Monthly Archives: April 2014

NETmundial: First Step towards Global Internet Governance

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Brazil, Technology

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Netmundial - Opening Address - Sao Paulo - Brazil - 23 April 2014Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff addresses participants
NETmundial Global Multistakeholder Meeting
on the Future of Internet Governance
São Paulo – Brazil – April 23-24, 2014
Photo Credit: el Nuevo Herald

 

Edward Snowden’s revelations about America’s massive surveillance system shocked our allies. Since learning that the U.S. National Security Agency had intercepted Brazil’s phone calls and e-mails, including her own, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has been in the forefront of pushing reform of Internet governance.

On 23 April 2014, during her opening address at the two-day NETmundial Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, held in São Paulo, President Rousseff deemed U.S. espionage “unacceptable…in that they are an affront against the very nature of the Internet as a democratic, free, and pluralistic platform.” Her remarks that no country should have “more weight than another” in governing cyberspace received applause.

Organized in partnership with Brazil’s Internet Steering Committee and /1Net, the meeting attracted 1,227 participants from 97 countries. (Check out who attended the event.)

“This meeting is in response to a global desire for changes in the current situation and the systematic strengthening of freedom of expression as well as the protection of basic human rights, including the right to privacy,” President Rousseff told the gathering.

After two days of a bottom-up, open, and participatory process involving thousands of people representing governments, civil society, private sector, academia, and the global technical community, the result is the non-binding NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement of São Paulo. It’s divided into two sections: Internet Governance Principles and the Roadmap.

The Principles stress the importance of human rights and shared values that permit freedom of expression and association, as well as access to information. The contentious issues of mass surveillance and the collection of personal data are a sub-text for review under the Right to Privacy. Other principles include the security, stability, and resilience of the Internet; an open and distributed architecture; and environment for sustainable innovation and creativity. Governance should be transparent, accountable, equitable, collaborative, and consensus driven.

Among other issues, the Roadmap stresses the need for cooperation in addressing international public policy issues; transparent appointment of representatives; coordination between local, regional, and global entities; and development. In spite of general consensus of the urgent need for mass surveillance reform, the Roadmap merely calls for “[m]ore dialogue…at the international level using forums like the Human Rights Council and IGF [Internet Governance Forum]…”

The intensely debated issue of Net Neutrality also failed to gain prominence in the Roadmap. It appears last on the list of “Points to be further discussed beyond NETmundial.”

The outcome of the ambitious gathering, the first of its kind, to tackle the future of Internet Governance, disappointed those participants who expected concrete actions. Nevertheless, as the Brazilian Chair Virgílio Almeida noted in his closing remarks, the NETmundial meeting “is an undeniable proof that inclusiveness has its rewards, resulting in transparent and a democratic spirit towards a common goal.”

NETmundial São Paulo is just the first step towards reformulating global Internet governance. Here in the United States, the battle for Net Neutrality is already underway. To succeed, we must keep moving forward.

Watch Democracy Now! video interview, broadcast on 26 April 2014:

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Earth Day 2014: Green Cities

20 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Nature and the Environment, United States

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UC Davis West Village Apartments - California - USAZero Net Energy Living
University of California Davis – West Village Apartments – California – USA
Photo Credit: UC Davis West Village

 

Earth Day 2014, held worldwide on April 22, focuses on helping cities to accelerate their transition to a cleaner, healthier, and more economically viable future through improvements in efficiency, investments in renewable technology, and regulation reform (Earth Day Network).

As a resident of the City of Los Angeles, I’m heartened to learn that our city continues to make numerous strides in reducing its carbon footprint and becoming more sustainable and environmentally friendly. You can learn more at Environment LA.

In the United States, 83 percent of us live in cities; urban dwellers worldwide make up more than fifty percent (The World Bank). Over the years, there has been a steady increase in the urban population, pumping more and more carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. UNICEF’s graphic of An Urban World, plotting urban population growth projections to 2050, demonstrates the urgency to re-create sustainable cities.

If you haven’t yet lost your home or livelihood due to rising sea levels, Frankenstorms, devastating floods and mudslides, or years of drought, you probably aren’t concerned about climate change. Like most of us who are not part of the privileged One Percent Power Elite, you’ve probably got challenges of your own that keep you awake at nights. But it’s just a matter of time before rich and poor alike will feel the forces of Mother Nature run amok.

Ever since the human species became addicted to fossil fuels, we steadily began pumping carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, destroying Earth’s forests, and acidifying our oceans. Giant transnational financial corporations, fuelling the economic engine, feed on our perpetual indebtedness.

Giant transnational fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations have grown rich and powerful. Usurping political power, they are intent on extracting the last drop of fossil fuel, wherever it may be found, regardless of the dire consequences for survival of the human species. Their addiction to greed – it must be an addiction to drive them to self-destruction – has not only destabilized our climate and weather, but also created mass inequality and human suffering. Protests and civil unrest worldwide are manifestations of growing discontent and instability.

The latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that we’re not doing enough to reduce our carbon emissions. Our failure to act more decisively has already led to breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes. While it’s too late to stop the climate changes already set in motion, we still have a chance to mitigate climate change.

We’ve Got the Power to replace fossil fuels with clean energy that’s not only healthier for us and future generations, but also economical for businesses. If you haven’t already done so, get on board and take action. Changing our habits and way of life will not be easy. But change we must.

A Psychosocial Perspective of Guyana

13 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Guyana, Human Behavior

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Guyana at the Millennium Crossroads: A Psychosocial Perspective by Malcolm W Heydorn

While researching for my novel set in Guyana during the period 1950-1970, I found the book, Guyana at the Millennium Crossroads: A Psychosocial Perspective by Malcolm W. Heydorn. More of a booklet in size and length, its layman language makes it an ideal social studies text book for Guyanese high school students.

Malcolm Heydorn’s book remains very relevant to Guyana today. As a Professor of Psychology and Gerontology in Ontario, Canada, the Guyana-born author shares his insights about the possible psychosocial bases for Guyana’s highly charged political and social circumstance. He calls attention to the urgency to change perspective for the overall social, economic, and political advancement of the nation (Preface, pp 6-7).

Applying analytical tools of a social scientist, Professor Heydorn examines the colonial past of Guyana’s five ethnic groups: Negro (used in a historical context), Indian, Portuguese, Chinese, and Amerindian (indigenous population). While he provides succinct snapshots of each ethnic group, I detect some bias when he notes that the Portuguese brought to the colony skills and invaluable experience in agriculture and other areas. The African slaves and Indian and Chinese indentured laborers receive no such recognition.

Over two hundred years of slavery plus four years of apprenticeship (1633-1838) and decades of indentureship (1838-1917) – with deliberate manipulation by the colonizers – led to ingrained ethnic stereotypes and prejudices. After defining the concepts of attitudes, stereotypes, and social prejudices, Professor Heydorn applies these concepts to the unfolding of Guyana’s brand of prejudice (Chapter 9). His uncensored presentation of the stereotypical disparaging attitudes towards each ethnic group may be offensive to some readers. As he demonstrates, these skewed perceptions of the other contrast greatly with the image individuals of a given ethnicity have of themselves.

Based on his psychosocial observation that Guyana’s ethnic populations have failed to reconcile their prejudicial postures over the last one and a half centuries (p. 78), Professor Heydorn presents his diagnosis. The Guyanese people suffers from “An absence of National Identity,” resulting in the country’s manifestation of social malaise and total disjointedness (pp 80-81). Dismantling this destructive system would be a formidable task requiring the involvement of all citizens. He proposes that leadership should come from the majority Indian population.

Treatment for healing the nation would require tenacity of purpose, the practice of civility, the capacity for tolerance, the rule of law, and the skillful application of the principles of attitude change (p. 87). The social scientist’s prognosis for failure to follow the prescribed treatment is grim. He warns that [u]nless Guyanese are prepared to emphasize the importance of these asset areas in their daily lives, Guyana is doomed to a replay of it’s turbulent past and present…, and would have only itself to blame. Worse still, it can become a nation divided in all respects, a fragmented territory (or territories), with no hope for a National Identity (p.94).

Can the ruling Indian party afford to ignore the possible prognosis for continued inaction in tackling the malady infecting the nation?

Violence in Brazil

06 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by in Brazil, Social Injustice, Urban Violence

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Manifestation against Violence in Fortaleza - Ceara - BrazilManifestation against Violence in Fortaleza – Ceará – Brazil
“Enough! We want to Live Fortaleza!”
Photo Credit: Tribuna do Ceará

 

In Mexico’s NGO Citizen Council for Public Security & Criminal Justice yearly list of the fifty most violent cities around the world, sixteen Brazilian cities feature among the Top 50 for 2013. Six of them, located in Northeast Brazil, rank among the top fifteen.

Fortaleza, capital of Ceará, ranked seventh worldwide – the city placed thirteenth in 2012 – and second in Brazil, after Maceió (Alagoas). With the expansion of drug trafficking, Fortaleza has become increasingly more violent over the years since I lived there. Nowadays, my best friend in Fortaleza suffers from panic attacks whenever she has to walk the streets. Another friend reports that home invaders have become more brazen.

Data released for Fortaleza by the Secretariat of Public Security & Social Defense of Ceará (SSPDS-CE) reveal that during the period from January 1 to March 19, 2014, there were 766 homicides. These included 433 deaths from gunshot wounds, 14 knifed to death, and 3 bludgeoned. The cause of death of the remaining 316 corpses is unknown. That’s an average of 9.8 persons murdered every day in Fortaleza.

When attending the games in Fortaleza during the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, soccer fans should be on the alert.

On a quiet Sunday afternoon in an upscale neighborhood in the city, my two sons and I set out on a fifteen-minute walk to the shopping mall on Avenida Dom Luís. When we crossed the intersection with Avenida Senador Virgílio Távora, we observed a street gang, two blocks away, approaching on the other side of Avenida Dom Luís.

Intersection of Av Dom Luis with Av Senador Virgilio Tavora - Fortaleza - BrazilIntersection of Avenida Dom Luís with Avenida Senador Virgílio Távora
Fortaleza – Brazil
Source: skyscrapercity.com

“The convenience store,” my older son said. He and his brother sprinted across the street ahead of oncoming traffic towards the gas station.

Impeded by the traffic, I waited on the median divider island. The gang was now half-a-block away. A voice shouted from behind me. Looking around, I saw a security guard standing outside an office building. He beckoned to me.

“Stand behind me,” the security guard said when I joined him. He fingered the gun at his hip.

I remained calm. My sons had reached safety. I prepared myself for the inevitable. As the gang came closer, I estimated that they were about fifty of them: male and female, ranging in ages from eight to eighteen.

Then a miracle happened.

Two police cars arrived on the scene. Loud confusion ensued. The policemen ordered the children and adolescents to prostrate on the sidewalk with their hands on their heads.

With the gang under police control, my sons joined me. “Lots of wallets and watches are in the drain,” they reported.

“Getting rid of evidence,” the guard said.

After thanking the guard for coming to my rescue, my sons and I returned home. There could be more trouble up ahead.

Fortaleza, like most of Brazil’s major cities, is a world of contrasts between the rich and destitute. Extreme inequality breeds crime and violence. The corpses tell the tale.

 

“Learn to Live” – Poem by Brazilian Poet Cora Coralina

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Brazil, Poetry

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House of Cora Coralina - Goias Velho - State of Goias - BrazilHome-turned-Museum of Cora Coralina
Goiás Velho – State of Goiás – Brazil
Photo Credit: Cemeb Coral Coralina

HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY MONTH 2014

In my Poetry Corner April 2014, I feature the poem “Saber Viver” (Learn to Live) by one of Brazil’s great twentieth-century poets, known by her pen-name, Cora Coralina (1889-1985).

Baptized Ana Lins dos Guimarães Peixoto, the poet adopted the name at fifteen years old when she began writing her first poems. It was her way of hiding her identity. In those days, “proper young ladies” did not waste time writing. Cora comes from coração (heart) and Coralina from the red coralline algae: red heart.

Born in the small town of Goiás Velho, then the capital of the State of Goiás, Cora Coralina knew from an early age that she was a poet. But, given the times, she lived more of a domestic than intellectual life. At the age of twenty-one, she deferred her poetic aspirations to move to the State of São Paulo with her husband and to raise a family. Though facing a harsh and busy domestic life, she found time to write.

I’m that woman who climbed the mountain of life,
removing stones and planting flowers.

In her late sixties, twenty years after her husband’s death, she returned alone to her family’s home in Goiás Velho to begin a new life as a poet. She supported herself by selling her homemade sweets.

Recreate your life, always, always.
Remove the stones, plant rose bushes and make sweets.
Begin again.

When she published her first collection of poems, Cora Coralina was seventy-five.

True courage is to go after your dreams
even when everyone says it’s impossible.

Concerned about understanding her world and her role in it, Cora wrote about the simple things of everyday life. The context and lyricism of her poetry overshadowed her poor grammar.

Knowledge we learn with the masters and books.
Wisdom we learn with life and the lowly.

Brought to national attention by Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987), Brazil’s most influential poet, Cora’s work was well received by literary critics and poetry lovers. Following her third publication, Vintém de Cobre – Meias Confissões de Aninha (Copper Coin – My Confessions of Annie) in 1983, Carlos Drummond praised her collection in a letter to her (excerpt translated by yours truly):

My dear friend Cora Coralina: Your “Vintém de Cobre” (Copper Coin) is, for me, a gold coin, and of a gold that doesn’t suffer from market fluctuations. It’s the most direct and communicative poetry that I’ve ever read and loved. What wealth of human experience, what special sensitivity and what lyricism identified with the sources of life!

Cora Coralina died on April 10, 1985 at ninety-five years old.

You can read Cora Coralina’s poem, “Saber Viver” (Learn to Live) in its original Portuguese and English versions at my Writer’s Website.

 

Note: Quotations and excerpts of poems by Cora Coralina (translated by yours truly) were found at kdfrases.com.