| | | | Fareed: When Growth Slows, Protests Follow | | "From Chile to Lebanon, Iraq to India, we are seeing strikes, marches and riots," Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column. "Is there a common element to this autumn of protest?"
Specific complaints sent demonstrators to the streets—in Lebanon, a proposed WhatsApp tax drew outrage, while Indians were upset over the price of onions—but Fareed writes that slow economic growth underlies their grievances. The IMF has noted a global economic downturn, and in countries that have seen protests, it has been pronounced: Growth has slowed to 0% in Lebanon, for instance, and to 2% in Chile.
"Political protests are caused by a strange combination of factors: dashed expectations, rising inequality, persistent corruption and a deep sense of frustration," Fareed writes. "But they always become more likely when growth sputters." | | The Next Refugee Crisis Will Be Too Much for Europe | | Europe continues to fail miserably at handling the influx of migrants and refugees that peaked years ago, Yiannis Baboulias argues at Foreign Policy; on one Greek island, he writes, almost 1,000 have lived in a camp meant to house 350, and on another, more than 13,000 have lived at a facility meant to house 3,000. The conditions there are proof that Europe couldn't handle the crisis.
In a new paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Shoshana Fine makes the same case: The EU failed to coordinate rescue operations in the Mediterranean, shunted the responsibility onto host countries like Greece and Italy, sent people back to a destabilized Libya, did not coordinate effectively with non-EU countries (like Libya)—and ultimately was left politically divided, with the refugee crisis sowing mistrust among EU countries.
Which makes the current fighting in Syria, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's threat to send refugees to Europe en masse, all the more troubling for those involved. "Is Europe ready to open its borders to those Syrians and Kurds who might soon seek refuge there?" Baboulias asks. "Greece's dystopian camps suggest not." | | In Iraq and Lebanon, Demonstrators Have Had It With Sectarianism | | Protesters in Iraq and Lebanon want better governance, Anchal Vohra writes for Foreign Policy, and they've been let down by sectarian power-sharing arrangements that have failed to produce it. In each country, power is shared between religious groups: In Lebanon, a Maronite Christian serves as president, a Sunni as prime minister, and a Shiite as speaker of parliament; in Iraq, power is informally split between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. It's been noted that Lebanese protesters have gone out of their way to avoid sectarian divisions, but Vohra argues that in both countries, that's part of the point.
"[W]hile elections can shift the balance of power, they do little to change the faces of those who wield it, from whichever sect or faction," Vohra writes. "As a result, critics say, there is no real change for the public—elites have little incentive to enforce policies or ethical standards that will improve living standards for the broader public." Which is just what protesters are demanding. | | How Will Ireland Handle Brexit? | | The border between Ireland and Northern Ireland has been among the thorniest of Brexit's quandaries: After all, if the entire UK is to depart the EU, and Northern Ireland's British status remains unchanged, how can a new border with EU member Ireland be avoided? Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have proposed a new way of solving it—by moving such a border, effectively, to the Irish Sea—but Sadhbh Walshe writes in The New York Review of Books that such questions are being raised at a fragile time.
Northern Ireland has lacked a government for nearly three years, its leading political parties (which represent unionist and nationalist factions) don't work together effectively, only 7 percent of children attend integrated schools, and walls still separate Catholic and Protestant working-class communities, Walshe points out. As Brexit looms, citizens of Northern Ireland have rushed to obtain EU passports, in part to keep receiving services, like the health care EU citizens are promised, and which Ireland has promised to deliver. Questions raised by Brexit have revived the specter of a unified Ireland, Walshe writes—and, once raised, it's difficult to ignore. If tensions arise as a result, the economic damage of Brexit won't do anything to soothe them, Walshe suggests. | | Nations, and Nationalism, Are on the Rise in India and China | | India and China have both grown in economic size and geopolitical importance, and as they've risen, each has turned to repressing minorities, James Crabtree writes for the Nikkei Asian Review. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking to bolster India's Hindu identity, has revoked the autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir and blacked out communications there; Chinese President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has imprisoned Xinjiang's Uighurs in camps.
It's no coincidence, Crabtree writes: These moves are "part of a broader and predictable process of nationalism, in which rising powers are willing to take unpopular decisions in the cause of building unified states with strong, cohesive national identities." As the two countries continue to grow more powerful, Crabtree predicts, minorities in both can expect more of the same. | | | | | | |
