Pauline Zaragoza – Pike & Hurricane

Period: a taboo without borders

Pauline Zaragoza — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 14:39:09 +0000

Unclean, impure, dirty, gross, taboo, embarrassing.Those “positive” words are usually used as describers when it comes to period concerns. Nowadays, periods still have negative meanings in societies all around the world whatever the social classes, origins or geographical localization. Most women on earth are concerned by this taboo surrounding this normal body function. Issues come when sometimes this stigma and the lack of access to menstrual products have terrible consequences.

What is that? Yes, it is red blood

Period as a monthly event appears when blood and tissues from the uterus are coming out of the vagina. It usually appears during the puberty period between 12-14 years old, or even earlier/later. As an average, a woman has between 4 and 5 days of bleeding which represents 2250 days of her life, in other words seven years of period. This mean a lot of time spending to wonder about having a pad or a tampon, where to find one, how to hide it, how to handle the pain or even how to make sure that you don’t have a stain on your pants (we all have this story asking to our bestie.s to check our back).

This discomfort regarding periods is mainly represented through how the media are representing this monthly surprise in most women’s lives. The market of “feminine hygiene products” represents a huge source of money, between 20,6 billion $ and 37,5 billion $ and it is estimated to 52 billion $ in 2023. In most of the ad for menstrual products, the periodic blood is blue instead of red. As an important source of information, media with their audience are powerful as they influence the representation of period. This blue blood, as misrepresenting the reality, sends a confusing message and reinforces this vision of disgust towards period; whereas blood is regularly shown when it is not coming from a vagina such as in horror films, medical series, war movies…. However, some companies are taking action such as the ad campaign Blood Normal which aims to show the real red blood and to deconstruct all the stigmas surrounding menstruation to make it normal. But despite this rise of awareness, shame and stereotypes are still deeply settled.

Globalized stereotypes and a dramatic lack of menstrual hygiene

Those stigmas and beliefs about periods can have bad consequences in terms of education, job access, health and more. In addition, some countries or even religions have specific beliefs that are fueling the global shame about menstruation for girls. In Iran, as a sign of misinformation, 48% of girls believe that period is a disease. In Japan, women are not allowed to become sushi masters because it is said that menstruation causes an “imbalance in taste”. Moreover, in India, during their period women are not allowed to be in the kitchen and cannot water plants because the myth says they can poison food. Also in the country, buying pads is expensive and also taboo, 90% of women in rural areas don’t have access to it. As a result, 28% of girls are not going to school and instead they are using dangerous objects to catch the blood such as newspaper, ash, wood shavings, and more. In Nepal, there is a practice named Chhaupadi that aims to banish menstruate women and send them in dangerous outdoors called ‘menstruation huts” owing to the impurity of the period. Even if this practice has been banned recently, it’s still continued in fact, mostly in rural areas. This tradition implies risks of rape, disease or even death as shown by recent cases of girls bitten by snakes. In Nepal as well as India, during this time of the month, women are not allowed to enter in “clean” and holy places like temples.

Also, women in western countries are concerned by this taboo. In England, almost 138 000 girls are missing school because they cannot afford menstrual products. In many states in the United States, pads and tampons are considered “luxury good”. In Western countries, homeless women are mostly confronted with the dilemma between buying food or buying menstrual products. In addition, another effect of this spread of negative vision of menstruations is the “period shaming”. This period shaming can lead to suicide, some people might think it’s hard to believe it but it’s a reality. In 2017 a 12 years old Indian girl killed herself after her teacher humiliated her because of a stain due to menstruation. Same story in 2019 with a 14 year old Kenyan school girl who had her first period during school lesson was reportedly branded ‘dirty’ and expelled from the classroom. Period is normal, natural, and healthy and some initiatives try to defy this global taboo.

Period as a political issue: a rise of actions

Facing those issues, some people have decided to take actions. In India, a man named Arunachalam Muruganantham, has invented a machine that dispenses menstrual products at a low cost in order to increase access for women in his country despite the people’s opposition in his village. Moreover, numerous humanitarian collections have been settled around the world to respond to this need like in France (Règles Élémentaires) or the association Period which aims to fight against “period poverty”. Also, on a larger scale, some politicians have tackled this health issue. Recently, Scotland has been the first country in the world to provide free pads and tampons. Indeed, almost 10% of girls in UK are not able to afford menstrual products and some are using unhygienic products such as rags, toilet paper or newspapers because of the expansive price of pads and tampons. Before this, the state of New York was one of the first to announce that all public schools in the state will dispense free tampons and pads in order to fight menstruation taboos and make school safe and comfortable for girls.

Access to menstrual hygiene should represent a main issue in the global agenda as it is hard for women to confront this event with safety and dignity. Also, menstruation includes numerous other problems such endometriosis or toxic shock syndrome scandal. One of the solutions might be a cultural change in order to normalize menstruation and destroy taboos around this natural process. Of course, it is taking time because those stereotypes are deeply rooted in our societies. Menstrual hygiene must be a right and girls should not be blamed or shamed about it, on the contrary it should be a normal to easily access menstrual products, sanitation and hygiene. Period is a cultural power, changing perceptions about it will help to change the rules of the game and to empower women as it normally should be.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

peeled pomelo, Charles Deluvio

melting popsicle, Erol Ahmed

Nepal, World Bank Photo Collection, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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The myth of democracy: Beyond speeches, a muddled reality

Pauline Zaragoza — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 16:25:52 +0000

For a long time, democracy was imagined as a utopia. Today, its nice image is not ideal anymore due to impossible and impracticable promises. Nowadays, democracy has lost its credibility. Its beliefs became a myth. In the context of the rise of populism and restrictions of liberties, its definition and even its existence are questioned.

Democracy: An old and blurred concept

Native from the ancient Athens, the word democracy comes from the Greek words “demos” (the people) and “kratos” (the power) which can be translated as the government of the people. Democracy is universally seen as a sort of ideal founded on a political and philosophical tension between the concepts of liberty and equality. It is also a political regime including institutions and laws. One of the most famous definitions is the one of Abraham Lincoln: “It’s the government of the people by the people for the people.”

Historically, except in Athens, democracy was a synonym of a bad image. Plato considered it a tyrannic model and Rawls judged it not as the best regime to reach justice. Even at the time of Solon and Clisthène, the Greek theorists of this concept, this regime was rooted in a society where slavery was essential. Moreover, foreigners, women and slaves were excluded from the status of citizens which was allowing the rights to practice democracy. The structure of this old Greek society can remind us some similarities regarding the treatment of the migration crisis in 2015 and inequalities and discrimination toward minorities and women. Several centuries later, some things are not changing and it is as if it was set in stone. But this gap between this ideal and reality has consequences.

A gap between words and reality

After the Second World War,the democratic model was set as a universal aspiration, a sign of success. As proof of this international will, the 21st Article of the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights aimed to promote it. However, beyond those beautiful statements there is another reality. In the nineties, the fall of the Berlin Wall reignited the hope of the democratic model’s victory. But some countries, presented as young democracies at that time, such as Russia or China, became arbitrary. As explained by journalist Fareed Zakaria, democracy might lead to authoritarianism. Actually, democracy is not just about holding elections, allowing political participation. It also implies the rule of law, the separation of powers, secularity, and the protections of minorities and individuals’ rights.

Democracy has become a label used for anything at any time which has the terrible consequence of it losing its meaning. During the Soviet period, most of the former Eastern Bloc countries were called Soviet Republics applying Soviet democracy knowing that they were belonging to the champions’ category when it comes to violating human and political rights. Also, this paradox exist in the name of some countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo which is well-known for its corruption case, existence of child soldiers and the common practice of female genital mutilation.

In our time, democracy seems to be a force without finality despite a will of expansion and its conquest of the world. Recalling the famous definition of Clausewitz, democracy can be seen as as tool to continue the fight for hegemony by others means. Indeed, perhaps democratic regimes are not just imperfect but they are guilty of crimes. The United States are the perfect example to illustrate the use of democracy to legitimize actions with the 2003’s invasion of Iraq or the use of torture in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And in many Western democracies, the rise of terrorism has authorized the restriction of civil liberties and democratic values under the argument of security matters.

In addition, behind the beautiful speeches, the struggle for the right to abortion and other women’s rights, gay rights, rigged election, and minority rights have become our daily reality. The case of Hungary and Poland are symptomatic of this issue. In Hungary, Victor Orban, elected in 2010, set political and financial pressure, regulation, censorship and disinformation towards media. He also decided to weaken the rule of law by targeting judicial institutions, as example of his decisions, he forced the early retirement of judges. In Poland, abortion and LGBTQ rights are under threat and the President Andrzej Duda signed a law meant to pack the country’s judiciary with judges friendly to the party in power. Those various events and manipulations of the concept of democracy led to give it a bad image. However, recent protests remind us that this ideal is not dead yet.

A glimmer of hope: An ideal not dead yet

For researcher Isabelle Ferreras, the issues of democracy are located in our economic model. For her, democracy and capitalism are incompatible. If capitalism has a future, democracy cannot have one. Capitalism, according to her, allows political rights according to the amount of capital owned whereas democracy is based on the equality of rights for everyone. Perhaps, this argument can be related to protests in France with the Gilets jaunes and in Chile where the triggers for protest were rooted in economic inequalities.

Some of the democratic values are still alive in minds all around the world. France, Algeria, Lebanon, Chile and Hong Kong are recent fields of protest using pacific gatherings and social media as tools against a monopolization of power and economic and political inequalities within the population. Those recent events demonstrate a global need to recapture democracy.

Democracy has to be rethought in order to restore its legitimacy after all the disillusions that are associated with it. On one hand, this concept has to avoid what Tocqueville theorized as the tyranny of the majority which might not always have its reasons, can be easily manipulated and does not protect minorities. Also, democracy has to avoid being a nice label used for countries’ interests or a model that reinforces inequalities within populations. Perhaps, the role played by civil society and whistle-blowers is to influence decisions to preserve our rights and liberties, but also to act. Regarding numerous issues the can be our lifeboat and make the myth a reality.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Crowd, Clker-Free-Vector-Images

Parthenon, timeflies1955

20190818 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protest, Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0

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Rap music as a political message

Pauline Zaragoza — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 15:43:56 +0000

Rap music which is mostly considered as a scandalous art can be the subject of curiosity. Actually, by nature rap constitutes a tool for contestation and can carry out a political message.

Origin and characteristics of rap

Rap music can be defined as a cultural movement born in the seventies in American black and Latino ghettos. It is rooted in the Hip hop movement and has been influenced by various music such as reggae, blues, or rock. This music incorporates “rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular“ and it is composed of content (what is being said), flow (rhythm, rhyme), and delivery (cadence, tone). Etymologically, the word “rap” comes from the verb “to rap” which means to “to strike, especially with a quick, smart, or light blow” and is also slang for “to talk or discuss, especially freely, openly, or volubly; chat”.

A political DNA

In the field of music, rap holds an original place. It is considering as the first music “without professional musician”. Rap music is intrinsically politics. Rap’s politicization can be explained by the fact that it’s a way to express the concrete effects of pauperization in ghettos and by the politicized interpretation of rap music by the media. According to Arsenik’s statement, “No one can pretend to rap without taking a position”. In the nineties, this sentence was particularly true with some groups such as the Public Group in the US or Assassin and IAM in France.

Political rap music exploded in the eighties. At this time, it has been a way to express a malaise and claims of the ghettos’ inhabitants. During this Golden Age, what we call “gangsta rap” was born; N.W.A group in California composed by Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella are the standard-bearer of this style. They were inspired by their daily life with police brutalities and gang wars.

In 1988, they signed the hit “Fuck tha police”, a classic song in which they denounce police violence against young black American. Before, in 1982, the group Grandmaster Flash had written the famous song “The Message” in which they criticized power symbols, police and justice.

Rap music can be pictured as the incarnation of oppressed revolt: the representation of an anti-establishment discourse based on identity and claims of urban life’s problems. According to some sociologists, such as Boucher, rap must be studied as a movement which inform us about values conveyed in urban areas and by young people. Hence, rap music is a new political enunciation.

The birth of mainstream rap

With time, rap has become one predominant aspect of world pop culture. Next to the birth of a political rap in the eighties and nineties, we can see a broadening of the genre. There was also a development of a “provocative” mainstream rap with its symbols such as luxury cars, guns or even women.

But compared to this “non-engaged” rap, we can also see the mainstreaming of a more political rap style. Indeed, engaged rap is popular because there are representing certain youth from ghettos. As explained by the French rapper Youssoupha, the success of rappers in society is a “militant act” in itself rather than its militancy being bound to the art-form or the lyrics.

As engaged rap is spread, it carries with it a message. As an example, in the nineties, famous French rappers such as Kery James, IAM, Minister AMER, Assasin, NTM and many others used their popularity for the hit “11’30 against racists laws”.

Also, at the international scale, we are witnessing the coming of popular engaged rappers who wake people up to listen. One of the most famous is Jay-Z who talked about racism and the black experience in America in his Grammy-nominated album, “4:44.”. We can also cite Eminem or Kendrick Lamar with his Grammy-nominated album “Damn” and his 2015 album “To Pimp a Butterfly”. In this last one, we can listen featuring lyrics such as: “Donald Trump’s in office/ We lost Barack and promised to never doubt him again/ But is America honest, or do we bask in sin?”.

Originally, rap, by tackling topics such as money, delinquency or insecurity, was born from pain and contestation. And even if today we are witnessing a mainstreaming of rap which implies the arrival of white middle-class rappers, this engaged DNA is not dead.

A style still alive: political rap during social crisis

Political rap is especially prominent while a society faces an important crisis, whether it’s a political or historical one, or one concerning identity. In France, the day following the access of the presidential election second round by Jean-Marie Le Pen had led famous rappers to gather and incite youth to block far-right accession with the song “La lutte est en marche”. The French rappers Kery James who is considered as the king of French engaged rap had made the hit “Letter to the French Republic” (“Lettre à la République”) where he tackles the demonization of Muslim people in France and inhabitants of French ghettos who comes from a France that has forgotten its colonial past and its discrimination.

We can talk about Donald Trump’s access to the White House, which has created a wave of engaged rap song. We can cite Eminem with his explosive freestyle rap which he unleashed on the President. About the same target, Childish Gambino with his brilliant and brutal music video “This is America” criticized US modern society; the video clip had more than 1 million views in less than 24 hours. With this song, he raised awareness about the fact that guns have more value than human life and the banalization of violence especially against Black American. In addition, in the United Kingdom, the rapper Stormzy with his song “Vossip Bop” included a gem on Brexit and Boris Johnson: “Rule number 2 don’t make the promise/ If you can’t keep the deal then just be honest/ I can never die I’m Chuck Norris/ Fuck the government and fuck Boris.”

As described by the journalist Karim Madani, rap involves provocation. According to him, “politics and rap are a bad melange. We are in a censured period with the politically correct but Rap Music by its nature is inherently politically incorrect”.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Eminem-04, Mika Väisänen, CC BY-SA 4.0,

Tupac graffiti New York, JJ & Special K, CC BY-SA 2.0,

Jay-Z concert, i am guilty, CC BY-SA 2.0,

Festival des Vieilles Charrues 2017 – Kery James – 170, Thesupermat, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Veganism, vegetarianism: trend or real awareness?

Pauline Zaragoza — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 12:48:19 +0000

Festivals, restaurants and even butcher’s shops… Vegan and vegetarian lifestyles have gained ground over the past decades. Videos on animal cruelty and deforestation show the terrible side of our industrial society. It all raises attention on our consumer behavior, facing environmental issues, and our eating habits. But do these diets really reflect an understanding of contemporary issues or are they a new business trend?

Veganism, vegetarianism – what does that mean?

Depending on the person, the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle can be influenced by various motivations such as animal wellbeing, health issues or even religion. The vegetarian lifestyle was born in 1847 with the Vegetarian Society; the word comes from the Latin “vegetus” which means healthy, fresh and alive. From this word, the term veganism was coined in 1994 by Donald Watson, co-founder of the Vegan Society created in the United States in 1948.

There are a hundred ways to practice those diets: ovo, lacto, ovo-lacto, veganism, raw veganism, fruitarianism, Buddhist vegetarianism, Jain vegetarianism, Jewish vegetarianism… But the main and more marked difference between vegan and vegetarian is the lifestyle. A vegetarian person doesn’t eat any product from slaughter such as meat, fish, or even gelatin. However, vegans stop eating all types of animal products such as milk, honey, eggs, fish and meat. And if you want to look further as a vegan, in addition to the diet you have to cut your consume of animal products such as clothes (fur or leather), make up, or any product derived from animals.

An environmental issue

The vegan and vegetarian lifestyle became significant thanks to a heightened media coverage. Especially Netflix, the giant media which gathers more than 139 million subscribers, offers a lot of documentaries about environmental issues linked to food on its platform: “What the Health”, “Food Matters”, “Cowspiracy”, “Forks over knives”, … the list is long. This raises the question on the role of Netflix regarding food and environmental awareness which has for sure increased these past years.

In fact, those revelations have foundations. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has recognized the impact of the livestock sector as the largest user of agricultural land, through grazing and the use of feed crops, but also its influence on climate change, management of land and water, and biodiversity.

Figures show that farming is responsible for 14,5% of greenhouse gas emission and 63% of Amazonia’s deforestation. Moreover, according to the Harvard Medical School a huge reduction of meat consumption would be as efficient as halving the world’s car fleet. On average, we need 4,660l of water to make 1kg of vegetal protein instead of 7,900l of water to produce 1kg of meat. Also, farming is responsible for water pollution, especially due to pisciculture which releases chemical products, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones into the water. All in all, the livestock sector is responsible for 80% of acid rain.

A bobo trend?

But we can question some aspects of those diets. There is a growing trend of celebritiessuch as Joaquin Phoenix, Pamela Anderson, Natalie Portman, Jared Leto, Ellen DeGeneres, and, more surprisingly perhaps, Bill Clinton whot follow a vegan diet. Today, 5% of the world’s population, namely 375 million people, are vegan or vegetarian. The countries where the most vegan and vegetarian people live are India (38%), Israel (13%), Italy (10%) and finally Germany and the United Kingdom (both 9%). That represents a huge business area, and therefore the vegan/vegetarian label has become a new marketing tool.

McDonalds, KFC, Stella McCartney, Lidl, Adidas and others have conceded to the sirens of the veganism/vegetarianism trend. In France, this market increased by 24% in 2018. In the United States, according to Forbes, consumers spent nearly $1.9 billion on plant-based milks and $3.3 billion on plant-based foods in 2018 which represents a huge potential for business, even more so since the number of vegans in the United States jumped from 1 percent in 2014 to 6 percent in 2017.

Plant based foods are now offered in trendy coffee shops, plant based fast foods, vegan restaurants, major league baseball stadiums and even by vegan butchers, which was named a top new job trend for 2017 by Time Money.

Nevertheless, the product and place access is still concentrated and unequal. Most of the people in Western countries which adopted a vegan/vegetarian diet live in big cities. Paris and Lyon, two of France’s biggest cities, are more inhabited by vegans and vegetarians than smaller cities and towns. Therefore, veganism and vegetarianism are an urban trend and practiced mainly by the middle and upper class.

A sustainable movement?

Despite various positive effects for health, environment and animal wellbeing, veganism/vegetarianism is not without its negative sides. In fact, plant-based food can lead to vitamin deficiencies such as vitamin B12 deficiency (B12 is primarily found in animal products) and sometimes hide eating disorders. Vegetarian diets do not cause eating disorders, but “may be selected to camouflage an existing eating disorder. In addition, sometimes veganism isn’t tolerated by some bodies.”

Those plant-based diets can also have a bad impact on the environment as shown by the avocado controversy. During the past years, not only the number of vegans and vegetarians has increased, avocados have become the latest trend of the Western world’s diet. However, their industrial production is also harming the environment by the use of energy, water, fertilizer and pesticides.

Moreover, there is what we can call vegan extremism. Recently in France, we’ve seen an increase in attacks against butchers, and sometimes those attacks have been violent. These attacks are motivated by a vegan ideology named antispecism. According to this concept, the human species isn’t superior to the animal species but equal.

Some intellectuals expressed their position on the matter. One of them is the essayist Paul Ariès who considers “the alternative is not between the shitty meat produced in inhumane conditions and fake meat prepared by biotechnology.” For Ariès, we have to go back to being conscious eaters, in other words, we have to switch to small farmers who respect animals and support biodiversity.

In a more trivial expression the French sociologist Jocelyne Porcher denounced veganism which according to her will bankrupt traditional farming and favorize the false meat industry. She thinks that “vegan people are not revolutionary but idiots useful for capitalism” because it makes us more dependent on industry.

The comeback of normal human consumption: flexitariansim

Before the World Wars humans did not eat meat every day. The overconsumption of meat only came with the rise of the industrial modern society. What we can be sure of is that most agree on the fact that animal wellbeing matters and that reducing meat consumption is better for one’s health.

But we shouldn’t fall into the black and white thinking that all carnivores are bad people. Everyone has to take responsibility for facing those issues. Maybe the solution is to go back to the way we used to behave: being flexitarians. And the good news is, this lifestyle is growing.

To conclude, we have to act for a better future, planet, food consumption, animal care, health and, most importantly, we should stay tolerant and respect everyone’s choices.

by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Vegetables Avocado, Jill Wellington, Pixabay

Sheep, Couleur, Pixabay

Bar Coffee Restaurant, Free-Photos, Pixabay

Chicago Fur Free Friday 2010, Jovan J, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Breakfast Food Eating, Free-Photos, Pixabay

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Insults, provocation, net-politics: The war of words

Pauline Zaragoza — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 14:29:29 +0000

How new populist leaders have killed the way to practice diplomacy

In 2016, the election of Donald Trump, a former TV star, as head of the first global power marked a turning point on the world stage. The following past years have seen the arrival of other populist leaders in global superpowers such as Italy, Brazil and recently in the United Kingdom. This along with the use of social media has shuffled the cards of diplomacy’s practice.

By definition, diplomacy is the management of relationships between countries but it also implies to deal with people without offending or upsetting them. But the performance we have assisted to those previous years does not seem to correspond to this meaning anymore.

Fake news, hate speech, insults spread by political leaders have become our daily reality. In the past, we used to assist to those types of rude behavior within countries between parties. What’s new is that it is happening now at the global scale between global superpowers. This shift can be explained by the democratic accession of far-right politicians who usually represent the hard opposition to power.

Bolsonaro: provocation as the norm

One of the greatest examples of this rude diplomacy is Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president. Last summer, the Brazilian president made some great performances. During the visit of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean Yves Le Drian, he decided at the last minute to stand him up for doing a Facebook live while he was at the hairdresser. A few days later, he declared about environmental issues:

“It’s enough to eat a little less. You talk about environmental pollution. It’s enough to poop every other day. That will be better for the whole world.”

He pronounced those words while the Amazon rainforest was being torn down at a rate that it has never seen before. Then, to sustain his momentum, he rudely insulted Macron’s wife on Twitter by commenting a tweet describing her as ugly. At the same time, one of the Brazilian ministers used the Portuguese word « calhorda » to describe the French president, which can be translated as “idiot”, “bastard” or “trickster”. A word very far from the traditional diplomatic vocabulary. The response of the French president didn’t take long to come. He declared with diplomatic words:

“He said very disrespectful things about my wife. I have great respect for the Brazilian people and can only hope they soon have a president who is up to the job”.

Is this diplomatic behaviour new?

Diplomacy has its own rules. The job of diplomats such as President is to weigh the words, use euphemism and play with semantic shades. Diplomacy as an institution appeared in the Middle Age around the sixteenth centuries. Its aim was to ensure peace and set up trade by negotiations as a tool to avoid violence. This came with stabilization between states thanks to the creation of multilateral institutions such as the League of Nations and later the United Nations, with the ratification of treaty such as the Vienna Treaty in 1815 or the International Human Rights Convention in 1948.

In addition, diplomacy is a perfect instrument when it comes to solving international crisis for example, the Cuban crisis. At least, it was created to put an end to the practice of selfish states who were only looking out for their own interests. Diplomacy helps to negotiate a conflict outcome, put a stop to state raid and raise collective security.

In the past, even Hitler wasn’t insulted by other countries’ leaders. Also, during the Cold War, both sides worried about each other’s action and thus use the diplomatic language. Usually in diplomacy, leaders used to speak frankly only in private. With time, it’s getting worse. During his presidency, Obama was treated as “son of a whore” by Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte, Johnson (who after becoming chief diplomat) compared Hillary Clinton to “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”, Trump named Kim Jong-Un in front of the UN Assembly “the Rocket Man”. We are spectators of a shifting diplomacy where insults represent the standards way of talking.

A redefinition of the political leader

This change in the political landscape raises the question of the definition of a political leader. Is it implied to be exemplary or a good person? Are Obama, Trudeau or Macron the definition of good leaders?

The Latin “Regere” means to govern and to act rightly. At least, is governing a moral matter? Because besides their disrespectful behavior, those extremist leaders have been democratically elected because they represented political game’s transparency. People are fed up with the expectation to be politically correct. They are acting, that is why there are in power now.

They represent their countries interest in a provocative way as Trump showed recently by his will to buy Greenland from Denmark to insure the US’s position in the subsurface resources race. Even with all those “diplomatic incidents”, it is working as they are popular in their country. They have legitimized a new style by institutionalizing their rude, impolite and unfiltered behavior and vocabulary. Perhaps right now governance means to behave badly.

Good things even in the worst times

However, there is still light in the dark. As well as there being those populist leaders, there are “standard” political leaders who do not have rude behavior as strategy. Diplomacy is not dead as the Pope gave us the proof when he sent a message to Donald Trump without naming him:

“A person who thinks only about building walls — wherever they may be — and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

In addition, this change has led to an increase of the political commitment. In France, during the second round of the presidential elections there was a huge mobilization against the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, people are mobilized against populist leaders’ action. Demonstrations for climate change are growing around the world even if populist leader try to spread the fake news that global warming doesn’t exist. Associations for human rights, refugees’ rights, and LGBTQ rights are more active than ever in reaction to those leaders.

The hope and the opposition are here. But this change in the diplomatic area may be the reflection of our time. The question is “How are we going to respond to it?”

Written by Pauline Zaragoza

Photo Credits

Jair Bolsonaro, Jeso Carneiro, CC BY-NC 2.0

Union nations Headquarters, United Nations Photo, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Climate change march, Matthew Kirby, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Declaracao a impresa, Palacio do Planalto, CC BY 2.0

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