage and stay economically relevant.

Watts, Jonathan. “We Have 12 Years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe, Warns UN.” The Guardian. October 08, 2018. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report.

Rich, Nathaniel. “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change.” The New York Times. August 01, 2018. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html.

“What Is the Paris Agreement?” UNFCCC. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/what-is-the-paris-agreement.

“List of Parties That Signed the Paris Agreement on 22 April.” United Nations. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/04/parisagreementsingatures/.

Roberts, Timmons, and Angelica Arellano. “Is the Paris Climate Deal Legally Binding or Not?” Climate Home News. November 02, 2017. Accessed December 30, 2018. http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/11/02/paris-climate-deal-legally-binding-not/.

Grossman, David. “How Does Clean Coal Work?” Popular Mechanics. April 02, 2018. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/news/a27886/how-does-clean-coal-work/.

World Bank. 2016. “High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy.” Executive Summary. World Bank, Washington, DC. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO

“Worldwatch Institute: 16 of World’s 20 Most-Polluted Cities in China.” VOA. October 31, 2009. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2006-06-28-voa36/397920.html.

Bradsher, Keith, and Lisa Friedman. “China Unveils an Ambitious Plan to Curb Climate Change Emissions.” The New York Times. December 19, 2017. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/climate/china-carbon-market-climate-change-emissions.html.

“Carbon Pricing 101.” Union of Concerned Scientists. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/reduce-emissions/cap-trade-carbon-tax#.XClKaM9KgWp.

Desjardins, Jeff. “The 8 Major Forces Shaping the Future of the Global Economy.” Visual Capitalist. October 04, 2018. Accessed December 30, 2018. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-8-major-forces-shaping-the-future-of-the-global-economy/.

April 29, 2019 1 comment

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Multinational Corporations and the EU’s New Data Laws

written by Eden Ballard

United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

This sentiment is echoed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Article 17, Right to Privacy. On April 8th 1988 the UN adopted general comment number 16 to article 17 which states that:

The gathering and holding of personal information on computers, data banks and other devices, whether by public authorities or private individuals or bodies, must be regulated by law. Effective measures have to be taken by States to ensure that information concerning a person’s private life does not reach the hands of persons who are not authorized by law to receive, process and use it, and is never used for purposes incompatible with the Covenant. In order to have the most effective protection of his private life, every individual should have the right to ascertain in an intelligible form, Whether, and if so, What personal data is stored in automatic data ﬁles, and for What purposes. Every individual should also be able to, ascertain which public authorizes or private individuals or bodies control or may control their ﬁles. If such ﬁles contain incorrect personal data or have been collected or processed contrary to the provisions of the law, every individual should have the right to request rectification or elimination.

Nearly 31 years old, this statement has gone largely ignored as the internet exploded and user engagement far outpaced any thought to user privacy. This changed on May 25th, 2018 when the European Union took a major step in protecting the privacy rights of individual users by adopting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The website created for the GDPR boasts that it is “the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years.” This regulation impacts how the the privacy of more than 500 million EU citizens will be protected from exploitation by online service providers. With the approval of the General Data Protection Regulation, the European Union has shown that it holds individual privacy to be of the utmost importance.

The GDPR applies to the conduct of all companies that provide services for EU residents, even if it is only for one EU resident. It aims to safeguard against individual users’ data being used in ways they do not knowingly consent to and mandates that consent can be withdrawn as easily as it is granted. This ability to withdrawal consent protects what they call “The Right to Be Forgotten.” One of the main ways that this is protected is by prohibiting from using “long illegible terms and conditions full of legalese.” Apple’s “Terms and Conditions” updated as of September 17, 2018 was a lengthy 7,006 words. The contract ambiguously ends: “Children under the age of majority should review this Agreement with their parent or guardian to ensure that the child and parent or legal guardian understand it.” However, the parents or legal guardians themselves are likely not reviewing nor understanding it; it’s unfair to expect that average users feel comfortable or have the spare time to try to understand the needlessly verbose contracts drawn up by lawyers working for multimillion dollar firms. Now behemoth companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, each serving a network of users across the globe, are being asked to rise to the occasion… and they will.

The amount of revenue generated from the more than 400 million internet users in the EU is more than enough to incentivize companies to adhere to the GDPR. If they fail to change their policies or decide to pull out of the European market, the business face the loss of millions of dollars through fines or from decreased profits respectively For violations of the GDPR’s stipulations on consent, among other legal issues, fines are the greater of twenty million euro or 4% of the entity’s gross global revenue. That said, Google and Facebook were quick to make sure that they updated their user policy to adhere to the GDPR.

Google will be making data they collect viewable under “My Activity” and users will be able to delete specific activity or data from entire time frames that they would rather not have associated with their account. Data privacy information has been made more easily accessible and users are provided with clearer explanations of Google’s data practices through a series of video tutorials outlining a user’s options for managing, exporting, and deleting data.

Both Facebook and Google will have special protection features for their users who are under 18 years old. Facebook’s include requiring parent or guardian permission for the use of target ads and restricted sharing.

On April 17th, 2018 Facebook’s Newsroom published an outline of changes being made to accommodate the GDPR. In addition to allowing the data to be more easily deleted, Facebook will ask users to agree to their updated terms of service and data policy, whether they want to see ads targeted to the information they have filled out on their profile, and if they want to turn off Facebook’s face recognition features. This last option will also be available to users in Canada.

All of this comes shortly after Facebook’s now infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal in which data mined on Facebook was collected and used to strategically place ads pertaining to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Users were inadvertently handing over their data to a third party by playing games and taking quizzes that were seemingly innocuous.

This particular application of mined data, and many other similar instances, highlights that as our dependence on technology and virtual programs has increased over the years, we have slowly but steadily bought into a system without taking the time to critique it. Collectively, people have become complacent about what contracts they absentmindedly agree to mean in the context of their everyday lives. Although we understand that anything shared on the internet will never truly disappear, we fail to ponder what happens when we hand over our addresses, credit card information, age, and other personal statistics to sites like Amazon, Twitter, banking sites, and dating services.

Unfortunately, even with the publicized steps corporations are taking to meet the expectations of the GDPR, business is business and companies continue to look for ways to maximize profits and minimize accountability. In response to the GDPR, Facebook now handles their user responsibility out of their offices in California instead of their international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. This allows them to circumvent the GDPR and that user rights are now subject to the much lighter U.S. data protection regulations. On top of that, Facebook is still able to advantage of comparable tax breaks by booking their revenue through their Irish office. Alex Hern of The Guardian summed up the issue on April 18th, 2018: “Facebook has moved more than 1.5 billion users out of reach of European privacy law, despite a promise from Mark Zuckerberg to apply the “spirit” of the legislation globally.”

The GDPR is a step in the right direction for privacy rights but the fact remains that the very companies that so many people depend on in their day to day lives continue to abuse their global dominion. As illustrated by Facebook’s move to California, regulations lack strength unless they are implemented globally. The data privacy values outlined by the Article 17 of the ICCPR should be regarded equally around the world. Until there are universal norms, corporations will exploit legal irregularities to serve themselves, not their trusting customers. Looking to the EU as an example, one can only hope that soon the international community will begin to ask, and rightly so, about individuals’ right to privacy on the world wide web.

March 11, 2019 0 comment