Category: Life

A professor of mine was talking about his days as a diplomat, and a trip he took to Kosovo following the mass exodus of people. He described a sea of plastic bags strewn to the sides of the roads. He explained that when the Albanians fled, they brought food in those bags. When they used up all they could, they simply left those bags behind.

Needless to say, that was powerful imagery. The professor then went on and shared some horrific accounts. That was Kosovo’s ethnic cleansing. But before that, there was Rwanda’s genocide. How many times have we heard politicians exclaim in a furor “never again”? Never, they say, shall we allow another genocide.

And yet that’s exactly what they’re doing in Darfur. They’re letting thousands of people die. Let’s look at some statistics briefly: since 2003, there have been over 300,000 killings in Darfur. Over 2 million others have become refugees. The stories are both horrific and yet so plentiful: refugee camps entirely devoid of adult men, women being raped on a regular basis as they exit these camps to obtain water.

Yet where are the politicians? They have forgotten. Because we, have forgotten. We have forgotten because we do not care. Africa does not resonate for us. Oh sure, there’s been action. Or at least promises of action. But when it comes down to it – we’re already past the point of no return. The UN has announced today that it is to support he AU some time in the future in its peace keeping efforts. The AU, which is by the way, severely short of equipment.

Canada has donated some equipment, but to be honest, its contributions were rather pathetic. I believed they consisted of a few outdated vehicles. And yes, Canada has attempted to push through resolutions with the UN. However, these are all insignificant steps. It’s the kind of step one does to say they’ve done it, when it reality it amounts to no tangibles.

These donations help. UN action helps. However, we could be doing so much more. Yes, it would cost more money. But who said stopping genocides was free? In any case, it all comes down to my innate cynicism of the system. There’s no action because no one, frankly, cares. If it was happening to Jews.. meh… maybe then we’d think about it. But Africans? What are their lives worth.

Something just came up; so I won’t make it to 2600. I won’t put up the posters as a consequence.

I never saw that one coming.

The diplomatic relationship between Canada and China are at the moment rather in poor shape. Stephen Harper, in a speech made last week, criticized the extent to which businesses and governments were able to dispose of their ethics for the sake of “the almighty dollar.” The current conservative government maintains that an increased emphasis on human rights violations is of the essence. This is contrary to the stance of the Liberals, who maintain that advancing China’s economy will invariably lead to a quasi-trickling-down effect, inducing greater freedom for its people.

In this week’s Maclean’s, a story was featured that was heavily critical of that Liberal perspective. The author interviewed a professor of politics that stated that that seemed a very likely evolution in the 80s. However, the professor went on to say, that that has turned out not to be the reality. Whatever the case may be, it is accurate to report that China has managed to create a robust economic platform, while sustaining the controlling nature of its regime.

However, the oppressiveness that’s associated with that control is seemingly overlooked by the media. Perhaps this is because China is so untypical of other oppressive regimes. For one, the Chinese are in large part not on the brink of any social disaster – be it famine, disease, or whatnot. For another, China embraces new technology, albeit manipulates it to its ends. The Westerners see those technological advancements, and thus assume a satisfied population. The truth is that only a small fraction of the Chinese are actually enjoying the benefits of new technologies, and of those that do have access – the technologies tend to only reinforce the government’s control. The Internet is heavily censored, and citizens are unable to view pro-democratic websites. Blogs have facilitated locating and jailing/killing political dissidents, thanks in large part to the cooperation afforded to the Chinese by the American blogging companies. Televisions/Radios only broadcast what the government wants its people to hear.

China is indisputably in the hands of an oppressive regime. Perhaps not so for Western capitalists, but that’s certainly the case for its general populace. This leads to a duality of treatment, and the video below displays just how these two opposing dynamics interact in such an environment.
Underground Video taken in China

You’ll see me talking alot about China. This is mostly because I am of the belief that it is inexcusable to promote governments that kills *peaceful* pro-rights protesters, single-handedly prevents UN action in Darfur, and carries out its own acts of cultural genocide. If China weren’t the economic goldmine it is today, Western nations would have a foreign policy that’s 180° of what they are now.

Naturally, bettering economies is an integral component of all government policy. However, one has to wonder as to the ultimate legacy that that will leave unto the world. If governments don’t coerce change, who will?

NGOs certainly don’t have any wielding power with self-sufficient China, and corporations are already going so far as to have Chinese citizens executed for more money. The Chinese government has found economic grandeur without the need to prop up rights further, and its citizens are powerless to express their discontent on a grand scale. It is up to the foreign governments then to stand up. If they won’t, no one will.

I’m not so naive as to believe that Canada’s actions could single-handedly instill change with concepts deeply entrenched in the Chinese political monoculture. However, the ball needs to get rolling somewhere, and inaction certainly won’t accumulate the momentum necessary to create tangible pressure for change.

Nor am I gullible enough to believe that the Western nations haven’t spent incredible resources into improving the conditions in China over the last decades. However, I am naive enough to believe that the current policies need a drastic change in direction.

China, one of the 5 members on the UN security council, has vetoed UN deployment in Darfur to stop the genocide. Their reason is quite simple: they want cheap Sudanese oil. We, the Westerners, consider this appaling. And yet, we hypocritically allow China to commit its own atrocities, because it satisfies our own economic gain. Tell me: how are we better?

The most consistent argument that I hear against the use of DRMs, and my personal frustrations against the technology, is that they impede legitimate use by the real purchasers. It is well known that the content that the pirates share and trade is not restricted by these technologies. Meanwhile, users such as my self face compatibility issues, which due to corporate financial interests will remain as such for perpetuity.

Meanwhile, it is no secret that Apple is purposefully using its legal arm to hinder the development of products that would increase the compatibility of iTunes with portable players other than the iPod. This is a self-preservation tactic, as Apple is in the business of selling hardware. iTunes in itself, Apple’s executives maintain, is barely profitable due to the disproportionate fees placed upon their service by the labels et. al.

I was once told that in a few years, the technology will finally be smoothed out, and things will work the way they were meant to. I beg to differ. The issues that stand today do not stem from technological immaturity so much as a lack of cooperation between rivaling corporations. Fueled by financial interests, it is unlikely that these companies are to resolve the issue anytime soon. Apple is a good example on why this expectancy of cooperation is naive. While pacts may eventually form between companies, the going is simply too good at present time to promote such a development. It would be naive to think that corporations would sacrifice short-term profits for a more meaningful long term. In the mean time, customers are forced to stand idly by, legally prohibited from implementing technological solutions of their own.

Nevertheless, this critique does not mean that DRMs are useless. However, their validity does ride on two fundamental conditions:

• The pirates don’t use mainstream file-transfer networks, and are unable to strip the DRM.

• The profits garnered from such an implementation outweigh the losses due to piracy.

Reguardless of the complexity of a DRM system, the validity of implementing such a technology is completely undermined if individuals are simply able to download an un-DRMed version off of the Internet. In short: If pirates aren’t stopped by the presence of DRMs, then there is no reason to maintain that presence. Therefore, for the implementation of DRMs to be effective, a significant amount of the population must be unable to obtain un-DRMed copies. While the industry hopes to eliminate such illicit file-transfer networks all-together, it is but a pipe dream given the fundamental technical resiliences these networks have displayed.

Likewise, the population of those able to strip the DRM has to be insignificant. If DRMs can simply be removed all-together, their purpose of implementation is again defeated.

This brings us to the second condition: that the losses due to piracy incurred by legitimate music purchasers is significant enough to warrant all these troubles. This is as opposed to losses due to corporate competition. If these losses due to piracy are beyond the marginal, then I would then support the presence of DRMs, despite my internal reservations. I just hope that the implementation of DRMs was based upon sound data on sources of piracy, and that these are not manipulative corporate tactics for which we are the pawns.