Anthropological Musings

Traditional Culture

2008-03-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

BBC reports on how Bolivia and Peru are defending the right of indigenous peoples to to continue in their cultivation of the coca plant. The leaves have been used by indigenous peoples in South America for medicinal and religious purposes for centuries. Countries such as Bolivia and Peru are under pressure from the UN to curtail all cultivation of the coca plant. The BBC reports that Peru and Bolivia are lobbying for changes to UN conventions on narcotics and controlled substances.

Peru said a balance was needed between allowing cultivation for traditional uses while preventing it for cocaine production.
"One of the principles of humanitarian law is the respect of traditional customs, recognised by the national constitution," said Jose Belaunde, Peru's foreign relations minister.
"The United Nations lacks respect for the indigenous people of Peru and Bolivia who have used the coca leaf since forever," said Peruvian Congresswoman Maria Sumire.
"For indigenous people, coca is a sacred leaf that is part of their cultural identity," she said.

The UN is pushing for tighter controls on the use of the coca leaf:

The International Narcotics Control Board released an annual report on Wednesday that reminded the two governments that use and possession of coca leaves, the main ingredient in cocaine, were limited to medical and scientific purposes.
The two countries should "abolish or prohibit activities... such as coca leaf chewing and the manufacture of coca tea", the report said.
People in the Andes use coca leaves to alleviate hunger and tiredness, for medicinal purposes and in religious rituals.
UN conventions list coca as a dangerous controlled substance, along with cocaine and opium.

For more on the subject, these two books examine the history and the anthropology of the use of the coca leaf in Bolivia and Peru: Coca Prohibition in Peru: The Historical Debates by Joseph Gagliano and The Coca Boom and Rural Social Change in Bolivia by Harry Sanabria.

Globalization and the Burqa

2008-02-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

The burqa was the symbol of the Taliban and their strict restrictions on the lives of women in Afghanistan. Now, there is increasing pressure for women to once again wear the burqa, if they had abandoned it after the NATO led forces pushed out the Taliban in many areas of Afghanistan. However, in a strange twist of the globalizing world, it seems that local production is being pushed out by imports from China. As the Washington Post reports:

The Chinese-made burqas’ tightly-crimped folds and machine-produced embroidery have become something of a fashion craze in the last few months in Kabul. As one burqa seller named Hassan explained to me in a crowded Kabul market, “Women love the new, modern style of the Chinese burqas.”

Many of the challenged faced in Europe and North America are also faced by local tailors and local businesses: cheaper imports are pushing them out of the market. However, it is interesting to see how this is occurring in a country where families making pennies to the burqa still cannot outcompete mass produced goods from elsewhere.

Cyber Guerilla Warfare

2008-01-24T11:37:00.000-08:00

It seems that there is a form of cyber guerilla warfare now underway as anonymous web surfers are not waging war with Scientology. The video itself is a bit campy, but it is an interesting view into the cyber world. An article in The National Post examines the ways in which anonymous surfers are doing their best to bring down Scientology. This will be an interesting case to follow.

Forgotten History?

2008-01-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

The newspaper business is an interesting one. For a number of years, I served as a volunteer for the University of Toronto's student newspaper The Varsity and then later, I worked for the French-language newspaper Le Franco in Alberta. One of the things that I learned from the experience was the art of writing the headline: it must be the right length (not too long, not too short) while summarizing the article. Usually, the journalist has not say in what the headline will actually read. In reading the headline of a story published in The National Post, I was struck by the awkwardness of the headline: "400 years of forgotten history." The published piece itself is not bad, but the the title brings forward the questions "forgotten by whom?"

The fact of the matter is that the 400 year history of Québec is taught in French schools in Canada and this history is quite important to French-speakers. They, for the most part, have not forgotten their history. Also, this history is often features in movies and in the popular media. We French-speakers have not forgotten our history per se, though it could be debated as to how accurate our history is. So, what the headline is really highlighting is not a forgotten history, but rather a history that is ignored by English-speakers. Simply put, parallel histories exist and the history that is remembered by most French-speakers is quite different from the history remembered by English-speakers.

Language politics: Nunavut and Québec

2008-01-24T10:54:00.000-08:00

The National Post has published an interesting piece on the survival of Inuktitut in Nunavut and role of the Nunavut regional goverment in promoting the Inuit language. I have reproduced the original below.

The salient point of this article is the need for political intervention to support minority languages. The reality is that languages cannot be dissociated from politics. States choose official languages and states regulate instruction in schools, specifying what languages will be used in teaching and which books shall serve the needs of students. Political intervention ensures linguistic winners and losers and as the Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich quipped in 1945: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."

What Weinreich meant is that languages do not become dominant because of their inherent superiority, rather languages come to dominate if they are the languages spoken by powerful states or colonial powers that impose their language as well as their political power speakers of other languages and dialects.

How can languages that were long colonized compete? They must call upon the structures of the state to elevate the status of the long subordinated language whether it be French in Canada or Inuktitut in the Arctic. The article published in the National Post is a perfect example of how political intervention is often necessary to equalize the linguistic playing field.

Losing their language
Inuit look to Quebec as an example of how to preserve their culture
Sara Minogue, Canwest News Service Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Shaun Best, Reuters
IQALUIT -The Ecole des Trois Soleils sits atop a large hill with a commanding view of Frobisher Bay.
About 50 young francophones between the ages of 5 and 14 come to classes here in this red-and-yellow-striped building to be educated in their mother tongue, in spacious classrooms of about 15 students each.
That the school exists in a community of 6,000, in a territory where fewer than 450 people have French as their first language, is remarkable.
"And it's only there because of the fact that there's legislation," said Terry Audla, who, as executive director of the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, would like to see similar legislation that would establish Inuktitut-language education throughout the territory.
Nunavut is in the process of writing its own official languages act, one that could give the Inuit language -- which includes its regional dialects -- equal status with English and French, and that could have huge implications for the people and government in the northern territory.
Though its draft versions are considerably less radical than Bill 101, Quebec's strict language law, many Inuit are looking to Quebec as an example of how legislation can strengthen a minority language. Two language bills now on the drawing board would require government and territorial bodies to offer services in Inuktitut, English and French. They would also require private companies and organizations to offer services in Inuktitut.
The bills are careful to maintain language rights for English and French speakers -- so much so that some Inuit groups argue the legislation does not go far enough to make Inuktitut the language of everyday life in Nunavut.
Mr. Audla's organization is among those advocating that the law would give Inuktitut the status of sole official language, as Quebec's Official Language Act of 1974 did for French in that province. He cites Section 35 of the Constitution Act, which guarantees "existing aboriginal rights," including language rights, even though this has never been challenged in court.
He points to flaws in the proposed legislation: The draft Inuit Language Protection Act says Inuit would have the right to "instruction in the Inuit language," but it does not give them the right to receive their entire education in Inuktitut. Similarly, the proposed legislation says the government must produce Inuktitut materials for preschool-aged children, but gives no indication how much Inuktitut material is enough, and provides no accompanying regulations about providing preschool in the Inuit language.
At present, Inuktitut is one of the strongest aboriginal languages in Canada.
Its uvular sounds and ringing Gs are heard daily inIqaluit-- at hockey games, in grocery stores, at the post office, bake sales, church services and meetings that are part of daily life here.
Most children in Nunavut are schooled in Inuktitut until Grade 3; CBC North broadcasts 11 hours of Inuktitut programming daily; and about half of the debates in Nunavut's legislature take place in the language. The Nunavut government intends to make Inuktitut its working language by 2020.
But the number of proficient Inuktitut speakers is rapidly declining and Inuit leaders fear that, without legislation, the language could be lost in only a few generations.
The latest census shows that 64% of Canadian Inuit reported Inuktitut as their mother tongue in 2006, down from 68% a decade earlier. The number of Inuit who speak Inuktitut at home has fallen from 58% in 1996 to 50%.
"Let's not kid ourselves, the state of our Inuit language is in critical condition," said Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit association. "And if we lose our language, then we will have lost our culture."
Inuktitut speakers must currently rely on relatives or impromptu translators to help them access basic services, such as at the pharmacy, checking into a hotel or even calling the RCMP or fire department. The 2006 census found there are 105 Iqaluit residents who speak neither English nor French, and roughly 2,300 throughout Nunavut. But there are few services for these people in their own language, and no laws requiring anyone to provide them.
A territory-wide household survey conducted in 2001 found 34% of Inuit had difficulty receiving services from the federal government in Inuktitut, and 24% had difficulty receiving such services from the territorial government.
A key debate in Nunavut about the language laws revolves around the question of expense.
Already, a lack of resources has made it difficult for the government of Nunavut to fulfill its obligations to francophones under Canada's Official Languages Act.
In a public hearing on the new laws, held in Nunavut's sealskin-draped legislative assembly chambers last August, Paul Kaludjak, president of the land claims organization Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., said now is not the time to worry about money. Rather, he argued, language rights are a "right of the people," that need to be enshrined in law.
The Nunavut government's draft language bills have received first and second reading in the legislature, and are now under review by the standing committee on language.
Meanwhile, the people of Nunavut are not sitting idly by waiting for their language to fade.
The Nunavut Bilingual Education Society, a group of volunteer teachers, has been producing books and graphic novels in both languages for more than five years.
The Pirurvik Centre, a privately owned facility whose aims are to promote the Inuit language, culture and well-being, recently began offering intense courses in Inuktitut as a second language, including instruction in reading and writing syllabics, the Inuit writing system. In the future, the group plans to offer advanced language courses for Inuktitut speakers who want to expand their language skills.
And at Nakasuk elementary school, located in one of Iqaluit's oldest buildings down the road from the Ecole des Trois Soleils, teachers are working overtime to produce worksheets, posters and books for students in their Inuktitut-language stream.
Last year, Nakasuk also launched a new program: Inuktitut immersion for preschool and kindergarten students destined to start Grade 1 entirely in their mother tongue.
This, principal Carol Horn said when the program launched, is the best way to make sure Inuktitut remains a vital language in Nunavut.

Saving the Samaritans: Looking for Love

2007-10-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

The Globe and Mail has a fascinating piece on how Samaritans are seeking brides from the Former Soviet Union to save their community. Their community numbers little over 700 people and their children are beset with a number of genetic problems attributed to strict rules of endogamy. To save their community, some Samaritan men are seeking wives through marriage agencies from the Former Soviet Union. According to the article:

In one version, whispered among the women who gather on street corners to gossip the afternoon away, Mr. Cohen was a lonely man who couldn't find a local woman, forced to look for companionship at a faraway marriage agency. In the other, told by his approving father and some of the other village elders, Mr. Cohen's journey to meet and bring back a bride named Alexandra Krasyuk may just save the Samaritans from extinction. ...

Into this sick and dying community have stepped two Slavic women who may as well have arrived from a different planet, Alexandra from Ukraine, and Lena, an Israeli citizen born in Omsk, on the plains of faraway Siberia

The article then highlights that the marriage of outsiders has been met with some resistance:

"I'm against this marrying of Russian women or any others. Their traditions are very different from ours," Mr. al-Teef said, promising that he will go to great lengths to make sure that his own bachelor son marries within the community. Birth defects, he said, are part of life and occur in every part of the world.

"The most important thing in religion is purity, and women are half of religion. I'm worried that these women brought up in Eastern Europe will not commit themselves to the laws of the Samaritans."

His views are common here, though High Priest Elazar says no one has yet questioned his decision to his face. The controversy, however, lightens with the arrival of a healthy newborn Samaritan. Eighteen months ago, Lena and her husband, Raghai, gave birth to a son, Adam.

Even the most conservative of Mount Gerizim's gossipers can't hide their delight at seeing their numbers grow. It is, the local residents say, the first "new Samaritan" born in 3,600 years.

"He is a Samaritan, 100 per cent," Mr. al-Teef said, his harsh words for the boy's mother suddenly forgotten. "It's a gift from God."

The Samaritans numbered in the hundreds of thousands in the past and now survive in two small communities: one in the West Bank and the other in Israel. The Globe and Mail article provides an insightful piece into their origins and beliefs.

Russia, A Democracy?

2007-10-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Masha Lipman provides a subtle analysis of the erosion of democracy in the Washington Post. In her piece "Putin Cements His Grip," Lipman summarizes how President Vladimir Putin is hollowing out whatever democracy existed and is leaving in its stead a Potemkin Village that appears like a rightful democracy, but rather is merely a facade to beguile foreigners. Lipman writes:

Putin and some of his aides are highly skilled in producing a government with the trappings of democracy and none of its substantial elements, such as public participation, the separation of powers, political competition or accountability. The formal decorum comes in handy when Putin needs to insist, usually to Western audiences, that Russia is a democracy. He appears anxious to fit in among the democratic leaders of the West and to distance himself from the Central Asian autocrats who have carved out lifelong presidencies.

As Lipman notes, Putin has succeeded in achieving absolute power, but he does not seem to want to change to constitution to keep power as president. Rather, he seems to be seeking other avenues to maintain absolute power, while stepping down as president of the Russian Federation as required by the Russian Constitution. All the while, he must manage competition by individuals who have used their positions to take control of industry and finance and have more than likely enriched themselves. As the leading industry, notably profitable industries in the oil, gas and natural resource sectors, were transferred under private ownership to state control, the new CEOs and directors were chosen out of the ranks of the political elite and their allies. Nonetheless, the need to maintain that Russia is a true democracy is still important to the Russian President and as Lipman explains the roots of this can be traced back to Soviet times:

Putin would not respond to the beseeching and do what several leaders of former Soviet republics have done: simply eliminate the constitutional hurdles and stay on as president. Although the judicial branch has been repeatedly bent to the will of the executive during his tenure, Putin has been strangely particular about the letter of the law. In today's Russia, politics may be deinstitutionalized, so that officeholders and institutions are pawns in a game of Putin's design; federalism may be undermined; political freedoms and civil liberties compromised. But while ultimately destroying the spirit of democracy, the Kremlin avoids direct violations and resorts to sophisticated schemes.

This simultaneous concern for appearance and contempt for substance is a pattern deeply rooted in Soviet history. Government propaganda was one of the pillars of the totalitarian system, and the gap between words and substance grew wider until the two had nothing in common. The regime's words -- the rhetoric of its Communist officials, its press, its political slogans and schoolbooks -- were radically at odds with real life. The Russian people grew used to this doublethink and doublespeak, so it's little wonder that today there is nothing more sacred about the current constitution than there was about any of the three charters adopted during Soviet times.

As it stands, the election for the new Russian President is only months away, yet it is not clear who will be the chosen candidate who will be guaranteed victory and it is even less clear what power and authority the incoming President will yield. What is clear is that one man, Vladimir Putin, wants to retain power.

Japanese Multiculturalism?

2007-10-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Canada is a multicultural state that encourages immigration from around the world. Canada recognizes the need for immigration as our low birth rates would lead to an aging and declining population without the influx of migrants. Japan is faced with both of these problems, yet has been reluctant to encourage immigration to Japan. However, in recent decades, even Japan has been forced to open up to migrants, the descendants of Japanese compatriots who left Japan decades ago to live in countries such as Brazil and Peru. Though they look "Japanese" these immigrants speak a foreign language and their culture is quite foreign to their neighbors. Also, many of the new migrants have a difficult time integrating into Japanese society as they find it difficult to integrated and succeed in Japanese society. The Washington Post provides a telling look into the challenges faced by Japanese society as they must adjust to a new multicultural Japanese society. Below are some excerpts from the article "In Traditionally Insular Japan, A Rare Experiment in Diversity."

Faced with labor shortages, the Japanese government opened the doors in 1990 to allow immigrants to come to the country -- so long as they were of Japanese descent. Government officials thought they would blend into the country's notoriously insular society more easily than people from other ethnic backgrounds.
But many found they didn't quite fit. Their names and faces were Japanese, but they didn't speak the language. They didn't understand local customs, such as the country's stringent system for sorting garbage into multicolored containers. In cities such as Hamamatsu, where many settled, government officials and Japanese neighbors didn't know what to make of newcomers who seemed familiar but foreign at the same time.

Despite the frictions here and in other communities, pressure is building in Japan to take in more immigrants, forcing the country to reconsider its traditional bias against outsiders. Its population is aging and shrinking. Analysts say Japan must find new sources of labor if it is to preserve its economic power and support its retirees.

Hamamatsu was a natural magnet for the newcomers because its many factories offered entry-level employment and required virtually no language skills. Officials here like to brag that their community became the most "international" of Japan's cities. About 30,000 of its residents, or 4 percent, are foreign-born. That's almost twice the proportion of foreign-born residents in Japan as a whole. (About 13 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born.) Most newcomers are from Brazil and Peru. They are offspring of Japanese who immigrated to South America in the early 1900s to work in coffee fields and take other jobs.

The new arrivals here brought Latin culture with them. In Hamamatsu's downtown, billboards in Portuguese advertise cellphones and air conditioners. In a popular market, Brazilians who long for a taste of home can buy a platter of bolinho de queijo -- cheese croquettes -- fresh from the fryer or rent DVDs of popular Brazilian shows.

Other parts of the city have Brazilian and Peruvian churches. One enterprising woman has built a small catering business making box lunches for homesick Peruvians.

This is not unique to Japan. In Germany, you have large numbers of repatriated ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union who are culturally Russian. They speak the Russian language at home and their culture was shaped by the centuries their families spent in the Soviet Union and Russia. Likewise, in Israel, you have roughly one-fifth of the population that is Russian-speaking. Here too, you have individuals who were Jewish in Russia and the Former Soviet Union who became "Russian" when they immigrated to Israel.

In Japan, one of the challenges faced is integrating the children of immigrants into the school system. As the Washington Post article writes:

She soon grew alarmed by the number of immigrant children who were dropping out of Japanese public schools. Because many didn't understand Japanese, they were falling behind in their studies. Others were bullied because they didn't look Japanese (some of them are biracial, having Latin parents).

The government was not addressing the needs of the Japanese immigrants and they were not being effectively integrated into Japanese society.

Given its demographic problems and the need for workers, Japan has little choice but to encourage even more immigration. However, this will force Japanese society to become more multicultural whether it wants it or not:

Some newcomers threw all-day barbecues with large crowds and loud music -- just as they had back home. Their Japanese neighbors were horrified. At one point, tensions were so high that some merchants banned certain groups from their stores, until a lawsuit prompted them to stop.

But many immigrants say the struggle is worth it.

Roberto Yamashiro, who came to Japan from Peru when he was 15, said the adjustment was difficult. He didn't know the language and didn't like the food. He worked in a factory that made ice chests for several years. Now 24, he is one of a handful of immigrant students at Hamamatsu University. "I like it here a lot," he said. "There is much more opportunity if you work hard."

Officials in Hamamatsu say they never expected the outsiders to live in Japan for more than a few years. But now they realize they're here to stay and must be helped along.

At city hall, officials have moved the foreign registration desk to a prominent spot on the first floor. Signs and forms are printed in Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and English. The International Affairs Division, which used to focus on foreign exchange programs, now concentrates on the needs of the immigrant community. In an attempt to quell disputes over garbage, instructions on how to sort it are now available in four languages.

But the broader question of Japan's traditional reluctance to accept outsiders remains.

Eunice Ishikawa, who was born in Brazil, teaches cultural policy and management in the Department of International Culture at Shizuoka University of Art and Culture in Hamamatsu. She said that when people learn where she was born, they can't believe she's a college professor.

For many of the immigrants from South America, "it's almost impossible to assimilate because people have such negative images" of outsiders, she said. Sometimes her husband, a Japanese American who was born in San Diego, complains that people look down on him because they see him as an American.

Ishikawa said the Japanese may have no choice but to learn to live with outsiders, because their numbers are growing, not only in Hamamatsu, but in the country as a whole.

In 1990, about 1 million registered foreign residents lived in Japan; by 2004, that figure had nearly doubled, to just below 2 million. Most say the actual numbers are probably higher because not all foreigners register.

The pressure to let in more immigrants is building. Population experts project that by 2050, Japan's population, about 128 million in 2005, will shrink to 95 million, about 40 percent of whom will be 65 or older. By some estimates, Japan will lose more than 4 million workers.

"With the age of globalization, these borders are going to open up," said Fariborz Ghadar, director of the Center for Global Business Studies at Pennsylvania State University. "Unless they don't want to see their economy grow as rapidly, they're going to have to do something about it."

Over time, Japan will have to change to accommodate the new arrivals. From an anthropological perspective, it will be interesting to study in the coming decades how the Japanese immigrants from Peru and Brazil will settle into Japanese society. Over time they be assimilated linguistically into Japanese society, but it will be fascinating to see whether elements of South American culture will take root in Japan.

Reversing Environmental Chaos

2007-10-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

China has garnered the world's attention due to its phenomenal economic growth that has propelled it forward as an economic giant. However, the environmental consequences of development have not received as much attention. Development brought pollution and that pollution is poisoning the water and the air. The Washington Post published an insightful account as to how one city is trying to clean up pollution. The article entitled "In China, a Green Awakening" examines the challenges faced in trying to balance a cleaner environment and maintaining the industry that provides jobs and economic prosperity.

The Washington Post article provides a telling account of the environmental challenges faced by China:

WUXI, China -- One morning this summer, residents of this eastern city awoke to find that their beloved Tai Lake had turned rancid. The water was filled with a bloom of blue-green algae that gave off a rotten smell. It was not only undrinkable; it was untouchable. Few living things stirred in the water.

For almost three decades, the city had welcomed some of the world's biggest polluters. Churning out paper, photographic film, dye, fertilizer, cement and other products for the global marketplace, the businesses helped make Wuxi into one of China's wealthiest industrial cities.

They also poisoned the province's vast network of lakes, rivers and canals. In late May, when the toxic sludge reached Tai Lake, which is the main source of potable water for Wuxi's 5.8 million residents, people turned on their taps and got only sludge.

City officials decided they'd had enough. In a series of radical proclamations that sent shudders though the business community, Wuxi declared itself a newly reformed green city.
By September, the city had closed or given notice to close more than 1,340 polluting factories. Wuxi ordered the rest to clean up by June or be permanently shut down. The actions were applauded by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who has vowed to use economic incentives and punishments to aid in environmental protection and resource protection.

The city must find a balance between closing factories and keeping jobs: if too many jobs are lost, this will create social problems for the city.

Efforts are underway to clean the local environment, but these are not cheap. The central government of China is paying greater heed to the environment and cracking down on pollution. However, much remains to be done and many are still unconcerned about the problem. As the article states:

Wuxi's environmental campaign has been held up as an example of how cities should deal with polluters. But the publicity has not had its desired affect. Instead of shunning the polluting companies in Wuxi, delegations from other parts of China have been coming to Wuxi to invite them to come to their cities.

"This is impossible to understand," said Wang of Nanjing Normal University. "We keep telling them they are just moving pollution around and it isn't good for them, good for China."

If China follows the precedent set by developing countries, then in the next decades more attention will be paid to improving local environments. Economic development provides greater wealth, but this new prosperity cannot be enjoyed when the water is undrinkable.

Real Help for Developing Countries

2007-10-06T07:16:00.000-07:00

Poverty and child mortality are endemic across much of the world, notably in the African continent. Yet, simple measures can save countless lives. Today's Globe and Mail had a fascinating piece that highlights how simple measures tailored to the needs of local communities can bring about drastic changes in infant mortality.

The Globe and Mail article by Stephanie Nolen entitled "Simple as that, child mortality is at a record low" demonstrates how simple and very simple measures can drastically reduce infant mortality. According to the Nolen:

The application of a handful of simple, low-cost measures, from giving families $2 mosquito nets to encouraging breastfeeding, is spurring a sharp decline in child deaths around the world.
For the first time since the United Nations began to keep records in 1960, the number of child deaths fell below the 10-million mark, down to 9.7 million in 2006, the last year for which there is data.

“This really is a historic moment,” said Peter Salama, Unicef's chief medical officer, although he was quick to note that those 9.7 million deaths, almost all of them from preventable or easily treatable causes, are “in no way acceptable.”

Nevertheless, this is undeniable good news from developing countries, made even brighter by the fact that the biggest drops in child deaths have come in some of the poorest places: 20 per cent in Niger, 23 per cent in Mozambique, a stunning 41 per cent in Madagascar. (Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 50 per cent of all child mortality, even though the region's total population is only half that of India. In West and Central Africa, more than 150 of every 1,000 children born die before the age of 5, compared with fewer than six in Canada.)

Mr. Malunga [a village health worker in Malawi] knows what's responsible for the drop in his area: The biggest reason is that all pregnant women are now given a free insecticide-treated mosquito net for themselves and their children to sleep under. The new access to bed nets – which, even at a heavily subsidized price, are too costly for people here to buy, he said – has cut malaria deaths by about a third in the past few years. “It is malaria that kills most of the children,” he said.

But he is going after more than malaria: He has vaccinated nearly every single child in his 16-village territory – measles used to be a big killer here too, but there hasn't been a case in seven years, he said. No polio since 1990. He gives most children a capsule of vitamin A at least once a year, sometimes twice, if he can get it – and that is enough to boost their immune systems so that if they do get diarrhea or malaria, they are much less likely to die.

He weighs the children every time he sees them, and plots their growth on a chart – in Malawi, 46 per cent of all children show signs of stunting, the result of chronic malnutrition – and refers any who aren't growing well to the emergency nutrition rehabilitation centre. He has persuaded more and more women to breastfeed their babies and delay any introduction of solid food until the age of six months. Traditionally women here give babies maize porridge from the age of one week.

Mr. Malunga has supervised the installation of cement-covered pit latrines and protected water sources in many of the villages, leading to a drop in water-borne illness. He has persuaded many women to take contraceptive pills or get the Depo-Provera injections he does in the clinic – because, he explained, children spaced at least two years apart have much higher chances of survival. He travels village to village talking to groups about HIV (with which 14 per cent of Malawi's adults are infected) and he offers them condoms.

These are all simple measures that cost very little to implement and they require working with communities and recognizing local needs. Simple measures such as providing free bed nets costing a mere $2 to pregnant women and children to use at night saves lives. Likewise, the simplest and most natural form of sustenance for children also saves lives:

Through simple education programs (sitting women down beneath the biggest tree in a village for a lecture), Malawi raised exclusive breastfeeding from 7 per cent of women to 63 per cent, between 2000 and 2004.

Breastfeeding ensures better nutrition for babies and breast milk transfers antibodies from the mother to the child promoting. It also reduces exposure to environmental contaminants: in places where sources of clean drinking water is not readily available, breast milk is the safer option.

Central to the success of these efforts is ensuring locally trained health care officials working in villages. This comes at a cost, but quite minimal:

Mr. Malunga, 31, has only a Grade 10 education and received just eight weeks of training when he began this job more than a decade ago. Often his small clinic lacks even Aspirin. But he is enough to guarantee good vaccination coverage, early diagnosis of respiratory infections and malnutrition – enough, in short, to cut child deaths by nearly a third.

Many developing countries have recognized that they need a way to get preventive health care and information out from district centres to rural and poorly educated populations, and there have been all manner of schemes to train community health volunteers. But very few countries have been willing to do what Malawi does: pay them. It's only $36 a month – not even enough, Mr. Malunga lamented, to buy a bicycle – but in a desperately poor country, it is enough to keep him showing up in a crisp blue polyester uniform to weigh and vaccinate babies each day.

The costs of improving the health of children does not require billions and it does not need high technology and expensive drugs, it begins with applied work in communities addressing basic issues of preventative health and nutrition. Later, there will be a need for more and better health care, but addressing basic issues can provide immediate results. All that is required is the political will of states to help their populations and the financial support of richer countries to ensure that fewer children die.

The High Flying Loonie

2007-10-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Now that the Canadian dollar has effectively reached parity with the United States dollar, a number of businesses can more easily expand into the American and international market. One of which is our banks. Benefiting from a tightly regulated market in Canada and making fabulous profits, they can use the Canadian dollars they have on hand to buy banks in other countries. The Globe and Mail reports that this process is underway:

Canada's two largest banks announced early Tuesday they are spending almost $11-billion (U.S.) to expand in the United States and the Caribbean, riding on the wings of the soaring Canadian dollar.

With the loonie now at or above par with the greenback for the first time in more than 30 years, No. 2-ranked Toronto-Dominion Bank stole the show by announcing its biggest acquisition to date: a deal to double its U.S. retail banking presence by taking over Commerce Bancorp Inc. for $8.5-billion in cash and stock — a transaction made possible in part by regulatory problems that led to the ouster of the New Jersey bank's founder at the end of July.

The news of TD's planned acquisition overshadowed confirmation from No. 1-ranked Royal Bank of Canada that it is buying Trinidad & Tobago's RBTT Financial Holdings Ltd. for $2.2-billion, in one of the largest recent acquisitions in the Caribbean.

But observers say there is little question that the high-flying loonie will make both deals easier for the acquiring banks to swallow.

If the Canadian dollar remains high, this will be an opportune time for Canadian business to expand southwards and buy competing firms in the United States.

The Sad State of Canada

2007-09-29T11:06:00.001-07:00

The Globe and Mail published an article that covers the growing controversy of a Liberal high-ranking apparatchik who allegedly said: "If I hire more Quebeckers, will I also have to hire more Chinese?" This coming from the party that introduced official bilingualism and multiculturalism.

This quote, however, indicates the problem with multiculturalism. Ideally, multiculturalism should promote equality, but it can also be used as a tool of homogenization. The rationale: if I do something for one group, I have to do it for all, which is not possible, therefore best that I do nothing. Such an attitude, of course, helps only the dominant group.

Census Results

2007-09-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Prince George Free Press published an article entitled Census. Waiting on appeal in the September 21, 2007 edition of the newspaper. Unfortunately, the article is not available online, but I will summarize the results. This article highlights the power of research and the importance of census statistics.

The article writes:

According to the census, Prince George's population dropped by approximately two per cent - 1,425 people - between 2001 and 2006. In 2006, the city's population was listed at 70,981.

"There is a major difference between the 2006 Census numbers and B.C. Stats' projections," Initiatives Prince George economic development director Kathie Scouten said. "We haven't heard back from Stats Canada yet. It's quite a long process, they tell us. It's going to be months."

Initiatives Prince George has been working with the mayor's office since March, when the census data was released, to prepare a challenge of the data.

B.C. Statistics projected flat population growth for Prince George during the period, she said.

If an appeal is granted and the city's population is remeasured, Statistics Canada won't issue a new version of the census, she said.

"They don't change the published data.... they issue an errata."

In previous interviews, Kinsley said the census data is a critical measurement used by the provincial and federal government for issuing per capita grants and funding. In addition, the B.C. electoral Boundaries Commission used the 2006 Census to prepare its proposed boundary changes.

"I don't know what went wrong. In 2001, the vacancy rate was 12-14 per cent, now it's two per cent," Kinsley said.

"Building rates are up, employment is up - it doesn't fit with a population decline. There is no rhyme or reason to the numbers."

In his presentation to the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission, Kinsley said the city's sewage treatment plant is handling more organic matter than in 2001.

"That takes more people."

The full 2006 Census can be found online at www.statscan.ca.

The Mayor of Prince George is correct in that a census cannot guarantee perfect answers. A census is best at measuring people living in permanent residences who have been there for longer periods of time. A census is not as good at measuring the number of homeless and transient populations.

It is, however, an interesting solution that the Mayor is proposing: perhaps Statistics Canada should forgo sending out census takers and wasting money on paperwork and the like. It would be so much easier to simply measure the amount of sh*t produced in any given municipality (the "organic matter") and calculate population based on this indicator. (Yes, I am being sarcastic.)

The moral of the story: no measure is perfect, but you do the best to minimize error rates. However, even when the data is sound, you still can't satisfy all the people all the time!

Russian Bombers Fly Along Canadian Coast

2007-09-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

The Russian News and Information Agency (RIAN) reports that Russian bombers flew along the Alaskan and Canadian coast. According to RIAN:

Two Russian strategic Tu-95MS Bear-H bombers carried out a flight along the coasts of Alaska and Canada during recent command and post exercises, the Russian Air Force announced Thursday.
"Each Tu-95 plane took about 30 tons of fuel on board, for the first time since the Soviet era. Their average flight duration was about 17 hours, during which the planes covered a distance of over 13,000 km [8,000 miles]," said Alexander Drobyshevsky, an aide to the Air Force commander.

According to the Air Force, the bombers were refueled in the air by Il-78 Midas tankers.

Drobyshevsky also said another pair of Tu-95MS flew around Greenland into the eastern Atlantic, a flight that took about 12 hours.

President Vladimir Putin announced the resumption of strategic patrol flights on August 17, saying that although the country halted long-distance strategic flights to remote regions in 1992, other nations had continued the practice, compromising Russian national security.

The latest flights were in line with an air patrolling plan, and the planes were accompanied by NATO fighters.

Russia is affirming its military presence across the globe. However, it is not clear what Russia hopes to gain in the long run from this provocative action. The last Cold War bankrupted the Soviet Union, and Russia cannot afford another protracted military confrontation with the United States and NATO.

Lake Baikal

2007-09-21T21:05:00.000-07:00

One of the jewels of Russia is Lake Baikal: this massive lake in the Russian Far East holds 20% of the world's water. The lake is over 1.5 kilometers in depth and is the deepest lake in the world. The Moscow Times has published a fascinating piece examining the ecology of Baikal. The lake is home to a number of species found nowhere else, and one of the important denizens of this lake is its miniature shrimp that filter the lake's water:

Baikal does pull off a unique miracle of self-purification -- through its miniature shrimp, the Epischura baicalensis. These animals strain pollution from the water like "a tiny vacuum cleaner about the size of a poppy seed." Baikal's zillions of shrimp filter "the lake's entire volume every twenty-three years." Thus "Baikal is in a perfect state!" one scientist announces. "It is huge, it is rich, it is healthy, it is wise, and it is not similar to any phenomena in the world!"

Thomson is wary. "Baikal is perfect," he thinks. "It's a wonderful, soothing story, which exalts the lake even as it frees humans from their responsibility to care for it."

Unfortunately, the Soviet Union in its haste to industrialize contributed to the growing pollution of Lake Baikal. The Soviet industry continues to pollute the lake. According to the Moscow Times:

Indeed, many others warn Thomson that "waste from factories, farms, and human settlements is testing the limits of Baikal's delicate ecology." Siberian industry helped spearhead the nation's economic and technological achievements of the 1960s and 1970s. Three dams on the Angara River produced electricity for aluminum, petrochemical and airplane factories -- all within 50 kilometers of Baikal. The result is a "contaminated hot zone." The region has been deemed "irreparably damaged" by the Rand Corporation. A Soviet government study found that in 1988 the city of Angarsk produced more harmful air pollution than all of Moscow, and the government recently admitted that Irkutsk and nearby cities have some of the poorest air quality in the nation.

For more information on Lake Baikal: Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal by Peter Thomson and published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

Grizzly encounters in Prince George

2007-09-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

A grizzly bear was captured in Prince George reports the Prince George Citizen. Black bears are a common sight around the city, but grizzly's are a much rarer sight to see.

Babies and Birth Rates

2007-09-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

Canada's birth rate nudged up in 2005 as more women in their thirties had children. According to the Globe and Mail:

Canada's total fertility rate in 2005 was 1.54 children per woman, an increase from 1.53 in the previous year and the highest rate since 1998.

But that's is still well below what is known as replacement-level fertility, which is 2.1 children per woman, and way behind the 3.6 in 1947.

What does this mean? Canada's population will be growing older. This will require longterm adjustments: there will be more retirees and fewer workers.

Greenland sees bright side of warming

2007-09-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

The BBC recently published an insightful article on Greenland, global warming and life on this northern island. This article highlights some of the changes that are occurring: more potatoes are being grown in the south of Greenland as the warmer climate makes for a longer growing season. However, the important information is at the end of the article: the authors highlight the challenges facing Greenland. The leadership is seeking greater development to generate funds for Greenland. Below, an excerpt from the article:

The government of Greenland is worried about the human impact of the ice melt.
"There is sea ice for two to three months less every year," says Aleqa Hammond, Minister for Finance and Foreign Affairs. "For the communities in the north who live solely off hunting and fishing, it's like your boss taking away your pay for a couple of months without giving you notice."
Ms Hammond reckons that the number of Greenlanders living only off hunting could have dropped by as much as 6,000 in the past 10 years, from 8,000 to only 2,000 now. That's a significant social change in a country with a population of around 56,000. "I come from a hunting family," she says. "Five of my uncles were hunters. Now only two are."
'Political independence'
While Ms Hammond is very concerned about how quickly northern communities will have to adapt to climate change, she is also optimistic about the positive developments it could bring. She points to the greater volumes of halibut being caught off the west coast due to warmer sea temperatures, and the return of cod to some areas.
In addition to achieving more self-sufficiency in food products, she wants to develop hydroelectric power, oil and gas exploration, and the mining of Greenland's rich mineral deposits. All of this could become technically easier as the ice melts.
Greenland has signed a memorandum of understanding with the US company Alcoa to build a huge aluminium smelter using the country's plentiful water reserves.
"All of this can help us to reduce our economic dependence on Denmark," says Ms Hammond, "and could eventually lead to political independence."
Denmark currently gives about US$600m a year to Greenland, equivalent to about half its budget. Since 1979 Greenland has had home rule, but not full independence.
So will Greenland be a net beneficiary or a loser from climate change? On the one hand, it could lose a proud Inuit heritage of dog sleds and whale hunting, walruses, seals and polar bears. But on the other it may gain economically.
"You are not really comparing like with like," says Professor Rosing. "Loss of cultural identity and economic benefits are two different categories. You can't quantify the loss of our traditions. The real problem is that we are having to adapt so quickly."

Greenland's population is composed mainly of the indigenous Greenlanders (the indigenous Greenlanders refer to themselves as Kalaallit and represent close to 88% of the population of Greenland ). The Kalaallit are closely related to the Canadian Inuit in language and culture. Though it is still part of the Danish state, Greenland benefits from a great deal of autonomy under Home Rule.

For more information on the Kalallit, the International Work Group for Indigenous affairs features Greenland in its country profiles, providing a concise overview on Greenland and its indigenous population.

The Oppressed Russian Police?

2007-08-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

It seems that Moscow's police is seeking protection from the their prosecution for the beating of a new recruit. The police on trial are complaining that they are not being treated fairly. According to Gazeta.ru (my translation):

In December 2006, police officers on trial for the beating of the family of a new recruit, Andrei Zuev, appealed to the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Vladimir Lukin, to protect law enforcement officials from their victims. Members of the 3rd battalion militia stationed in the Western Administrative District of Moscow sent a detailed letter not only Lukin, but also to the director of the Russian Interior Ministry Rashid Nurgaliyev, the Moscow prosecutor Yuri Semin, a representative of the Moscow Cite Court Olga Yegorova, as well as to the media and human rights organizations.

Complaining of aggressive and emotional testimony of Nicholas Zuev [a member of the recruit's family who testified against the police officers], the police claimed that he had "followed [his testimony] with attempts to put pressure on the court through appeals to the media and public opinion." Police officers said: "The media announced in advance that our comrades are criminals."

It seems that the police officers have been insulted given the epithets that have been applied to them: Gestapo, bandits, drunks, and worse in the media and in popular opinion.

The incident in question occurred in August 2006 when police officers showed up at the Zuev apartment to pick up the youngest son to serve in the military. The family argued that the youngest son had medical documentation demonstrating that he was not fit to serve in the military. Shortly afterwards, a major and two police officers showed up at the apartment and an argument ensued with a number of family members being injured.

It seems that the police officers in question would prefer that complaints against the police would never be publicized and that they always be shown in a favorable light.

Propaganda

2007-08-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

In reading the Russian News and Information Agency (rian.ru), I am struck by the subtle means in which it is presenting its vision of Russia. I would even qualify it as propaganda. The way that it reports the news is presenting a very optimistic vision of Russia, one in which Russia is clearly leading the world in the creation of wealth and innovation. In reading the headlines, one could easily think that Russia easily equals the United States in wealth, power and prestige. This is done through the very subtle use of the words "could" and "should" and "soon."

I cite as an example, a news article entitled: "Russia should increase aircraft production by 2025 - Putin." In this piece, Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, is cited as saying that "Russia should produce 300 passenger airliners annually and double production of military aircraft by 2025." The article simply presents the president's words as fact: "It [the United Building Aircraft Corporation] has the task of producing annually 300 passenger airliners by 2025," Vladimir Putin said. "As for military aviation, we plan to double annual production." Granted, it is a short piece, but it leaves the impression that Russia will be producing hundreds of passenger airlines within a generation. Is this truly feasible? Also, 18 years is a long time in the history of any country. Who would have guessed in 1979, when Soviet forces were invading Afghanistan, that the Berlin Wall would fall within a measly 10 years? Reporting that Russia hopes to produce any number of planes in 2025 borders on the farcical, unless you are aiming at producing propaganda.

Another popular article: "Gazprom could become world's richest company-Medvedev." Here RIAN cites Dmitry Medvedev, who is also chairman of the Gazprom board of directors, as saying to the German magazine Stern: "Gazprom has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. When I joined the board of directors (in 2000), the concern was worth about $8 billion, but today it is more than $250 billion. One day it could become the world's most valuable company." Why is this newsworthy? And, is GAZPROM really worth $250 billion? According to Forbes Magazine, GAZPROM is the world's 52nd richest company and its worth is estimated at 81 billion. It is an achievement, but why exaggerate GAZPROM's claims and why should RIAN take at face value what the chairman of GAZPROM says to a reporter. Unless, the goal is to create the impression that soon Russia will be one of the world's richest countries.

Finally, this article entitled "Russia to build fifth-generation fighter prototype soon" relies on the ambiguous word "soon." The article affirms that "At present, we have completed the development of technical documentation for the fifth-generation fighter and passed it to the production plant, which will start construction in the near future," Colonel General Zelin said."
The Russian Army has therefore developed "plans" for the new fighter jet and is looking to build it. It optimistically hopes that the plan will go from draft to flying prototype in a bit more than a year. The Colonel General is truly an optimistic man.

All told, the Russian News Agency is in many ways propagandistic. It is not simply reporting the news, it is creating the news. The goal clearly to create an image of Russia as a powerful and rich country that is gaining in greatness and prestige daily.

The Panopticon and Russia

2007-08-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

The panopticon was a design for prisons developed in England by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The image to the left was taken from the Wikipedia article on the panopticon which correctly provides the goal of such prisons: "The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not, thus conveying a "sentiment of an invisible omniscience." In his own words, Bentham described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example." The goal of such prisons was to minimize the number of guards surveying the prisoners. One guard could see into all the cells and observe what any prisoner was doing at any time. The prisoner would therefore never know if he was being watched or not and thus would come to discipline himself (I will use the masculine as there were no prisons, to the best of my knowledge, build for women using the panopticon design).

Michel Foucault was inspired by the idea of the panopticon in his writings and notably in his writings on crime and punishment. The goal of modernity was to have individuals regulate themselves and they would seek to fit their lives to the larger norms of society.

With modern technology, it is never possible to know who is watching when you are online and the possible consequences of what you have written. One blogger in Russia recently discovered the dangers of expressing one's ideas in Russia.

The online gazeta.ru reported on August 10, 2007, that a musician was arrested in the Komi Republic for a comment that he posted in his blog. The comment (my translation) that raised the ire of police and prosecutors: "Cops and and criminals are one and the same. It would be quite good if corrupt cops were periodically burnt on Stefan's Square [in downtown Syktyvkar]." Here, the blogger does not state that tomorrow or at any time a few police officers should be rounded up and burnt at the stake. Rather, he is using the conditional and this is clearly a hyperbole indicating his frustration with the corruption that he sees as rampant among police officers.

What does this blogger face if convicted? Maximum punishment: a fine of 200,000 rubles and five years in a penal colony. Given that a good wage in Syktyvkar is 10,000 rubles per month, the potential fine is equivalent to two years worth of salary.

The police went to great extremes to connect the accused to the blog. The academic writings of the blogger were seized and academics were called upon to demonstrate that based on the linguistic evidence the blogger and the accused were one and the same individual. A lot of time and effort was clearly put to arrest a blogger for an online rant.

Why is this like the panopticon? Clearly, no state can supervise all bloggers, nor can it listen in to all phone call, because any state will quickly go bankrupt if it tries to supervise all citizens at all times. However, like a prison designed using the idea of the panopticon, it is not necessary to supervise everybody at all times. Rather, all that is necessary is to arrest a few individuals and then make it clear that all could be potentially watched at any time and any could therefore be arrested. This, it is hoped, will be enough to have the citizenry regulate itself. If there is a potential for arrest, then many will simply stay quiet and will refrain from saying what they think, and this will dampen any expressions of free thought. This is what George Orwell had in mind when writing 1984 and it may be time to dust off this old classic...

Greatness

2007-08-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

Robert Amsterdam's blog cites an interesting piece by Nina Khrushcheva published online in the International Herald Tribune. She compares Gogol's Russia with contemporary Russia. Gogol according to Khrushcheva was a "a genius who depicted Russia as it is - a country of illusions and imagination, in which perceptions are more important than facts, where officials are corrupt and people are oppressed because they all live in a dream of empire." By extension, she argues that Russians still live in a dream of empire.

When coming to Russia, one of the common assertions made by the populace is that of Russia greatness. Russia was, is, and must be a great country. Greatness is invariably judged in terms of military might. Vladimir Putin has been emphasizing Russia's return to greatness and the media has been used to propagate a new sense of greatness in the population. However, if a country is truly great, does it continually have to affirm it? Is is truly necessary to repeat it endlessly. True greatness is recognized by all and it is not necessary for it to be repeated ad nauseum.

Nina Khrushcheva highlights that the Russian state is using every mean possible to preach the greatness of Russia. She writes:

So, how does Putin's Russia answer the question of what is to be done? It uses news broadcasts, entertainment programs, billboards and even childrens' cartoons to remind everyone that Russia is great.

Subway loudspeakers recite poems about the country's greatness. Posters call for strengthening the military.

Uniforms are in and patriotic youth organizations such as Nashi (Ours), successor to the Soviet-era Pioneers, are on the march. The economy is great, Gazprom is great, the military is great, Putin is great: The empire remains ours.

The question is what is Russian greatness? It is certainly not the economy nor is it the quality of life of most of its inhabitants. What if greatness was defined in improving the lives of all the citizens of Russia? Sadly, this is a rarely a criteria in defining Russian greatness.

Russia's Poverty

2007-08-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Russia's elite likes to take pride in the new riches of Moscow. They claim that Moscow is comparable to Paris and London and New York. However, the true indicator of Russia's success (or lack of success) is the status of its villages. Moscow millionaires drive around in their Mercedes, but the main form of transportation in distant Russian villages are horse-drawn carriages.

In the research I conducted in the Komi Republic, the inequalities of Russian society are glaring. There is no natural gas and most homes are heated with wood burning stoves. Likewise, wells provide water and for most a cow or a goat ensured survival when salaries were not paid. Moscow might as well be in another country.

This reality is overlooked by the elites in Moscow. One GAZPROM commercial that was airing when I was in the Komi Republic features a wood burning fire heating some boiling water, replaced by coal and finally replaced by natural gas. The voice over informs viewers that GAZPROM is the future. However, this commercial overlooks the fact that much of Russia has no natural gas, even in regions that produce the natural gas and contribute to Russia's wealth. If anything, GAZPROM does not have much interest in ensuring that more Russians have access to natural gas for heating their homes: it is increasingly difficult for GAZPROM to meet the needs of all its clients both inside the country and outside. It is better for GAZPROM if rurual villages do not have access to natural gas as this leaves more gas for export to Europe.

The BBC features an in-depth piece that examines the two Russia's: the Russia of the oligarchs and the urban elite and the other Russia living in poverty.

To cite the article:

An hour and a half further on, off the main road and down a puddle-strewn bumpy track which nearly maroons the taxi on a mudbank, we arrive at the tiny village of Fedotova.

At first glance, it looks abandoned.

Some wooden houses have collapsed in on themselves. Others are sloping dangerously, and many have neither roof nor glass in the windows.

In the distance, we see two old people lugging plastic buckets to a well: clearly there is no running water.

It turns out that 20 years ago, this used to be a thriving village with two shops, a club and 85 families.

But when the collective farm went bust, all the jobs went.

Now just 12 houses are inhabited and the only regular link with the outside world is a weekly bread van.

Otherwise the villagers, who live on their own produce, chickens and goats and by selling honey and berries at the market, have to walk the 4km to the road on foot.

This is not the exception, rather it is typical of most of Russia including the Komi Republic. Little wealth is reaching villages and the poor. The main improvement in recent years is the fact that pensions are paid on time. Quite often, a pension is the only source of cash for families. Too often, rural villages are marked by unemployment and alcoholism.

The Status of the French-language in Québec

2007-08-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

Over four decades ago, John Porter published his seminal work The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada. Published in 1965, this work examined the distribution of power and wealth in Canada and argued that there was a vertical mosaic in Canada. That is to say that the ethnic groups were aligned in a vertical hierarchy with some ethnic groups having greater economic clout than others. At the top of the hierarchy was the Anglo-Saxon economic elite with French-Canadians much farther down and Canada's indigenous populations at the very bottom.

Porter's findings did not mean that every Anglo-Saxon in Canada was wealthy, but it did signify that as a group, they did much better than all the others. Their average incomes, for example, was much higher than all the rest and they owned a much larger proportion of Canada's wealth, industry and businesses.

John Porter's research had a tremendous impact on the country. It certainly inspired Canadian policy on multiculturalism. The goal was to give all Canadians equal access to the country wealth. Such research also pushed change in Québec, including pushing the provincial government to adopt Bill 101. This bill is most famous in Canada for its French-only regulations regarding signs (which was overturned in part by the Supreme Court), but the major thrust of the bill was to promote a greater equality between French and English speakers. It sought to promote the use of the French langauge as a language of work, thus allowing greater social mobility for French-speakers.

In many ways, the bill was a success: French-speakers have made tremendous gains when it comes to average income and overall social status. However, bilingual French-speakers are at a distinct advantage: they have on average the highest wages along with bilingual English-speakers. Unilingual French-speakers in Québec fare even worse than unilingual English-speakers in the province, even though they represent over 80% of the population. However, the gains have been substantial.

The National Post published recently an article examining these gains made by French-speakers in Quebec. Below is an excerpt from the article.

Francophones are increasingly taking charge of the Quebec economy and closing the salary gap with anglophones in the province, says a C.D. Howe Institute report.
Francophone ownership of public- and private-sector businesses in Quebec grew from 47.1% to 67.1% from 1961 to 2003, according to study results released Tuesday.

The report, entitled "Laggards No More: The Changed Socioeconomic Status of Francophones in Quebec," appears on the eve of the 30th anniversary of passage of Bill 101, provincial legislation governing French in the workplace and in schools.

The relative income gap between anglophone and francophone employees has narrowed in the three decades between 1970 and 2000.

But while francophone workers are catching up fast, the report says the average income of unilingual francophones in 2000 still lagged behind the incomes of unilingual anglophones and bilingual workers.

The average income of unilingual francophone males was $29,665 in 2000, compared with $34,097 for unilingual anglophones, the report said. Bilingual anglophone and francophone workers earned average incomes of $38,745 and $38,851, respectively.

Being able to speak only French or English had less impact on women's salaries during that same period. But bilingual women generally earned more. In 2000, bilingual francophone and anglophone women earned average incomes of $26,644 and $26,247, respectively, compared with unilingual francophones ($20,786) and anglophones ($23,002).

English- and French-speaking allophones have generally seen their earnings decrease by comparison with francophone salaries since 1970, the report showed.
The average income statistics did not take into account the workers' respective education levels or experience, noted Yvan Guillemette, senior policy analyst for C.D. Howe.

The report, which updates previous studies on language and income, was co-authored by Francois Vaillancourt, an economics professor at Universite de Montreal, Dominique Lemay, an economist with Tecsult, and McGill University law student Luc Vaillancourt.

The authors note three factors that might have played an important role in the changing fortunes of francophone and anglophone workers:

A significant departure of anglos from Quebec from 1970 to 2000 in reaction to provincial language laws, the threat of separatism, head-office relocations, and economic booms elsewhere;
Growth in Quebec's public and private sectors, providing more jobs for qualified francophones;
Increased purchasing power of francophones, who demand goods and services in French.
The study did not lead to new public policy recommendations, Guillemette said, but the authors did reiterate previous suggestions, including the compulsory use of French on signs, in addition to other languages; businesses to serve the local market in French; use of French as the language of work in Quebec; and French as the common language of all students, from kindergarten to Grade 3.

The C.D. Howe report is one of several studies that the Office quebecois de la langue francaise expects to review or produce in the lead-up to 30th anniversary of Bill 101 on Aug. 26, spokesman Gerald Paquette said yesterday.

This article demonstrates the role of the state in promoting greater equality. A proactive state, in this case the province and the federal government with official bilingualism, helped French-speakers gain greater social mobility.

The question remains as to why unilingual French speakers are still at the bottom of the heap? Though the research does not examine why this is the case, I can hypothesize as to the causes. The knowledge of English is tied to locate and education: an individual who has a university education is more likely to know some English and a higher education is correlated with higher earnings. Likewise, a French-speaker in Montreal is more likely to come into contact with the English language and as this is the economic center of the province, this will also provide job opportunities and better salaries than are generally available in more distant regions far from Montreal and the Saint Lawrence valley.

The Stifling Russian Bureaucracy

2007-08-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

The Moscow Times featured an article that examined Russia's efforts to develop a strong IT culture and to promote economic development in Russia. The Russian state want to imitate India and its successful high-tech industry that focuses on computer programming. Russia's efforts are bogged down in bureacracy. According to the Moscow Times:

[Sergei Matsotsky, general director of leading IT firm Information Business Systems] said the original legislation would have spurred the IT industry and made it competitive with India and China. But seemingly never-ending promises and declarations from state officials took precedence over real action, he said.

As the law stands now, IT companies can qualify for tax relief if they export 70 percent of their goods and employ at least 50 people. But no company can claim the relief because the law, which came into force Jan. 1, also requires them to register with a special government agency, which has yet to be created.

Bureaucracy has also beset attempts to simplify export duties on software and reduce the value-added tax.

The Russian state is spending billions on other high-tech ventures such as nanotechnology, but it is not addressing the main challenges facing the country and its economy: the stifling bureaucracy that crushes initiative and the Russian state's endless bureaucracy.

What Where They Thinking?

2007-08-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

The Moscow Times reports that Magna is having some doubts about its new partnership with the Russian billionaire and oligarch Oleg Deripaska:

Magna, Canada's largest automobile parts manufacturer, warned last week that Oleg Deripaska's $1.5 billion investment in the firm could result in the Russian government becoming a minority shareholder.

In a memorandum filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of a shareholder meeting on Aug. 28, Magna outlined the risks involved in the tie-up with Deripaska, including the possibility that Deripaska's Basic Element holding group or its automotive subsidiary, Russian Machines, could be nationalized.

"Certain political forces continue to call for the results of economic reforms, including the privatization of Russian enterprises, such as Basic Element, to be reversed," Magna said in the memorandum.

What was Frank Stronach thinking? Every Russian political pundit and analyst this side of the Urals could have told them that months ago.

Cows, CO2 and Dying

2007-08-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

Rod Liddle in a piece entitled "Give Russia the Arctic and look forward to another toxic disaster." The piece excoriates Russia (and the former Soviet Union) for the environmental damage it has committed in the name of Communism.

At the end of the piece, he has an interesting comment with regards to cars and global warming. He writes:

Listen to this latest news from the green lobby: walking is four times more damaging to the ozone layer than driving a car. A brisk walk to the shops will require you to eat 100 grams of, say, beef, thus resulting in 3.6kg of emissions used to produce your steak. A car journey would produce less than 1kg of emissions. So, save the planet and buy a car.

With a bit of googling, I discovered that some environmentalists did say this. According to Chris Goodall's site how to live a low-carbon life: "If it's only greenhouse gas emissions you are worried about, then it may be better to drive than to walk." The online PDF document states that "The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not
good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better."

It is true that modern agriculture consumes a lot of energy: you need diesel for the tractors and the large trucks hauling the foods produced, you need even more energy and hydrocarbons to produce chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The only true alternative is to grow your own foods. This, however, is not realistic for most people. Few people have a few acres handy to produce everything that they need. What is the solution?

I agree with Adam Stein that if we examine our lives, everything good for you is bad for the environment. As he notes, some environmental researchers have concluded that even riding a bicycle is bad for the environment. In many ways, environmentalism is the new religion to many, and in the Anglo-American tradition, this religion is imbued with its share of Puritans who preach an austere life in the name of Green.

The easiest solution of course would be to stop eating. You would certainly stop burning carbon-based energies (aka food) and you would eventually stop producing CO2. But, if you do choose this route, make sure to die green. Embalming fluids are bad for the environment and you want to be efficiently recycle. This article highlights that dying green is the way to go :-)

Glaciers and Permafrost

2007-08-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Globe and Mail featured a piece today entitled "Melting glaciers unearth new challenges Roads, buildings, rail lines and airports will cost more to replace as their foundations turn into sludge." When reading the title, I automatically knew that it was wrong: melting glaciers do not threaten infrastructure, but melting permafrost does. The first section of the article talks exclusively about glaciers and how they are retreating. It is only halfway down the first page of the online article that we get to the real problem:

According to a recent University of Alaska study, climate change could add as much as $6-billion to what is now expected to be the $40-billion cost of building and maintaining public infrastructure in Alaska between now and 2030.

Alaska's roads, buildings, railroads and airports are all going to cost more to replace in part because the foundation upon which they are built is turning into sludge. That once permanently frozen subsoil - permafrost - is thawing.

"This is a huge issue for the state," said Peter Larsen, co-author of the report by the Institute of Social and Economic Research. "Canadians should be interested in this issue as well because a place like the Yukon faces the same challenges.

"What is going to happen to the permafrost when temperatures go above freezing? The airport in Nome is having a severe problem with thawing permafrost, and there are people from the state's Department of Transportation on the ground there trying to deal with the fact that the runway is facing a serious problem."

Melting permafrost usually turns into mud. This poses two main threats to construction: building that are built upon a solid foundation of permafrost will start to sink into the mud should the permafrost melt. If a slope has a high ice content in the permafrost, then you risk having a mudslide if the slope melts. This, of course, will endanger anything built on the slope or below the slope.

The Globe and Mail article is clearly more infatuated with glaciers than permafrost. Glaciers are somewhat sexier than permafrost when describing the dangers of global warming. It is a shame as permafrost is a fascinating thing.

In the countries that have permafrost, it is necessary to deal with permafrost to build any structure. In the Russian Far East, massive apartment building 10 or more stories high were built on pilings driven deep down into the permafrost. Space was left between the building and the soil to allow air to circulate and to dissipate heat generated by the building and its inhabitants away from the soil so the permafrost would not melt. Without this, all these building would have tilted, reminiscent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa before collapsing.

The building of roads is particularly challenging. The tires rolling on the pavement generate heat, a byproduct of friction. Without friction, there would be no traction, and cars and trucks would not move. The heat generated by the cars and trucks eventually melts the permafrost and can create massive sinkholes below the pavement. The only way of avoiding this is by insulating the permafrost from the pavement to ensure that the permafrost does not melt.

The natural environment is of course shaped by the permafrost. Amazing natural structures can emerge in the landscape: hills of pure ice that push upwards out of the ground. These are not glaciers, rather, they are features of the permafrost itself.

Permafrost is central to life in the Far North and are as interesting as glaciers in my opinion.

The NDP and the Arctic

2007-08-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

The buzz over the Russian Arctic expedition continues. It seems the NDP is pushing the Canadian government to assert Canadian sovereignty much more aggressively in the north. It is criticizing the federal government for not building an icebreaker that could compete with Russia's. According to the Globe and Mail, the leader of the NDP said:

"To exercise our sovereignty, Canada needs vessels that can go anywhere, any time, in those areas we claim as our own," said Mr. Layton, calling for an immediate increase in government funding for scientific research that would gather evidence to support Canada's Arctic claim.
"Rather than buying military 'slushbreakers,' we should be building new polar icebreakers...to break ice for commercial vessels, help re-supply northern communities, maintain navigation devices, provide search and rescue, and support research scientists," Mr. Layton said.

The Russian expedition certainly served a useful purpose: it forced Canadian politicians and journalists to look north and to realize the importance that the Arctic may and will play in the future. Russia clearly understands the potential economic importance of the Arctic and the importance of asserting its sovereignty over as much of the Arctic as it can claim.

However, Russia should invest more in protecting the Arctic as some of the greatest threats to the Arctic Ocean come from Russia. The BBC has reported on the nuclear waste that is stored on the shores of the Arctic Ocean in northern Russia:

For almost half a century, the Northern Fleet has operated two-thirds of the navy's nuclear-powered vessels. Much of the spent fuel from these vessels has been dumped directly into the Barents and Kara seas, with the remainder placed in vastly inadequate storage. Wasteland A journey west along the Kola Peninsula's rugged Barents Sea coastline displays a natural beauty that belies the harsh realities lying hidden below the choppy surface.

About halfway between Severomorsk and the Norwegian border lies Andreeva Bay, an environmental nightmare where the waters are completely devoid of life.

Leaks from the region's largest nuclear waste storage facility mean no fish will ever swim in this fjord. Onshore, both the soil and the groundwater are badly contaminated.

On this vast site, 32 tons of highly radioactive waste with a high uranium content is stored in crumbling concrete bunkers and rusting tanks and containers - about a third of the nuclear waste mountain that can be found on the Kola Peninsula.

Most of it is spent fuel from the Northern Fleet's nuclear powered submarines, some from nuclear powered ice breakers.

And these days nobody, not even the officials in charge, suggests it is safe.

Given that the icebreaker that traveled to the North Pole was a nuclear-powered ice breaker, one day in the future the spent fuel from this very ship may one day pollute the waters of the Arctic Ocean that Russia is claiming.

Canada's Middle Class

2007-08-05T09:12:00.001-07:00

This weekend the Globe and Mail published a feature on Canada's middle-class. In a piece authoried entitled "The secrets of Canada's world-leading middle-class success," Doug Saunders examines how Canada is a global exception. Where most countries have seen a shrinking middle-class with a growing polarization between the wealthy and the poor, Canada's middle-class has actually grown and not simply because the rich are getting poorer, but rather because the poor have climbed into the middle-class. Below, you will find the article in full as I believe it is well worth reading it in its entirety.

I have to say that it has always been my dream of joining the middle-class. I grew up on a farm in northern Alberta. My childhood consisted of playing on the farm, picking rocks in the field, helping with the livestock and exploring some of the junk piled up here and there. We were not poor, but we certainly did not fit into middle-class America. If anything, a lot of redneck jokes applied to the world I grew up in.

The article is correct in that a growing middle-class needs the support of the state. If one day I join the middle-class, I can only thank the Canadian state which made it possible for me to get an education at a reasonable price with student loans. Most of the people that I grew up with went on to pursue their studies and become nurses, dentists, accountants and teachers. This in spite of the fact that for many of us our parents did not even graduate from high school.

In fact, the region where I grew up in northern Alberta has shifted from a relatively poor working class region to an increasingly rural middle-class collection of villages. Those that do stay in the region usually do so after a stint in the city (Edmonton) where they did their diplomas and degrees before returning to their home region. They build homes that are typical suburban homes that would not be out of place in Edmonton or Calgary or Toronto and they too shop at Costco and the malls of Edmonton when they visit.

A lot more work must be done to combat poverty in Canada, but I am optimistic. We have achieved a lot, though me must work to do even more.

The secrets of Canada's world-leading middle-class success

DOUG SAUNDERS

This long weekend, as Canadian highways fill with lakeside-bound cars and airports with resort-bound families, it is hard to believe that we are anything but a middle-class nation.

After years of full employment and impressive economic growth, you'd think the entire country had been elevated into the secure world of home ownership, retirement savings and weekends on the dock. There's some truth to this vision – but it's a lot stranger than you'd think.

The middle class, around the world, is in trouble. As my articles from India in the past two weeks have shown, poor countries are seeing stunning growth without producing the sort of big, sustainable middle class that leads to peace and long-term stability. There are too many barriers to prevent people from leaving poverty.

But what about countries such as ours, which have had big middle classes for decades? Here, we see a surprising version of the same effect – with notable exceptions. A comprehensive look at the workings of the world's middle class has just been published by Steven Pressman, an economist at Monmouth University in New Jersey. In his The Decline of the Middle Class: An International Perspective, Canada plays a fascinating role.

Were all these people disappearing from the middle class because they got rich? Or had they failed to find a place on the economic escalator and slipped to the ground floor?

“There was both upward and downward mobility,” Mr. Pressman told me, “but downward mobility exceeded upward mobility by around two to one.”

But there are exceptions to this trend. Switzerland's and Germany's middle classes stayed roughly the same size. And two countries – Norway and Canada – saw their middle classes grow substantially. In Canada, it grew to 37 per cent of the population from 33 per cent, the equivalent of a whole mid-sized province joining the station-wagon brigade, moving Canada into the league of Scandinavian nations in the size of its middle class.

Some of this came from wealthier Canadians being humbled: During the same 20 years, the upper class shrank by 1.9 percentage points, to 33.3 per cent of the population. But more came from poor families moving up. Canada is a middle-class success story, especially compared with the slouching United States. But the story doesn't end there.

Mr. Pressman set out to learn what is making the middle class collapse in many countries but expand in others. Some have attributed these changes to an aging population, the number of working women or divorce rates. He used statistical methods to remove age and gender from the picture, but the patterns remained the same.

Then he looked at unemployment: Were countries with rising employment rates experiencing a growing middle class? Nope. Britain has far lower unemployment than Canada, but a shrinking middle class: “While jobs were being added, households were not moving into the middle class.” In the Netherlands, unemployment fell dramatically, but the middle class declined.

Then Mr. Pressman took his data and subtracted everything except salary and wage earnings. That is, he looked at what would be happening if people lived off only the money paid by their employers.

Suddenly, everything changed. Canada's great middle-class boom turned into an enormous decline: If people were forced to live off their earnings alone, our middle class would have shrunk by a staggering six percentage points. The same was true in Germany. In Britain, the middle class would have contracted even more dramatically.

What had Mr. Pressman subtracted? In short, government: All the handouts, tax benefits, subsidies and rebates that transfer money into middle-class pockets (not including pensions). Without government help, Canada's middle class would be endangered.

In a modern economy, Mr. Pressman told me, “I am not sure that the middle class can be self-sustaining. It seems to require active government policies. The market tends to produce great inequalities in income; these inequalities seem greater in a global economy.” Contrary to earlier economic belief, the countries that are most competitive in a globalized economy are those with the most robust tax-and-spend programs. But they have to be aimed at the right places.

Many Canadian families wouldn't be middle-class if it weren't for government handouts. One key example is the thousands of dollars that Ottawa reimburses parents for child-care expenses each year: Without it, many women wouldn't be able to work, so their families would be deprived of one income and may slide into the lower-class bracket. Tax-funded aid for education savings, first-time home buying, retirement savings plans and medical coverage add up: If you gave up all these breaks, would you still be in the middle class?

I compared these findings to information on the money governments actually spend on different classes and got a surprising result: The countries doing well are the ones that don't just help out the middle class, but do so at the expense of the poor.

Canada hands a comparatively paltry 22 per cent of its spending to the poorest three-10ths of the population and a generous 64 per cent to the middle four-10ths, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Germany, one of the few other countries with a non-shrinking middle, gives only 22.3 per cent to the poor.

Compare that with Britain, whose Labour government spent the 1990s changing social programs so that the money went to the poor rather than the middle class; in Britain today, 34.7 per cent of social spending goes to the lowest-income third – and yet the British middle class has shrunk. In Sweden, where almost 30 per cent of spending goes to the poor, the middle class was clobbered.

(An exception is Norway, which spends a record-breaking 43.8 per cent on its poorest third and saw middle-class gains even bigger than Canada's. But Norway's economy consists largely of oil revenues, allowing taxes and spending levels that, in other countries, would probably destroy the very economy that makes the welfare state possible.)

However, countries that saw middle-class gains also tend to be ones that don't tax the poor heavily. Sweden, surprisingly, does. Canada doesn't. Arguably, governments gain more by making middle-class life easier than by simply aiding the poor. The poorest third are doing a lot better now than they did 20 years ago; unlike the middle class, they saw formidable income gains. But not enough to shift many of them into the secure middle.

It may be that traditional welfare-state programs do more to keep people in poverty than to guide them out – a criticism that has been levelled from both the left and the right. Or perhaps there's a new sub-class of “precarious” casual workers, who never are quite poor enough to qualify for welfare or prosperous enough to earn the state benefits of the comfortable middle. Such workers, key to our new national wealth, could be in serious trouble.

Herein lies the paradox of the modern middle class: Its existence is reliant on a thriving and open market economy, but its size and sustainability are equally dependent on the tax-and-spend mechanisms of the modern welfare state – which, it turns out, are even more important in globalized, high-competition economies.

The countries that are doing best are those that spend serious money on cultivating and maintaining a middle class. Many poor countries, despite having developed booming economies during the past 15 years, fail to join the middle-class club because they can't afford to erect government-supported stepladders to success. And countries such as Canada, which can and do spend that money, have done the best at surviving the social turmoil of our age.

Fire in Prince George

2007-08-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, thick black smoke billowed in the sky not too far from my home. Planes circled the blaze. I thought it was a forest fire, but the smoke was just too black. This morning, it seems this blaze made the new in the Globe and Mail. According to the Globe:

CN Rail says a fire that started after a train accident in Prince George, B.C. is completely out and work is under way to repair the track.
CN spokeswoman Kelli Svendson says it's hoped the track along the banks of the Fraser River will be back in service by this afternoon.

Police say it appears a train derailed and collided with a second train Saturday.

The resulting fire in one engine, a tanker car and a lumber car spewed thick black smoke into the skies over Prince George.

The Quest for the North Pole

2007-08-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Russian expedition reached the North Pole reports the BBC and the Russian mini-sub touched the ocean floor and planted a Russian flag. What does this mean for Canada and the world?

Peter MacKay, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister mocked the Russian expedition. According to The National Post:

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay dismissed it as "just a show" of Russian bravado.

In Charlottetown for the federal Conservative caucus meeting this week, Mr. MacKay said the diving expedition and flag-planting are "no threat to Canadian sovereignty."

Mr. MacKay, in a televised interview just hours after the Russian announcement, said: "This isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say, We're claiming this territory.'

"There is no threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic ... we're not at all concerned about this mission -- basically it's just a show by Russia," he told CTV.

The National Post continues by analyzing Canadian ambitions in the Arctic and whether Canada can compete with Russia. Canada cannot as it lack an icebreaker of cutting across the Arctic ice. In order for Canada to conduct its own research in the Arctic Ocean, research required for Canada to lay its own claim on the Arctic Ocean, it would have to rent a heavy icebreaker from either Russia or Finland:

Though the Russian findings are far from proven, one expert, Mr. Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, says Canada needs to identify possible underwater extensions to its own landmass before a 2013 deadline under the UN accord.

"Getting the work done on time will likely involve chartering a heavy icebreaker from Russia or Finland," Mr. Byers told CanWest News Service earlier this week. "So be it. The stakes involved more than justify the cost."

The Arctic ice may still be cold, but the race to claim the Arctic Ocean is certainly warming up quite quickly.

Gorbachev's Distorted View of Putinism

2007-08-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

The Moscow Times published an opinion piece by David Marples, a historian at the University of Alberta. This is a wonderful piece that summarizes nicely the political changes that have occurred since the fall of the Soviet Union. You can read the full piece below, but I do encourage you to read The Moscow Times as it provides a thorough reporting on the news from Russia.

President Vladimir Putin has an unexpected ally in his current war of words with the United States -- Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union and architect of perestroika and glasnost, the reform movement that started the democratization process in Russia. Gorbachev maintains that Putin has reconstructed Russia and enabled it to recover from the economic crisis of the 1990s and that he is intent on establishing a democratic society.

Although his standing in his own country has long since dissipated, Gorbachev enjoys a lingering and genuine respect and admiration in the West. Thus, his comments sparked editorials in many Western newspapers and understandably some vitriolic reactions, particularly to his comment that the United States is obsessed with a "victory complex" and that it has embarked on a new era of imperialism.

Of more interest, perhaps, is Gorbachev's perception of the recent history of his own country, which can be summarized as follows: An era of reform began with his own administration in 1985, and through his policy of perestroika and glasnost, the world observed the onset of democratic reforms, openness and an end to the Cold War.

In the 1990s, however, following the end of the U.S.S.R. and the onset of the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Russia experienced a sharp economic downturn with the impoverishment of the people, widespread corruption and the uncontrolled power of very rich oligarchs, who were interested in enriching themselves rather than the people.

Putin has, in Gorbachev's view, reversed these trends, thus continuing his goals, albeit by using more arbitrary methods. Therefore, Putin's achievements far outweigh his flaws and there is no justification for the foreign media to adopt such a negative stance toward his government. Putin will leave office in 2008, as mandated by the Constitution, but he will continue to play an important role in the nation's political and economic affairs as well as in its foreign policy.

What is wrong with this picture?

It is true that Gorbachev introduced reforms, but they were introduced haphazardly and without any clear forethought. In 1991, Gorbachev's opponents tried to carried out a coup, but they were thwarted by popular resistance led by Yeltsin, the brash reformer best known at that time for throwing away his Communist Party membership card and opposing the Soviet nomenklatura. Unlike Gorbachev, Yeltsin subjected himself to a national election in the then-Russian Republic of the U.S.S.R. And it was Yeltsin, in his capacity as the new president of the post-Soviet Russian Federation, who authorized the shock therapy that transformed the country from a command economy to a market-oriented one.

Admittedly, the situation deteriorated subsequently with the rise of oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky and others, who gained their wealth as a result of the reckless and unwarranted sale of key state assets at cut-rate prices. Corruption became an uncontrollable problem, and Yeltsin himself spent long periods incapacitated by health problems. Moreover, in 1998, Russia experienced a financial crisis so severe that it almost led to a collapse of the economy.

Against the background of the Yeltsin era, Putin certainly deserves some praise. He has brought order to society, curbed the outflow of capital and ended the reign of unpopular oligarchs. He has brought about state ownership over key companies such as Gazprom, which also controls a hefty share of Russian oil output. To be sure, he has been blessed with remarkably good fortune, particularly in the rise in world prices for oil and gas, over which he had no control.

Gorbachev's version of events chooses to ignore some key aspects of Putin's two terms in office, including the renewal of the war in Chechnya and the growing control over the media. Ironically, one exception to that comment is Gorbachev's own newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, whose most prominent journalist and Putin critic, Anna Politkovskaya, was assassinated in October.

Moreover, Gorbachev ignored the fact that Putin has reduced the State Duma to little more than a talking shop (and it is highly unlikely that any real opposition faction will emerge). His acolytes in United Russia won 222 out of the 450 seats in the 2003 Duma elections, and, together with several minor parties, make up a firm majority. He has also appointed governors, ending gubernatorial elections three years ago.

The reduction of the power of the oligarchs, while popular, is clearly politically motivated. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former CEO of Yukos, has served an eight-year sentence for fraud in a maximum-security prison in Krasnokamensk, a remote and toxic-ridden town in the Chita region (in December, Khodorkovsky was transferred to a detention center to Chita in connection with the new charges brought against him.)

Khodorkovsky was singled out for the harshest treatment because of his political ambitions. Putin has stronger grounds for demanding the extradition from Britain of Boris Berezovsky, who has advocated the violent overthrow of the government. But other oligarchs have been left untouched, either because they have no political ambitions or because they have declared their loyalty to the Putin government.

On several occasions, relations with neighbors have been strained. Tiny Estonia suffered a cyberattack on its government networks following the dismantling of a Soviet-era statue commemorating World War II victims. And Putin's overt backing of the flawed presidential campaign of Ukraine Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych sparked the Orange Revolution in 2004.

Lastly, the state-run Gazprom claims to apply the laws of the market, but uses draconian business tactics and arbitrary pricing. Thus, Belarus pays less for gas than Ukraine, which in turn pays less than Georgia, whose government has been hostile toward Moscow.

Putin has indeed led Russia's recovery, restored national pride, and raised the country to the level of a powerful regional power. But he has not used democratic methods, his security forces enjoy vast powers, and his own authority is now greater than that enjoyed by his admirer Gorbachev. The latter's depiction of the Putin government seems as distorted as his memory of his own years in office.

David R. Marples, professor of Russian history at the University of Alberta, Canada, is the author of twelve books, including "The Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991."

The Proliferation of Chiefs

2007-08-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

The BBC has an interesting piece on the proliferation of chiefs in Nigeria. Chiefdoms are of course part of the culture of the region, but modernization and the emergence of a modern cash based society has brought new pressures to bear on the traditional office of the chief. Now, the status of chief can be bought by the wealthy and successful and, likewise, every want to be an honorary PhD.

Russia Reaches the North Pole

2007-08-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Russia has reached the North Pole. As reported earlier, Russia is claiming much of the Arctic Ocean. In order to back up their claims, they send an icebreaker and mini-submarines to the North Pole to conduct research to substantiate their claims to ownership of a vast swath of the Arctic Ocean stretching from its northern coasts to the North Pole. For more details, you can read reports in the Globe and Mail, the BBC and the Russian News and Information Agency. As noted in earlier postings, the Russian goal is quite clear: claim the Arctic and the potential oil and gas fields located under the ocean floor. Russia wants to be an "energy superpower" and to do this it must control the largest possible swath of resource-rich territories under the Arctic Ocean. The BBC highlights this fact in one of its online articles:

The Russians are leading a new "gold rush" in the high north, with a bold attempt to assert a claim to oil, gas and mineral rights over large parts of the Arctic Ocean up to the North Pole.

There are billions of dollars at stake and Russia is seeking to legitimize its claim to the Arctic. The question remains as to the potential environmental dangers of unfettered drilling in the Arctic and the social costs of the development. Will the people that live in the Arctic benefit from any future industrial development in the north?

Mushroom Season

2007-08-01T14:10:00.001-07:00

It is a nice sunny day today and this may presage a new harvest of wild mushrooms. My wife is teaching me the basics of mushroom picking. So far, we have picked enough mushrooms to enjoy a dish of wild mushroom soup and another dish of potatoes and mushrooms both were delicious.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous at first. I had never picked mushrooms in Canada and there are many poisonous mushrooms and a few deadly poisonous mushrooms. However, Ekaterina has been picking mushrooms since the age of six with her mother. True, this was in Russia and I hoped that the mushrooms of northern British Columbia were comparable to those in the Komi Republic. I took my courage in hand and did eat the mushrooms with relish. What can I say, I am hooked. We will return to the trails around Prince George and will keep an eye out for edible mushrooms. With the rain we had and a few days of sun, there should be many mushrooms growing in the woods around the city.

The experience highlights how little most people know about the nature that surrounds them. All over the trails there are innumerable berries and mushrooms, yet few people (including me) know what is edible. Yet, throughout most of human history, we have relied on our knowledge of the natural world arround us to survive and thrive. Now, few of us could survive more than a few days in a forest in the summer, a forest that is overflowing with a variety of foods both nutritious and delicious.

The Consolidation of the Russian Economy

2007-07-31T09:09:00.001-07:00

As noted in my previous post, there is a consolidation of corruption in Russia that is paralleled by the consolidation of business into a handful of monopolies. The trend continues. The BBC reports that the head of Russneft quits and that this oil company will be sold. According to the BBC:

The head of Russian oil group Russneft has said he is quitting the firm and selling it to a Kremlin-friendly rival.

Mikhail Gutseriyev said "unprecedented persecution" from authorities had forced him to step down and sell up.

Aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska has now applied for regulatory approval to buy the group for an undisclosed amount.

The company is currently facing tax claims of around $1bn (£500m) and police charged Mr Gutseriyev with illegal business activities in May.

In an open letter in the Russneft company magazine, Mr Gutseriyev said there was "an attack on all fronts" against the firm from tax authorities, the prosecutor general's office and the interior ministry.

"They told me I could take the easy way out. I refused. Then to make me more ready to negotiate, my company came under unprecedented persecution," he added.

According to the BBC, Deripaska is widely seen as loyal to the Kremlin and has previously said that he would sell his aluminum assets to the state if he was asked. The coerced consolidation of Russneft under Deripaska's ownership will facilitate the state's nationalization at a later date: it is easier to nationalize one large company as opposed to several smaller corporations.

Corruption in Russia

2007-07-31T08:24:00.000-07:00

One of the defining features of Russian life since the fall of the Soviet Union has been the rise in corruption. Everything and everybody had their price. This included the police officers who would ignore a traffic violation for the right price or government officials who would use their offices as a means of accumulating wealth for themselves and their family. The Russian state has now launched a program to fight corruption. I have my doubts. Corruption is changing in Russia, but it is not disappearing. In the same way that power is becoming increasingly centralized, corruption too is becoming monopolized. Simply put, rather than paying many people small bribes, it is now necessary to pay one individual one large bribe to achieve the same goal. Below is an excerpt from the online journal Gazeta.ru followed by my translation.

Прежде всего, речь идет о смене модели коррупции в России в последние два-три года – от массовой и преимущественно «низовой» коррупции страна стремительно переходит к коррупции преимущественно «верховой». По всем оценкам, обороты на коррупционных рынках растут не так уж и стремительно: например, Всемирный банк в своем отчете за 2006 год вообще утверждал, что объемы «коррупционного налога», процента ВВП, приходящегося на коррупционные сделки, несколько сократился.

Одновременно наблюдается существенный рост объема средней взятки –тенденция подтверждается и региональными опросами, и косвенными данными. Говоря грубо, размер взятки вырос, число взяток уменьшилось – вполне очевидно, что речь идет о консолидации процесса мздоимства в более высоких эшелонах власти.

First of all, the discussion centers on the changing model of corruption in Russia in the last two or three years where corruption went from a pervasive and largely "grassroots" corruption to a corruption of the upper echelons. By all estimates, sales in the corruption market is not growing exceedingly fast: for example, the World Bank in its 2006 report claimed that the the "corruption tax" collected as a percentage of [Russia's] GDP declined slightly.

There is a significant increase in the average bribe, a trend confirmed by the regional polls, and circumstantial evidence. Simply put, the size of bribes has increased, while the number of bribes declined, and it is clear that there is a consolidation process whereby bribes paid stay within the higher echelons of power.

This, of course, only applies to government officials. Businesses in Russia do not only have to deal with the official state structure and the corruption that is inherent, they must also pay the unofficial and illegal structures (the "mafia") if they are to remain in business.

The overall tendency therefore is a centralization of corruption that parallels a growing centralization of power. It is also a matches the growing power of monopolies in the Russian economy both at the national and regional level and the increasing disparity of wealth in Russia. It is much easier and efficient to siphon bribes and wealth from a small number of companies than it is to collect a "corruption tax" from thousands or millions of small businesses and individuals. Given that much of Russia's growing wealth is based on the oil and gas industry, the existence of a few monopolies (GAZPROM being a prime example) simply facilitates the centralization of the economy and the potential for corruption.

However, all corruption, big or small, weakens a country's economy. The centralization of corruption will not make the Russian economy stronger, it simply makes the general population that much poorer in the long run.

Back to the USSR

2007-07-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last General Secretary of the Soviet Union, who is widely respected in the West and largely ignored in Russia, came out with a stinging critique of Russia's leading party, United Russia. This party is a pro-Kremlin that was established to support the president. This party holds the majority in the Russian parliament, the Duma.

Gorbachev is cited in Gazeta (the syndicated partner of the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph) as saying that Putin's party is a bad copy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

«Я ее страшно недолюбливаю, это плохая копия КПСС, - признался бывший советский лидер по поводу «Единой России». - Собрались там все администраторы и хотят нас убедить в том, что они партия народа». По мнению Горбачева, ЕР использовала парламентское большинство и «шаг за шагом демонтировала многие завоевания избирательной системы, для того чтобы проложить себе дорогу к успеху». «Это не годится вообще!» - возмутился экс-президент и заметил, что «тут надо вмешаться президенту».

"I terribly dislike [the party United Russia], it is a bad copy of the CPSU", admitted the former Soviet leader with regards to United Russia. "It has gathered all the administrators in the party and wants us to believe that it is the party of the people." In Gorbachev's opinion, United Russia used its parliamentary majority to "dismantle step-by-step many of the gains achieved in an electoral system in order to clear its road to success." "This is not a good thing," the ex-president said with indignation and observed, that "it is necessary for the president [Vladimir Putin] to intervene." [my translation]

United Russia is seen as a rubber stamp for Vladimir Putin, ensuring his control of the legislative assembly.

Power in Russia

2007-07-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

The Russian News and Information Agency published an interesting piece in its What the Russian papers say section. I have reproduced the article below entitled "Who stands at the top of Russia's power pyramid?" According to a poll, Russians believe that the Russian President Vladimir Putin buttressed by the FSB is the ultimate source of power. The Federal Security Service is an agency that was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is the main successor to KGB. What is interesting to note is that "the people" is not listed anywhere in the poll. Simply put, the Russian population sees itself as largely powerless in country's power structure.

According to a poll conducted by the Levada Center, Russians believe Putin and the FSB are the ultimate powers in the country.

People do not understand the principle of the division of power, and do not realize that the executive, legislative and judicial branches must have equal rights.

Russians think that raw power is what rules their country, and so place Putin and security-related bodies at the top of the power hierarchy. The runner-up is money, described in the poll as "oligarchs, bankers and financiers."

It is nice to know that the theory of conspiracy (Zionist or Masonic) is gradually losing ground.

The respondents, who were asked to evaluate the workings of public, political and state institutions, gave top marks to the president. Experts said their opinions are still strongly influenced by television.

"The media have agreed, secretly or openly, that President Putin must not be criticized," said political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin. "That is one of the Kremlin administration's greatest achievements. The economic situation is rather good now, and people tend to thank the president for it."

The FSB and other security-related agencies are given second place. The president's top ranking is based on love, while the prestige of security-related structures rests entirely on fear.

Oreshkin said the media encourage the people to think that Russia is surrounded by enemies bent on undermining its economy.

The armed forces and the government hold third place, closely followed by the prosecutor's office and governors.

The judicial bodies are the outsiders, because Russians do not believe courts can do anything.

"Courts are heavily dependent agencies," a Moscow judge told the popular daily Gazeta. "Judges depend on money and administrative resources, and so seldom pass rulings in favor of ordinary people."

According to the poll, the lower house of parliament (State Duma) and political parties have the least power in the country.

Giscome Portage Trail

2007-07-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Today, my wife and I decided to explore northern British Columbia. We have developed a passion for biking and we decided to explore the Giscome Portage Trail. What a disappointment! Even though this is a provincial park and they do specify on their website that cycling is permitted, the trail is a mess. Clearly, the trail has not been cleared for years. Roughly every 5 meters there is a dead tree blocking the road. The cows on the trail have reduced the softer portions of the trail to muddy pits and there clearly has been no attempt to clear or even maintain the trail. We did not expect paved trails or even perfect trails, but how hard is it to clear a trail? A couple of days and a chainsaw would suffice to remove the dead trees. The city of Prince George could certainly show the province how to do it: the trails behind my university are meticulously maintained and it is a joy to bike down the many kilometers of trail cutting across the forest. I tried to send an e-mail to BC Parks to complain about the condition of the trail, but their site does not have any contact information. So much for a province that claims to be "The Best Place on Earth."

Canadian Colonialism

2007-07-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

Having commented on Russian colonialism, I have to be fair and point out the glaring injustice that exists in Canada. Canada has a long history its own when it comes to the internal colonization of its territory. Not all Canadians have benefited from the wealth created in our society, and Canada's First Nations lag behind the Canadian average when it comes to a variety of socioeconomic indicators including wealth, health and education. A piece on CBCNEWS reviews the legacy of oil and gas development in Northern Alberta and how the indigenous peoples have not shared equally in the oil boom. Here is a short extract:

Decades of oil and gas activity in northern Alberta has done little to improve the lives of aboriginal people living there, according to a national environmental group that used federal government numbers that gauge community well-being.

The Sierra Club of Canada is using its findings to warn First Nations in the Northwest Territories that the proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas project could drag down their quality of living, rather than improve it.

"Natural gas development primarily benefits folks who live in Calgary, and perhaps Toronto, perhaps New York, perhaps Houston," executive director Stephen Hazell told CBC News on Thursday.

The underlying problem is the same as in Russia: a center benefits from the wealth generated at the periphery, with only a small fraction returning to the indigenous populations that must deal with the consequences of this industrial development.

The conclusions presented by the Sierra Club can be debated. In the article, a sociologist is cited who is critical of the way the data was used and interpreted. However, that is a good sign. Debate and disagreement is essential in any society, and NGO's play an important role in generating debate. Fortunately, NGO's such as the Sierra Club in Canada do not face the restrictions that NGO's now face in Russia. However, much still has to be done in Canada when it comes to promoting greater well-being in Canada's indigenous communities.

Northern Natives Tenacious in Preserving Cultures

2007-07-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

It is nice to come across an optimistic article from time to time. Below is an article that was published in the Moscow Times. I have reproduced it in full, but I do encourage readers to read the Moscow Times. It provides a relatively balanced view of what is happening in Russia. The Moscow Times' article discusses the efforts by Russia's indigenous peoples in the Kamchatka Peninsula to maintain their culture. For those who are interested in learning more on the subject of the indigenous peoples of the Kamchatka Peninsula, one anthropologist who has done extensive research in the region is Petra Rethmann. She had recently published Tundra Passages: Gender and History in the Russian Far East. She is an associate professor at McMaster University.

PIMCHAKH, Kamchatka Region -- Listening to enigmatic Koryak-language songs and eating traditional salmon soup and cutlets in this village, it is easy to imagine indigenous cultures still thrive on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

In fact, it is only the sheer tenacity of local Koryaks, Itelmens, Evens and other aborigines that keeps centuries-old customs and languages from dying out in the wild Far East after much was eroded by Soviet rule.

"Native people must live on. Without them this land will be poor and it will be impossible to bring any meaning to this land," said Vera Koveinik who heads the ethnic community of Pimchakh, 40 kilometers from the regional capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

When Russians began settling in Kamchatka in the second half of the 17th century, up to 11,000 Koryaks lived here fishing, herding deer and hunting whale and walrus.

Three centuries of pervasive Russian and Soviet influence and intermarriage have left an indelible mark on Kamchatka's Koryaks, who now number around 7,300 -- by far the largest indigenous group on the peninsula.

"Everyone of my generation speaks the Koryak language, knows the customs, dances, dishes like in the ancient times. But some of our children don't know anything at all," said folk performer Lidia Chechulina, slightly breathless after dancing to the beat of a deer-skin drum and the music of her own voice.

Her songs, sung in a guttural language reminiscent of Chinese, describe the beauty of the tundra, volcanoes and the sea, she explained. She said that songs, one for each person, accompany Koryaks all their lives and act as a charm.

"Our parents preserved everything as it was before the [1917] Revolution," said Chechulina, a small, bubbly woman in her 50s.

Probably the most effective Soviet assimilation policy was that of forcibly putting Koryak children in state-run boarding schools to teach them the Russian language and customs.

"The Soviet culture was imposed on them," said Andrei Samar, a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the People of the Far East.

Since the children came back home only once or twice a year, he said, they knew very little about their native culture let alone traditional skills such as the difficult and dangerous trade of hunting at sea.

Some of those children, now adults, and their parents are actively working to revive indigenous cultures.

A large number of schools offer classes in the Koryak and other aboriginal languages as an extracurricular activity, and families observe ancient holidays. There are also efforts to expand deer herding in regions where it is dwindling rapidly.

The Pimchakh community organizes summer camps in the village where children learn about ancient traditions and do crafts.

The regional government says it runs cultural programs and also provides financial aid for ethnic communities.

But Koveinik said there were no signs in Kamchatka in any of the indigenous languages and no monuments to celebrate the aboriginal culture and history.

"The government probably helps somehow. I don't know, I wouldn't say so," said Chechulina, wearing a traditional suede-and-fur overcoat, a headdress made of beads and soft leather boots meant to protect from moss and mosquitoes in the tundra.

Hardly any aborigines wear such costumes every day and many are university-educated, but the way they talk retains traces of their ancient spirituality rooted in the shamanism that is still practiced.

Pimchakh leader Koveinik, an Itelmen, told the audience after the community ensemble's performance that they were privileged.

"You are today the richest people, you've received so much power and energy," she said.

Russian Colonialism

2007-07-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

Christopher Caldwell, a columnist for the Financial Times, published today an interesting piece entitled Putin’s colonial exploitation. This opinion piece reacts to comments made by the President of Russia earlier this week. Caldwell cites Vladimir Putin:

“What they are offering us is obviously a vestige of colonial thinking,” was Russian president Vladimir Putin’s bizarre assessment this week of continuing British calls for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi. “They must have forgotten Britain is no longer a colonial power, there are no colonies left, and, thank God, Russia has never been a British colony.”

Caldwell analyzes Putin's understanding of colonialism and his reading of Russia in a post-colonial world. He writes:

There is always a grain of truth in such observations. Mr Putin’s treatment of Russia as a post-colonial problem seems to have been vindicated mightily. Russia has fared far better economically under his strong hand than it did under the tutelage of western economists. Its income a head has doubled since the turn of the decade. Mr Putin’s approval rating rests between 70 and 85 per cent.
But Russia’s parallels to newly decolonised nations are not all positive. They include capital flight, rapid atrophying of economic sectors outside its major exports, cronyism, arrests of political opponents, lack of transparency and an intentional blurring of property rights. As for human rights, it is true that the doctrine is sometimes misapplied, but it ought to be possible, whatever your source of values, to distinguish between the case for extraditing Mr Lugovoi (a suspected killer) and the case for extraditing Mr Berezovsky (a regime opponent).
Mr Putin’s view that the west is interested only in Russia’s energy is getting truer all the time. But he deserves part of the blame for that. He has built an economy based on resource extraction, to the exclusion of other things. Even when Mr Putin is not shutting off oil shipments to Lithuania or gas shipments to Ukraine, Russia relates to the world through its natural resources. For now, with oil around $80 a barrel, this means relating to the world from a position of strength. Mr Putin seems like a visionary to his citizenry. He does have a visionary side. Indeed, he has brought to life the spectre against which he sermonises.

However, Caldwell analysis fails in one regard: neither Caldwell's piece nor Putin's statements acknowledge the fact that Russia can be characterized as a colonizing force. Historically, the rise of Russia occurred with the invasion and colonization of neighboring territories. Pushed by the need to acquire resources (first sable furs then oil and gas), Russian colonization pushed North and East as far as Alaska. The colonized lands were integrated into the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union and finally the Russian Federation, but modern Russia is still a colonial power in that the state exploits peripheral territories for its benefit and the benefit of a small proportion of the population.

Russia's oil does not come from Moscow, yet it is Moscow that benefits most from the wealth generated from the sale of oil and gas. In the Komi Republic, where I spent many years doing research, most villages do not have natural gas and houses are heated using firewood. Survival depends on the potato crop and keeping a few animals to provide mild and meat. This in spite of the fact that the Komi Republic is a major producer of crude oil. The same can be said of numerous other regions in Russia. In effect, the periphery is colonized for the benefit of the elite.

Simpsonized

2007-07-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

It is Simpson season with the release of the Simpson's first movie. To cash in on the hype, Burger King has created the site "Simpsonize Me." To the left is what I would look like as a Simpsons' character.

Russia: one of the world's richest countries?

2007-07-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

With Russian presidential elections months away, the Russian administration is seeking to demonstrate that Russia is becoming a superpower. The Russian News Agency features an opinion piece that presents Russian government economic forecasts that predict the rising economic status of Russia.

On Tuesday, Russia's Economic Development and Trade Ministry submitted a remarkable document to the government - a plan for Russian social and economic development until the year 2020. With ambitious targets, it attracted the attention of experts even before its official publication.

According to the forecast, if the country shifts its economic orientation from raw materials to innovation, its gross domestic product will grow by an average of 6.7% a year, putting the Russian economy into the world's top five. At that rate, the country's economy will grow two-and-a-half times by 2020, giving it an annual per capita GDP of $30,000 - no less than Western Europe and North America.

Some experts smirk at the forecast for its starry-eyed idealism-but Russia's present-day and recent economic growth rates back it up. GDP has been adding almost 7% annually for the last eight years, exceeding the most optimistic projections of government experts and other analysts. The Economic Development and Trade Ministry has forecast a 6.5% growth rate for this year. It will certainly be greater than that-the Kremlin and the Cabinet expect 7-8%.

The Russian government forecasts are reminiscent of the promised Communism that was always within grasp of the Soviet Union. The reality of the present never distracted from the glorious future that awaited, a future where the Soviet Union was to surpass the capitalist countries.

The Russian Saami

2007-07-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

The Russian Federation is home to over 100 ethnic groups or nationalities including the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The indigenous peoples have endured decades and centuries of colonization. In the Soviet Union, herds were collectivized and indigenous peoples were forcibly Russified and Sovietized. The traditional lands of the indigenous peoples were often devastated by the impacts of industrialization (mining as well as the oil and gas industry) of militarization. The consequences of Soviet and later Russian policies have had their impact on the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The BBC has published an excellent piece on the Saami (or Sami) of the Kola Peninsula. Below, is an excerpt from this article.

The Sami people's traditional way of life has been under assault for decades as they have been gradually forced off arctic Russia's fertile tundra grazing-land and into artificially created towns.

Much of the displacement was caused by a steady expansion of industry, forestry and mining, and the arrival of hundreds of thousands of workers from other parts of the Soviet Union - many of them arriving as forced labourers in Gulag camps.

Then, during the Cold War, Sami coastal fishermen were ordered to move away from the shores of the Barents Sea, which is currently littered with secretive navy installations, and reindeer herders were forced away from a 200-mile exclusion zone that ran along the Cold War frontier.

To this day, the few who still herd reindeer complain about bored and hungry soldiers who use their machine guns to shoot their animals.

Urban Sami, meanwhile, bemoan the way powerful tourist companies prevent them carrying out their fishing traditions in Voronya River or Lovozero Lake.

"We are not used to private property rights, and we are not used to competing," laments Vatonena Lyubov, vice president of the Association of Kola Sami.

"We will never regain our grazing lands and our rivers."

Russian Arctic Expedition

2007-07-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

As noted yesterday, a number of states are vying for control of the Arctic. Russia seeks to extend its territorial waters all the way up to the North Pole. To do this, it is collecting geological and geographical data to prove that much of the Arctic is an extension of its continental territory. An icebreaker and a research vessel were dispatched from Murmansk with great fanfare to collect data on the Arctic Ocean and its seabed. However, the BBC reports that on the second day of its expedition, the research vessel experience engine troubles. The problem was reportedly fixed and the two vessels continue on with their expedition. The goal: to send a mini-submarine down 4,200 meters (14,000 feet) to study the seabed and to carry out scientific research. The mini-submarine was to be launched on Sunday, but these recent events will delay the launch.

Global Warming and Northern Sovereignty

2007-07-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

With much of the world's oil and gas fields mapped and already under production, one of the few remaining untouched regions of the world is the Arctic. The Arctic, unlike the Antarctic, is an ocean that is covered by ice most of the year. Though the ice does retreat, the northern zones are never free of ice. Until recently, weather and technology conspired against the prospect of drilling for oil and natural gas in the Arctic Ocean. However, with global warming, this is changing. Claims are being laid to the Arctic and plans are being made to eventually explore and exploit the Arctic waters for its oil and natural gas resources.

The BBC provides an insightful piece examining the quest for Arctic resources. The article notes:

The Arctic's commercial potential has sent most leading energy companies scurrying into harsh and remote areas in North America, Russia's Siberia and the Barents Sea - all parts of a region that is believed to contain as much as a quarter of the world's undiscovered reserves of oil and gas.

Recently, Canada's Prime Minister announced that the Canadian government would be investing in upgrading Canada's navy to ensure Canada's presence in the Arctic and to lay claim to Canadian sovereignty in the Northwest Passage and the High Arctic. The Prime Minister recently asserted that Canada would deploy military icebreakers to monitor and defend the northern Arctic waters.

Canada is not the only state that has been seeking to lay claim to the Arctic. Recently, Russia has been sending submarines under the Arctic Ocean to map the ocean floor. According to an article in the Russian News and Information Agency:

The nuclear-powered ice-breaker Rossiya will escort the Academician Fedorov, the flagship of the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environment Monitoring, which will take about a hundred scientists from Murmansk to the North Pole. Along with unique studies of the far-northern continental shelf, the expedition will carry out the first-ever Arctic dives using the mini-submarine Mir. The first crew will descend to a depth of more than four kilometers, with the deputy speaker of the Duma on board.

But Chilingarov acknowledges the expedition's geopolitical goal: "We want to prove that Russia is a great polar power." A titanium capsule with the Russian flag will be dropped to the bottom as evidence of this. In other words, Russia will publicly stake its claim to the North Pole.

Strictly speaking, Russia claims a triangle-shaped area of the Arctic Ocean; its base includes the Russian coast from the Kola Peninsula in the west to the tip of the Chukotka Peninsula in the east, across the Bering Strait from Alaska. The apex is the North Pole. This triangle covers 1.2 million square kilometers, an area the size of Italy, Germany and France put together. Generally speaking, we have always considered it our own. Starting in the 1920s, this sector was marked as Soviet and later Russian territorial waters on all the country's maps.

At least, this was the case before the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea limited us to a 200-mile economic zone along our coast. Having ratified it in 1997, we immediately lost our right to the rest of the Arctic Ocean, including our chunk of the North Pole. Other countries, not only those ringing the Arctic, laid claims to what we had lost. This is understandable. According to some estimates, the continental shelf holds about 100 billion tons of oil plus a wealth of fish species. Moreover, the Northern Sea Route, running through the Arctic Ocean along Russia's northern coast, is the shortest way from Europe to Asia and the Pacific coast of America, which will make it easy to transport oil and gas from Arctic deposits. The shelf will bring in an enormous amount of money to whomever has the right to develop it.

Though Russia has lost that right, we can still try and get it back. The same convention gives us a chance. If we prove that the shelf - the oceanic Lomonosov ridge - is a continuation of the Siberian continental platform, we can practically have the whole lot to ourselves. Five years ago, Russia was the first Arctic nation to submit an application to a special UN commission set up to determine the ocean's status, but international experts did not find our arguments convincing. We will have another go in 2009 and are now getting ready for it.

What is at stake are the massive reserves of oil and gas that are thought to lie below the Arctic Ocean.

However, there is much at stake. The Arctic with its massive icebergs and sheets of ice is an inhospitable region of the world to drill and the environmental dangers are enormous. In the coming decades, there will certainly be a push to control the region's resources and the various states will jockey for control of the Arctic Ocean. The challenge is to ensure that the Arctic's environment is protected and that local populations will not suffer unduly from future development in this region.

Using dogs to adapt to global warming

2007-07-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

The Globe and Mail featured a piece examining the Inuit, dog sleds and global warming. To cite the article:

As the country's northernmost communities face the impact of global warming, a researcher is suggesting that the Quebec Inuit should try switching back from snowmobiles to dogsleds.

Sled-pulling dogs are more adept at spotting where the ice is more dangerous, said Martin Tremblay, a geographer and environmental researcher based in Kuujjuaq, near Ungava Bay, 1,500 kilometres north of Montreal. “Dogs will sense more thinner, more unstable ice,” he said. “If the sled falls through, the dogs will pull the sled out of water.”

The idea is part of a report on the impact of warmer weather on Quebec's Inuit that a team of researchers will present to northern communities this fall.

The piece does provide some interesting tidbits on traditional Inuit culture. It does highlight the advantages of a dog sled in traveling over the winter ice floes. It also highlights the importance and advantages of traditional foods and the Inuit traditional diet. It also seems to be an interesting project that is collecting Inuit traditional knowledge and seeks to pass on this information to future generations using modern technology.

It is unfortunate that the article was marred by one unfortunate paragraph:

As the country's northernmost communities face the impact of global warming, a researcher is suggesting that the Quebec Inuit should try switching back from snowmobiles to dogsleds.

In reading this paragraph, the impression is given that the Inuit should switch to dog sleds to do their part in cutting back on carbon dioxide and global warming. This is, of course, ludicrous. Why should the Inuit abandon snowmobiles?

This is what comes out in the postings. Dallas McQuarrie from Regina writes:

Perhaps people in Canada's urban centres could also lend a hand by giving up the SUV and other other affectations of modern living that serve no useful purpose beyond ego masturbation. Just asking the Inuit to give up their gas machines will hardly dent the problem compared to all the members of the Conspicuous Consumption Club driving over sized vehicles in an attempt to compensate for under sized egos.

However, this is not what the researcher was implying. The researcher is suggesting the use of dog sleds as they are safer when traveling over thinner ice that is a consequence of global warming. The researcher is not suggesting a return to dog sleds so the Inuit will stop polluting with snowmobiles, but rather is suggesting that dog sleds are advantageous in an Arctic environment that is facing warming temperatures.

Introduction

2007-06-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog! Bienvenue! Добро пожаловать!

I am dedicating this space to the anthropological analysis of the world around me. In a spirit of reflexive anthropology, I will declare my biases and will provide some background as to who I am.

I am a French-speaker and grew up in northern Alberta. To be more precise, this is the farm where I grew up. Nothing much remains. After my father passed away, the house was sold and moved. Some of the granaries are still there and many silent memories.

I graduated from école Routhier in Falher, Alberta and then went off to complete my Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto (1991), my Master of Arts at Laval Université (1994) and eventually my PhD at the University of Alberta (2003). I am currently an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Northern British Columbia.

My research interests include ethnicity and nationhood. I have done research in my home community, the French-speaking villages and parishes of northern Alberta. For my PhD, I studied the Russian-speaking community of Narva in Estonia. In recent years, I have been conducting research into the Komi community of northern Russia. I thus speak French and Russian fluently, as well as English. In this blog, I will be examining contemporary events in Canada and Russia and analyzing the political changes now occurring in the Russian Federation.

My other interests include movies and bike riding. I am married and live in Prince George in British Columbia. I hope this blog will be of interest to you and look forward to conversing virtually on this site.