[LINK] Some Wednesday Links

• Kevin Plummer at Torontoist "The Mystery Of The Mystery Writer" explores The Calling, a well-reviewed first-time mystery novel by a noted Canadian novelist writing under a pseudonym. (He thinks it might be Michael Redhill.


• blogTo's Jerrold is critical of the TTC workers union, criticizing it for helping its members shirk their jobs. The discussion in the comments is heated.


• In honour of Gary Gygax, Charlie Stross produces Dungeons and Dragons character sheets for the three leading candidates for president of the United States.


• Centauri Dreams wonders how it might be possible to move the Earth into safer orbits as the Sun heats up
  
• On the Eliot Spitzer mess, Joe. My. God links to a New York Times editorial by Dina Matos McGreevey, ex-wife of once-closeted former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey, criticizes the tradition of having the wife stand next to their political husbands after sexual scandals. (As I recall from her books, she was pretty heavily drugged at the time of her press conference.) Boing Boing links to an analysis in Newsweek about the motives driving prostitutes and their clients.


• Norman Geras takes issue with a writer for The Guardian who took the time to explain that, despite his opposition to terrorism across the board, Michael Burleigh was pretty liberal. I wouldn't know; I put down his Sacred Causes after I came across one disparaging reference to homosexuals too many.

[BRIEF NOTE] The desperate emigrants of Senegal

A while ago, I came across an article originally from Agence France-Presse that explored the mechanics of illegal emigration from Senegal. It makes for compelling reading.

Because of the clandestine nature of the business, it is not known how many migrants are processed or how many fishing boats set sail from Elinkine, nestled in the deep mangroves on the mouth of the Casamance River, in Senegal's southern province of the same name.

But what is certain is that it is a key departure point for west African illegal emigrants trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean to the so-called European Eldorado and that a network of smugglers are raking a fortune from the trade.

"Here everybody benefits, that is why people are careful," says Alioune who identifies himself by a pseudonym.

Residents of this tiny, leafy village are very cagey when it comes to talking about the booming trade that has prospered in recent years, from desperately poor Africans who exhaust their family's meagre resources for the risky 1,000-plus kilometre-long (625-plus miles) trip on high seas in ramshackle fishing boats.

When and if they talk, they neither give their full names nor details for fear of upsetting the system.

Boat owners and smugglers are directly involved in the trafficking, as are fishermen enlisted to sail the pirogues.

Along a sandy village street, a ferryman sitting on his veranda who gives his name as Joseph says that he is aware that he is on a police wanted list.

"We can make lots of money, but a lot of smugglers have been arrested," he said before dodging away.

According to Alioune, an average two boats set sail from Elinkine aiming for the Spanish Canary Islands every week, but it is generally not a subject of open discussion because "it is a very dangerous game" that concerns the entire village.

Some homes around the village serve as "lodges" where days before takeoff, the prospective migrants are gathered and prepared for the trip.

"Everybody is well aware and most of the people are involved. It comes with lots of money, it's a mafia here," added Alioune. Boats owners have created what he called a commission that "facilitates" the departures, he said.

Each boat owner contributes an annual fee to this commission of three million CFA francs (4,500 euros, 6,600 dollars) "and in return the departures are facilitated and the police get their share," he said.

Senegal is an African country that has been profoundly influenced by Europe. In the modern era, France's Senegalese colony was transformed by the 1848 revolution in France, which abandoned slavery and made inhabitants of the city of Dakar French citizens. Dakar remained a regional capital during the period of French empire in Africa. By the First World War, as Barbara Jettinger's Senegal country study (PDF format) points out, many Senegalese were heading to the metropole.

The first wave of out-migration to Europe took place during the First World War, when many Senegalese worked in France as infantrymen (“tirailleurs” in French) (Guèye 2002: 284; Robinson 1991: 166). After Senegal gained independence from France in 1960, an increasing number of Senegalese left for France and settled in Paris and the main industrial centres such as Marseille. These migrants are mainly Soninké, Sereer and Tukulëë (Timera 1996) who lived primarily in the Senegal River valley regions. They were attracted by the European economic boom, and their out-migration was mainly supported by their families and facilitated by the fact that all Senegalese citizens at the time had both Senegalese and French citizenship. This structural affiliation to France continued for more than 20 years after Senegal’s independence (Garson 1992: 84–85). The out-migration of Senegalese citizens to France increased from 5,688 in 1968 to 32,350 in 1982 (INSEE 2004). Growing mass migration was also a response to the persistent drought as well as economic and politicalpressure on Senegal from the international community. For example, one of the major economic problems with deep social repercussions was the devaluation of the Franc CFA in 1994, which precipitated a harsh social crisis, particularly in the cities. The devaluation halved purchasing power, and resulted in price increases of 25–30 per cent for basic food stuffs such as rice. The high price of food had far-reaching effects on all social classes (Sane 1998; Vengroff and Creevey 1997). Thus, the deep economic and social crisis Senegal was facing induced more and more Senegalese from all social strata and ethnic and religious groups to migrate. Internally migrants went to the capital city Dakar; internationally, destinations included not only to France, but also new countries, such as Spain, Italy, Germany and beyond Europe to the USA, thereby shaping a new transnational space (see Guèye 2002, 2003; Robin 1997; Tall 2002).

( More Jettinger )

Unfortunately for these emigrants, as noted elsewhere, the closing down of liberal immigration regimes in most of Europe has encouraged desperate Senegalese to take the tremendous risks of illegal migration via the rickety boats of Elinkine and other Senegalese ports in order to secure a living wage for themselves and their dependents.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On the Bangladeshi unilateral declaration of independence and Kosovo

Googling idly, I came across a filing submiting by the Government of Canada as part of the Reference re Secession of Quebec put before the Supreme Court of Canada in the late 1990s, which examined the "legality, under both Canadian and international law, of a unilateral secession of Quebec from Canada." The court found that unilateral secessions made without the consent of the parent state very rarely received international recognition.

[O]utside the colonial context, the United Nations has never granted membership to a seceding entity against the wishes of the government of the state from which it has purported to secede. Where the parent state agrees to allow a territory to separate and become independent, the terms on which separation is agreed between the parties concerned will be respected. If independence is achieved under such an agreement, rapid admission to the United Nations will follow. But where the government of the state concerned has maintained its opposition to unilateral secession, the attempted secession has attracted virtually no international support or recognition by other states.

The practice of states of refusing to condone a right to unilateral secession is reflected in the fact that since 1945 no new state has been created outside the colonial context by way of unilateral secession, with the exception of Bangladesh. Even in that case, Bangladesh relied on military intervention by India to defeat the armed forces of Pakistan in Bangladesh. In fact, Bangladesh was not admitted to the United Nations until it was recognized as an independent state by Pakistan nearly four years after its unilateral declaration of independence.

Since 1945, all other new states have been created either with the consent of the state from which they were seceding -- such as the agreement which resulted in the breaking away of republics from the former Soviet Union or that dividing Czechoslovakia into two separate states or, in the case of the republics of the former Yugoslavia, through the total collapse of the pre-existing state.

This made me curious about the case of Bangladesh, quite interesting in its own right. Briefly put, the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War was triggered by the breakdown of electoral politics in two-winged Pakistan, when the Awami League swept elections across an East Pakistan that was historically disadvantaged by the wealthier West Pakistan and was able to form a majority government. The military, controlled by West Pakistanis, refused to recognize the results of the election. The Awami League responded by calling a general strike in East Pakistan and a boycott of government offices. The military responded by starting, in March, a campaign of wholesale massacre against East Pakistanis, taking particular care to murder intellectuals and Hindus but visiting death indiscriminately to at least hundreds of thousands of people dead and prompting the flight of millions of refugees. A unilateral declaration of independence was issued on the 26th of March, and wholesale defections from the Pakistani army to the military forces of the povisional Bangladeshi government began. Finally, an India that was burdened by the need to tak care of the refugees and saw a chance to permanently weaken Pakistan invaded Bangladesh in December 1971, quickly defeating the Pakistani forces there and coinciding with the recognition of Bangladesh by India and Bhutan promptly followed on the 6th and 7th respectively of that month.

There are a few similarities between the situations in Bangladesh and Kosovo, but one notable difference between the two is the way in which Bangladeshi independence posed a serious threat to the balance of power in the world. In Kosovo, Serbia's traditional protector Russia made some significant posturing with its troop deployments in 1999, and has made some interesting rhetoric of late regarding its various protectorates in Moldova and Georgia, but it has also been qutie clear that it is uninterested in sending troops to Kosovo. (At least Russia's Gazprom owns the Serbian national energy company, but that's a subject for a different post.)

Bangladesh, however, was quite different, since the secession of East Pakistan would ensure India's surpemacy as the dominant power of South Asia. China, which had fought a border war with India in the early 1960s and looked to Pakistan as a strategic partner, was concerned to the point of mobilizing its troops before the war ended. The United States, building on a functional relationship with Pakistan and concerned by India's flirtations with the Soviet Union, felt likewise. Kissinger reportedly compared the Awami League's leader Sheik Mujibur Rahman to Chile's Allende. In fact, one of Kissinger's many positive contributions to humanity was the dispatch of the Enterprise carrier battle group into the Bay of Bengal in an effort to intimidate the Indians. Perhaps fortunately, the Indian government had been in touch with the Soviets, who dispatched a nuclear submarine to the Bay of Bengal (1, 2, 3).

In the end, this military posturing came to nought. The reality on the ground of the disappearance of Pakistani authority and the appearance of a Bangladeshi government had to be taken into account. Between January and May 1972 Bangladesh was recognized by seventy states (like Japan) even before Indian troops had left the new nation's territory. Recognition from Pakistan and China came more slowly, but as the Canadian government filing notes, four years after the war Bangladesh was universally recognized and admitted in 1974 to the United Nations. The initial presence of Indian troops to maintain order aside, Bangladesh had demonstrated that it was a functioning state, thus succeeding in gaining the recognition that Biafra failed to get.

Arguments by Serbian politicians aside, it's unlikely that any of the 27 states which recognize an independent Kosovo will rescind their recognition. The die has been cast, after all. Kosovo's governments and the states which have recognized its independence seem to be making use of the concept of the "remedial secession" first pioneered by Bangladesh, arguing in this case that on the balance of past atrocities it's impossible to expect that Kosovo can ever function inside of Serbia. Certainly the popularity of the sorts of stereotypes of Albanians described by Vladimir Arsenijevic in "Our negroes, our enemies" (Albanians are unclean, Albanians breed too much, Albanians are thieves, Albanians are uncultured, et cetera) is worrying, as a former British ambassador to Serbia plausibly argues that "successive Serbian leaders, unerringly backed by stupidly populist Serbian media, have gone out of their way to offer the Kosovar Albanians, their fellow citizens, nothing but contempt." A happily binational Serbian-Albanian state probably wasn't likely at any point after 1991. Hence, independence.

Comparing Kosovo with Bangladesh, Kosovo seems to be doing quite nicely, with more than two dozen countries recognizing it as independent in less than a month. One complicating factor lies with frontiers. Pakistan and Bangladesh obviously couldn't have any border disputes, but Kosovo and Serbia could, with Albanian majorities in the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia and Serb populations concentrated in the north of Kosovo, but it doesn't seem as if the Kosovar government and its NATO/EU protectors are inclined to make new territorial claims or renounce old ones. And the rest of the world? If Kosovo demonstrates its viability as a state, I suspect that general recognition over the next few years won't be too far away. There is a ping-pong team from Kosovo is playing ping pong in Guangzhou, after all.