Thoughts from this week

To state the obvious, violence is still a problem in the world.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is still suffering the legacy of violent colonialism, that violence is inhibiting the fight against Ebola, and thus adding to the inherent problems (death, injury, the war crime of sexual assault, instability and lack of governance, food shortages and famine, economic loss to nation and person, etc) of the fighting.

On the other hand, there has been signs of movement towards peace in some places - Yemen, and possibly Afghanistan, and also accountability for war crimes in Suriname (undermined by POTUS45), and East Africa has taken measures to improve security. 

However, in Afghanistan, the problems with the Taliban are (a) they've shown in the past that they may not act with what is typically considered to be good faith, and (b) they are still misogynistic, and thus any "peace" would probably involve significant human rights abuses and thus be of questionable benefit - that is, is the current level of physical violence and governance of limited effectiveness better or worse than a possibly more stable, reduced physical violence but increased abuse existence under the Taliban?

I can't see any acceptable, viable options for resolving these problems - but I support continuing to talk. Engagement doesn't always help (if the people doing the talking are disrespectful, lacking in understanding, or limited in their comprehension/awareness [including of human rights], it could create more problems than open opportunities for shifts in positions, or may allow movement towards something that is worse - which is what I fear in the case of Afghanistan), but it has the potential to do so.

On solutions, the recent talk by Geoff Gallop at my home state's Fabians annual dinner (I did not attend, to be clear) on ways to improve democracy is now available on YouTube, and is well worth a listen. I've listened to it, downloaded the transcript, and - when I've edited the downloaded transcript into a more readable form, am looking forward to reading it carefully and gleaning what I can from it.

Continuing that theme, one US state is looking to a form of sortition to find a way to ensure that changes to electoral boundaries will fix any gerrymandering and be truly fair.

This is likely to be akin to the use of citizen's juries, in my opinion: if the group of citizens is given good information, including good (unbiased) education on the issues, they will work well - that has been shown by the outcomes of such juries for a range of governmental organisations in my home state; see here, here, here, and here, for instance.

On governance matters, an article from academia this week has confirmed what many, if not most, people have known for a while now, which is that - even without considering climate change - people's lifestyles are changing, and thus the assumptions used for government planning need to change as well.

And on climate change, there is some more fumbling  around the edges of ensuring we have better (or at least less bad)  buildings, including  houses.

Governance matters have not all been good or neutral.

Hungary, the nation which famously stood up to the military might of the USSR, has sadly been regressing for some time, and this week tried to silence Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch - the latter an organisation founded in efforts to hold the USSR to account on human rights abuses.

And Singapore has taken some appalling actions against the human rights of workers.  (If I get the time and energy, I would like to work that one up into a standalone post.)

On a personal note, I've been re-reading Geoffrey  Robertson's "Crimes Against Humanity" (The New Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59558-860-9, 4th ed.), and have started reading his book "The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man who sent Charles I to the Scaffold" (Vintage Digital, 2010, 978-1407066035, Amazon), as well as a few others.

I have also finally had the energy to resume some of my semi-formal studies - which may lead to another post or two in due course.