2019-08-11_The_Week

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Best articles: International NEWS 19

10 August 2019 THE WEEK

Anation built

on the culture

of violence

El Tiempo
(Bogotá)

We Colombians areabloodthirsty lot, says Carlos Castillo Cardona. In 2016, our government
signedapeace deal with Farc, the guerrillas whose five-decade-long insurgency claimed some
220,000 lives. Yet the violence continues.Apurge of left-wing activists and community leaders is
now under way: more than 700 have been killed in the past three years, presumably by right-wing
paramilitaries fighting for control of drug routes. And it’s our culture that fuels this slaughter. The
inclination to “destroy by death and not by ideas is the basis of our history”, dating back to the 19th
century and our fight for independence from Spain, and the numerous civil and guerrilla wars that
followed. So rather than changeaperson’s way of thinking, Colombians prefer to reach for the gun.
Even “our mode of teaching is based on punishment, instead of education”. In raising our children,
we use “violence asacorrective”: at street markets, you can still buy special rods with which to beat
them. Our leaders should invest in crime prevention, yet they always prefer to enact laws that impose
ever greater punishments. But until we overcome this brutal cultural trait, we’ll never have peace.

How soap


could save the


rainforest


The Washington Post


It’s terrifying to think that due to the weakening of environmental protections by our president, Jair
Bolsonaro, deforestation in the Amazon is running at almost twice 2017’s level. But one thing could
spur Brazilians to fight back, says Marina Lopes:aTVsoap opera. Brazil’stelenovelasare notorious
for their ludicrous plots, yet their record in influencing public opinion is remarkable.Arecent series
led to legal improvements in domestic workers’ conditions, another to new domestic-abuse protec-
tions for the elderly. And the latest,Aruanas,isadeliberate attempt to convince viewers of the need
for environmental protection. Written with the help of Greenpeace, it depicts activistsbattling to save
the rainforest from miners, tycoons and corrupt politicians. Bolsonaro’s supporters regard activists as
“criminals and terrorists”, butAruanasdepicts them as “cool and tough” defenders of the planet. It
could work. Few Brazilians pay heed to mainstream media because opinion is so polarised; but they’re
open to different points of view when expressed by fictional characters in whom they’re emotionally
invested. The first episode ofAruanaswas watched by 23 million people. If enough are persuaded of
the severity of the problem, they’ll elect politicians prepared todo something about it.

COLOMBIA

BRAZIL

The “incredibly martial” images of
events in Moscow beamed around
the world last week must have
given the Kremlin the heebie-
jeebies,said Oliver Soos on
Deutschlandfunk(Berlin).The sight
of baton-wieldingpolice charging a
crowd of 20,000 protesters simply
reinforces the image of Russia as a
repressive police state. And all for
what? The issue that so enraged
Muscovites was the refusal by the
authorities to register unofficial
opposition candidates for the
September election to the Moscow
city parliament. But even if some
had won seats, they’d have posed
no threat to Vladimir Putin’s authority. So why did the Kremlin
“provokeawhirlwind” over suchaseemingly trivial matter?

There’s no doubt that the scale of the protest took the
authorities by surprise, said Pavel Aptekar inVedomosti
(Moscow).They thought most Muscovites would be away
on holiday and that those who weren’t would be cowed by the
warnings issued by Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, that
anyone taking part in an unsanctioned demonstration would
be prosecuted. They were wrong. Not since 2012, when many
thousands marched in protest at what they saw as Putin’s
unconstitutional re-election as president forathird term, have
so many taken to Moscow’s streets. And the official reaction
has been harsh. More than 1,600 people have been detained, and
numerous opposition leaders–including the most prominent of
them, Alexei Navalny–have been jailed. But it’s “extremely
dangerous” for the regime to try to suppress discontent in such
abrutal way: it will merely radicalise the mood in Moscow and
other cities. “This can give rise to something unpredictable.”

Truth be told, the Kremlin is ataloss about how to deal with
the unofficial–or“non-systemic”–opposition, said Tatyana
Stanovaya onCarnegie.ru (Washington).Until 2017 officialdom
regarded it with scorn. The official opposition–comprised of
politicians belonging to officially recognised parties–was too

tame to poseaproblem, while the
unofficial was too weak. Even the
anti-corruption campaigner
Navalny, who is independent of
any political party, lacked popular
support, let alone the backing of
elites. For this reason, and because
local government has lost much
of its power, the Kremlin grew
complacent and in 2017 relaxed
its control of municipal elections.
Big mistake. That year Muscovites
elected some 200 opposition
candidates for municipal office,
“a development without precedent
in Russian political life”. And the
consequent electoral gains in
municipal elections across Russia, combined with the growing
number of street protests, have now turned “the non-systemic
opposition intoanascent force in Russia’s political system”.

And this has left the authorities inaquandary about how to deal
with it, saidPavel Aptekar. Should they ignore the opposition
or suppress it? Thesiloviki,the hardliners in the Kremlin with a
security and intelligence background,have resolved that it’s time
to stop “playing democracy” and suppress the non-systemic
opposition for good. It was they who pushed Moscow’smayor
to invalidate the signatures that unofficial opposition candidates
need to collect if they want to run for office. But the pretext for
excluding them–that many of the signatures collected were
faked–was so laughably flimsy it was bound to cause outrage.

But does the confrontation in Moscow actually markaturning
point? It’s true that Putin is no longer held in such high esteem,
said Bert Lanting inDe Volkskrant (Amsterdam).The wave of
patriotic enthusiasm that he unleashed with the annexation of
Crimea has ebbed. And Russians are tired of corruption and
falling living standards: older citizens are especially infuriated by
the recently introduced pension reforms that have left them so
much worse off. But so far, the protests have been smaller than
in 2012. And as happened then, single-minded repression by
the state could “get the spirit of revolution back in the bottle”.

Putin’s regime: is the Kremlin beginning to crack?

Russian police detainaprotester atamarch in Moscow
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