2019-08-11_The_Week

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