Smells Like Team Spirit
Sunday, October 18th, 2009The 2008 Pacific Economic Survey provided timely and useful assessments of telecoms and transport sector liberalisation. It was an enlightening document that validated some of Vanuatu’s key policies as well as providing analysis concerning future trends. I found it useful enough that I wrote about it or referenced it 7 times over the course of the year.
This year, I expect to write about the survey just this once. The 2009 report seems to be animated primarily by the Australian government’s desire to see a regional free trade agreement. The Survey sacrifices common sense and ignores its own data in its quest to glorify liberal trade policies that simply do not fit with the economic realities in Vanuatu today.
Noteworthy, Not Newsworthy
Sunday, October 11th, 2009Recent events, especially last Thursday’s tsunami warning, serve as a reminder just how fortunate we are. Within an hour of the alert being issued, news agencies the world over were contacting the Daily Post. Intent on the next human tragedy, they wanted to know: How much damage? How many dead?
The answer, happily, was that only one young girl was hurt when she ran in front of a moving truck.
Had a similar area in virtually anywhere else in the world been struck as we were by 3 earthquakes in quick succession, each in excess of 7.0, thousands, even millions might have suffered.
The simplicity of our existence – our lack of development – has in many ways saved us from the worst. If we didn’t have so little, we might have more to lose.
The Black Widow
Monday, September 28th, 2009The man gets off scot free in virtually every domestic crisis. If he runs off on his wife and kids, people will ask, ‘What did she do to drive him away?’ If he fools around with someone else, it’s usually the wife who’s forced to find the other woman and beat her into submission. It’s the only way she can publicly demonstrate that she’s not at fault. If a man beats his wife inside his own home, nobody will do anything. Ever. Here in Vanuatu, a man’s home really is his castle. Even if it’s his wife’s money that pays for it, her labour that maintains it, and her life that suffers just so that he can feel in control.
Why should we be surprised then, if one or two desperate women feel driven to poison hubby’s evening meal? When he pauses for grace before supper, more than one husband in Vanuatu would do well to
The Bigman Syndrome
Saturday, August 29th, 2009This month’s bye-election in Efate Rural indicates that, for now at least, society at large is perfectly content to conduct politics as usual. In spite of sporadic efforts to build a unified and genuinely representative political presence in North Efate, those few who managed to make their way to the polls voted overwhelmingly for the status quo.
The very same ‘gift-givers’ whose judicial chastisement brought about the bye-election in the first place were returned with hardly a raised eyebrow.
But before we acquiesce completely to the knowledge that – law or no law – our leadership’s financial habits will remain hidden from public scrutiny, we need to know what we’re buying.
Sound and Vision
Saturday, August 29th, 2009While the conflicts between congregations and churches in Vanuatu remain little more than a nuisance right now, I feel it’s important to keep it that way. My own parents left their homeland, economic exiles fleeing the effects of 400 years of religious conflict. Argue as much as you like over the rectitude of a given doctrine or belief, but remember: We all have responsibilities towards our neighbours. Conflict isn’t one of them.
Begging the Question
Saturday, August 8th, 2009At the recently completed Pacific Islands Forum in Cairns, leaders stood solemnly together and released a communiqué touting their commitment “to eradicating [sexual and gender based violence] and to ensure that all individuals have equal protection and access to justice.”
There’s an entire section in the communiqué devoted to what they coyly call SGBV. It dwells on the importance of international coordination, on continuing to maintain regional efforts to raise awareness… and of course remaining sensitive at all times to local culture and ‘differing contexts’ within the various nations.
Here’s a context I wish would differ: I wish that the young woman who greeted me at one of Vila’s marquee stores didn’t have a bruise on her jaw that had ‘left hook’ written all over it. She was at least seven months pregnant. I wish that another young acquaintance who had just given birth only days before didn’t continue to suffer through daily beatings. I wish the waitress who serves my coffee didn’t keep showing up with a black eye every month or so.
I wish the scars, the bruises, the broken teeth and bones weren’t so much part of our ‘differing context’ that we just tut-tut solemnly when we see them and carry on with our day.
Copyright and the Social Contract
Sunday, July 26th, 2009Since the arrival of the Internet, there’s been unceasing talk about the imminent demise of traditional publishing models (especially newspapers), the subversive effect of ‘free’ online content and the purported damage done by Peer to Peer ‘pirates’ sharing music, movies and other creative works. At the centre of all this debate over the imbalance that new technology has created between creator and consumer is the oft-ignored conclusion that copyright as a regime for encouraging creativity in modern society is simply unworkable on the Internet.
Pundits, lawyers and media distributors the world over continue fighting the tide, thinking they can shape the Internet to match their expectations concerning copyright. Instead, they should be shaping their expectations to match the Internet.
Creativity and the Social Contract
Sunday, July 19th, 2009As a writer, photographer and generally creative person, I would like nothing better than an enforceable, predictable social contract that codifies the relationship between creator and society at large. But the fact of the matter is that in this day and age it’s just not reasonable to expect anything other than a rather ephemeral set of notions that rely on nothing more than the goodwill of the majority of the audience.
In short, I don’t think we really have any choice but to do what minstrels, painters, actors and countless other artists have done since time immemorial: Throw ourselves at the mercy of society and rely on the kindness of strangers to make a living out of a lifestyle. It’s often unjust and occasionally cruel, but I just don’t see a workable alternative.
Selling Democracy – ctd.
Sunday, June 28th, 2009Farhad Manjoo says the Revolution will not be digitised. His recent Slate column, subtitled “How the Internet helps Iran silence activists” makes the obvious point that technology makes all aspects of communications easier – even the unpleasant ones. But his lazy analysis misses the import of his own observation.
The key to all this is his failure to distinguish between the network and the protocol. Manjoo says that the Internet helps Iran’s repressive efforts. That’s not true, at least not nearly to the extent he thinks. The network – the physical infrastructure of cables, switching and routing equipment, is what’s trapping people right now. If it weren’t for the end-to-end nature of the software protocols that make up what we conveniently call the Internet, little if any news at all would have emerged from Iran.
Selling Democracy – Part II
Sunday, June 28th, 2009In recent years, nearly all communications devices have been designed to adhere to a centralised network model. Wireless access points, laptops, iPhones and other ‘smart’ handheld devices could easily be configured to create or join mesh networks on the fly. The code for it exists. But they don’t.
That’s because most consumer devices are designed to integrate into the existing economic model, which attaches individual customers to central networks.
Most of the time, this presents no problem at all. Network owners take care of the headaches of building and managing the infrastructure and we blithely go about our business.
Blithely, that is, until our interests no longer coincide with the network owners’. The result can be petty nuisances like limitations in using Skype or downloading files. Or they can be life-changing, as the people of Iran have recently discovered.
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