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Inuit Sovereignity

“Do you fear an arms race over the arctic?” the host of The Current Podcast asked an Inuit representative during a recent episode. The gentlemen spoke at length about the problems of the Inuit population in the high arctic and his concerns about the Canadian federal government doing military exercises in the arctic as opposed to giving much needed attention to public services and infrastructure.

Among the many things I learned while listening to this program, was the story of the Inuit High Arctic Relocation. I had never heard about the actions of the Canadian government during the cold war, relocating 87 Inuit people from northern Quebec. The government claimed, and still claims, that this was in order to alleviate problems Inuit had in northern Quebec by giving them a new and not over-populated region to practice their traditional living. However, as is illustrated in this program and other historical record, Canada was seeking to make settlements in the high arctic to prove that they own it and have people living there.

Many decades later, they’re still trying to prove it is theirs, and the Inuits still have problems stemming from government neglect.

Listen to the program to hear interesting details from a compelling source.

To Save Itself

Australia’s ABC Radio National (Background Briefing) recently featured one of those speeches that I consider a huge must-listen no matter who you are. The topic: The US’s place in the world, empire, the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, education and the interconnectedness of all these concepts. The speaker, retired US army Colonel Andrew Bacevich, considers himself a conservative and argues against the idea that Afghanistan’s future is so vitally important to the future of the United States. The same goes, in his opinion, for Iraq which he gets into in order to dispel the idea that the invasion of Iraq can now, in any way, be considered a victory.

Among his great quotes that I think need to be repeated and revisited:
“If the United States today has a saving mission, it is to save itself. Speaking in the midst of another unnecessary war back in 1967, Martin Luther King got it exactly right when he said, ‘Come home, America.’ The prophet of that era who urged his countrymen to take on what he called ‘the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism’ he remains the prophet today that we ignore at our peril. That Barack Obama should fail to realise this qualifies as not only ironic but also inexplicable.”

“Now for those who despite this, still hanker to have a go at nation-building, why stop with Afghanistan? When not first fix, say, Mexico? In terms of its importance to the United States, our southern neighbour, a major supplier of oil, and drugs among other commodities deemed vital to the American way of life, certainly Mexico outranks Afghanistan by several orders of magnitude. And for those who purport to believe that moral considerations rather than self-interest should inform foreign policy, thereto Mexico qualifies for priority attention. Consider the theft of California. Or consider more recently how the American appetite for illicit drugs and our liberal gun laws, have corroded Mexican institutions and produced an epidemic of violence affecting ordinary Mexicans. We owe these people, big time. Yet any politician or pundit suggesting that the United States ought to commit 60,000 or so US troops backed by a generously funded, multi year effort with expectations of eliminating Mexican drug traffic and political corruption, would be laughed out of Washington. And rightly so.”

Those are only two of many statements that over the last few years it seems much of the public has stopped thinking about. Somewhere along the way the war in Afghanistan became “the good war” that even Obama himself, the king of change, doesn’t want to turn back from. Also towards the end of the speech he talks about education and how little influence the readings and teaching is school that children receive seems to have on them when compared with the influence of all other sources in the course of their daily lives. The conclusion, like the rest of the speech, is highly recommended reading or listening.

Hacker Camp 2009 Impressions

In many ways it is as if we never left. 2 years ago I sat at a picnic table under a tarp on the Polish-German border on the site of a former East German military base with a couple of thousand hackers and general purpose nerds. 2 years later here I sit, this time somewhere in the Netherlands, in the infamous Metalab tent filled with Vienna’s creative and hilarious geek crew. To my left and right, tiny laptops connected to several layers of wires. In front of me, beyond a few more piles of wires and what looks like a virtual reality unit from the 80’s, several pale and half-asleep campers are tending to the Austrian breakfast. It’s 12:36pm. 2007, 2009, its as if we just unpaused after the last camp.

It is always difficult to properly describe the scale and degree of amazing these gatherings are. I’ve only been a member of the community since 2005, but in these few years I’ve fallen in love with the attitude, atmosphere, and insanity of hacker camp and hacker gatherings in general. Yet when it comes up in conversation with those who have never experienced it, my words are met with giggles and eyes rolling, again- how to explain what happens here?

Last night as I stopped by the Italian embassy tent, I was greeted, as per tradition, by Italian hackers with grappa and cookies. Earlier they were surely cooking pasta in huge vats right next to their own huge pile of wires and laptops. As I attempted to drink the powerful drink, cheering from the Austrian village caught my attention. Overhead, some kind of balloon creation consisting of mass quantities of glow sticks and a well designed frame powerful by 3 oversized helium balloons. 2 members of the lab climb atop the circa 1980’s Austria Telecom phonebooth to get a better vantage point for holding the rope the balloons are tethered to. In the semi-dark, hordes of hackers stop to cheer on the flying contraption, some calling on the rope holders to “set it free!” Eventually nature takes control and the cord snaps, the flying spaghetti monster fights its way through a line of trees and floats up into the night sky like some kind of rainbow creature heading towards the moon. More cheers, campers move on to the next big tent and whatever project those people are working on.

Blinking lights, house music, machines copying themselves, French hackers making crepes, and the last remaining imaginary soviet republic with its own tent embassy, the list of creative or uncreative ideas is neverending here. I spent much of my second day walking from tent to tent asking different groups about their healthcare system. I ran into enthusiastic Scandinavians, a Brazilian sitting between tents on his laptop, a Slovak on his way to the bar, and a friendly Romanian gentleman who has found the perfect shade trees under which to position his tents. As he and I discuss the healthcare system in Romania, hacker children splash around in the small lake around which the camp is set up. Just behind us is the rather un-camp-like American house, where a group of American hackers are housed, I can hear their loud conversations about some technical topics I don’t understand. I’m told the American hacker house makes good breakfasts, something to keep in mind for my last few days here.

It is now 1pm. The sun is blazing and even more people are filing into this tent. They’re coming to watch the replicator machine replicate itself. It is behind me and the constant buzz buzz sound of plastic being cut or drilled or whatever that thing does, it provides great writing music. Time to load up on water, grab my mobile internet device and camera, and head out to see how camp looks after yet another night of beautiful madness.

Aye Aye Amsterdam

I was recently taking a boatload of guests around the area of Amsterdam known as Prinseneiland, my favorite neighborhood. As I pointed to the old buildings and the site of former ship builders and tobacco warehouses, I noticed some tiny signs in a few windows. Bringing the boat a bit closer to these beautiful homes, I read the title of the flyer out loud “Ai Amsterdam”. The flyer spoke about being tired of the city of Amsterdam’s excessive rules about every little thing someone can or can’t do, from walking your dog in the park without a leash, to standing at an outdoor bar with a drink in your hand. The flier said to join the movement if you shared these concerns. I slowly pulled away thinking about all the increasingly heavy handed policies effecting seemingly every activity in this once unique and free spirited town.

A few days later, my buddy Mindcaster of Amsterdamize links to an article in the Dutch press; Ai Amsterdam was meeting with members of the city council. Again the article spoke about the attempted regulation of where you can stand outside a pub with a drink… actually more like how you can’t anymore – something to that effect.

After seeing so many cities around the world carry out their “clean up” campaigns to try and give their town a family friendly super tidy image where everyone is happy and ready for your tourism, Ai Amsterdam has certainly caught my attention. I believe it was on their website where they pointed out that with all the over-regulating of life in the city, we also lose something very special about who we are and how we live.

I’ve only begun reading about Ai Amsterdam and in the end it might just be a flash in the pan. But I’ve heard enough to know I’d like to sit down with some of the organizers and layout what is at stake and what can be done in the name of leaving some things outside the reach of city hall.

John Walker Lindh, The Story

It is a name that many people have already forgotten, but when the US invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, his capture made headlines around the world. “American Taliban” they called him, and everywhere you looked there was a photo of him looking all evil and dangerous.? He was imprisoned at facilities for some of the most dangerous criminals in the US.? It seemed the public, much like the media, had accepted the story that he hated the US, he trained with the Taliban, and was therefore rightfully imprisoned and this most despicable type of terrorist.

I hadn’t thought much about John Walker since those first years of his imprisonment, though like alot of the lackluster reporting on the activities of the US military, I’d long figured we were only informed about a fraction of the full story.

So last friday when DemocracyNow interviewed John Walker Lindh’s parents, I was curious to hear the parents account of how John got to be who, what and where he was.? Some will say “well they’re parents, they want to defend their son”, which is fine to keep in mind. But when you read about how he became interested in Islam after watching Spike Lee’s Malcolm X Film, and later went to Yemen with the goal of becoming fluent in Arabic. Then comes the part where he consults his parents for their support for him to study the Koran in Pakistan. Even these few steps show alot about where his interests were and how he found himself in that part of the world.? Even if it isn’t 100% true and doesn’t excuse his actions later, my point and the larger point is that the story of John Walker isn’t as simple as they painted it years ago.

Perhaps it isn’t interesting to you to hear the testimony of two parents all these years later, who actually don’t seek to portray their son as some kind of saint or martyr.? However I feel their words are compelling and very much worth hearing.

Protest or Film?

Only a few more days of my Portugal-Family vacation remain. Today I’m quickly checking in with a video I captured in the Bica, downtown Lisbon, over the weekend. What initially looked like a demonstration coming way, very quickly turns out to be a scene from a film being shot in my neighborhood.

Kind of shame, looked like it would have been a great protest.