15th edition, 31 January 2015 – Pike & Hurricane

Staying Politically Correct – PEGIDA

Wiebke Arnold — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 23:48:39 +0000

Since it was founded in October 2014, the PEGIDA movement – an acronym for Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) – has been gaining support, stirring up German politics and society. Despite claiming to be neither xenophobic nor racist, the group has been attracting mainstream conservatives, as well as Neo-Nazis and football hooligans. They protest against the alleged dangerous swelling of Islam within Germany and other European countries, and purport to defend their Christian values, as outlined in their 19 point manifesto. However, even a cursory examination reveals this is not to be the case. PEGIDA is the manifestation of a more profound problem in a religious disguise.

Pegida in Dresden, December 2014

As their name suggests, PEGIDA are claiming to defend the values of the Christian West, or occident, against Islamisation. This is striking, as the movement originated in Dresden, where only a very small fraction of the population is Christian. What’s more, the attempted connection to Christianity is anything but welcomed by church leaders in Germany. Former president of the Lutheran World Union, Bishop Christian Krause, told Die Welt that he perceives the use of Christian symbols at rallies, such as crosses painted in black, red and gold, as “perverse”. He remarked that Christian values would entail respect for religious freedom and standing up for the plight of Muslim refugees. According to him, someone who claims to defend these values by excluding others, obviously, does not know what he or she is defending.

Similarly, in an interview with Die Zeit, a spokesman for the German evangelic church claimed using the term “Islamisation” was unjustified, with less than 5% of the German population being Muslim, most of whom reside peacefully in Germany. He added that using the term to support xenophobic and racist paroles would demonstrate values diametrically opposite to those of Christianity. Unsurprisingly, hardly any Christians are to be found at PEGIDA rallies. What, then, is the movement fighting for?

My conversation with the “concerned citizen”

Interested in investigating the concerns of PEGIDA supporters, I contacted a Facebook group associated with the organisation, kindly asking for the members to elaborate on their worries. Soon after posting my question, Facebook user Besorgter Bürger (concerned citizen) replied. He pointed out that there are more and more rules in Germany, which demand that citizens abstain from practicing their religion, whilst making allowances for Muslims t. Moreover, he mentioned that Muslims need to become more tolerant also, noting that religious freedomis a two-way street. Touching upon more general issues, I asked him to elaborate on the restrictions he felt in practicing his religion. To my surprise, my message was never answered and I was subsequently deleted from the group. I am not alone in this experience. Numerous reported cases of PEGIDA supporters refusing to speak to the “lying press”, give off the impression that anyone questioning the movement is unwelcome.

This proves to be counter-productive, as some valid points are included in the 19 point manifesto of the PEGIDA; about the asylum legislation in Germany and the EU as a whole, as well as the need for reforms, better integration, faster application processes and the right to self-determination. Showing a reluctance to engage in dialogue is not the way to get one’s voice heard. This behaviour tells me that PEGIDA supporters are unsure as to what they are supporting. One thing they are sure about: they are dissatisfied with the German government.

This became clear after Angela Merkel addressed the public in her New Year’s speech; calling for people to turn their backs to PEGIDA, arguing the group was “full of prejudice, a chilliness, and even hatred”. As a result of her speech, even more people joined PEGIDA rallies, the direct opposite of the hoped-for effect. Despite taking a stand for tolerance and religious freedom amongst all Germans, the problematics behind the religious facade was not addressed in her speech.

Counter-protestors against the “LEGIDA” spin-off

What is happening on German streets, therefore, is not surprising. A recent study published by the Bertelsman Foundation revealed that around 57 percent of Germany’s non-Muslim population feel threatened by Islam, with one in four Germans willing to support a ban on Muslim immigrants altogether. PEGIDA emerged from this 57 percent. Kathirn Oertel, one of PEGIDA’s leaders, claimed that “exceptions are always made for the Muslims and for nobody else”. Her complaint referred to an instance where Muslim girls skipped swimming lessons on account of wearing headscarves. This reveals the widespread sentiment that the line between staying true to one’s principles and being politically correct has been blurred too much. Exceptions are being made to ensure everyone’s needs are met. The problem with the alleged “Islamisation” is that the protestors rarely make a distinction between Islam and Islamists, between well-integrated Muslims and fanatics.

Frank Richter, director of the Federal Agency for Civic Education in the state of Saxony, in an interview with the Guardian, claimed to identify the real problem behind the movement. “From a lack of understanding in our political system…to a loss of trust in institutions, people don’t feel they’re being listened to enough”, leading to frustration and discontent with the political leaders. “They feel they’re being talked down to, they don’t understand the way the asylum law is applied” Richter explains.

Nevertheless, the rallies should be taken seriously and constructive dialogue with PEDIGA members should be encouraged. Finding ways to integrate immigrants into society more smoothly, as well as drawing the line between respect for German law and the struggle to stay politically correct more clearly, should be on the top of political leaders’ priority list in 2015. If not, the situation might easily get out of hand soon.

By Wiebke Arnold

Image credit:

Picture 1 & 3: Caruso Pinguin, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Picture 2: Wiebke Arnold

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Vertical Farming – the Future of Agriculture?

Michael Schätzlein — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 22:03:47 +0000

Never before have this many people lived on our planet at the same time. When the official UN estimates of the world population crossed the magical line of 7 billion in October 2011, the reactions of the press ranged from attempts at giving their readers a possibility to calculate their own number to bringing up common problems of the perceived overpopulation and future challenges. Amongst the most commonly mentioned subjects of concern were poverty and hunger.

In order to provide for mankind, new technologies in agriculture are in dire need. In the world’s most populous areas, urbanisation takes ever bigger forms, while cultivation areas are either in decline or can only grow through the destruction of nature. At the same time, a lot of consumers in more developed countries would prefer locally grown products to products that have been shipped around half the world before reaching the supermarket aisles. So why not integrate agriculture into our towns and cities? A lot of efforts have been made in the past few years, such as municipal volunteer projects using the parks and gardens of towns for growing food or the boom of architectural visions incorporating nature, be it in the form of rooftop gardens or garden beds on platforms protruding from the side of buildings.

The most promising idea, however, seems to be vertical farming, a technique where plants are grown on rack units with integrated LEDs, stacked all the way to the roof of a building, taking production to an industrial scale. The world’s largest factory of this type is currently located in Tagajo, Japan, owned by Mirai Inc., a company specialising in indoor farming. An old Sony factory, abandoned after the Earthquake in 2011, serves as the prototype facility. At the moment, it produces about 10,000 heads of lettuce a day on a floor space of only about 2,300 m², which is not even half the size of the football field at the Olympic stadium in Munich, with up to 15 rows of cultivation units stacked on top of each other.

The special LED lights used in the racks have been optimised to emit only wavelengths that promote plant growth, which helps both saving energy and reducing the time a plant needs to grow before being harvested. In fact, the usage of artificial lighting allows to shorten the day and night cycles of the plants.

As the factory is more or less a closed system, the lettuce grown in the building only requires about one percent of the water commonly used for growing lettuce, as water can be collected and reused. At the same time, it is now nearly impossible for pests to infest the plants thanks to the controlled environment and the strict hygiene guidelines. This means that at the Tagajo facility, pesticides have been made redundant, resulting in the products leaving the factory being more healthy than conventional ones. Another advantage of this type of farming is that it can be integrated into existing structures, such as the empty shells of old factories. Moreover, the percentage of lettuce that is thrown away before it even reaches the supermarket has been cut down to 3%, wheras 30% to 40% is the norm in conventional farming.

To further improve the process, sensors are being employed to measure factors such as temperature and air moisture, upon which airflow, irrigation and lighting are adjusted. This also allows for improvements to the software used in the control systems of the factory.

However, this type of farming still has quite a few limits. While large parts of the growing process are already automated, a lot of things still need to be done by hand. What’s more, the factories are highly dependent on a good internet infrastructure for their control systems and a steady supply with energy and water. Some of these problems could be overcome with the development of special harvest robots and the ever growing renewable energy sector. The initial costs to set up a sizeable facility, which are higher than for conventional farming, are easily paid off in time due to the higher efficiency of these farms. By experimenting, other types of plants, such as tomatoes and cucumbers, could soon be added to the range of products. Additionally, the technology could not only be used to relieve some of the hunger in the world, but also to grow medicinal herbs.

The concept has already yielded promising results: Similar factories (of various sizes) have been constructed in several locations in Japan and Mongolia. Additional factories are due to be built in Russia and Hong Kong. Japan has traditionally only very limited surface area available for farming and seeks new incentives for economic growth, following the devastation caused by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Hong Kong and Mongolia want to become more independent in terms of food. Mongolia, however, is not limited by space like Hong Kong, but rather by the harsh climate which makes farming impossible. Consequently, despite the vast differences between the countries that have ordered factories to be built, vertical farming can be a solution for all of them due to its unique properties.

However, due to its heavy reliance on a good infrastructure, it might take a while until vertical farming becomes feasible in Third World countries. This means that more efforts have to be made to improve the existing production capacities by employing scientific farming methods. It is a race against time. Not only does the world’s population continue to grow, but there are already 805 million people currently suffering from hunger today, according to current estimates. Amongst them, there are many children – about 100 million of children in developing countries are underweight and about half of the deaths in children under the age of five are caused by hunger, killing about 3.1 million children each year.

Humanity should not pin all its hopes on vertical farming. The existing farming technologies have made huge jumps since the digitalisation. Therefore, it is not unlikely that we will see autonomous tractors, harvesting machines and picking robots supported by satellite pictures and drones equipped with new types of sensors in the future. Nonetheless, we need to do our bit to change consumer behaviour first, which might lead to a more fair distribution of food in the world.

By Michael Schätzlein

Image credit:

Picture 1: TCDavis, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Picture 2: Plant Chicago, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Greek Tragedy – The Next Act

Andreas Kechagias — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 21:55:35 +0000

2015 is shaping up to be one of those years for Greece. As it continues to plummet from one crisis to the next, the country finds itself, once again, in the international spotlight as the snap election on January 25 rekindles concerns over its relationship with the rest of Europe. SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), a party that before the debt crisis earned no more than 5% of the vote, has just swept the election with 36.3%, placing its leader, Alexis Tsipras, in the position of Prime Minister. But while most of the international commentary focuses on the 41-year-old’s fiery rhetoric and the possible shifts in policy planned by his new government, the real danger lies not in what he might do, but in what he might not be able to.

The just-formed coalition government, an unlikely marriage of convenience with the nationalist Independent Greeks, a party with which SYRIZA agrees on precious little other than their common opposition to austerity policies, runs a high risk of fracturing under the pressure of the decisions it will have to make in the coming months, making new elections necessary very soon. While this is nothing new for Greece, where, for the past two decades, early elections have been the norm rather than the exception, Tsipras’ attempt to govern will be marked by unique challenges, linked to the history of the Greek political left, and SYRIZA’s implausibly meteoric rise.

Since the re-establishment of democracy in 1974, Greek politics have been dominated by two parties: New Democracy (ND), situated on the center-right, and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) on the center-left. These two parties have alternated in power for three decades, forming majority governments, as they each consistently gained close to or over 40% of the vote, with no need to cooperate, either with each other or with any of the other political parties. The decision to vote for one of the smaller parties was therefore decoupled from any chance that the party would have a say in policy, and became a gesture of protest, or an attempt to ensure that a particular social agenda, either conservative or progressive, had a voice in parliament.

Having been outlawed during the rule of the military junta, parties on the far left of the political spectrum have always held an air of revolutionary romanticism in Greece, combined with an underdog, anti-establishment attitude. At the same time, they experienced constant infighting, as the narrow share of the votes left available by ND and PASOK forced coalitions between wildly differing ideologies. In order to pass the 3% threshold that allows entry into parliament, civil libertarians, social progressives, greens and hardline communists have, in more than one occasion, found themselves inside the same political unit. SYRIZA is but the latest iteration of such a disjointed coalition.

After the fall of the Soviet Union caused the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to eject all but the most diehard communist elements from its ranks in the early 1990s, coalitions with essentially the same limited political base formed, fractured and reformed a number of times. All of these efforts revolved around the largest and most powerful of these small groups, Synaspismos (Coalition of the Left), which served as their core. In 2004, Synaspismos signed an agreement with the Renewing Communist Ecological Left (AKOA), the Internationalist Worker’s Left (DEA) and other smaller leftist and communist groups, forming SYRIZA. The group managed to gain entry into parliament the same year with 3.3% of the vote, and moved to earn 5% in 2007 and 4.6% in 2009.

And then came the crisis, causing the Greek economy to contract by 25% between 2009 and today, handily beating the record set by the Great Depression of the 1930s and throwing the country’s political system into utter disarray. The succession of multi-party coalitions created under the pressure of the crisis were predictably chaotic in their attempts to guide the country out of its predicament, leading to a fundamental reordering of the political landscape during the 2012 national elections.

PASOK, which had won the 2009 election based on a program promising further increases in government spending, received the brunt of the public’s outrage, dropping from 44% to 12%. Disillusioned voters moved in one of two directions. Some chose to protest by voting for a slew of smaller parties that had never entered into parliament, resulting in the otherwise inexplicable rise of an Athenian street gang named Golden Dawn to national prominence. Most of them voted for SYRIZA, which was propelled from 4.6% to 26.9% and was only narrowly defeated by ND.

Tsipras, suddenly finding himself the leader of the main opposition party, was faced with the monumental task of transforming SYRIZA’s contrarian agenda into a substantive governing proposal, consistent with his new, much broader and more mainstream political base, while also trying to maintain cohesion within his coalition. Hyperbolic proclamations about unilateral debt write-offs and the possibility that Greece could be better off outside the European Union begun to be phased out, replaced by somewhat more plausible, if equally blusterous, lines about a tougher stance in debt negotiations, or the spearheading of a pan-European policy shift in coordination with sister organisations around Europe.

Which brings us to today, with victorious Tsipras set to be sworn in as Prime Minister of a tenuous anti-austerity coalition government, created together with the right-wing Independent Greeks. Both parties having acted as junior coalition partners since the start of the crisis, right-wing LAOS and left-wing DIMAR, have paid a heavy political price for their involvement, losing more than half of their electoral strength in subsequent elections. This will undoubtedly weight on the mind of Independent Greeks, exacerbating tensions as two parties with diametrically opposed ideologies try to govern together.

More importantly, while in 2013 he moved to consolidate his power by successfully transforming SYRIZA from a coalition to a unitary party, Tsipras remains constantly challenged and undermined from within his own ranks. The Left Platform, a hardline bloc that controls more than thirty percent of the party’s central governing body, and its leader, Panagiotis Lafazanis, have been vocally opposed to any attempt to court the political center, seeing it as a betrayal to the party’s founding ideals, or otherwise put, “becoming PASOK”.

It is unclear what the future holds for Greece. With its economy barely showing signs of recovery, political deadlock could jeopardise what little progress has been achieved in the past six years. What is more, the possible implications move beyond its own borders, as the European Union as a whole remains in the throes of a recession, and is faced with tough political questions regarding its very nature. Alexis Tsipras could be the monkey wrench in the gears that causes the entire apparatus to collapse. Or he could possibly mark the beginning of a shift towards a different approach to the problems plaguing Europe. Time will tell. But there’s another possibility. That, once in power, he will be able to complete his transformation, from a firebrand of the far left to the most comforting thing of all: just another politician.

By Andreas Kechagias

Image credit:

Picture 1: Thierry Ehrmann, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Picture 2: Sheila, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Picture 3: Jan Wellmann, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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The Struggle for Survival: Billionaires in a Slum

Michael Schätzlein — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:05:02 +0000

A group of people sit huddled together in a small room. The walls are made of wood and scraps of metal, a large piece of corrugated iron serving as roof. Suddenly; screaming outside. Gunfire pierces the air. The group huddles together, a bit closer. The sound of heavy boots thunder on the floor outside, coming ever closer. Men in camo clothing storm in and order the group to get out. At first, nobody moves. But with the cold steel of the gun barrels pointed at their heads, they don’t have a choice. The group is dragged outside, too terrified to resist, accepting their fate.

One of the participants is being put under extra pressure

Only the militia soldiers are not what they pretend to be. They are actors, the guns in their hands harmless props. Even the small shelter they just stormed is not actually inhabited by anyone. And the refugees? They are billionaires, CEOs of large companies, politicians, famous academics, reporters. What they just lived through is part of a slum simulation called the “Refugee Run”, an event that was held 2014 in Davos, Switzerland.

Once every year, the world’s most influential leaders from industry, government, religion and science meet up in the ski resort of Davos in the Swiss Alps to discuss the most pressing problems of humanity. Founded in 1971, by German economist Klaus Schwab, the goal of the World Economic Forum is to raise awareness for global issues and to take steps towards creating a better world. In between the 200-odd official meetings; lectures and debates, available to the more than 2500 participants, they can also book a place in the so-called “X-periences”.

Davos

The X-periences entail the participants getting drawn into simulations of what it is like to live through a natural disaster, to be a Syrian refugee or to face the difficulties linked with having contracted AIDS. Depending on the available scenario, one gets to role-play for anywhere between one or two hours. This year for example, the X-perience offered the participants the “Struggle for Survival”, in which people were subjected to life in a fictional slum. They would need to fight for shelter, education, healthcare, food and water, all the while faced with the unscrupulous practices of loan sharks and corruption in the marketplace.

In order to increase the simulation’s realism, participants are stripped of their worldly belongings, such as mobile phones and wallets, and are given IDs that specify their name, qualifications, and diseases they struggle with. A person suffering from malaria, for example, might have to obtain medicine for their ailment. However, due to the conditions in the slums, that remedy might not be available to the participants, forcing them to engage in black market activities and resort to credit sharks for a loan in order to survive.

Another way of increasing the realism is the utilisation of professional props and the involvement of people that have actually lived through the various scenarios that are simulated. Amongst the volunteers that act as militia soldiers, traders and slumlords, there are some that had to live through war, poverty and a life on the run. With their help, more realistic environments are constructed, adjustments to the overall design of the simulations are made. In the debriefings after each session, they get to share their personal stories with the participants.

The participants have to make paper bags in order to make money

The organisation behind X-periences, the Hong Kong-based Crossroads Foundation, is a non-profit organisation aimed at bringing together those who can help and those in need. Their X-periences are also offered in places other than Davos all around the world, both permanently and seasonally, and are open to everyone. This means that it is not only business people which get to experience the simulations, but also school classes and children. Over the years, more than 130,000 people have taken part in the simulations, and as a result, the Crossroads Foundation is in close cooperation with the UN and the UNHCR. While the X-periences are free for those for whom payment would be prohibitive, a donation is usually expected. The rest of the costs are covered by corporate and private sponsorship.

The goals are quite obvious – people get to live through circumstances they would otherwise never get to experience, situations that may seem far away, but are actually very real. The simulations could be seen as merely educational, but they may also inspire people to engage in the field of development aid. Especially at the World Economic Forum, which revolves around finding solutions for the world’s problems, this might indeed lead to increased commitment to the goal of a world without poverty and hunger, both in people’s minds and in the form of donations.

Bargaining with the merchant

However, X-periences are not free from controversy. Some people see it as a way for wealthy Westerners to play paupers for a day, an adventure playground for the world’s most influential people. While the Crossroads Foundation also offers scenarios where participants can spend 24 hours in a camp, the contents of the “Struggle for Survival” have been compressed into a 75-minutes simulation. The temporary nature of the simulations, along with the absence of real physical danger, prohibits real immersion.

No matter the verdict, the need for these X-periences is to showcase the disparities between the world’s richest people and the rest of mankind. Only a few days ago, the UK-based charity Oxfam released a report, according to which; just 1% of the world’s population will hold more than 50% of the world’s wealth by 2016, and the combined wealth of the world’s 80 richest people currently equals the total wealth of the bottom 50%. While the methods employed by Oxfam are subject to criticism, there is no denying the huge disparity between the bottom and the top of the world. It remains to be seen whether or not X-periences can act as part of a much-needed wake-up call.

By Michael Schätzlein

Image credit:

Picture 1, 2, 3, 4: Crossroads Foundation Photos, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

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Political Deadlock

Pam Tannous — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:58:43 +0000

With 18 different religious views, Lebanon is the most religiously diverse society of any country in the Middle East. Since 1932, no official census has been achieved, reflecting the political sensitivity over the religious balance in today’s Lebanon. Under the 1943 National Pact (a written agreement that laid the foundation of Lebanon as a multi-confessional state), the Lebanese government was structured to include a Maronite Catholic President, a Sunni Muslim Prime Minister and a Shia Muslim Speaker of Parliament.
This structure of power sharing was considered a “confessional democracy”, however today this democracy of faith based power sharing has led to sectarian politics. For this reason, local government reformers now call for the secularisation of the entire political system, but so far they have failed to show how to transform this divided small society into modernity. Changing and rotating the three political leadership spots could be a major change in the Lebanese political history.
Since the failed election in 2014, Lebanon has entered a presidential gap that could threaten its internal security, paralyze its political institutions and weaken its Christian community. The president, who is the head of the state, commander in chief of the armed forces, and the representative of the Christian-Maronite community is now out of the political game.
After the eighteenth failed attempts to elect a president, the power of the president has shifted to the council of ministers, which is headed by a Sunni Muslim. However, no decisions can be made without the approval of all the members of the cabinet. Hezbollah and its allies hold more than one third of the cabinet seats, which is currently the reason for the paralysis of the cabinet and the election of a new president. This is due to the belief that the March 14 alliance is “imposing” a president on the rest of the Lebanese. Instead of solving the issue in a democratic way, Hezbollah and the conservative FPM (Free Patriotic Movement) have decided to boycott the sessions to elect a president.
As a result, Hezbollah currently holds the ultimate control of the political life in Lebanon, and can impose its own agenda within the negotiations of electing a new president. This strategy has the potential to overthrow the government and lead to a shift in the executive powers to the parliament headed by a Shia Muslim. Such movement would leave Lebanon’s Christian community without a representative in the country’s political leadership.
The absence of a president in Lebanon will not only have an effect on Christians within Lebanon, but also on Christian communities across the Levant, many of which have faced and are still facing considerable marginalization in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. The absence of a Christian president in Lebanon means the absence of the only remaining significant political representation of Christianity in the Levant.
Concerned about the delay of Lebanon’s presidential elections, the United Nations Security Council issued a statement that read: “The Council urges the Parliament to uphold Lebanon’s longstanding democratic tradition and to work to ensure that presidential elections take place as soon as possible and without external interference.” This is important since Lebanon`s Christians do not have the regional backing that the country’s Sunni and Shia have with Saudi Arabia and Iran as their regional guardians. Therefore an intervention by regional or international powers would not reflect the best interest of the Christian community in Lebanon.
Working to solve the issue of presidential gap in the favor of the Christians, there is still a promised meeting between the leaders of the two largest Christian parties in Lebanon, The Lebanese Forces and The Free Patriotic Movement. This meeting will be held in order to discuss and hopefully solve the problem of presidential deadlock.
The two parties are optimistic about the outcome of the meeting and believe that it will be successful. However, if the talks fail to restore the balance of power in Lebanon, the political system might collapse at the expense of the Christian community.
It remains to be seen what the future holds for the Christians in Lebanon, whether they are able to get back in the political game or not.

By Pamela Tannous

Image Credit:

James Gallagher, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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