Also, this kind of enraged me:

Time Runs Out for an Afghan Held by the U.S. (New York Times)

KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Razzaq Hekmati was regarded here as a war hero, famous for his resistance to the Russian occupation in the 1980s and later for a daring prison break he organized for three opponents of the Taliban government in 1999.

But in 2003, Mr. Hekmati was arrested by American forces in southern Afghanistan when, senior Afghan officials here contend, he was falsely accused by his enemies of being a Taliban commander himself. For the next five years he was held at the American military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he died of cancer on Dec. 30. “

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What’s that, Ching Cheong? Did you say something?

My international journalism class today focused the flow of information in the media. The fundamental concepts, based on our readings in Global Communication by Thomas McPhail, established that a Western perspective dominates international media and portrays the developing world as “coups and earthquakes.”

This analysis of international media first emerged in the 1960s, under the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO).

The current debate evolves around developing journalism, in which the governments of developing journalism would limit free-speech in favor of stability. In other words, reports from developing countries would focus on pro-government news in the hopes of deflecting destructive criticism and continuing with national development programs.

However, allowing only government-sponsored media for the sake of stability means much more than sacrificing freedom of speech. The approach begs the question, What criticisms are being suppressed, and from whom?

Now, I’m making two broad assumptions here, so correct me if I’m using faulty logic:

1. Developing nations have large poor populations who may be unhappy with the status quo (i.e. current regime), and,
2. Stabilizing the country either means improving the situation of those large poor populations or suppressing them so they cannot rebel.

Now, if stabilizing the country means improving the situation of the poor, then what criticisms would need to be suppressed by pro-government news? Improving the quality of life for the majority often means making sacrifices at the expense of the elite. The elite certainly won’t buy into the limited news perspective, especially if they’re conveniently tied to the interests of pushy international corporations  and U.S. diplomats.

Therefore, limiting freedom of speech in favor of stabilization must mean something else. And when stabilizing the country means suppressing the poor and eliminating their will to resist (see Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico, and Myanmar, among others), then the limits on free speech only represent the the tip of an iceberg of potential human rights abuses. Why insist on only pro-government media if the government is acting with a clear conscious?  Not to mention that these restrictions on the press must be enforced, and who’s there to monitor the means of enforcement with no one allowed to blow the whistle? Who will complain about arrests, torture, disappearances or property seizures? Oh, that’s right — no one.

As Emily said in class, developmental journalism is not the only alternative to the one-way flow of information from the West to the periphery nations.  One option, Emily went on to say, may include the growth of indigenous media, as people in developing nations gain greater access to the Internet.

Ultimately, what distresses me the most is that I find myself stuck in a debate as circular as the chicken-or-egg puzzle.  Indigenous media is limited by resources, which are affected by global structural inequalities, which are perpetuated by ignorance and stagnation on the part of Western citizens, which is fueled by the limitations of indigenous media…

Sifting: the dirty side of research

Ever since I wrote my independent study proposal, “Oaxaca Blog Wars” was one blog entry at the top of my check-it-out list.  The post is written by Colin Brayton, a freelance and staff journalist from Brooklyn.  In this post, as well as “Fair & Balanced,” Brayton attempts to work through the nitty-gritty of informational conflicts between various Web postings.

Brayton appears diligent when it comes to investigating the authors behind Web sources and cross-checking information.

One of the sites he analyzes, oaxacaenpaz.org, seems to have been taken down since 2006.  Quite interesting to note, considering APPO sites are still functioning but the state government has quieted down a bit.

Both posts have overwhelmed me with the sheer amount of information that’s out there. However, it also gives me confidence in what I am trying to do.

Really, what I need to focus on now is Mexican newspapers.  Thank goodness for what limited knowledge of Spanish I have.

More research details to come.

Found a gem

“Washington Post article on Oaxaca gets a beating” by MexicoReporter:

Nov. 26, 2007 – An article published in this weekend’s Washington Post, called “Oaxaca: One Year Later”, has prompted heavy criticism from people living in the southern Mexican state which this time last year was the scene of huge civil unrest and what one critic describes as ‘some of the worst human rights abuses in recent Mexican history; detaining, torturing, and raping men, women, and children who had taken to the streets demanding social and economic justice.’  [WaPo's reporter's response included in the post.]

Online media

Click photo for the link to BBCNews slideshow:

More to come…

Database woes

So, yesterday I finished printing out and bookmarking numerous New York Times articles mentioning Oaxaca during 2006. Today, I started on the Washington Post. So far, digging through the archives of this paper has confirmed what I suspected: the databases turn up different results.

I first tried an EBSCOhost search of the Post for “Oaxaca” between May 1, 2006 and January 1, 2007. Only three results appeared: one on 7/30/2006, one on 11/1/2006, and one on 1/4/2006. Then, I tried a ProQuest search for the same. Suddenly I have 15 results. Not all of the articles pertain to the conflict, but the news coverage is certainly more flushed out. Of course, now I’m feeling anxious about missing some key article due to an incomplete online database.

It seems I’m off to the microform and print holdings in the library, but the IC Website seems to indicate that the holdings may be even more limited.

Still, I’ve already found that the Post offers some interesting articles unlike the ones I’ve found in the Times:

“In Mexico’s ‘Misery Belt,’ an Annual Strike Becomes Much More” (7/30/2006) – describes poor teaching conditions in rural Oaxaca, the power (and corruption) of the teacher’s union, the peacefulness of past strikes, voices of protesters and local businessmen.

“After an American dies, the case against his killers is mired in Mexican justice” (12/11/2006) – Bradley Will’s family claim his killers were aligned with the Mexican government, but the government lets the suspects go saying there is insufficient evidence. Mexican government also maintains that the protesters are to blame. First introduction I’ve seen to the debate over the source of violence.

I haven’t been seeing many numbers of people affected–by arrests, wounds, death, etc.–so I checked the Amnesty International website. A search for “Oaxaca” led me to a list of Amnesty blogs, written by staff members and volunteers.  The Individuals at Risk blog reports that over the course of the conflict, 349 people were arrested, and many remain in custody without charge.

Independent study journal: Just the Facts

While combining my International Journalism blog and my independent study journal is an exercise in space consolidation, it is also a struggle with writer’s block. My experience with blogging extends only as far as the LiveJournal whining from my teenage years and the occasional WordPress updates during my semester in Mexico. With each, I developed a sort of relationship that depended heavily on the purpose of my writing. After all, wouldn’t one treat a personal diary differently than a sheet of stationary? My LiveJournal entries could be locked (and therefore emotional), while my WordPress entries tried to maintain some sort of balance between professionalism and familiarity.

With this blog, two slightly conflicting relationships are developing. For the international journalism responses, I approach this space after having already listened to and participated in the classroom discussion. I’ve had time to formulate my thoughts and produce something (hopefully) decently-written. For my independent study journal, I’m still at a stage of collecting piecemeal facts and jotting them down as I see fit. Clearly, my independent study will need to evolve into a well-thought discussion of the facts. At this point in time, what I really need is a notebook of key phrases, resources, and so on. That is how my brain works.

So, it seems, I will have a slightly schizophrenic relationship with this blog for now. As I wrote earlier, it all interrelates; eventually the discussions of the journalism course and the independent project will overlap. For now, please have patiencewith the divided approach.

And now, without further ado, some notes:

The future of international relations

Zakaria’s “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy” and Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy”

During the class discussion of these two articles, Prof. Isakov asked us what we thought the future of international relations would look like. Will it be a clash of civilizations? A struggle between liberal democracies and “democracies gone wrong”? Or pure anarchy as the fight for limited resources erodes governmental legitimacy?

What I have long failed to understand about politics and academia is the desperate and consistent need to find one answer. Students and politicians often limit themselves to the defense of a single and isolated theory. This, of course, makes sense on certain levels. A student must narrow her research to one thesis for the sake of time, resources and insanity. Modern politicians must (arguably) polarize themselves in order to stand apart from competitors. However, in the context of many discussions–including our class’ attempt to anticipate future international relations–it makes more sense to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of various theories and combine them to create a better understood reality.

Zakaria, Kaplan, and even Huntington (with whom I never thought I’d agree, but that’s a different story) each present us with different insights into the present and future of international relations. Even as their arguments stand alone, they interconnect. The weaknesses of one theory is replaced by the strengths of another, and so on.

It is important to consider the reality of illiberal democracies, as presented by Zakaria; it is also important to understand that democracy has different manifestations, and that even free-market capitalism mixed with free elections means the absence of civil and/or human rights for many in the developing world. Neither should we ignore the severity of climate change and the increasing shortage of natural resources. Climate change and resource scarcity will first affect the poorest areas of the world (devastating tsunamis in southeast Asia, mudslides in Central and South America, droughts many parts of Africa), putting further tension on already strained cultural borders.

My favorite high school English teacher once said during a fit of literary passion, “It all interrelates.”

While that concept may threaten our academic sanity or our ability to tackle individual problems, it is also the most important concept to keep within our peripheral vision while discussing topics as pressing as the evolution of international relations. The state of democracy, the health of the environment, and the relationships between cultures are too intertwined to pretend otherwise.

International Journalism reading response

Fukuyama’s “End of History?” and Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations?”

Fukuyama’s main argument is that the modern liberal democracy is the culmination of human history. In class, it was argued that democracy is such a new concept that we cannot tell how long it will last. However, this argument forgets that a form of democracy actually existed thousands of years ago in Athens. At the time, democracy consisted of a city-state that granted governmental privileges to elite men. Modern democracy of the Western world extended political rights — albeit reluctantly — to non-white men, the poor, and women. Today, democracy also attempts to hold together large nation-states in the form of either representative or parliamentary democracy.

What we experience as modern liberal democracy is really one of many manifestations of the democratic concept. Fukuyama refers to the United States’ form of representative democracy and consumer culture as an “offshoot” of European civilization (final paragraph). However, I do find it problematic when Fukuyama summarizes “the context of the universal homogenous state as liberal democracy in the political sphere combined with easy access to VCRs and stereos in the economic” (part II, final paragraph). Our easy access to consumer goods frequently means devastatingly low wages for someone else on the production end. When this is the case, it is no wonder that “liberal democracies” with free economies have been toppled across Central and South America in favor of regimes with more populist agendas. Fukuyama is wise to note that liberal democracies are plagued by racism, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. On the other hand, claiming one form of political organization to be correct ignores the reality for many minority and/or indigenous communities who simply want autonomy. How would that fit into the picture of the liberal democratic nation-state?

Huntington does more to address the very real tensions between cultures. He describes conflicts between civilizations (West vs. Islam, for example) as well as conflicts within civilizations (Mexico’s attempt to become a North American country, while its indigenous peoples lose their cultures and their livelihoods). It it important to recognize this phenomenon, for the world does yet consist of Fukuyama’s universal homogeneous states. Theories, politics and morals are not universal; rather they are relative to the context of any group of people. However, as Prof. Isakov pointed out in his presentation, we must not allow “conflict of civilizations” concept to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expecting other cultures to come into conflict with “us” (whoever “we” are) may arguably make us good on the defense, but it could also risk a trigger-happy approach to a rapidly shrinking world.