Recent turbulence in the financial market is a reminder that economic stability is heavily reliant on collective perceptions and ‘market confidence’. So it is with security, and nowhere is this more evident than in a so-called fragile state like the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is plummeting into a different kind of recession.
The seemingly endless crisis in North Kivu is making a rare foray into the international news agenda. (Recent reports from The New York Times and the BBC.) UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that “the intensification and expansion of the conflict is creating a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions and threatens dire consequences on a regional scale”.
“Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”
The delightful Frank Luntz, in a memo to the US Republican Party, 2003
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.”
4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007
“Few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change.”
Jim Hogg, PR professional, DeSmog blog, 2007
“We will delete comments which deny the absolutely overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, just as we would delete comments which questioned the reality of the Holocaust or the equal mental capacities and worth of human beings of different ethnic groups. Such “debates” are merely the morally indefensible trying to cover itself in the cloth of intellectual tolerance.”
Alex Steffen, editor of WorldChanging.com, 2008
“You should be ashamed of yourself”, said a man on the train this morning, berating a fellow commuter who had just barged his way onto the train as the doors were closing. “You knocked that woman over. You even swore at her.” The accused looked duly bashful. “I didn’t mean to” came his childish response, “and I wasn’t swearing at her, I was swearing at the other people”.
Last week, the UN accused the Congolese government of using excessive force in recent military-style police operations in Bas Congo. According to the UN, ‘at least 100’ people were killed, wounded captives were summarily executed, houses were looted and razed, and bodies were collected and disposed of. The same thing happened last year. Excuse my lack of objectivity, but this is disgusting behaviour.
The ruling party faithful are lining up to dismiss the report. The government spokesman said it was “mendacious”, with “conclusions that could seriously undermine the credibility the DRC is painfully and very patiently trying to restore”. The Provincial Minister for Justice, Human Rights and Information (no less) went further: “it’s unfounded… quite simply a muddle of confabulations and monstrosities.”
It’s as if the National Theatre was suddenly doing Lloyd Webber musicals. This wouldn’t be so bad if we could count on some sunshine, at least. Time to order another series of The Wire.
(My apologies to readers in Kinshasa, for obvious reasons.)
Update: It was strangely exhilarating to take part in the Liverpool Street Freeze. It was hard to tell how many of us were there until the station clock read 18.24:00, when more than a third of the people in the station stopped moving. I was on one leg at the time, and halfway down a staircase, so my balance was tested and I got the shakes after three minutes. The effect was slightly spoiled by the huge number of photographers (though I could find only one on Flickr). If you pause to think about it, there’s not a great deal of point in photographing this sort of thing. Videos of this sort of thing, on the other hand, are fun:
