Worldcrunch Today, Dec. 17: Macron Gets COVID, Pollution Murder, Cookie Monster
The Soviet-style Cookie Monster
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Welcome to Thursday, where Emmanuel Macron has COVID, air pollution is guilty in the death of a 9-year old, and couscous is culture. Meanwhile we look at how "cancel culture" in India is a very different thing.
SPOTLIGHT: TEN YEARS LATER, THE ARAB SPRING DELUSION MUST NOT KILL HOPE
When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in December 2010, it first triggered a wave of revolts, then hopes of a historic liberalization in Arab countries. But the doors of democracy, barely half-opened, have been shut ever since, writes Dominique Moïsi in French daily Les Echos.
Exactly 10 years ago, on December 17, 2010, a low-key Tunisian fruit and vegetable seller felt so harassed and abused by public officials that he set himself on fire. Bouazizi's fatal act of desperation and revolt would mark the beginning of a wave of uprisings in the Arab world, that spread from Tunisia to Egypt, and then on to Libya and Syria.
A decade later, what remains of this immense flame of hope? It was of course very quickly followed — with the notable exception of Tunisia — by a wave of repression, sometimes fierce, as in Syria. How did we go from the Arab Spring to the Islamic winter? And then on to the deepening of the infernal dialectic between authoritarianism and corruption? It's as if the doors of democracy, barely ajar, had been summarily closed by those of the kleptocracy.
Was the hope unfounded, nothing more than a product of a far too Western reading of a culture that we did not understand, of images that we did not know how to interpret?
It is of course easier to destroy than to rebuild. The young people of Tahrir Square in Cairo were able to bring down President Mubarak, but they were unable to create a democratic, strong and stable Egypt. They were caught between a security apparatus — dependent for the maintenance of its wealth on its presence in power — and the Muslim Brotherhood, who would soon prove their mixture of incompetence and intolerance.
Over time, the Arab Spring has exposed the dangerous limits of Islamists and political Islam, but has not strengthened civil society and the cause of democracy. The direct, almost mathematical link between the extent of Egypt's debt and the wealth of the "Egyptian generals' was strengthened at a time when the voices that remained of freedom were being fiercely muzzled.
Was the expression "Arab Spring" – a reference to the 1848 revolution known as the "Springtime of the Peoples' – a deceptive illusion from the outset? Or is it still too early to judge whether it is true or not?
If the comparison between that revolutionary European Spring of 1848-1849 and the Arab Spring of 2010-2011 is to remain legitimate, is it not because of their respective failures In Europe. It was not the Frankfurt Parliament that unified Germany, but Bismarck's Prussia. And, in France, it was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte who was able to reap the benefits of revolutionary unrest.
In the traditional heart of the Arab world, in Egypt, after the very inconclusive experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in power, the army regained control of the country, even more brutally than in Mubarak's time. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi knows that he can count on the mixture of fear of radical Islam and the mercenary appetites of many Western countries to weld friendships that ethics should condemn, but that politics encourages. Read the full article.
— Dominique Moïsi / Les Echos
THE SITUATION: 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
COVID-19 latest: French President Emmanuel Macron tests positive for COVID-19, less than a week after an in-person summit of top European leaders. The U.S. once again records the highest daily number of cases, as the spread rates soar "exponentially" in South Africa, and Sweden's king says the national coronavirus strategy has failed.
Charlie Hebdo trial: A French court convicts 14 people linked to the 2015 attacks in Paris on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which killed 17.
Pollution-asthma case: A London court rules unlawful air pollution levels as a factor in a nine-year-old girl's death, following an asthma attack.
China's Moon rocks: China's Chang'e-5 lunar probe has returned to Earth with 4.4 pounds of rock samples from a previously unexplored area of the Moon.
U.S./Taliban talks: Top U.S. military officers hold unannounced talks respectively with Taliban peace negotiators and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to try and reduce violence across the country.
Bitcoin breaks record: The value of Bitcoin jumped 4.5% to as much as $20,440 amid stock market turmoil this year.
Couscous culture: UNESCO has added couscous to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, praising the dish (shared by Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia) for its ability to bring people and cultures together.
Tunisian daily Assabah features a cartoon on its front page showing the declining protest movement since the Arab Spring was sparked 10 years today, when Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Ben Arous.
"CANCEL CULTURE" IN INDIA LOOKS LIKE OLD-FASHIONED BIGOTRY
Hindu nationalist groups want to force the cancellation of Netflix shows that celebrate inter-religious romance with Muslims — it's both censorship and ethnic prejudice, writes Debangana Chatterjee on Indian news website The Wire.
Richie Mehta's original Netflix series Delhi Crime, based on the 2012 Delhi gang-rape, sparked an outcry for banning Netflix India — and a #BanNetflix campaign was launched. What set the furor off though was an episode of another Netflix show, A Suitable Boy, and the "inappropriate" on-screen kiss between a Hindu (Lata) and a Muslim (Kabir) character in the backdrop of a temple. Members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took no time to demand the all-out ban of Netflix India.
In the West, "Cancel Culture" first arose in a much different context, notably around the #MeToo movement that sought to shame and shut down alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment and violence. The dynamic has expanded to publicly shame and silence a wide range of public figures whose ideas or words have clashed with the young generation's progressive "woke" culture.
Unfortunately, unlike its Western counterpart (which itself raises eyebrows), India's cancel culture coupled with the dogma of Hindu nationalism has taken a malicious turn. Under this precarious political climate, anything that antagonizes the Hindutva ideology faces indelible wrath.
This goes hand-in-glove with the government's new-found interests in OTT (Over-the-Top platforms) regulations. Last year in October the government made its intentions clear on promulgating a set of "not to do" lists for the streaming platforms that include Netflix, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, as well as the digital news media.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com here.
According to a new investigation led Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo, police in the country have shot dead 2,215 children and adolescents between 2017 and 2019.
We'd hoped that the dead of Bergamo could have protected the rest of Italy. Instead our sacrifice has been in vain.
— Luca Fusco, who heads a group of survivors of the record numbers of people killed by COVID-19 in in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, speaking with weekly magazine L'Espresso. The group, which wants to hold government officials accountable for mismanagement of the crisis, has denounced continued bad policy that has led to a deadly second wave in Italy.
See top photo
A mystery man tricked U.S. artist Joshua Hawkins by paying him to paint an enormous Soviet-style mural of Sesame Street creature Cookie Monster, with three Russian words spelling "Peace Land Cookies!," on a commercial building in Peoria, Illinois. It turned out that the man had impersonated the building's owner, who was furious to see the "Soviet Muppet," and had the mural painted over white. The apparent prankster with a taste for the absurd — who paid the artist in full for the work — has not been identified. Meanwhile the real owner of the wall is holding a contest to decide a new design for the wall.
Premium stories from Worldcrunch's own network of multi-lingual journalists in over 30 countries.
Parenthood And The Pressure Of Always Having To Be Doing Better
As a father myself, I'm now better able to understand the pressures my own dad faced. It's helped me face my own internal demands to constantly be more productive and do better.
Father and son in the streets of Madrid, Spain
Braden Collum
Ignacio Pereyra*
-Essay-
When I was a child — I must have been around eight or so — whenever we headed with my mom and grandma to my aunt's country house in Don Torcuato, outside of Buenos Aires, there was the joy of summer plans. Spending the day outdoors, playing soccer in the field, being in the swimming pool and eating delicious food.
But when I focus on the moment, something like a painful thorn appears in the background: from the back window of the car I see my dad standing on the sidewalk waving us goodbye. Sometimes he would stay at home. "I have to work" was the line he used.
Maybe one of my older siblings would also stay behind with him, but I'm sure there were no children left around because we were all enthusiastic about going to my aunt's. For a long time in his life, for my old man, those summer days must have been the closest he came to being alone, in silence (which he liked so much) and in calm, considering that he was the father of seven. But I can only see this and say it out loud today.
Over the years, the scene repeated itself: the destination changed — it could be a birthday or a family reunion. The thorn was no longer invisible but began to be uncomfortable as, being older, my interpretation of the events changed. When words were absent, I started to guess what might be happening — and we know how random guessing can be.
If enthusiasm for the playful plan in the sun was the prevailing sentiment during my childhood, during my adolescence I began to interpret my dad's alternative plans as an absence that I have in mind even today. So much so that more than 25 years later I still remember, for example, that only once in my life did my dad go to see me play soccer, which for a long time was what I did and enjoyed the most.
I have a scene recorded of that one and only time. It was an 11-a-side tournament. Other parents were outside. I had to be a substitute.
In the second half, I joined the game and a few minutes later I got the chance I wanted: I went one-on-one with the goalkeeper. "I'm going to score a great goal and my old man is going to see me," I thought, all in a microsecond, while I imagined the ball going in and celebrating proudly with my dad.
I put my foot under the ball to lift it over the goalkeeper but a big disappointment came: the goalkeeper caught the ball in his hands as if the one who had kicked had been a three-year-old child and not a teenager.
"Even though I know that it is necessary for my well-being, I find it hard to set aside time for myself that is not for... work"
charlesdeluvio
The acceptable excuse of work
Now that I am a father, I imagine and project — according to what happens to me — what I think could have happened to my father in those years: not knowing what to do or finding it boring to play with children; wanting to be alone and in silence, needing his space? Being exhausted. All that together and more things I don't know, like being worried about the economy (hello, Argentina) with a large family.
I lost count of the times that, while my mom was having a hard time seeing the unpaid school fees piling up, my dad, who worked as an architect, said: "We are in a crisis. We have to get through these three months, then things will get better."
The thing is that what at the time seemed to me a thorn, an absence or an injustice, at my 41 years of age is no longer like that. The fact that my dad stayed at home when we were leaving, seen with today's eyes — in the skin of a son who has been an orphan for a decade and who became a father four years ago — everything that I did not like, and that I did not know how to name, now seems to me an understandable choice and not at all reprehensible. Quite the contrary.
Enjoyment is something I think about often, basically, because I suffer from its lack.
But, then, I am now faced with another conflict, which is partly born of this whole situation. Even though I know that it is necessary for my well-being, I find it hard to set aside time for myself that is not for... work, that is, the same thing my dad used to say about staying at home or in the office until late. Work is still one of those infallible multipurpose arguments (excuses), both for myself and for the outside world.
It's quite rare that someone doesn't think it's right or logical for me to be absent because of work (whatever activity I may be missing). On the other hand, if I go out to a bar or on a trip just for fun, the response changes. There are jokes (cliché) that make me uncomfortable: "what a good life you have", "you really know how to have a good time" — you get the idea.
Although perhaps I think I don't give it importance at the time, the joke — in its own way, a way to discipline socially — touches a delicate spot: the difficulty of enjoying and thinking I deserve leisure time, in constant friction with the sense of duty, that tyrannical and heavy baggage that holds a supreme authority.
A dream of my father
A few nights ago I dreamed of my dad — we were doing things that we didn't even come close to doing in real life. We were lying on the ground looking at the tops of some trees and some other plants with different colorful flowers. That's a Bougainvillea over there, I said, pointing to some red flowers, like the ones in my current house in Greece.
In the dream I spoke with the tone of a teacher, assuming that I knew more than one of my brothers, who was also next to me. My brother, not perceiving my air of superiority, pointed to the top of a tree and said, "That's a sweetgum tree."
Of course I had no idea of the species — I don't know about trees — but I do remember what I felt: embarrassment, not because I didn't know, but because of my teaching tone and for having underestimated my brother, believing he didn't know anything.
A few days later, my therapist told me: "Your brother was not your brother, your brother was you. In other words, it's you who underestimates yourself, believing that you are never enough."
I kept thinking how right my psychologist's observation was — she has known me for more than a decade. Why is nothing ever enough? I still don't know. But, as Sergio, a reader of this newsletter, told me, referring to a previous newsletter: "This idea of freeing oneself from the dictatorship of insufficiency is very powerful."
"My brother, not perceiving my air of superiority, pointed to the top of a tree and said, 'That's a sweetgum tree.'"
C. SHII
Denial as defense
Going back to the appearance of my dad, who does not visit me very frequently in my dreams, but more so than my mom, it seems quite obvious to me that it was related to the fact that the day before the dream a friend's father had passed away and I had not managed to call him or write a message.
I could excuse myself (lie to myself), arguing that the daily demands with two small children are high. But I do think that the unconscious is an oiled machine that never takes a day off.
Denial may operate a priori as a defense mechanism (looking the other way), but in the background the water keeps running. It is quite likely that I couldn't message my friend about his father's death because I needed to escape (in a way, it was also writing to myself).
That night, the dream had more phases. In addition to what I can remember, there are the notes I took when I woke up, and also after doing therapy: "It's as if Dad had appeared to tell me things," I wrote down, and then described the images I had seen with my eyes closed in the darkness of the night:
We were in a house that was not ours (in reality) but in the dream it was our house (that's how it happens in dreams, right?). The house had a sort of balcony on the first floor, at street level. The private space was delimited from the public space by planters on the sidewalk. "In the end we never enjoy the balcony," my dad said.
"That's true," I said.
"We don't enjoy anything," he emphasized.
Then, I wanted to tell him that that was also true, that we don't enjoy anything, that we don't know what enjoyment is. But I couldn't find the words, I felt a lump in my throat. Next to me, my brother was looking the other way: he wasn't interested in that chat, he didn't agree, and he wasn't listening to my dad. On the other hand, I was getting more and more upset, I was choking with the words I couldn't utter.
Being productive vs. enjoyment
Enjoyment is something I think about often, basically, because I suffer from its lack. I question not knowing or not being able to enjoy almost anything (or as much as I would like to). Many times when I do something my head is simultaneously attending to another concern or, worse, it is identifying something that is missing. What a horrendous habit, please.
If I am told that the Spanish omelet came out great (humbly, I am an omelet specialist), instead of replying "thank you" and smiling (that would be enjoying a compliment, wouldn't it?) I add that it lacked a gram of salt or that it was 10 seconds overcooked.
"The best is the enemy of the good," Voltaire is said to have said (I liked the concept of the Nirvana Fallacy). "The perfect is the enemy of the possible," say others. Anyway, it would be good for me to make friends with these aphorisms, which sound nice but are not easy to apply.
Work, the house, my partner, fatherhood, time with my children, going for a walk... Almost everything I do seems to obey so much to the idea of duty that the possibility of enjoyment is relegated, drowned in a corner. At times, if they do not have a "productive" objective, my actions – scrutinized to the point of exhaustion — become deflated and lose meaning.
I worry that I'm passing on the virus that it's never enough.
Enjoyment as the only argument, in general, does not seem enough. So, I fall into unusual questions: why am I going out cycling if I am not preparing for a triathlon? Why am I going to the gym or doing pilates if I could be working or spending more time with my children? Why am I going to do nothing with everything I have pending?
All the questions, in the end, are the same question: Why should I do something for myself that, in one way or another, is not productive? Why am I going to do something that is not taking care of the children, my partner, the family, the house or... working (more).
This permanent procrastination, where does it lead me? At times, to a disconnection with myself: who am I beyond the should bes and the mandates? Do I have a mission or is life a concert of disconformity and dissatisfaction? Beyond what is due, beyond all that I am supposed to do, where am I and my interests? To whom do I owe what?
"I think also of Lorenzo, my son, when he gets in the car to go home and asks: 'Now where are we going?'"
Daniel Christie
What's wrong with comfort?
At this point, having heard enough, my therapist asked: "What are you defending yourself against?" Without thinking, I answered: "From myself, from my infinite self-demand."
"Since I've known you, Nacho, you've always thought you can be much better: much more punctual, perform better, perform more, do more and better... It's an endless criticism... With one hand on your heart, Nacho, do you really think you can be better?"
"Yes, I can potentially be better. But reality shows me that I can't or that I'm not able to. If not, I would do it, wouldn't I? I mean, I do what I can, I guess."
I know: my answer was pretty banal. But that doesn't make it less truthful. If before seeing my therapist I had read this article by Argentine psychoanalyst Alexandra Kohan, I would have told her: "I can't always want what I want, nor do I want everything I can. Wanting what I do, is that the challenge?"
In her text, Kohan questions axioms such as the one that preaches that "you have to get out of your comfort zone". She says: "There is also a denial of comfort that is questionable: why wouldn't we want to start living, with all the difficulty that living implies, a little more comfortably?"
Kohan continues: "There is a kind of epic of sacrifice and a moralism of having a hard time; in the face of the minimum comfort that someone can find in everyday life, which is already quite uncomfortable, there is a stigmatization of those small oases that someone may have found at least to rest a little."
The journey has to be fun too
Then, I ask myself: what else was that dream telling me? It had begun pleasantly, with my dad lying on the ground — now I see leaves all around, in an autumn lawn — and looking up at the sky, identifying flowers and naming tree tops? What was my unconscious processing (that I am unable to do in the light of day)? What unfulfilled desire is there?
I think also of Lorenzo, my son, when — after a day full of friends and packed with activities — he gets in the car to go home and asks: "Now where are we going?" And then he complains, "Why are we going home? We didn't do anything today, why don't we ever do anything?" I know he's almost four years old and always wants more, but I worry that I'm passing on the virus that it's never enough.
But the issue isn't him, the issue is what's wrong with me. As someone I like to listen to told me: "Try to enjoy things more. Not everything is so heavy. There's more than one way to do things and those things take time too. The journey has to be fun too."
*Ignacio Pereyra is an Argentine journalist and author of Recalculating, a newsletter on masculinity and fatherhood.
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