How peaceful is your nation?

Here are a few websites that can help you gauge the state of peace and stability in countries around the world. The first two are based on a wide range of statistics that have helped categorize each nation on a spectrum. Not surprisingly, Africa is the continent which has the highest degree of instability. Out of the 177 countries that the Fund for Peace analyzed, only 13 of them qualify as "sustainable", the most secure rating. Most of those countries are northern European.

The third website I've shared focuses on 17 conflict areas. It gives a briefing of the conflict and also has a nifty section which mentions what efforts have been and are being made to build peace. It is also unique in that it personalizes each conflict with particular case studies and people's stories.

Hopefully websites like these will be able to educated us and give us a better idea of where we are heading and what areas still need the most support.

Ratings:
Vision of Humanity- Global Peace Index (GPI)
The Fund for Peace

Briefings on conflict zones:
Insight on Conflict

Spain is the (failing) champion!!!

Here in Madrid, I can hear the roaring of the crowd kilometres away from my window around 12am on a Monday night. A man is shouting on a loudspeaker as the crowd responds. I can't make out what they are saying, but I can only imagine. It sounds just like what I would imagine Rome sounded like when they hosted games in their colosseums. Then I start hearing the crowd singing this year's Coca Cola World Cup theme song. Yes, I am talking about the celebrations for Spain's victory yesterday in the 2010 World Cup held in South Africa. The crowd is welcoming their team home and have been hosting celebrations for them all day, which is now culminating to a huge rally in the city.

As a World Cup of many "firsts", Spain has definitely come out with the most profitable "first" of them all!! Spain is well-known for being one of Europe's num.1 soccer fans. Their confidence in the sport has sprung up ever since they won the Eurocup in 2008. This year's team, who refer to themselves as the "Furia Roja" or Red Rage", has been refreshing for the nation who has never even qualified for the semi-finals of a World Cup. But recently, they have qualified as having the best soccer team in Europe and now, in the World. They are "Los Campeones!" or the Champions, as they say.

Last night was a night of complete debauchery for many people who went out on the streets after the final match. The streets were filled with thousands of people baring flags, yelling, singing, dancing between honking cars and motorcycles, blowing in their vuvuzelas, holding a drink in their hand, bathing in the city's various fountains, climbing and decorating monuments... it was a sea of red and yellow. Something that I have never witnessed in the US.....

But do people seem a bit happier than they should be because other things at home aren't going too well? I'm mainly referring to Spain's status in the economic crisis. It is ranked as being on the borderline of completely collapsing. It's unemployment rate is reaching 20% and the country is in major debt. The common joke here now is that when you go out you realize that at least half the people around you are either 1. unemployed or 2. their job is seriously at risk (as many people in their company are being laid-off). But you would never guess that from being here. The bars and restaurants have been filled to the brim during this World Cup season. Why is this so important to them? Obviously, winning the World Cup is not going to bring them out of their economic misery.

So what makes this such a special event? Does the World Cup have a negative effect or a positive one? I would argue that it may have both. It does seem to unite a country in a way that no other social event does. Ironically, in Spain's case, it seems that all those anti-Spanish sentiments dissolved to a certain extent during the games. Different autonomous communities in the country regularly claim that they aren't Spanish and they constantly fight for complete independence, yet for now they are fine calling themselves Spanish. At least amongst the people. Yet, three of the four players that are from the Catalan region of Spain refused to wear the Spanish flag after their victory. Instead, they wore their region's flag. Something doesn't seem right with that picture.

So can we say that this is a good move for the country socially? Maybe. But then again, the positive effects are only ephemeral. Statistics have shown that winning a World Cup boosts people's self esteem, but only for some time. Even to the extent that men feel that they are more likely to attract women after their country has won. It allows people to escape from their troubles for a few weeks and it helps them reassert their self worth and feel like they belong to something. Yes, its just a game for some, but as one article I found states "It´s more than just a game¨ for many others. Could we even go as far as to say that the sport has in some way replaced religion?? In the present day absence of religion in many countries, belonging to a team rather than a religion can possibly be another appealing factor. *
I was speaking to a non-soccer fan here in Spain the other day and he told me he believed that those who are obsessed about soccer are people who have empty lives. That may be taking it a bit too far, but to a certain extent, I think he's right. I couldn't help to think how ridiculous people looked in Spain out in the streets. So happy about their passing victory yet seemingly oblivious to the pains their country is going through. If people are so nationalistic, why don't they actually take steps to help their nation? Unemployment is so high partially due to the people themselves. They take advantage of their own system, sometimes purposefully getting fired so they can enjoy unemployment. Others who have been naturally fired sit back and enjoy their unemployment as well, while not bothering to look for a job and instead living with their parents to avoid spending money. In their free time they complain about the system, hang out with their friends, travel, spend on shopping and going out.

Now that the Spanish government has decided to cut civil servant salaries (instead of laying them off, as they very well could have done) in an attempt to help the economy, those who work in metro system have gone on strike in protest. They completely paralyzed the city of Madrid for a few days making the country lose even more money by prohibiting normal workers to go to work! And they feel they are helping their nation?

Way to go Spain! You've won the World Cup! Your nation's soccer team has worked immensely to win the Cup for the nation. It's high time for you, the general population, to wake up and start working just as hard not to win a Cup but to save your country from economic turmoil- something that's a bit more of a priority!



*Sources used:
1) Sports Fan Psychology: It´s More Than Just a Game
2) World Cup Matches Might Boost Your Mental Health
3) Why all the excitement about the World Cup?

The Present-day Father of Peace

Tracking the Modern Human

Here are three very interesting websites that track the development of the modern human being.

• The Human Journey
• The Human Spark
  
• A History of the World
  

The first website is a project led by The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge. The second one is a television series from PBS where they try to figure out why our species survived and what makes us so different from all other animals on the planet. And the third one is from the BBC. It's more of a fun website showing the development of human inventions since prehistoric times.

As stated in the introduction of The Human Journey website, "If we don't know our history, social and biological, we can't adapt fully to a world that we made."

This statement cannot be any more true, yet this is all too often forgotten, especially by those who should heed to it the most- the world's key decisionmakers. For some reason, most people believe that the past is seperated from the present. We forget that we are still the product of thousands of years of development and that those changes that we are experiencing right now have already been dealt with in some form by our ancestors. Of course people acknowledge the past, but they fail to see the connection. They fail to see the past as building stones. Let's face it, in hundreds of years, we humans really haven't changed that much- is this maybe because we have constantly ignored to learn from our past mistakes? We should take a look at how humans progressed, dealt with the introduction of past innovations, handled conflicts, interacted with one another, and developed socially.

Sure, you go to any natural history museum and see the prehistoric man, for example, and think "Wow! we've progressed so much since then." But have we really? We still ask the same basic questions about life, we still focus on survival (in some form or another), we still have violent conflicts with one another, we still fight for power, we still have not changed that drastically at our core, yet our surroundings have.

As the website goes on to state: "The future depends on how we understand who we are, and how the past has made us so: what is unchanging about Human Nature, and what we CAN and MUST change to face a world that is far different from our ancestors".

I hope you enjoy discovering more about our big human family!! :)

*Picture from ISHK

One way to Change Climate Change!

Finally, talk about easy and cheap solutions to climate change! Hope in a Changing Climate is a refreshing short documentary presented by John Lui, an ecological fieldwork researcher and environmental filmmaker. He presents a few cases that have already happened where regions have been able to restore their land that was previously being destroyed. Not only does he speak about saving the environment, but he shows how this it is also an efficient way to get communities to pull out of poverty and on their way to economic development.

For more information and to watch the documentary, you can go to the following link: http://hopeinachangingclimate.org/

Why NOT to donate your money to Haiti...

.... well at least not naively.

I've been quite impressed with the global solidarity that I've observed since the beginning of the disaster that struck the nation of Haiti. Here in Madrid, they have even placed announcements on the time panels in the metro pleading for riders to cooperate with the number of NGOs that are supplying aid to the region. This poor nation has already been silently festering with economic and political pains- and this latest horrific event has only exacerbated it.

Now the dilemma for me is whether to give my Euros to whoever asks me for them. Everytime I see a charity organization asking for money, I instictively want to help out and immediately- because this is urgent! But with a bit of pain in my heart, I stop myself. Sure, on one hand we would all love to collaborate in helping those who are less fortunate than us and we figure that financial contributions are the most effective and efficient way to do so. Yet this is not always the case. It makes us feel great inside when we hand over our money to an organization that has a benevolent cause- but do they all meet the ends that we imagine? I'm afraid most do not. Haiti is one of the nations with the highest concentration of NGOs in comparison to the number of inhabitants, yet there has been little or no change.

The problems that already existed should have been paid attention to decades before. If these problems hadn't existed, the hurricane would not have had such catestrophic effects on the population. The situation in Haiti is deplorable. It has reached a point where the people have been completely let down in a nation which has reached beyond poverty, hasn't managed to set up a functional government, and has become extraordinarily militarized. Now with everything destroyed all these problems will only become worse. And, as you can imagine, with the rampant amount of corruption your money will most likely not end up where you would want it to. There have been numerous articles published that have compared this crisis to Katrina that hit Louisiana a few years back. As co-director of the Louisiana Justice Institute, Tracie Washington stated,

"The real looting in Haiti is not the people trying to get food to survive. The real looting of Haiti is the economic policies of the U.S. and France, as well as institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, in addition to the disaster capitalism that is fast setting in. In Haiti, 200 years of crippling debt imposed by France, the U.S. and other colonial powers drained the country's financial resources. Military occupation and presidential coups coordinated and funded by the U.S. have devastated the nation's government infrastructure. Although the country has more than 10,000 NGOs [non-governmental organizations], many of them are profiteering off the small nation's misery, rather than lifting up people's lives."

"As we saw in the aftermath of Katrina, some politicians, corporations and think tanks see disasters as opportunities for profiteering. Author Naomi Klein reported that within 24 hours of the earthquake, the influential right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation was already seeking to use the disaster as an attempt at further privatization of the country's economy. The Heritage Foundation released similar recommendations in the days after Katrina, calling for 'solutions' such as school vouchers."*

It is upsetting that people would take advantage of others misery, however we can help prevent this from happening if we just try to stop doing things blindly. So please, when donating your money to an organization don't just take the easy way out and give it to the first one that asks you for it. Make sure it is an organization that will actually make good use of your money. Or better yet, wait a bit until all the novelty of this disaster has faded- Haiti will be needing support for many years to come and they will certainly need it more in the long-run than today.

*Source: Institute for Public Accuracy

Listening to MLK's message carefully

As the day to celebrate Martin Luther King rolls around this year, I am perplexed that even though an entire day has been dedicated to this honorable man- his message hasn't really been listened to. The words he used in the hopes of changing society back then, continue to be very applicable to today. Why is it that it is so hard to learn from the past? Even when we recognize the importance of something, it seems enough to so many people to just nod their heads and on one hand and say, " oh yes, that man speaks the truth" but on the other hand do or tolerate the complete opposite.

MLK's message was not just about having a black man and a white man holding hands together while singing "Kumbaya" and believing that the problems of the world would be solved (which is how this is often present to children in US schools). He had a much more global message that hit deep into the heart of a severe economic, political and most of all moral problem that effects the world. He was very much against the use of the military to solve problems and heavily criticized his own government about the things that it continues to do today such as, abandoning the effort to make drastic changes in the government in order to prevent so much poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. Despite his criticism, it is admirable to observe that MLK did this all while loving his nation.

The following is a powerful example that I came accross from a speech he made on April 4, 1967 at Riverside Church in New York City:

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. ... A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.' It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, 'This is not just.' The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, 'This way of settling differences is not just.' This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."